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

Discussion in 'Mechanics' started by Pizzarugi, Dec 7, 2013.

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  1. thefirecrack3r

    thefirecrack3r Subatomic Cosmonaut

    YES.
    "cannot warp, enemies nearby." This is perfect, no longer is this a panic button, its a way to save time, escape the grindy feel. Yeah, it doesn't stop us from being able to "oh poo, I'm starving!" But lets be honest, by mid, late game, starvation is a minor issue.
    I also like the Idea of a count down, 5,4,3,2,1 *bloooeephhsh!* back on the ship. These items should be expensive, and be at least tier 3. It should be a place-able, item, not a little carry around button. Put it down, clean out surrounding beasties, then click, count down, and warp. These would be good way to save time traveling underground and also for establishing cities, bases, mines.
     
  2. Noesanity

    Noesanity Tentacle Wrangler

    but the hellevator is cool beans yo. also it wasn't a "terraria" thing, hellevators have been around for a long time. hell is was a movie in 2004
     
  3. Kelad

    Kelad Astral Cartographer

    How about 2 different beacons? A low-tier one that lets you teleport to a point on the surface, and a high tier one that works underground?
     
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  4. krulin

    krulin Master Chief

    I think it should only make it so you have a beam down location "above ground" and I think it should have a cool-down before it's usable after it's placed to prevent warping out of dangerous situations. I don't think it should be used underground because I think it would ruin half the fun of the game. I haven't had any trouble getting out of holes I've dug. If you're having trouble, then you're probably not marking your tunnels properly or just outright on too hard of a planet.
     
  5. Psychédélice

    Psychédélice Space Spelunker

    An easy way to make impossible to escape to anything with dat beacon would be to make it in many pieces , like some block, and u would need to put theses blocks together to build the beacon. So if U want to get back to your ship from a hole like this, u first need to build the beacon, like you build a house, and if any danger is near, he would have the time to finish you first. Also, u're forced to get back into the hole in order to take back your beacon, because we can easily guess that the beacon would be hard to build, so you would need to get it back. Also maybe make a limit to 1 beacon per planet, and make possible to build different sort of beacon for each tier , for exemple, the first beacon you would be able to build wouldn't allow you to teleport from/to the underground, the second would for something like 50 blocks from the ground, ect ect.

    What do you think about of that ?

    I also like the aggro radius and the countdown idea. Otherly, we could also guess that the monster would be teleported with you, if U try to escape from one like this, and disapear if he kill you in the ship. ( We could guess that the regeneration process isn't so quick and that the monster would have starved between the time where u died and the time where you wake up .

    Sorry if I missed something and if someone already told the idea I was trying to explain here.
    Sorry too if You 're not able to understand me because of my lack of grammar/vocabulary.
     
  6. Stormhawk

    Stormhawk Tentacle Wrangler

    I generally dig rather slim, slightly-askew tunnels down (just enough that 'falling' down them isn't hazardous), and then knock out the walls down to what's considered 'zero depth', the lowest point you can teleport out of the planet. If you dig a straight shaft underneath your beam-in point down to zero depth, it will set your beam-in to zero depth. You could then refill what the OP seems to consider an 'unsightly gash', and, so long as you leave a six-block tall space (I think that's the beam-in clearance?) at the new beam-in point, you'll always be beamed technically 'underground', and so long as the back wall is knocked out there, you can beam out in the same exact spot.

    I certainly do like the idea of using more teleportation mobility. However, I think still limiting it to requiring reaching at least a certain depth to work is sensible. I can see, with proper hardware, allowing teleportation to and from a moderately deep point- perhaps an established outpost (a certain amount of space around the equipment may need to be 'secured' with player-made and placed materials and lighting, or possibly pre-existing underground complexes, like some Apex underground rooms and such; essentially, similar requirements to NPC housing in Terraria).

    At the very least, the ability to choose and teleport down at any viable explored point on the surface or otherwise exposed location (like a sub-surface, over zero depth location with the wall knocked out). If you can teleport to your ship from it naturally, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be able to teleport back to that same point. This is something I've been sorely wanting in the game since putting the beam-out conditions to the test.
     
