Continental Terrain

The subject of this article is from the Origins update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 9 November, 2020.

Continental Terrain is a geographical feature.

Summary

Continental World from Space

Continental Terrain, refers to a common occurrence of terrain that is observed on many planets that have water. Continents will never occur on moons as moons do not feature water bodies.

A planet with continental terrain will feature one or more very large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, continents will cover large portions of a planet surface, and will be distinct from Archipelago terrain planets in that the land surface will be relatively contiguous as opposed to be constantly broken up in a large assembly of smaller islands.

Oceanic islands are generally grouped with a neighboring continent when they are associated with an adjacent continent. If there are many dense island chains, but no large contiguous land masses then that planet should be classified as Archipelago as it then is a case of continental islands.

Types

No specific variation has been noticed as a repeating pattern of continent generation on planets that would allow type categories at this time.

-Polar caps- May be considered Variation of Continental or Archipelago systems where a majority of the landmass accumulates in the northern an Southern poles, typically happens in climates with low temperature

Game application

In No Man's Sky, all features are procedurally generated, so the types of continents present in the game are by definition undetermined.

A game example is a continental planet is Kelmirfi Omega.