Feedback Barring new feature requests, what changes would you like to see for 1.0?

Tiy posted a thread to our subreddit yesterday, so I thought to bring the discussion to the forum!


Hey guys,

So we're getting closer and closer to 1.0 and I thought this would be a good time to share your suggestions for the big release. We're not looking for new feature requests in this thread, instead we want to hear about any tweaks to existing gameplay mechanics and balance changes you'd like to see. If you feel there are any problems that need solving in the current game, speak up!

Some Rules

• No new feature requests.
• Please search to see if anyone else has already suggested the change you want to see and respond to that comment to show your support. Duplicate requests will be deleted to keep things organised.
• Performance and optimisations are already planned.
• Server improvements are already planned.
• Anything that's not a suggestion will be deleted to keep things organised.

Thank you in advance for any feedback, we'll be watching this carefully and might jump in here and there.

Tiy

 

Modifications in Hoverbike mechanics so they are actually useful, optimization, improved random mob AI.

 

Hmmm maybe stop pixel capusles from dropping climbing rope and and flares. I mean at the beginning they are useful but later on they become useless junk items. Also maybe have tenants just drop pixels. And maybe the electric effect and the ice effect getting revamped a little. Its not that I don't like it its just that electricity is only good in groups and ice is barely noticeable. Maybe ice slows you and makes you less resistance and electricity zaps others and makes you weaker. Anyway thanks for creating a great game.

 

Here is the supposed list from 2 years ago (!!!) of planed features, for reference....

The future of Starbound
December 16, 2013 in Dev Blog, News

So here is a non exhaustive list of additions coming to the game. We have a lot more than this in store (not yet discussed), but Xealaz over at reddit compiled such a nice list of the stuff we HAVE discussed that I wanted to share it with you. As always, things are not set in stone.

On with the list!

• NPC Spawners & Building Logic: NPCs will scan the structures you build around them and the contents of chests; they will have improved inventories/behaviors depending on how valuable their surroundings are.
• Macro Terrain Changes: Affect an entire planet’s terrain and weather
• More Planet Scanner Data: See details in the planet scanner like planet occupants/dungeons
• Underground: More secrets will spawn below the surface
• Space Combat: Way in the future, expect space combat and the ability to board other ships.
• Spaceship Dungeons: Very large, size of a planet.
• Biome Hazards: Sandstorms, icestorms, meteor showers, toxic planets, airless planets.
• Ore & Difficulty: Higher difficulty planets will have improved ore distribution
• Story Missions: Eventually each tier will end with a story mission that ends with the bosses you see now.
• Ship Navigator Changes: Still not set in stone; but the new idea is to give a local map with fog of war. Instead of sector buttons you have to fly out of a sector and into the next one by uncovering more of the star map. The final sector would be infinite.
• Smoother Difficulty Curve: Better indication of the difficulty of an area. Difficulty will change within tiers as well as between tiers. There will be fractional difficulty (for example, Difficulty 1.12 in tier 1 would be easier than Difficulty 1.52, while still in T1)
• Monster Generation: Right now, monster parts just have stat boosts, but eventually rolled monster parts will affect their behavior and abilities. For example, monsters with spider legs can climb walls; fiery monsters inflict burning. You might get a burning spider dropping on you from the ceiling. Projectiles may be tied to specifically generated heads. Biome may influence monster part generation.
• Mini-Map: Rotating circular map showing highlights only such as the location of friendly players, spawn points–but no major details. For the details you’d use a mapping item to create a map as you travel.
• Teleporters: Stargates between planets and eventually between servers.
• Dramatic Planet Modification: Not going to be implemented any time soon. Ability for players to modify huge chunks of planets through things like orbital bombardment; removing the entire first layer of a planet and leave behind a lifeless surface.
• Tech Priority: Eventually all techs can be active at once, but a categorization system is in the works to assign priority to conflicting techs, preventing issues. A hotkey to switch the active tech will be added as a temporary workaround until the priority system is completed.
• Server Commands: More server commands and control for chat and port listening.
• Villager AI: Villagers will aggro when you steal from them and follow you more aggressively.
• World Storage: Improve world storage and organize *.pak files to improve modding. Add launcher integration.
• Spawn Points: Change spawn points on individual planets.
• Controls: Reconfigure controls; keybinding.
• Ship Size: Upgrade ship/increase size.
• Racial Armor: Racial abilities will not be inherent but will be tied to racial armor. For example, Avian armor can glide downward.
• Capture Pods & Mercenaries: May be able to capture NPCs with pods. Summon NPC Mercenaries by using the pod as a beacon.
• Reduced Wipes: Working on a system to patch without requiring as many character wipes in the future. This will require one more wipe and that’s it.
• Other Changes: Colorblind Mode & Engine Optimization. FTL animation being revamped to reduce memory strain.