  7. Dagrens

    Dagrens Void-Bound Voyager

    We need a buildable elevators.
     
  8. AdamJ

    AdamJ Big Damn Hero

    Wireless points could finally have a use, and be distance based, so you might require relay points (Like real wireless networks!)


    As for the teleporting making the game too easy, why wouldn't it be more like:

    You have to remain completely stationary to use it, for a period of time determined by your depth, and there cannot be lifeforms nearby. It requires either a teleport battery or recharge period for the handheld device, so you can't just warp whenever you feel like, it's only for the player using it, perhaps costing a 3rd of the pixels required to build your equipment, and doesn't allow you the ability to warp back to where you were.

    That could be the most basic version, which you could upgrade at a later stage.


    These ideas have probably already been covered in the previous pages though.


    I dug all the way to lava earlier, and upon thinking of the effort of climbing back out, I simply jumped in to a fiery pit. It's just not worth the effort to climb back up at the start.
    Not to mention you could just save and quit to go back to the surface.
     
  9. LuckyRare

    LuckyRare Phantasmal Quasar

    I build a tunnel straight down and get water to the bottom, so I can just jump in and not die and then swim up and continue to explore. And if I want to leave, I just save and quit atm.
     
  10. LopsidedMidget

    LopsidedMidget Void-Bound Voyager

    Good point. I played for a large chunk of my Thursday night (finals are over, time to get serious about this game :p) and used this a lot. It's not perfect, but it at least gives you some form of ballpark idea where your party is. Where I found that it could use improvement was when a party member was on the other side of a world. It would just point down. lol. I think, even if the beacon to teleport to another party member is shot down, a shared map might be a good alternative. I don't mind the digging/etc. but I do mind the frustration while trying to find my friends. It would be nice if a map were implemented that is blacked out except for explored areas that would let you see where your party members are, and where you have yet to explore. In Terraria this would be a bit game breaking, but in Starbound you jump from planet to planet so often that it would help more than hinder the experience.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2013
  11. Letalis

    Letalis Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Heres my solution to this problem:

    Yes there should be the ability to build and deploy transporter pads for getting to specific areas with a bookmark system that you can name them according to what they are (village base etc.). but an emergency teleport from underground should have a penalty. for example, the deeper you are, the harder it would be for the device to lock onto your location so after you have engaged the teleport, you have to wait an amount of time appropriate to the depth you are at, up to a minute. in that time you cant stray too far from where the teleporter was initiated. this way. you cant just magically teleport to the ship out of harms way, you have to defend the location or stay there doing other things while you wait for the ship to get a fix on your location.
     
  12. Pizzarugi

    Pizzarugi Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Some games sort of had this function, some where you just click the teleport and stand there for half a minute or longer before you actually teleport out, but doing anything while you wait will cancel the action. This idea would work just fine for this game, especially if the devs allow us access to such a device early on in tier progressions.
     
  13. rosque

    rosque Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Yeah let's not go the almost-always-plagued-with-annoyances-and-bugs 'you must gather your party before venturing forth' method of teleporting where it stops you from going out if there's enemies around. Maybe instead a wait time.. that depends on how deep you are? So if you're very deep, it'll take a solid two minutes or so just to warp back. Failing this, how about a teleport pad that not only is expensive, but takes a while to set up? In that you have to clear a space and put it up, possibly use wiring or such to connect things together.
     
  14. Letalis

    Letalis Subatomic Cosmonaut

    well in star trek they had particle boosters of some kind that they would use in order to beam out of an area with high interference. a similar device i imagine could be implemented in starbound
     
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  15. tristan1333

    tristan1333 Orbital Explorer

    Hmmm... or maybe a teleporter just like on your ship which warps you to your ship, it would require wire to reduce the proficiency of exploiting. Also, it would be very expensive to make such an item requiring electrical doodads that make no sense. (A signal transmitter, energy circulator ect. which must be used in the crafting)
     
  16. otherhand

    otherhand Void-Bound Voyager

    I think the coolest thing would be an upgrade for the ship's teleporter that would show you a map of the surface (explored portions only, with everything else blacked/clouded) and then you could click a location to teleport down to.

