Planet Nomads has left Early Access and feels like a big missed opportunity

Sounds like their craftsmanship wasn't up to supporting their artistic vision. Pity. Just goes to show cool ideas aren't enough, you need to be skilled at the actual craft--the coding, the blacksmithing, the laying down of brushstrokes.
(Mind you, sometimes people's artistic vision isn't up to supporting their artistic vision. I think there's been a fair number of games where the developers spun all these cool ideas that sounded really awesome, and then when it came time to actually do it they realized they didn't exactly know what the cool ideas meant in terms of gameplay or how it would turn out to be fun)

Quoting: gurvI strongly disagree about recommending NMS instead of Planet Nomads.

Having played both, I can tell you Planet Nomads is way more interesting than NMS.
NMS gets dull very quickly because every planet and every solar system feels so generic (the exactly identical space station interior doesn't really help with that).

I will respectfully disagree strongly. I won't get into a long debate about it but this is an incredibly inferior product when compared with NMS which continues to evolve with huge updates. NMS has incredibly different planets, I've never not even once visited a planet that was the same in it. Planet Nomads is the same every time and it's an unpolished mess.

Considering how they just pushed this out the door, I think they're aware of how far they strayed from the vision and made a lacklustre game.

Quoting: Dunc

QuotePerformance in the Linux version is also not good, at all! With model quality, shadow quality, texture quality all to low and basically everything else on low or turned off, it struggles badly to even remain at 40FPS often dipping well below.

I recently started a new game. In the tutorial, the framerate dropped to around one frame per second at some points. A couple of years ago, I had no trouble at all running it on an older graphics card and CPU, with less memory. It's simply not ready for release.

Even in its current state though, with some optimization it would be decent enough. Not a “must play”, but interesting if it's the sort of thing you like. Maybe it didn't live up to the crowdfunding hype (and I can understand backers' frustration at that), but performance issues aside it's not a bad game. I've had a lot of fun with it. But right now... no. It shouldn't be leaving Early Access in this state.

Down to one FPS?! Holy cow and I thought it performed badly on my end.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 3 May 2019 at 4:49 pm UTC

physics is garbage in this. you cant have 2 hinges on a moving part to stabilize it, and if you don't you suddenly arrive at a drawbridge with the top pulled up to the static part of the hinge flopping away against the supports. trying to hack a hinge does not work as well as it pulls the hinge pieces apart and eventually flies off in to the sunset. using physics bugs in wheels or winches to make a space elevator since wheels just don't work on any plane except virticle with the wheel touching only the ground.

i really enjoyed it while it was in the 8.x series and they were making improve ments but halting dev on it for a bit killed it for me. also them finally releasing steam workshop support long after the fact made me quite mad i got it on gog. if they would have gotten mod.io working on it or something it would be tollerable.

I have played Planed Nomads a bunch of times, trying to like it, with no joy at all, and I do play NMS in XBOX quite often, enough to say that I strongly disagree with your statement. Since the latest patches with vehicles and base building it is far better than PN. It's not even fair to compare both, NMS is way better in almost every aspect. Maybe the only thing that PN has better is the building which gives you more freedom, but this happines quickly fade out due to insane performance issues. VR is comming to NMS and also a trully online mode (not just coop which it has now).

Quoting: gurvI strongly disagree about recommending NMS instead of Planet Nomads.

Having played both, I can tell you Planet Nomads is way more interesting than NMS.
NMS gets dull very quickly because every planet and every solar system feels so generic (the exactly identical space station interior doesn't really help with that).

The building and discovery is much better in Planet Nomads, provided you have some creativity and like building and optimizing things.

Unfortunately, I must admit that Planet Nomads is plagued by performance problems that probably stem from their database storage (sqlite). This is what made me stop playing, but I still got 140hours out of it so can't complain.
And I will probably try to revisit it and check if performance is better (especially when I'll have my shiny new Ryzen 3000 series cpu :P)

Last edited by marcelomendes on 3 May 2019 at 6:26 pm UTC

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: gurvI strongly disagree about recommending NMS instead of Planet Nomads.
Having played both, I can tell you Planet Nomads is way more interesting than NMS.
NMS gets dull very quickly because every planet and every solar system feels so generic (the exactly identical space station interior doesn't really help with that).

I will respectfully disagree strongly. I won't get into a long debate about it but this is an incredibly inferior product when compared with NMS which continues to evolve with huge updates. NMS has incredibly different planets, I've never not even once visited a planet that was the same in it. Planet Nomads is the same every time and it's an unpolished mess.

In NMS, the planets all differ in some regard but the general feel of planets within the same biome is identical.
And it's really bland.
I've been thoroughly disappointed by NMS: sure it's infinite but it's infinite blandness.
And the building part is really lackluster.

I know it's a pet peeve of mine but I also can't stand that the space stations are always the same (interior wise). That's immersion-breaking level for me.

Edit: in a nutshell what I'm trying to say is that the grind in NMS is all too obvious while I have the feeling to actually construct something, make progress in Planet Nomads. And that makes all the difference for me.


Last edited by gurv on 3 May 2019 at 6:29 pm UTC

To each their own. NMS fills me wonder, Planet Nomads does not and looks like it never will. Such a let down.

It promised more than it delivered.

is there a linux builder that allows vehicle construction that would be some what comprible to PN or SE ? NMS does not have the vehicle building part which i rather enjoy.

Since finding out that NMS works amazingly well with Proton I've put in 83 hours.
My time with PN? Bursts of 5 minuute plays, less than an hour. I gave up because it performs absolutely awful.

Quoting: liamdaweDown to one FPS?! Holy cow and I thought it performed badly on my end.

In the tutorial, yes, although it varied wildly and that was absolutely the worst case. On the planet it's okay. Not great, but okay.

I assume it's because the tutorial is basically built entirely from construction parts. They seem to be where the problem lies (a Ehvis says, it doesn't seem to be culling properly, so what you're actually looking at bears no relation to what framerate you might expect).