Tags: dev blog

No Comments »

← Patchnotes for v. Indignant Koala 12/11/2013
Changelog for v. Angry Koala →

As far as what I think needs addressed.... It's in the list above.

Follow through with the vision, Chucklefish. Where are the racial differences? Where are the ship planets? Where are the ship, navigator, map, monster, NPC changes?

I've been getting more content from the Frakin Universe mod... Things like automation, electrical power, interactive insects, large creatures, atmospheric worlds and advanced crafting.

 

If it has not been done already:

--Making the window repositional and sticking, even if a chest is opened. Basically keeping the windows where you want them, without having to reposition them every time you open a chest. As well making that also repositional. I could say the same of the campfire as well, as I believe that does the same thing, since it is like a furnace type crafting.

--Either having an option for spill over of items into other tabs when full. For the packrats and collectors out there. So they can continue to pickup things even when one tab is full.

Since I barely know what to expect anyway, beyond what was mentioned already in various posts; I am unsure beyond those two. would have been nice to see hylotl underwater villages and some novakid settlements... Most of the things I have in mind are more content in general, at least off hand at the moment.

OH...

--Is the farming path put in yet, or are you waiting on that. The more paths the better. As was mentioned to have at least 3, right? That is one thing I know I want to see, is the different routes I could progress through the game.

well thank you for reading.

 

I have several suggestions of a varying nature. I really some of these may be difficult and may require post 1.0 work, but I think these can help the game regardless.

A. Enemy behavior
1. Adjustment of NPC gunman aim based on weapon and distance to target.
A shotgunner won't take the same time aiming as say, a sniper, and will take less time to shoot overall with a opponent closing in, in addition, automatic weaponry favors a "spray and pray"approach.
1b. Adjustment of melee npcs to make "attack while running" possible on more advanced opponents.
2. Npc gunmen wielding automatics need behavior for running out of ammo and recharging energy.
3.certain special attacks/ammo usable on more advanced NPCs. If possible, plan for different resistances/buffs for different factions. (Ex: An Avian zealot being resistant to melee. Floran prison guard resistant to fire/lava, A USCM prisoner with increased run speed.)
3. Make the hop of noticing not occur if the monster gets attacked first.
4. For monsters, weave different melee attacks in with rushing the player for scratch damage.
5. Reinclude mob specials/abilites based on monster part. (Not sure if this is being done)
6. Make knockback possible for certain monster attacks hitting the player, like charge.

B: The Player
1. Adjustment to "damaged" voice, additional grunts.
2. Spirite or Pose for "player is knockbacked" hit.


C. Weapon adjustment.
1. Spear "brace" knockback needs adjustment for corner trapping a monster.
2. For close quarters weapons like knives and fists, scratch damage should be adjusted(imo, lessened, not eliminated). 1h Swords have sufficient length to be fine in this regard.


D. Farming

1. Adjust irrigation of tilled blocks. It was my hope that this would work(currently it doesn't):

Barring this; however, have water on top soak into the block below at lower levels to provide more of a buffer against uprooting.

 

I would kinda like some vanity clothing that lets you appear shirtless or bare headed. Maybe a way to change your underwear color with dyes.

Maybe patterns or blueprints for the basic clothing of other races so you can make them at the spinning wheel.