    As for underground, I prefer the craftable warp pads. It's left behind when you use it and takes a couple seconds to initiate, so it's not an infinite panic button thing. Two-way ones could be more pricey.
     
  17. Aquillion

    Aquillion Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    This was honestly how I originally expected it to work. The whole "you have one fixed location you always beam down to on the planet" thing is a bit bizarre, logically-speaking.

    But it would take away from the fun of exploring a planet's surface, wouldn't it?

    (Personally I would love the idea of being able to unlock the ability to do that eventually, as a late-game thing -- but I'm personally a huge fan of unlocking entirely new approaches to the game that you go, especially ones that bypass aspects of the game that you've "mastered". One of my absolute favorite parts of the original Wizardry games was how you would eventually learn the Malor spell and could teleport to any point in the dungeon. It gave a feel of actual progression rather than just grinding, you know? Few games nowadays manage that -- it's always just "get the new equipment which is just the old equipment with bigger numbers, use it to kill enemies with bigger numbers.")
     
  18. Nerva

    Nerva Parsec Taste Tester

    Let me run a few ideas past you all, and I apologize in advance if these have been mentioned previously.

    Two Beacons
    The first type of beacon appears relatively early, and is easy to produce. It, however, can only be used on the surface, in an area with open sky (same restrictions as beaming up off of a planet) and it only determines where you spawn when you use the teleporter in your ship. Once placed, the beacon sends a signal back to your ship which permanently changes the beam-down point, and then self-destructs. If you want to change it again, you'll need to make another.

    The second type of beacon is available far later, and is quite expensive. It can be placed anywhere on the planet, even deep underground. When placed, it creates a zone of influence where you can beam back up to your ship. Furthermore, when beaming back down, you can beam down normally, or beam directly to the beacon.

    Limitations on the Type-2 Beacon
    First off, you can only beam up in the immediate area of the beacon, an area about a screen in diameter. Second, to prevent abuse of the beacon as a 'get out of jail free' card for fights, it deactivates if enemies are too close (within its zone of influence) - attempting to use it will return the message from your ship's computer: "Teleportation signal contains unregistered life-forms; teleport restricted for safety." Furthermore, if the beacon deactivates due to enemy proximity, it can't be used to beam down, either. Attempting to do so returns the message "Teleportation obstructed by unregistered life-forms; teleport restricted for safety."

    Once placed, the Type-2 beacon is very hard to remove, requiring a lot of drilling/picking to break. It's more-or-less semi-permanent. Furthermore, you can only have one active at a time. Attempting to place a second one returns an error from your ship's computer: "Teleport beacon already active. New beacon deactivated for safety." The new beacon would immediately self-break so you can pick it back up and potentially use it on some other world.

    Finally, it's expensive to create, requiring both a lot of materials and pixels, but also stuff from tiers that have been obsoleted at the point where the Type-2 beacon appears. Stuff like iron and steel. It will take a substantial investment of either time or forethought to have the resources needed to makeType-2 beacon at the time it becomes available.
     
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  19. Madae

    Madae Zero Gravity Genie

    I had a similar idea for a transporter device. I think the problem of "cheesing" to escape or making the game "too easy" is negligible. This is an RPG, and the way RPG's work is that the longer you play, the more you do, the more you level, the more powerful you become and things just become easier for you. Exploring planets SHOULD be easy once we've put in 40 hours into the game. This is the future - more importantly, it's sci-fi. It doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to be fun. Exploring is fun, but it's also tedious. Having a transporter system available on a planet is a reward we should be able to get eventually.
     
  20. Voidnaut

    Voidnaut Big Damn Hero

    +1 to OP's suggestion. As it is, building a base anywhere other than exactly at Spawn is unlikely.
     
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