Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0qs18xuqdyviapr/1_2_4.jpg?dl=0 <- 1.2.4

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5k61ih9jakiriqz/1_3.jpg?dl=0 < 1.3

I used to get interesting forests with varied plants and terrain, and now I'm just getting flat, empty plains a lot.

What's going on here :T

I haven't noticed that. Everything looks much better for me although I never found interesting forests in the older versions.

Agreed.

The view from the front door of my base:
Before
After

The landscape of my planet:
Before
After

All of the other planets in my star system underwent similar degradation. It's one of the reasons why I reverted back to the previous version of the game.

each system is governed by a growth rule, which is governed by a Goldilocks rule which is changed though the system type.... i have a planet with grass all over.. looks like earth its insane.... i found another with massive trees and swamps and flying lizard creatures.. had to abandon my exocraft because it was so dense... its all about WHERE you are in the universe.

see some of the new worlds below

Possible complicating issue here is that I'm hearing some evidence that individual planets have varying regions of flora density now, so the terrain's not as uniform before. Meaning there might still be more interesting forests on the planets I've been too, and I just haven't encountered them yet, though I caaan't say I've seen evidence of this.

(... i do wish I had this on GOG and not steam so I could easily roll back to 1.24 though, at least until 1.3 has some of the glitches that happen with these kinds of big bang releases ironed out :S)

most planets have regions... i was one a pure desert that had an oasis in the middle.. a moon planet that have lush caves... an island planet with underwater structures and tons of plant life.. anther that went from forest to floating little coral balls all over the place.... its pretty cool!

I found something interesting here. It seems as though planets weren't actually regenerated from scratch, they just slapped a different coat of paint on (or stripped it off as in my case) then relocated player bases for some reason (perhaps to make it look like the planets are all new).

At least that guy doesn't have a very complex base to relocate. This is what I would have to rebuild and that's not including all of the interior details I put so much time into. Still, before I consider anything like that, the game stability and performance is going to need to be brought back up to at least Pathfinder level.

This might be a good thing.

Since the initial release 'barren' type planets have been getting more rare, to the extent it was nearly impossible to find them on the last Path Finder update.

I really didn't like that, in part as it is not that realistic, and in part because those 'barren' planet types have a particular atmospheric feel to them that really aids game immersion. To not constantly be falling over fauna was a special feeling, and really gave some quality 'quiet' time to gameplay.

So IF this is a new thing, more 'barren' planets, then it makes me look forward even more to picking up the latest 1.3 update :)

I recommend starting over, I did & things looked better, I got ships with rockets, and I started seeing wrecked freighters...