A simple solution to make it so that you have a reason to settle on a planet.

1. Handwaving.
2. True, but there will be an optimal route at each position. These would eventually all be found with repeated trial and error by navigators. Even if you use a navigation computer to calculate the optimal route as in above, the more data it has in its calculations the easier/faster/more precise the calculations will be as it can extrapolate using existing data. Think about traveling to a planet the first time. The computer won't have anyway of knowing the optimal route as it has no data so it will make a best guess. After a few trips it will be able to refine that route and eventually be able to refine it to the point where it is always optimal once it has enough data to fully model the planetary movements in the system.
3. Real life FTL doesn't operate that way. Well real life FTL doesn't operate at all. But promising theories such as the Alcubierre metric still have to worry about celestial bodies at the risk of vaporizing not only the vessel but the body as well.

 

This is a great point.

Fuel is not a limiting factor past the first world. If you want easy fuel, just find a desert planet with a desert moon. You will have ridiculous amounts of coal.

Honestly, settling a planet in the early game is not particularly necessary or valuable. You don't usually have enough stuff to really need more space than your ship provides, and food is not scarce enough to warrant early gardening. It isn't until you get large amounts of items from the various castles, towns, and labs that you can really effectively make a nice town.

 

logical.... that word has no place in a video game, especially one like this.

 

Again... comparing a game to real life.... pretty daft move. It is a GAME. I guess your fun is limited by your lack of imagination. Yes that is insulting since you clearly insult a game that is purely there for entertainment purposes, not a reality check.

 

What is ultimately the function of a home planet that makes it different from any other planet you can get to? If there is none, then a home planet is useless.
To be able to freely go back to that planet from any location is nice, but still does not offer any reason to go back to it.

Perhaps planet exclusive structures or machines that can not simply be carried around and built on a ship?
Terraforming function sounds nice.

 

Depending on the explanation for how the FTL travel works, it wouldn't necessarily take more or less energy to travel between sectors, systems, or stars.

Just to throw out some examples, if it's creating a wormhole, or shifting outside of the standard four dimensions (as in the latter books of the Ender's Game series), then it could well be a flat cost regardless of distance without it defying logic.

 

How did I insult the game? And who says entertainment and reality are mutually exclusive? This is a sandbox game, you can sure expect that I want it to play by universal rules. Not much point in the sandbox space game if it doesn't even act like space. Here's an idea, since we're not having it grounded in reality I know exactly what it needs: MAGIC. I want to shoot fire from my eyeballs! I mean that would be entertaining right? Why don't we make it so you can farm diamonds with a diamond seed? Or uranium with a uranium seed? I mean if imagination is the limiting factor then why can't I get a power that allows me to summon Cthulhu?!

Want to know what else is a game? Fold It. That game is pure science and guess what? People play it. And they enjoy it. Why can't Starbound be fun yet grounded in some semblance of reality? I mean naturally you need a bit of suspension of disbelief to play the game. This is a game where you can choose to be a gendered robot flying around in a castle space ship after all. But to everyone complaining about all the systems that add depth and complexity to the game then maybe a sandbox universe game isn't the right one for you. You say I have no imagination, but imagining my little character being able to get to planet X with a little less fuel because some daring navigator discovered a better route seems quite a bit more imaginative than completely ignoring not only physics but the fact that this is a supposed populated game universe with people out there that are actually doing this navigating. Of course I can "imagine" that these planets are still better known on the galactic level due to repeated travel, but because of some magic handwave wormhole you always get there in the same time. That is rather boring and, as you put it, "daft" in my opinion.

Also all you wormhole peeps, explain to me why the fuel costs are different? I mean a wormhole from planet to moon is going to be the same distance as a wormhole from galaxy to galaxy, you're connecting two points in space...

 

Obviously as you say, this is not the game for you. Move along.

 

Could be different varieties of travel. If you're using a wormhole generator for long-distance travel, it might be too energy-inefficient for just traveling to a moon of the planet you're at when compared to sub-light engines. Alternatively / additionally, as in some sci-fi settings, the technology might not play well with gravity wells, making it so that the long-distance FTL options can only work in the space in-between solar systems.

Also, just to note, I'm not trying to disagree with you on anything, and certainly not trying to imply that you are "daft" or any such thing. I'm just pointing out alternative explanations, in a sort of Devil's Advocate fashion.

 

What a well thought deconstruction of every point in my argument. Congratulations on your flawless victory!

Back to the topic at hand since I was, without a doubt, wholly and utterly defeated and we've all decided on something that clearly is above my feeble comprehension. Since the topic is about why your homeworld is special outside of being the first planet you visit, especially as it is surpassed by other planets rather quickly. Does anyone have any thoughts on what can be done to make it so?