Not sure if this would be a new feature but maybe a method for applying elemental damage to the guns you can make at the high tier tables. Also maybe to spear and swords you make at any level crafting station.

Also being able to energy dash in the air was fun so i would like that back.

 

Okay, no new features, just expansions/fixes? Righty-o...

If it lights up, it should be wire-able. There's a lot of light sources right now that can't be wired. The Organic Biolight is a favorite light of mine (Floran, y'know), but that I can't wire it is irksome.

All "consoles" should be wiring on/off "output" switches. The USCM military bases in particular are full of cool-looking consoles with buttons and levers that you'd think would make nice on/off switches, but they just light up as decor. Boo.

Double-check the Armor Dyes. There's quite a few Armors that don't change to the proper color when you apply a Dye to them. It took a while to get a Hazmat Suit in the colors I wanted, and while dye isn't expensive, I don't like wasting them on a guessing game of "what color will red ACTUALLY turn this?".

Increase the delay between painting a foreground tile and the background tile. I do a lot of painting in my builds, which includes platforms. Making "spiral" staircases in particular hinges on the ability to paint one layer without painting the other. Trying to paint the platforms without painting the background is often a frustrating game of Tap Quick And Pray. A bit more delay between the two would help a lot, so a tap only paints the foreground tile, while a hold paints both.

Check the paintable blocks, some are bugged. The Vine Blocks in particular go transparent and weird when painted.

The platforms got wonky recently. It's several things. Characters will get stuck on "stacked" platforms. The way platforms interact with each other visually has just gone... weird, I can't really explain it. Bits get cut off.

"Window" blocks don't seem to let in sunlight. It's weird. I can make a whole wall of window blocks but man it'll get dark if I don't have an indoor light source.

Make the Vine Blocks "overlay" all other blocks again. Used to be that when you surrounded a Vine Block with other tiles, the Vine would expand over them, especially the dangly bit at the bottom. This made them great for background decor. Now? Vine blocks get smooshed by surrounding blocks and it looks bad.

Tell me the "Now" looks better. You can't. You know you're a dirty dirty liar.

Keep NPC name/statuses up longer or seen when interacting with them. Those status messages vanish so fast, they're almost unreadable. Speaking of NPCs...

Bring back shopkeepers with themed wares. It drives me nuts that every merchant in this game now offers a random grab-bag assortment of things. It's immersion-breaking at the very least. A merchant at a forge should offer weapons and armor. A merchant with a fruit stand should offer food, preferably fruit. A Merchant at a clothing stand should offer vanity armors, especially the starter ones for the various races (my Floran wears a Glitch top and looks great in it, thenk yew, and now that option really isn't there). If we get a Farm shopkeeper for Seeds, a Carpenter for furniture, a Butcher for meats, and etc, that'd be fantastic. The odd "junk dealer" who does have a random assortment is good (I feel it works for the Froggs), but by and large, they should specialize.

The above would mean more work on the Tenant spawn conditions, but hey they could use it anyway. Looking at the conditions, it's a bit too easy to have random merchants thanks to putting any kind of storage device in their room. I feel like it should take more than that. And if I wanted a merchant, I'd like to be able to spawn a gunsmith or armorer or hell even a musician who can offer some (expensive) instruments. And Tenant payouts could use some work too. Not a fan of being paid in seeds so often. Speaking of seeds...

Show a grown tree, or at least part of one, in the Sapling tooltip window. Those small icons are honestly very hard to read. If we can see a section of trunk and the leafy bits as they might appear when grown, that'd make us planters a lot happier. Speaking of...

All treelike plants should drop saplings. There's several cool viney "trees", like in the Spring and healing-water-ruin sub-biomes, that I would love to have in my homestead, but nope, no Saplings for those! I am the sads.

This kinda toes the line, but there should be a craftable Chest for every type of Metal. Rubium Chest, Platinum Chest, etc. I mean, there should be more craftable decor in general using more types of generic material, but apparently you're working on revamping the crap outta crafting recipes anyway so I can't point to anything specific just yet.

