Can Genesis make ArcCorp look like a futuristic city, are there any plans for roads, why are there no farmland patterns on suitable planets, and what would a ship crash into woodland look like from orbit?asked by Bowerick

1. Honestly, no. It’s been designed to build worlds from natural rule-sets, but most of this isn’t applicable to Arcorp. However some of the foundational tech of Genesis might allow future improvements to Arcorp, because under the hood it allows for more complex rule-sets driven (but currently based on nature) and efficient spawning of objects at multiple scales on a regular grid (randomised for nature, but can be kept raw for man-made elements). So city-block generation could fit well, but would need extra work.

2. Not yet. Genesis is the only planet tech feature in development. After that it’s up to Chris, but my gut is that more varied weather may trump roads.

3. We’ve never been asked about farmlands once actually. Often we have to scour the corners of Earth for reference to get away From farming! It’s something I’ll ask the Creative Director though.

4. If nobody sees you crash then did it really happen? :wink: For a more useful answer, currently the answer is no, because ships crashing doesn’t really modify much… but what we’d love in the future is for a ‘terrain modifier’ to be spawned by the impact which would remove the trees and adjust the terrain, and this would be visible from quite far away with Genesis. such terrain modifiers already exist, but aren’t currently created dynamically as there a lots of performance and network considerations to address first.

Cheers,

Ali Brown
Senior Director of City Planning