The textures or whatever those are look great but it has almost no features. It’s just a perfect sphere with craters on it.
I have to disagree. The prototype’s Mars-like planet looks phenomenal, and is at least on par with what E:D has shown. INE is easily keeping pace right now.
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It’s a somewhat large “planet”, wasn’t somebody complaining that the smaller ones were not spheres and that ED had no ability to produce spherical planets…
What makes ED different to IBS is that they have a geological and evolutionary process for deriving their planet types. So the handful of IBS planets (somewhat hand crafted) are bound to be more interesting than a handful of random planets from a set of billions.
that’s what has drawn this Elite backer to this game.
although I have to say Frontier isnt done with building onto the game for years to come.
they have allot of experience with artificial life simulations.
David Brabben has also mentioned game hunting on the surface some time back.
I just hope they will still do that.
I suspect that is the reason for why they started firstly with lifeless planets for their Horizons build.
to me its highly likely that landing on planets which are life is sustaining is going to be a next paid extension.
probably released after walking on stations and walking in side their ships.
or my ship as I play Elite as well from the Alpha till now.
Indeed.
Their planet look good though, and once they have fixed the ‘molten mountains’ terrain issue at km-range distances, they will be a serious competitor to INE, at least for airless moons.
(But until they do fix it, everyone is still playing catch-up with INE.)
Kichae, how realistic is this mist-filled crater on an airless moon? What would be its propreties? That may be the first time I see something like that.
It kinda reminds me of Jules Verne saying there could be atmosphere inside canyons on the moon.
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maybe its alcohol like this asteroid
I’m not really sure how you can have both or haze and a lack of atmosphere. Their planet looks really good, but they’re using aa very creative definition of ‘atmosphere’ here when they’re saying it has no atmosphere but also mist.
Perhaps this cloud of “mist” is merely a colony of intelligent nano machines, swarming up from the freshly disturbed surface? I assume they’d be hungry… and are able to eat metal.
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Our moon has an “atmosphere”. It’s extremely thin, but it’s there. Bigger celestial bodies like Pluto for example also has an atmosphere and nitrogen mist. Other moons have ice geysers which makes it “snow” and so on…
“Atmosphere” isn’t a “black or white” thing…
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Just clarifying that Pluto is not a “bigger” celestial body 
That said, I recall reading somewhere recently that exhaust particles from the Apollo missions is still floating around in the lunar atmosphere. Maybe the argument could be made that the “mist” is launch exhaust and it’s a well traveled crater on that moon? I haven’t watched the video so I don’t know what it looks like. Don’t hurt me!
An atmosphere is a pretty black and white thing. You either have a collection of particles around a body or you don’t. It’s properties such as density and composition are what make an atmosphere meaningful rather than the existence.
Either way, I believe the point Kichae was trying to make is that in order to have any sort of “mist” there needs to be some sort of meaningful atmosphere capable of scattering light. If it’s defined as “airless” or a moon that, for all intents and purposes lacks a meaningful atmosphere, then there shouldn’t be a density of gasses hanging around that are capable of scattering light.
I was a bit “hazy” in my head in regards to the size of Pluto, but the rest of my points stand. There are plenty of bodies in the solar system that are looked upon as “without atmosphere” by the general public even if there is one technically.
The following description was also included with the video…which you should watch BTW. 
Here’s another unedited video taken from Elite Dangerous: Horizons. Again, many things here are unfinished which I won’t call out. This shows another slow zoom, but this time showing the effect of volatiles forming as a mist in a deep crater on a cold, rocky, uninhabited world.
I’m not disagreeing with you. Please reread
He’s just pointing out a contradiction of an airless moon having pockets of “mist.” Not so much a debate over the definition of an atmosphere.
It is when you’re producing a software module that claims only supports worlds with “no atmosphere”. When you’re designing and making things, and make binary claims, you get to apply binary tests.
Not even. If it’s a mist, it’s a liquid suspension in a gaseous fluid, which means a substantial atmosphere is required. If it’s a gaseous haze, it is a substantial atmosphere in and of itself.
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Well, the Moon has some atoms playing around it that are technically bound by its gravity AFAICT, but when its “atmosphere” is as thin as the best industrial vacuum, I can think we can call it airless for nearly all intents and purposes.
Could there be a pocket of heavy gas in the crater, while the rest of the world is airless?
If the crater is too shallow for that, could it be possible if, say, the world had immense chasms for the bottom of those chasms to have air while the surface don’t? IIRC “thin low” atmosphere in Traveller is that, though Traveller is not as hard science as it sometimes likes to say…
Then, what kind of phenomena could throw droplets or dust into this pocket atmosphere, if it is possible?
Its seems to me that this all revolves around the amount of energy (sunlight) hitting the surface, the gravity of the body in question, and the amount and location of particles that can reach a gaseous state with the amount of sunlight striking the surface.
There would have to be particles located solely in the crater or chasm.
Enough sunlight would have to reach it on a regular basis to make it go from solid or liquid to gas state and stay that way.
The gravity of the body in question would have to be sufficient to keep it from escaping the confines of the crater or chasm. If its too low, energetic particles could possible escape and “bleed-off” over time, either causing it to escape the crater and thus spill out across the planet or escape the surface all together and go floating off into space, but this process could take a long time depending on the specific conditions.
anyway, that’s my two cents
After following the development for quite some time I’m quite sure that when they talk about atmosphere they mean “significant atmosphere”. Things like clouds, weather, storms, enough pressure to sustain liquid bodies on the surface. That kind of thing.
Are we really going to complain about them adding more to Horizions than what we thought?
How many particles do you have to have before it’s an atmosphere?
Anyway, I love the fact that they are adding in this detail, even if it realistically wouldn’t be this visible. They already have highly visible nebulae and star surfaces, so it kinda fits.
I wonder how long it’ll take them to do atmospheres properly, The dawn/sunset lighting on Inovae looks so real that you for a second think it’s actually real(especially the moon video where they are flying over ice/snow covered ground it’s just UNGH).
Also seeing how there’s still kind of more subtle but still distinct detail shifts as they move away, I wonder how they handle planets at distances and if they use instancing, planets are a big part of Inovae but the complete lack of spacial dividing is the real power the engine has.
The fact that they want cities full of people, wildlife, clouds, weather and all the associated gameplay with the fidelity required to have it look as good as the game looks now, but close up while walking around means it’ll take a long time before they will consider planets ‘complete’.
The atmospheric visual effects in I-Novae are superb, but it’s not impossible for Elite to do it too.
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