Ok my most favorite thing of exploration part of SB is microdungeons. And you sir just made my day with news that i'll get more variants!
THEORIES ?! PET!? PET!? PEEEEEEEEEET!? my guess random monster - which is NOT attacking, passive monster ? BUT why is it on a journey WITH Armagon to find a dungeon?!...
What about having some sort of Item, like a marble with a little world in it, that when used, takes you to a "challenge level" of some kind?
What you're describing is essentially an instance. We plan to implement that functionality eventually for our mission system, and ideally modders would be able to associate such behaviour with specific items or quests. That's a ways off yet though.
Armagon!! I used to create dungeons for my cousin's RPGs, so THIS aspect is a real interest of mine, how can i follow you work?
I've not really publicized my process in too great a detail anywhere, but I've been looking at spending some of my free time putting together a tutorial on how to create your own dungeons (in the absence of a dedicated toolset, at least). I do have a lot on my plate already though, so it might be a while. I'll let you guys know if I start working on such a thing.
Wow, thank you... Please keep me in mind, i would more than grateful. I understand there is a TON of work to be done, and it'll probably never stop if you want to keep adding new stuff to keep people playing, As long as you love to do the work, it'll keep being of quality. I love to see eye candy in progress. Also i LOVE detail detail detail, so awesome, YOU'RE awesome! Keep up the amazing work! Oh, fyi, we explore to find this stuff you're putting into the game! Keeping the balance is the trick though, but amazing gameplay/colors/detail/quality art is what i play these games for.
Aha! More motivation to go into the Underground =3. Instead of "I`m gonna head into the underground to find some resources." its going to be "I`m going to head into the Underground to find an Underground Penguin Biome!" =3.
The pic you posted, Armagon, got me thinking about what the dungeon was originally designed to be (in-universe, that is). Something that I'm hoping to see as Starbound develops are planets with procedurally-generated histories. I'm not thinking of anything too complex (no need to go into DF levels of detail here), but it would be cool if the different pregen structures, villages, inhabitants, biomes, and dungeons were somehow tied together into consistent narratives. As an example, say you start exploring a desert planet, and find it inhabited by Apex villagers. There's also a large Apex lab a good ways west of the village. Conversing with the Apex villagers reveals that most of them work at the lab, and conversations and exploration of the lab itself reveals that the experiments being conducted are on Floran DNA. You settle on the planet, and start mining. As you dig deeper, you pass through a level of petrified wood, glass, and ash. A little deeper, you reach a level with the ruins of Floran architecture. Maybe you also find small bands of feral Florans wandering the halls, who attack you with shouts of "Invader!" and "Outssssider!". You might also find remnants of Apex weapons and technology scattered throughout the halls. All of these diverse elements allow the player to piece together a series of events: what was originally a heavily forested Floran planet was attacked by an Apex fleet. The planet's ecosystem was ruined by the assault, and the few surviving natives were forced underground. The Apex then colonized the (now desert) planet, and set to work experimenting on the Florans they captured during the invasion. It might seem like something that would have to be crafted by hand, but all these elements can be procedurally-generated if the right dependencies are in place. Games like DF and Ultima Ratio Regum have demonstrated the potential for procedurally-generated histories to be rich and compelling. A simplistic version of those systems would vastly increase the satisfaction of exploring a new world, and would encourage players to stay put longer than they currently do. As someone who often planet-hops after a cursory exploration of a planet's surface, I think that that would be a very good thing.
I think the fact that you can turn the tanks on and off is hilarious for some reason... And I'd never really thought about how much work goes into altering the lighting objects until the explanation and the video. So best of luck there... And new micro-dungeons and even new general underground features sound nice. Maybe even spicing up the old unique underground biome types with some new objects and biome-specific monsters would be good too! It would be fun to see procedurally generated spiders, beetles, and moles, or even some wandering NPCs! Like being underground and seeing someone camped out waving around a flashlight.
This lightning stuff looks really realistic and as some above said before adds to the atmosfere. Nice work!
Is there any way you could add some randomization to the geography surrounding the pre-generated dungeons, like making the sand above a dungeon on a desert planet have dunes like the rest of the planet, instead of abruptly turning into the tell-tale perfect flat plane when you cross above the dungeon's horizontal boundary?
Just awesome. That’s what i was waiting for, because you know, those Little things add a lot of things to do! Like an emergency system that turns all lights off and the alarms on, and you can also do things such as secret places, or new atmospheres, o well, im happy with this thing, keep doing awesome things like this guys!
