About 50% of the time, when starting a new game session, planetary surfaces may look bad, even the on foot training scenario one. Some surface types like the dark brown speckled ones are always crap, and whatever you do, do not set the "Terrain Material Quality" option above Medium otherwise you get the moiré pattern on hilly/rocky surfaces. Examples follow.

The bad examples really put the rest of the game in a bad light, and that is detrimental to all us long term players.

These are all bugs that have been raised and raised and raised again, but the issue tracker system is, a bit naff, always expiring issues before they are even acknowledged, I think overwhelmed by sheer quantity of issues, and needs to be redesigned IMO. So I think a court of public opinion here is more helpful.

Hopefully these can finally be acknowledged as at least needing fixing, and can be fixed soon. These have been around since Alpha.

Some of these artefacts are also sometimes glimpsed in community YouTubers videos by Buur Pit and Obsidian Ant, again really not helping to sell the game. Generally the surfaces are better than Horizons ever were, but these really ruin the experience and set the game back. Please fix!

If you see splotchy over saturated bits (often resulting in flashing surface textures as you fly and drive over them), ruining exploration, restart the game completely (including Steam in my experience)

after a restart it may look a lot better, but only about 50% of the time. It's a crap shoot.

Example two, ugly velveting surface and pixelated looking lighter sandy patches

After a restart, a little better, but this type is always a bit crap

Rings appearing like this can also be temporarily fixed by an exit to menu and back.

Sometimes the on foot training surface looks like this…

Sometimes it looks like this…

When the "Surface Material Quality" option is set above Medium you get the moiré pattern on hilly/rocky surfaces.

"Terrain Material Quality" above Medium