No worries, I hadn't even seen your post yet. There certainly are a lot of diverse explanations for FTL described throughout the entirety of science fiction. Some plausible (Mass Effect with negative matter, Star Trek with the Alcubierre metric) while others that are pure fiction made to sound cool. Wormholes sort of fall in between; theoretically they fit rather well with our mathematical understanding of the universe but they have never been observed and there is a lot of speculation on them. They are convenient in science fiction settings as it's like "hey, I need to get from point A to point B. I know! Wormholes!" If we can find that they do exist out there the big concern is they wouldn't be stable enough for travel. The stability issue is seen in the mathematical models. Now this is all theoretical so science could be wrong about it, but until we actually observe one there is too much we don't know! If Starbound wants to use wormholes as their means of FTL travel then Chucklefish is free to do it. This is their game after all. In fact, some of my favorite science fictions have utilized wormholes in silly manners! However, this is the suggestion thread so I voiced my suggestion to the unfortunate chagrin of certain individuals. I just don't see why anyone would want a simple dummied-down sandbox game. It rather defeats the purpose of being a sandbox game in my opinion.

Anyways, making the home planet worthwhile...

 

While I like the idea of "enormous" crafting objects that will simply not fit on a ship... being able to teleport back to a home planet has numerous advantages... I came up with an incredibly efficient ship design, but I still couldn't fit EVERYTHING on my ship...

Just making something a very low-barrier to return makes it more likely to be colonized... with the current system, it's either beam down to the current planet or screw you... with a system where you can beam down to your home planet without cost of moving there? Awesome, now I can colonize a planet, build a city etc, and I don't have to worry about fuel costs going there... AWESOME.

 

I considered enormous crafting object but the problem is with the game mechanics. Too big for your ship? Only takes up 1 slot in your inventory until you get to a different planet!

I thought it would be neat if the surface eventually turned into a city. You could do it yourself but it would take time. I don't know how it would be done though. Building spawners?

 

As with all good ideas... "woah, awesome idea... how would we implement it?" ... I didn't think of "it takes up only one inventory slot until you plop it down" either... that's perhaps the hardest part of game design: there are no simple answers.

 

I've also read some criticisms to the effect that, even if wormholes do exist, they may well have an event horizon just as with black holes. Simply because two points in space are connected does not automatically imply that it would be physically possible to travel through that connection.


As far as making the home planet more useful, even something as simple as making time-dependent tasks like smelting and crop growth continue while you are away would help a lot...

 

I only stated really that it should not be cheaper flying to any planet just because you set it as a home. Settling on a planet should have an advantage, though at current it doesn't. That advantage should not be fuel usage though.

 

I believe Tiy said on somewhere (neogaf? twitter?) that crops are supposed to grow while you are away but they didn't realize it was bugged until the beta.

 

I was just coming here to post something along these lines. Right now, the major issue I see with this game is the fact that there is no reason to build a colony or a base until you've reach Sector X. You're just wasting resources going back and fourth. Yes, you can do it for the fun of it

 

I was thinking on the building spawner idea (so you can make your planet a megalopolis. Already there are predefined "dungeon" templates that are like your human bunker, glitch castle, etc. Fairly easy to make in paint. I wonder if it would be possible to make a spawner spawn one of these if the area was clear with flat ground? Obviously building spawners wouldn't be cheap as you'd need thousands of blocks to build them by hand, but once you get one you then go in and decorate and place NPC spawners. Gameplay wise it doesn't do much but it does help make your planet feel like it's actually inhabited rather than the current feeling of "my original wood cottage is here and I may or may not have repaired it after the Penguin UFO attack".

 

Maybe I missed something, but it doesn't look like this was added in Offended Koala. Did tiy mention when the warp-to-home feature would be coming, or was it just the screenshot?

 

I am actually with you on some level. the game could use a bit more detail than whisk away everything for the sake of simplism (I know that is not a word, but you get my meaning).
There's a lot that ticks me off in this game, that defies logic to such a ridiculous degree that I can't help but shake my head and comment how dumb it looks. Starbound tries on some level to adhere to some level of realism but then breaks any logic in other ways, making it look like a very lazy added feature. Do mind though, we are currently speaking of a placeholder of a game. this is in no way a finished product. If it's still implemented this weird way when it is finally finished, I can probably see people making mods to change this for the better.

I was being trolly in defense of the game so other things would be actually be implemented to a more complete state. But as there hasn't been an update in ages, I don't see why this can't be modified.
So yeah. Sorry about being <insert whatever word you feel appropriate>.