Seems like there is another procedural space game in development, “Dual Universe” by the french company Novaquark.
They’ve chosen a sandbox MMO setting, so something that Infinity: TQFE could have been.
As expected they’re procedurally generating the planets, and promise seamless movement through the universe and planets.
Screenshots and concepts look interesting. One thing I personally noticed is that the planets shown in the screenshots look partially too small compared to the surface (hills height). And a video is still missing unfortunately that shows e.g. the transition between space and planet. Anyhow I think it could be interesting to where this develops. They’ve switched from Unreal Engine 4 to Unigine 2 lately (e.g. due to double precision).
From the FAQ: What is Dual Universe?
Dual Universe is a gigantic multi-planet universe where players are free to invent their collective destiny: player-driven events will shape the course of History, civilizations will rise and fall, everything that happens matters in a persistent single-shard universe. We are pushing the limits of what is technically possible today to open the door to what we believe is the next generation of MMO games.
How big is the Dual Universe?
Thanks to procedural generation algorithms, there is no limit to the number of planets and star systems we can generate. As the game grows, so will the Universe, players will discover planets gradually as their spaceships take them further and further from the Arkships. So to answer the question: the Dual Universe is as big as far as you can travel.
Planets may range from a few hundred to thousands of kilometer in radius, so even exploring the surface of just one planet is a big task and would takle a long time to circumnavigate without the right equipment.
Sign me on although the planets do look small - maybe due to photo? But the forest is absolutely brilliant! We are definitely heading into a new era of computer gaming technology.
They say the radius will be in the 100s to thousands of km but they look slightly out of proportion to the mountains on it. Perhaps they meant diameter? Maybe the mountains are HUGE 0_o
That forest shot is definitely giving me some Yavin IV vibes. Exciting.
So, which “cheaper game-engines” are providing full 64bit double precision coordinates support (including support for non-depth fighting)? Maybe I am missing something that could make my life easier?
Interesting, I wasn’t aware that Space-Engineers switched to an improved (but still in development?) engine, didnt follow it for quite a while. Well but there probably were many topics they looked at while choosing Unigine (stability & marketreadiness, technical support, number of features etc). I can understand they didnt choose an engine where DP is supported since only a few months.
And anyhow, I still think double precision is a unique feature only a very few available engines support (and the majority of typical game engines don’t do that). That feature is unfortunately far from being widely supported so that you could choose the engine of your likes.
But thanks for hinting at Space-Engineers, I should have another look at it in the steam library.
I’m shivering at the thought that there are indie engines just popping out with more features than INS, they don’t seem to be at the same level of gfx fidelity yet, but it’s not inconceivable that they will be in a year or two…
I was hoping Battlescape would take this exact same approach but still a great engine with even greater possibilities than DU, so I am happy to support Infinity. Besides, Battlescape actually has an Engine that is accessible as where DU isn’t even close yet. Who knows, it may end up like Star Never Going To Finish Citizen.