Please Implement A Warp Beacon, Doing Anything Underground Is Tedious Without It

Before beta was released, I had two goals in mind that I wanted to do: The first is to get to the deepest recesses of a planet before I can go no further, and the second is to build a functioning complex in that same depth which would serve as my main base and a town for NPCs. I was able to reach the bottommost part of a cave where the rest was only covered in lava, but the second goal is both tedious and close to impossible; not to mention counter-productive to mining.

Mining deep underground is immensely tedious. Besides the extremely hard stone/magmarock making mining take a very long time, the effort of getting in and out of that cave is hard work on its own. Suppose you're on a massive planet, you found a cave that reaches to the bottom and it's loaded with lots of rare metals like gold and silver, but it's all embedded in magmarock. And worse still, this cave entrence is completely on the opposite end of the planet from where you warp to from you ship. While returning to the ship from the cave is a trek, returning to the cave from the ship is much longer since you have to navigate around the planet to get back.

What this game needs is a warp beacon, a device that allows players to not only designate where they warp to from their ship, but allows them to warp back to their ship when in close proximity to the device. Make it expensive or only obtainable at a certain tier if necessary, but please give us something to make underground exploration less of a hassle.

I'll also go ahead and put this up here since it's a long-often mentioned bit on the matter. Please come up with a better excuse to not have this thing besides 'taking the challenge away'. Tedium does not equal challenge, tedium is tedium no matter how you slice it. There are MASSIVE planets available to explore in this game, the ones that are large enough to have 2 dungeons rather than 1 and literally takes an hour to walk across. If you think not adding teleports in this game will give people a challenge of trekking across gargantuan surfaces to find the entrance to a deep cave, it's not.

 

+1, definitely. I'd rather it not be expensive or high-tier, because currently going deep underground and coming back is, yes, extremely tedious, and I don't think players should have to go too far into the game for it to become not-tedious.

 

This can also apply to towns or surface bases. You find a nice plot of land to build a good base, but it's very far away. Instead of having to always haul yourself back to it whenever you depart your ship, you should be able to just warp straight to your base. Or even a town, and this will become more relevant when odd jobs and side quests get implemented.

 

Yeah, the main issue is travelling back up to the surface. It is far too hard and makes going down almost not worth it. So you end up just trying low depth mining on a lot of planets, rather then exploring the underground of a few.

 

Personally I want a beacon that can be used underground. So that you can construct and make use of an underground complex. However, it should end up costing a great deal of lower end materials to make and likely should be part of a expanded technology production system. Also it should cost pixels to beam back and forth.

 

+1 to this would love personal porter and it would have to be linked to YOUR ship so everyone can have there own but at the same time friends can still port to your beacon. i agree that it should cost ALOT like at least platinum or higher

 

Imo only at high tier. We get plenty of tools (Platforms, climbing rope, various abilities later on, MM placing blocks) that makes getting up and down a challenge, albeit if done right, a rewarding one.
Just giving people a beacon to teleport back to the ship removes ANY sense of danger or exploration, because the moment you get into danger it's -warp back to ship-.

Oh noes, sorrounded by enemies? Build myself into a hole and warp back.

Oh noes, out of food and bandages? Warp back.

Oh noes, dug way too deep and didn't think of leaving a way to get back? Warp back.

Spelunking should be dangerous, you should be gathering supplies, building your way down carefully and being mindful of when to turn back if you don't want to lose those pixels.
IF they are implemented they should be high tier, expensive consumables that make you think twice before using them.

As for convenient fast travel, remember that we will have vehicles.
Don't ruin the game for yourselves, consider what you are asking for would really do. Do you really want to turn starbound into a danger-less grind of "Mine straight down, build bunker when in danger, teleport out, repeat"?

 

that is a pretty good idea , platinum is a high cost but that is luxury for you!

 

i think if you can only go to warp point once youve placed it means that you have to go to it to pick it up or you can only go down to the depths again and if its dangerous it may cost you pixels in the long run, plus if they stop you from being able to warped to party members ships unless they are in you system/planet instead of just being able to beam accross sectors

 

Terraria has a Magic mirror which warps you back to spawn, you still have to make your way back to where you were. If anything, if I'm deep underground I will not use it unless I absolutely have to. But if teleporting is made two-way, yea, your fears may be true.

What if they make a teleport pad that has a chance to "Malfunction" and send you somewhere COMPLETELY random and giving you a Cooldown/Debuff preventing you from leaving right away. That would add to exploration feel xD

 

Still, you can just warp away from trouble or concerns (like no food, no supplies) and warp back when you are ready. A "Checkpoint" that you can place anywhere, at any time. Where's the danger in that?

