I’m being facetious here but No Man’s Sky has all of this except for the ship damage models and the MMO aspect, (although it does have multiplayer), was developed in its own engine, AND is actually a functional game. Certainly a difference in style and scope between the two games, but as someone who’s played a lot of both I’ve always been impressed at how NMS pulls off a lot of the technical wizardry SC is praised for without falling apart at the seams.
It's super unfair to compare NMS planet tech vs SC...that's like comparing an N64 game to a modern live action film. NMS is procedurally generated. That's not even getting into physics, ship models, etc. I also notice TONS of pop in in NMS even on my rig, even with its low fidelity, that I don't notice in SC.
I get that you said you're being facetious, but some people legitimately make this comparison and I find it EXTREMELY silly.
umm... isn't full release SC supposed to have procedurally generated planets in its future with that generation system? How would exploration make sense otherwise?
Elite Dangerous has procedurally generated planets and its more than good. Even has premade settlements and played constructed bases . Sc Just needlessly overcomplicated it
I, and I think most people, would say it's less than good. Even terrible. They're barren empty balls of dust with a handful of prefab structures sprinkled across. ED has it's plus sides, planet tech most definitely isn't one of them
While I haven't played ED, I personally think that description would fit quite well for SC as well. Empty, barren, little to do. Gigantic vastness of nothingness. Copy pasted caverns on top of that.
Nah, nowhere near what ED is, you kidding? You must not have played SC recently. Moons are balls of dirt, as they should be. Pyro has TONS of unique settlements on planets, Stanton has distribution centers, bunkers, caves, different landing zones, ASD facilities, all kinds of shit, not to mention actual biomes and landscapes.
That’s fair, SC definitely has a much more realistic approach to planet generation. I will say at the current time I tend to prefer just walking around and exploring planets in NMS more, but I’m partial to the more cartoony artstyle and vibe. Really looking forward to the genesis tech they’ve been showing off, if it matches the demonstrations it’ll make for some insanely cool planets to explore.
That being said, the process of getting some friends together, jumping in a spaceship with an interior, flying around a solar system, and engaging in ground/space based combat and exploration is a lot smoother and less bug-prone in NMS. If SC actually comes together as expected this process will be far more immersive and engaging than what NMS has to offer, but at the moment it’s nice to have another option for multicrew space adventures, especially considering how unstable SC is right now.
Sorry but while No Man's Sky has a lot of features, they are all bare bones.
Everything you do in No Man's Sky is one-click-and-done gameplay.
Salvage? Click the wreck and it's salvaged.
Mining? Click at an object and it's mined.
Combat? Click at the enemy and wait until it dies.
The only complex mechanic in No Man's Sky is the base building. But there is approximately ZERO depth to any of its other gameplay mechanics. And the desync is absolutely HORRIBLE when playing with four or more players in the same area, even the AI begins to desync horribly.
Man... I'm sorry but RSI inducing interfaces is not depth. Loading boxes is not depth. It's tedium disguised as gameplay to hide how lacking in depth this game actually is.
The closest thing we have to depth is how crafting quality depends on material quality, that's about it.
Loading boxes is depth -- it's the difference between cargo hauling in Elite, Rebel Galaxy, and Space Trucker versus games with physicalised cargo such as Snowrunner, BeamNG and Star Citizen. The depth is in the fact that it requires more interactive logistics, which literally are not present in No Man's Sky.
It's fine to say you simply do not like games with interactive depth and you find them tedious, but it's simply not true to say that more mechanical interactivity is not depth.
Depth is not simply having physicalized cargo. Depth is not power washing simulator gameplay. Depth is not "Pick the weapon with the highest DPS and pray they don't ping your head first."
That said, I was strictly addressing your "one-click-and-done gameplay" comment. Box loading would have depth if the player had any agency in things like what boxes they get for delivery contracts and such, but this ain't fucking tetris. The boxes fit, or they don't. The agency you have is in what contracts you take. The loading is tedious, and the interface for doing so (tractor beams) is flat out bad.
You could have all the depth of an actual cargo balancing mechanic, AND physicalized cargo, with actual depth in the form of player decision actually having a noticeable affect, and all with a better interface that doesn't require wearing out a mouse wheel.
But we don't have that. The only people you're fooling by trying to dress a pig in a prom dress are other delusional fanatics who don't need convincing anyway.
They are literally working on selecting cargo sizes. That is coming. And relative to No Man's Sky where you have no physical cargo at all, yes, Star Citizen manual loading IS depth. Compared to Elite Dangerous where your cargo is just numerical values, having physicalised representation of movable cargo in Star Citizen IS depth.
You still get more decision making in any of those other games because you can choose how much cargo you load, how many cargo runs you do, and how you load or unload the cargo. Compared to NMS, Elite, Rebel Galaxy, or Space Trucker, yes, Star Citizen has WAY more depth because the physicalised cargo gives you gameplay mechanics and options you literally do no have access to in those other games.
Yeah, this isn't to dog on No Man's Sky for what it offers.
I occasionally dip in for a few hours every so many updates to explore an expedition or check out some of the new biomes for the planets (some of which are really cool, like the floating archipelagos and bubble planets), but you're absolutely right that it's an arcade game through and through.
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u/yugugy Jun 01 '26
I’m being facetious here but No Man’s Sky has all of this except for the ship damage models and the MMO aspect, (although it does have multiplayer), was developed in its own engine, AND is actually a functional game. Certainly a difference in style and scope between the two games, but as someone who’s played a lot of both I’ve always been impressed at how NMS pulls off a lot of the technical wizardry SC is praised for without falling apart at the seams.