Looking back on the great RPG/JRPGs of our time, some of them had a great feature where you could/had to aid in building a town. If I remember right, the backstories for some of the races were loss of civilization, so this could be on par with rebuilding your race (even if not, it would be fun). Quests could include such things as: Creating buildings with a specific shape or function: A well Garden Barn Houses Guard Towers Town center Library Inn Hospital Etc. Gaining specific NPCs: Doctor Gardeners Guards Merchants Blacksmith Etc. Gaining certain population counts for: Villagers Guards Supplying the village Food Weapons Events to protect the village from invasion Monsters Pirates Aliens Creating Buildings with a specific function This could include blueprints that would need to be completed, MAYBE requiring specific or non-specific blocks and furniture depending on the building. These blueprints could possible act like an NPC spawner, and when the player has all the required blocks and furniture and the building is placed, the NPC spawns in the building, like a Guard could appear with the Guard Tower, and respawn there after a time if it dies. Otherwise, just a building with specific shape and size could be efficient, but less interesting. This would also include a Barn with an NPC that would accept food to supply the village, until you gain gardeners that will harvest gardens on their own. Likewise, a Guard tower could accept crappy weapons you find to supply the guards. These could require certain quotas to complete parts of the quests. A barn could also supply horses or other mounts that players could ride around the planet, or even possibly be bought permanently. Houses would require specific furniture, such as something to cook with, a bed, a table and chair, and a light source, and also maybe something for storage. Hospitals and Inns would require things like beds, a desk, maybe one of those apex medicine cabinets, etc. Town centers could require benches and a fountain or maybe a well. A library would require a desk, book cases and books. And so on. Gaining specific NPCs These could be gained through creating certain buildings, as I said above, but also extra Guards and Villagers could need to be made or found. As for population counts, there could be certain amounts that would need to be reached before another quest is gained, like starting with 5 villagers, then 10, then 20, etc. Same for the guards. Supplying the village As I said above, an NPC at a Barn and a Guard at a Guard Tower could accept supplies, but these could also be remedied by making gardens with farmers and blacksmiths to make weapons. Note: The Guards should accept any weapon, meaning you could simply supply the village with the crappiest weapons you find, buy or make. Events Events should only be triggered by the completion of a quest or by the player themselves, like how bosses are now. Nothing should be random or force players to interrupt their regular gameplay. Additional This could even grow into something more, like upgrades and advancements. It could include landing pads/starports, automated/better defense weapons, etc. All in all, this would give players a LOT to do and a LOT to look for and gather, giving more purpose to furniture and NPCs. There could be other NPCs added to the game with more specific functions and features, but I was just going based on what is already in the game that could be tweaked to fit this quest line. These could even be race specific villages.
I like this idea. This reminds me of the housing feature in Terraria, but on a much grander scale. This would really help give a reason for setting a home planet and could be a way to automate certain tasks for the player like farming. I think it is already planned to allow you to be able to terraform planets at some point, so having that much power seems fitting for one person to build an entire village. On the other hand, I think micromanagement should be kept pretty low. While looking after your village every so often is one thing, it would be another thing to either force the player to stop what they are doing regardless of where they are in the universe or punish them when they are say, mining a planet’s core. I felt this was a problem when I played Spore during the space stage and it became a micromanaging nightmare. Otherwise I could see this working out.
hm... that would be an awesome idea, but you could add on with things that would allow you to build Empires, Fleets, pirate guilds etc.
Oh, yes, I agree about the micromanagement. Outside of setting things up, supplying the town, the events, and the other parts of the quests, the village would/should just exist like others do now. Anything that does happen should be triggered by the player or through completion of a quest, like how bosses are now. Nothing like in Terraria where an event happens in the middle of your work. Edit: Updated with a note about non-random events. What do you mean by Empires, and what would you do with a Fleet and Pirate Guild? I see that as something that would be better incorporated into the space battles and raids Chucklefish was talking about adding into the game later. Thank you for your support!
I really like this idea but it really isn't all that different from what the game already has other than having to supy the villagers and getting the merchant types through construction. I've actually got a fledgling village on my home world with guards and auto turret defenses, so not too different from what you described. I do like the idea of supplying them and getting the merchants though.
A community with random NPCs of various races together would be a nice addition. In your community, there can be Humans along with Florian and Avian. There can be multiple races together in a single community. Random NPCs come into your community and give you missions. It would be an amazing addition.
The differences is that this gives you direction for building your town, quests and rewards, and a purpose, other than just random building and spawning non-specific NPCs.
I certainly hope I didn't come across as cynical or against the idea, I think it's a wonderful idea an I support it completely, I'm just pointing out how easy it would be to have implemented.
I really like this idea. I would love to start rebuilding Hylotl society on a new planet, for me the only thing missing from this game is a sense of "home" or "origin", a place were you came from and is your racial home world (I'm a big fan of lore). I know this wouldn't work well in multiplayer so this town building idea would work great. I can also imagine someone setting up a high tech pirate base in and asteroid and preying on other settlements earning lots of pixels, maybe there would be some sort of police or government coming to destroy the base. A war system would be awesome to, imagine having to arm and protect your town from a neighbouring Floran tribe. EDIT: typo
Quick, someone come out with space combat so the they can come up with ways an empire can be established!
I like this as well. This goes along well with the "give me a reason to build a base on a planet". I'd like to add one more idea... Add the ability to build a spaceport that allows the landing of ships. Spaceports could be one of the places where ships could be upgraded and repaired. Or similar to the customizable ships mod where players could build their own ships in the space port then fly them away.
That's right random person... fall to the side of the Hylotl Empire by agreeing with everything we say. Now then... they should add... wait for it... wait for it.... WAIT FOR IT! LPD... also known as the Laser Planet Destroyer... also pronounced LIp-de.
NO! planet busters are too much, I think the farthest it shud go is mining laser, something on another thread. But no wy do I agree with destroying planets, what purpose would that serve in this game any way?
