Thing that most seem to miss is that even if this feature works (and I will reserve my final judgement until I see that thing I paid 30 bucks for), it doesn't show how well and how universally it works. Okay, you can land on one planet. That's great! Let's even assume the sequence isn't scripted or pre-rendered! Let's do that - it's a real sequence of landing on a real planet. Alright! Let's ignore the characteristic lack of jitter that every video of alpha 1 and 2 has had - maybe it's indeed fixed in 3.
We immediately arrive at the next set of things, however.
1) The planet base. Is every planet in the game going to have something like this? Is it going to be implemented in as much - totally unscripted - detail? Or has it been built purely for the sake of the presentation? Is this from the SP module only, or will MP have dozens/hundreds of such hubs?
2) Landing on other planets - can it be done? Should it be done?
3) Player-based planet bases. When are the backers going to see anything that even remotely hints at it being doable? In 5.0 at Gamescom 2017?
4) Where's the fucking gameplay?
5) By the way, do you remember the presentations of No Man's Sky?
So yeah. They showed a - probably working - feature, but that really means fuck-all at this point because there's hundreds of features that need to make it into the final product for those planet landings to matter at all. But hey - if people that find themselves either sexually aroused about StarCitizen's possible failure, or those that need to have a fap every time they see a new JPG concept, find this presentation exciting, all the best for 'em.
You should watch whole presentation ?
1) Not all planets. Only when it makes sense. Some planets will have multiple cities you can visit some none. They created modular tech that allows them to create quickly bases like this and then use hands of artists to make it unique. Base in presentation was mining colony.
That mining colony is part of 3.0 update and will be relesed by end of year along with shitload of other stuff (about 30-40 stations in Stanton system + planet based bases like in presentation)
Purpose of that demo was to show that they have working procedural planet creation which works in tandem with handmade content that can be placed on planets like that station.
2). From presentation: Any planet, asteroid etc as long as it has surface. IMO there will be few planets where you won't be able to do it (like city-planet type which is simply to much needless work). Procedural tech was part of their streatchgoals and they even plan to add vegetation and shit.
3) what does that mean ? Like player made cities and bases ? That never was part of SC in streatchgoals. But in same presentation Chris said that with procedural tech done they have basically bilions of square kilometers on planets that can be claimed by players hiting player owned homes etc. Imo probably something they have in mind but didn't even put any work toward it since it requires first finishing prc.tech.
4) In presentation ? Dude started at station, went with friends to other station, accepted quest from dude to recover blackbox, they fly off and made to wreck, they switch to fps and go into that wreck recover black box, quest giver contacts them and proposes alternative to quest to which they agree, after fight inside of ship they fly off to planet surface where dudes do groud combat with space ship support and finish quest, quest giver contacts them and doublecrosses them.
That quest alone by most of codexian could be considered basically from some RPG game.
IMO: how much of content of this quality they can produce ? Who knows 100mln+ at work.
5) NMS didn't have any presentations. They had few trailers and talk with developer where he showed them absolutely nothing to point where press was confused what you actually do in NMS like 2-3 months before release...
They showed a - probably working - feature, but that really means fuck-all at this point because there's hundreds of features that need to make it into the final product for those planet landings to matter at all.
They already have all features in place for planet landing. 64bit tech removed limits for their solar systems / planet sizes, localized physic grid allowed them literally to have fluidly changing gravity between player/ship/space/station/planet which basically allowed them to have planetary landing, They integrated FPS module with rest of the game, they integrated all animation into one pipeline that governs everything from ships to ground combat, they rewritten cryengine to point where it should even be called like that to allow proper streaming tech (aka no loadings) and many other things cryengine didn't allow for, planetary procedural tech allowed them to quickly make planets and have handmade content on them without it sticking like sore thumb.
3.0 aka what was shown according to them will be available by end of the year. Stanton will grow to about 40+station/bases with a lot of bodies on which you can land outside of those stations. And that is just one of 100+ systems
Anyone who even briefly follow their development videos saw that coming as they presented one after another pieces they were working on, improving on them and showing parts of them working already.
edit:
also planetary landing isn't new. Space Engine has it, Evochron mercenary, Elite Dangerous fucking NMS and most of those games were made by fraction of people CIG has. IT would be hilarious if they wouldn't be able to do this with one of best tech heads in business (they poached a lot of tech talent over the years from other studios, their engine developement is spearheaded by same people who designed Cryengine ((they poached them from crytek back when crytek was in deep shit))