No Man's Sky

About this mod

A huge planet generation overhaul that aims at making your hundreds of hours of exploration in the magnificent, infinite universe of No Man's Sky less repetitive and hopefully even more memorable.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
                                                     Better Planet Generation



More planets

Better Planet Generation is a total overhaul of the planetary generation in No Man's Sky. It improves by a significant margin the procedural aspect of the universe while at the same time respecting the original work and vision from Hello Games.

It adds thousands of new distinct environments to the universe
. All of them come in five different life levels and varying placement scales and layouts. These environments were made to seamlessly combine with each other in many different ways.

Better Planet Generation is designed to bring variety to the different biomes you will visit but most of all it brings a lot of variation to the universe. Outside of the countless combinations of assets and their resulting new environments, planets you visit will present themselves differently each time. Placement layouts, scale of the regions, density, variety of assets and their respective scale, ...

No planet will look exactly the same. Unless, of course, it is a very simple one. More on that below.




Sub Biomes

Caves and underwater sub biomes have also been entirely overhauled.

Tons of new variants have been added underground and just like on the surface, additional objects can spawn to increase variety even more.




Underwater has been completely revamped and is now generated through a triple layered dynamic framework combining assets to generate highly varied and detailed environments.



Unique planets

On top of all the added variety, BPG also uses a flexible dynamic generation framework that can take many shapes and create countless planetary variations, even when the same environments are being used multiple times.

Each planet generated has its own selection of parts based on its biome. Some liberties have been taken when designing and attributing those parts to the various biomes. Some objects have been injected to improve variety, but some restrictions have also been applied to preserve each biome's identity. Better Planet Generation also introduces countless restored, modified or repurposed assets to the game in order to increase the variety while preserving its visual style.




Natural Generation

Better Planet Generation is a vastly different experience compared to the unmodded game and even other biome mods.
Not even taking into account the small details, it is more than likely that you will never be able to encounter all the possible assets combinations this mod can generate. Let alone in the different regional layouts each dynamic template can result in.

Each biome has access to multiple procedural templates. Each producing different results in terms of layouts and objects combinations.
Their common goal is to show you a different kind of environment each time. Aesthetically and structurally.
No more "postcard" planets where most of what there is to see is right around the corner. The scale of the generation can get extremely vast compared to the vanilla game.

Planetary generation can now affect your visual enjoyment and the gameplay.
It is a video game, after all.

A world generated at its fullest possible level and highest complexity can take you some time to fully explore on foot. Meaning seeing the most notable regions (and not all of them) and scanning everything.


More Variation

On the other hand, Better Planet Generation also allows more simple, generic yet still visually interesting planets to see :

- Planets only covered in grass and some plants, rocks or both.
- More barren worlds dominated by giant stone or crystal spires.
- Radioactive wastelands.
- Planets dotted with trees or occasional small forests.
- Volcanic wastelands.
- Toxic fields.
- Rocky swamps.
- ...

And the list goes on and on.
The occurence of these "generic" planets only relies on probabilites. None of my templates is designed to specifically produce them.
I made sure they still looked good, though.




Different Experience

Better Planet Generation is not for everyone. Planets can be both very detailed in every aspect or very simple.
If you expect to always see trees and a full grass coverage on your Lush planet or anywhere else, there are other mods for that.
This is not what you should expect using BPG.

Now, whether you are a new player ready to explore an infinite universe or a more weathered one that wants to be surprised by the game again, I suggest you give Better Planet Generation a try. It won't harm your game in any way.



WARNING BEFORE INSTALLING :

Installing this mod will operate changes to the terrain in every biomes.
It is also recommended to install it while in a space station / anomaly / freighter and not on a planet's surface.
Some major updates to the mod can reset the terrain or biome lists.
I'll include a warning on the download page and the sticky when it's the case.



Recommended :

DUD's Sky - Colors : load planetary colour palettes before BPG to avoid procedural textures conflicts.