Please expand "dresser/wardrobe" storage. I really feel like each race should have a "clothes closet" decor item large enough to hold all the available armor pieces for said race. Most wardrobes cap off at 24 slots, where the Apex Standard Issue Wardrobe goes the full 32, which is big enough.

Fix the Retro Spotlight's diagonal light-cones. They're out of whack, and as they are a heavy feature in my Danger Museum, that drives me 'round the bend. I don't know if any other spotlights have this problem, but best to check.


Bring back the placeable "graffiti". Is it silly to be able to yank words scrawled on the wall off with the Matter Manipulator? Yes. But I liked it, because it let me place those delightful little messages for effect. I liked crudely-drawn skulls on my walls.

Please look into updating some of the old dungeons/villages. The villages in particular really show their age when looked at alongside the newer constructions. The number of materials used, the building layouts (everything's so square and flat, houses with basements, please!), etc. A few new buildings slipped into the village-maker whatever too would really be nice. And oh lordy lordy please update the Avian Airship. That one's embarrassingly first-draft.

Now, there's one HUGE non-feature issue that needs addressing. The whole audio experience is lackluster. You might as well play with the sound off. Which is a shame because what's there is very nice, but there's so little variety it all grows very repetitious very fast. The game needs music that changes to suit the environment. Villages and dungeons should have new tunes fitting each race. Biomes too; a fiery hellscape or pitch-black Midnight world shouldn't have the same "calm exploration" tune as a Lush world.

Monsters and NPCs need vocalizations! That nothing outside of the player makes their own noises just makes things seem dead. Monsters should growl, burble, screech, buzz or beep, with unique monsters having their own specialized sounds. Those probe droids should be muttering in droidspeak as they float around. Critters should let out a noise if they flee you.
NPCs shouldn't be spouting full sentences or anything, but angry chirps or ooks or "hey!" when they move to attack you. A friendly "hello!" in whatever language they speak when you interact with them. A shriek or gurgle when dying. They wouldn't have to speak EVERY time, but even 25% of the time would make things seem a lot more lively. Star Wars does great by having its various races chatter in their own languages untranslated. Use that. Make Novakids speak cowboy-English but processed so heavily with ethereal echoes and flanging such to be unrecognizable. Use common birdcalls for Avians. Floran a weird mix of reedy hoots and click-language with snarls tossed in. More R2-D2 bleeps for Glitch. Humans? "Hello!" "Bonjour!" "Zdravstvujtye!" "Konnichiwa!" "As-salām 'alaykum!" Have the folks in the office provide these short sound clips for variety. (and um... well, kind of a feature, but the ability to choose player voice with these clips would be nice.)

Well this got long. But there's so much to this game, and the little things can fall through the cracks. And the devil, as they say, is in the details. I love this game, and really want it to be a knockout. And I think these tiny details will help.

(And then there's the minor features I have in my head, but well let's save that for post-1.0.)

 

I'll shoot some of which I have in mind right now:

1. Solving issues that would lead to a character's binding to a mod/game version ( such as custom stats, codices, more freedom in quest management ), I know that regarding modding being cautious is a must, plus depending on the game engine or how the game handles characters it might be very hard or impossible, but this annoys a lot once you run into a problem that makes your character being lost ( so I personally stress this suggestion the most);
   
2. Making NPCs (especially tenants) being able to have more lines, and being able to speak more than one speech for each interaction/reactions ;
   
3. Having more dynamic encounters with NPCs in planets, scaling from amateurs to professionals depending on planet's risk , and they not being static on their place, rather going around killing monsters or mining, maybe even trying to kill/rob players or other NPCs ;
   
4. After making a massacre or quest in a village/dungeon, some NPCs from there might get in your ship to try killing you ( would vanish after managing so ), or maybe even join your crew ;
   
5. Having a certain person/combination in your crew would get you a new blueprint or free set ( example: if you have all of your crew made of scientists, you could get a full set of the scientist set) ;
6. More names and sprites for random weapons/shields ;
7. Another ship tier after doing upcoming missions (not quite about the current game, true) ;
   