@LuckyRare
Eh, that could just end up frustrating for people more than anything. Nothing like randomly getting teleported over a lava pit, heh.
Still, I'd be up for something like...orbital strike laser. Your ship fires a shot that drills into the ground X distance and consumes fuel in the process. Obviously firing it too close to yourself (or on a friendly village ) could be very dangerous, but once you have a direct line of sight out of the planet's crust, you can warp out IF you have the proper upgrades/item.

 

Even though I like the idea of underground bases and whatnot, teleporting through solid matter doesn't really make sense and I personally don't see how this would be possible, and I can only see ways this will make the game into a "no-danger sandbox for kids". I know it sounds harsh but I have mixed feelings about this game, sometimes it's slow and hard, and sometimes it's just too easy. They need to balance what they have now, not make it easy out of laziness.

 

Persoanly i agree with teleports only working on the planet surface.

And as far a s a beacon goes.

I think that they should work somewhat like beds do in terraria / minecraft.

You can craft however many you want. but only have 1 set active. (per planet maybe?)
then when you beam down. That's where you appear. (still thinking it needs some sort of surface check though)

 

Idea: Two beacons, one that takes you to the ship from any place on the planet, and one that the ship warps you to. The first beacon is the first to be found and requires a couple tiers to create, the second beacon needs higher tiers than the first to be obtained.

And I don't know about you folks, but I think using beacons to warp to/from points sound more visually appealing than making a Terraria equivalent of a hell-evator, resulting in a massive gash that lets you fall to the bottommost depth.

 

Add a sense of danger? So you don't just port around without care? Maybe only have it port you standing over something, whether you mindlessly jump/run forward/backwards and fall is gonna be your own fault. So you won't spawn over lava, but you still have to be careful.
You never know, you could find some underground temple or massive seam of ore you NEED or face a miniboss with awesome loot.

I mean you can input random coords on the ship and make a jump into unknown, why not do it on the planet itself? Maybe have it 2 settings then? Setting A: Port to set location. Setting B: Surprise me! ?

 

As for miniboss and ore/etc, thats what crates are for. Previously though I recall they DID have a feature to teleport ITEMS back to your ship storage. Not sure if that's still in there somewhere, planned, etc. I mean, at worst you just dig up until you are out. Thats what I've done in plenty of similar "mine N loot" games and it works here quite easily too. The 3 x 3 holes you get with pick allow you to alternate blocks on left and right side to create "Stairs" for jumping your way back up with whatever material you happen to be digging through.

 

The idea of beds or something similar as a spawn point isn't too bad, but everything is dependent on how it would be implemented and how it would actually work in the game. So since this is a beta, it's good to come up with all these ideas and hopefully we'll all help to make one heck of a game together with the devs, as we are their personal little testers

As for the idea with two beacons, I like it, I can see this working very well if for example, you have to fuel it somehow. Maybe have solar panels at the surface, and some sort of generator deeper down. I want to see more electricity or power implemented in the game. I can see something like a teleport pad being placed at the surface, then as you go deeper, every 500 or so blocks you'd have to place a beacon to enhance the teleport signal if you want to place the other teleport pad too far away from the other, and then link them up with some colorcode or something.

 

I don't think that a "panic button" for cave exploration is a good idea. It completeley removes the danger of the exploration (as mentioned earlier). But I also understand the intention of fast traveling across the planet in every direction. Even underground. I think there should be (craftable) teleportation platforms that have to be connected by cables. So you cant rush out of a freshly explored cave when somethin unexpected happened (like the floor below you suddenly drops (I love desert planets ). But you can place a teleporter as checkpoint and place some wires to create a checkpoint if it is save enough.

EDIT: Serkai wrote his idea while I was writing.

 

Now this I don't mind. Building a base and teleporter network is not a bad idea at all, you could even build a little teleporter hut at the entrance of a dungeon to make it so deaths are less painful to recover from (Just go to base camp and teleport there).

Obviously it would be advanced tech and expensive to craft, moreso if you had to wire it, but I don't see an issue with stationary checkpoints. Just as long as it has to be wired up or something so you can't just drop and use.

 

Well its becoming clear Kriegson is a die hard spelunker but thats beside the point i dont think there should be a "panic button" but i do think that there should be a way to set you warp point on a planet just like setting a point with beds in other games but it would need some thought so that you cant just get out of trouble for free perhaps a pixel cost for the luxury or something but i do think that something is needed .