I’m looking at starting a new project and hoping to get some advise before I waste a bunch of time.
I want to make a game focused on building infrastructure that allows vehicles to extract resources from the map. Think something like transport tycoon married to a very simplified version of satisfactory.
Basically I want a large (thinking 25x25km) grid based map with 10x10m tiles that allows for deformable terrain and tunnels very much in the style of a roller coaster tycoon map, but much bigger. Initial instincts are to write my own system that streams in procedural meshes in lets say 250x250m chunks.
I know how to build that from scratch, but its going to be a decent time investment and I haven’t really used unreal engine in the last three years so I would like to double check that there isn’t a better way of approaching it and I am not overlooking anything before I begin.
Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Anything the engine offers at this point is pure trash. They basically have no leg to stand on when it comes to “why should you pick unreal over the competition".
So if you have to start from scratch (which you do) and you can choose, pick a better engine.
With that in mind, you are better off making your own octohedral loading system that streams things in. Epic tried, their data layers was a decent enough idea, but then like usual they fumbled.
25km^2 is asking a lot from unreal landscapes apparently. It’s a piece of cake on literally any other engine, but not for Epic. You shouldn’t use landscapes anyway, but I feel that remark is well placed regadless.
Anyway, the point is: If you are doing things yourself because you can or you want to learn, then there is really no point in doing so with Epic Made trash.
Stick to your own things only. That way you can get a system you can at least package and sell. Be it as a plugin for UE, or for any other engine really…