8. Improving physics in overall, such as fire damage/fire-based weathers igniting fuel and making wood and some other materials going ablaze and making metal materials dealing burn damage if near/in contact with a strong heat source. Also applying fall damage to monsters and NPCs as well, even if in a much lower proportion than the PCs ;
9. An extra difficulty between normal and hardcore, for instance being locked in a med-bay or in the ship for said time, the more recent deaths bigger the waiting time. I'm not a fan of permanent death in games, but I think that only 30% pixels and ores loss is not much, so something in the middle of those two would be appreciated ;
   
10. Characters with long life-span in hardcore mode would get procedural perks, unless the game catches some kind of software cheating ( could be considered as a feature =/, so if does indeed hurts the rules stated above I don't mind this part being edited ).

 

Bit of a list of things I wanted to bring up. Hope it's not too much.

Monsters and NPCs:
- "Indescribable Horror" is the name used for many monsters and critters. Give them names and flavor text!
- NPCs from villages should not follow you on a whim for more than a minute. They die way too easily.
- Randomly generated monsters need their sound effects and special attacks back. The aggro hop is boring.
- Randomly generated monsters should be far more common than unique monsters, like Poptops.
- Unique monsters should have color variations. Refer to the Poptop's original art for what I mean.
- There should be more randomly generated monster designs per planet. Fish and Birds included.
- Fatal Circuit, Bone Dragon, Jelly, and their respective items/minions should be reimplemented.
- Novakids should glow in the dark. Everyone refers to them as bright, but they're so dull.
- Agaran have become too bland as of late. Make them more hostile.
- Bring back the Smallshroom enemies that were replaced by Sporgus. I loved those mushroom dudes.
- Dreadwing's mini UFO minion should be capturable as a pet. "He's our boss now, boss!"
- Bring back Mini Bosses. Those upscaled enemies with red auras. They were fun surprises to fight.
- There's lots of parts shown here that are missing. Add them!

Biomes:
- Dirt, Cobblestone, and other natural blocks should come in random colors like earlier versions of the game.
- Moons should have Moontants, Miners, and Mining Facilities should be uncommon dungeons on Moons.
- There should be a rare blood-colored moon variant
- Heck Biomes need to make a return. They were far more interesting than Flesh biomes.

Items:
- Racial stater weapons need visual overhauls, just like random weapons got.
- Staves and magic need updating. They're pretty bland and not worth using over basic guns or swords.



There's way too much to be said, but I've kept my bit down to personal preferences.

 

A couple others have come to mind.

Variations on existing dungeons and villages. It'd be nice if, say, one in ten villages or dungeons you found had been pillaged and wrecked. Take the existing buildings/rooms and change up the layouts and contents. Maybe there are a few scrappy survivors, Maybe there's hostile bandits or cultists or Eye Knights. Maybe a wrecked Apex maze lab where the threat is lots of spilled acid and broken spikes rather than electricity. Or even a USCM Penal Colony that hasn't been taken over by the inmates, and is still guarded and (comparatively) clean.

The return of "anywhere" houses and microdungeons. They could probably stand to be less numerous than they were, but I liked running across the odd Avian or Floran or whoever abode on random planets, or buried labs or tombs deep underground. Or the odd creepy Cultist house. The Agaran-overrun Apex hospital. Stuff that's not beholden to specific biomes. And yes, I feel they should pop up in sub-biomes too.

Make the Sprinkler ceiling-mountable. Being able to pop those into the ceiling so it sprays down on indoor crops would be great. My greenhouse is made up of small rooms, so losing even that little bit of ground to a sprinkler is... less than ideal.

Perhaps a visible grid behind decor items on the tooltip? So we can see at a glance roughly how big this thing is, tile-wise.

Oh and...

Check the monster spawning. It seems like they're popping up even in areas where we've built up as of late.

 

A lot of what I would like changed has already been said, so I just have a few.
Dungeons
Balance the difficulty out. To be host, most of them are really easy. Which makes me sad, because then I can kill people and they can't even put up a fight. Some dungeons should stay easy (Floran Temple, Airship), while most of the others should be more difficult. Especially the USCM bunkers.

Weather
Sometimes on planets where there are dust storms or blizzards, the sand/snow particles look like they're going through my walls, which can be very annoying. I'm not sure if that's fixable, but it's bothered me for the past two years.

Village Guards
They're too easy to kill and to hard to be killed by. This might fall under the dungeon thing I said earlier, but I'm tired and idc.

That's all that I can think of for now. Anyway, just want to say thank you to all of the developers who developed Starbound. It's one of my favorite games, and it's come a long way over the past few years.

 

More gun types would be great.

• The current generated guns are mostly guns you would find in a human-only sci-fi game.
• The closest we have to real plasma/laser guns are elemental bullets.

At the very least I would love to see ya'll implement the guns that are not currently spawning such as the Orb Launcher (Orb Launchers are amazing!) and Cellzapper.

More per-tier biome variety would be fantastic. Even if it's just 1-2 more sub-biomes per planet type.

 

@Oberic do you think phasers, charged guns (I:e: mega buster) and more spreadfire guns.could be possible, if not as a player weapon then at least as an NPC gun?

What sort of guns would you suggest as to be truly "alien" when they operate in similar manners?

 

+Be able to run in either direction without constantly managing mouse cursor position
+Planetary biomes not hard-linked to progression tiers
+Remove requirement to complete busywork quests in order to progress/upgrade ship
--+Specifically, digging to the core of a planet with the weakest digging techs is not a fun introduction to game
+Techs slotted to input type rather than arbitrary categories/be allowed to have more than 3 techs active simultaneously
+More than one "main" biome per planet

 

Biome and Game modifications:
+ Modify the airless planets so that they have more abundant fuel resources (liquid or plutonium).

or/and

+ Increase the cost of buying fuel from the Outpost.

Rationale - Buying fuel is to cheap at the Outpost. It does not take that long to gather the cash needed to buy the fuel one needs. This seems to replace the need to go to airless moons. There should be more of a balance between the two methods of fueling one's ship so that there is an incentive to visit airless moons.

 

Phasers should be possible, assuming this means sustained-fire laser beams. But Starbound uses all projectiles for everything right now, so in the current state you'd need to make a super-high fire rate gun that fires long beam projectiles. I could probably throw together a mod for this type of gun in an hour or two?

Charged guns. This is what I want more than anything (preferably in Metroid style, shoot, charge, alt-fire missles).
I actually DID make a mod that adds chargeable randomly generated Arm Cannons to the game, but the combat update rendered them unusable. I'd need to learn LUA to update the mod, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. I miss my mod. . . . If you have the previous version of Starbound saved somewhere, give it a try, the current uploaded version has them one-handed and in a pretty strong state, but the charge shots are too strong.

Spreadfire guns. There is currently an unused generated gun called the Shattergun. It fires around 5 shards of something broken; ceramic/glass/etc. Pretty cool. I have a few ideas for some spreadfire guns, there's some cool stuff you could do.

"Alien" Weapons are a little tougher, we have one example in the Corrosive Gun (I think that's the name, I found one on an Alien biome, oddly enough).
You can do pretty much anything with "Alien" guns, parasite launchers, Needlers (Think Halo), something like a Nail Gun that sticks things to the ground, draining guns, push/pull/lift gravity weapons. This is barely scratching the surface.


I like sci-fi guns.

 

Technically not a new feature since it was one in older builds of the game, but I want biomeHueShift to apply to a biome's subBlocks as well as its main blocks. Also, I'd like to see all grayscale blocks be changed so they are just a really dull shade of red, so, if they are used in a biome, then they will both visibly and technically affected by hueShuft. I have images from my attempts to mod biome hue shifts, and the static colors of secondary blocks are a real drag.



After switching dirt and cobblestone, this was the result on another planet:



Also, please nerf Flashlights so they are actually a flashlight instead of a handheld flood light with a super wide beam.

 

Monster AI
I'd just like to see monsters prevented from spawning in built-up locations. My poor tenants. :-(