How to revitilize the Spacestation Concept

Greetings all!

As some of you may already be aware, the Spacestation mentioned in early information about the game seems to have been replaced. For the moment it seems that the player's ship and whatever planet they claim as their Homeworld will handle the purposes the space station was to originally fulfill. While it is obvious that the player(s) need a space ship of course, and the homeworld details released so far are rather good, I am of the opinion that scrapping the space station concept in its entirety is a bad idea.

The reason for the removal of the space station is not fully known as of this original post. Perhaps it ended up being redundant. If you can claim a homeworld, do you really need a space station anymore?

While the mechanical aspects of the space station may have been shifted to another location, I think the thematic elements brought by the inclusion of a player controlled space station were quite excellent. I do not disagree with the idea of having a player homeworld that can be upgraded/improved and teraformed in various ways, but I do object to the removal of the space station as an aspect of gameplay.

For purely thematic purposes, I think the space station concept needs to be revived and revitalized in some fashion. Certainly there are some types of locations that would be better suited to placing on a space station, rather than building upon the homeworld itself. Furthermore the original concept presented for the space station (upgrading, improving and staffing it) are all very good ones; that do not need to be removed.

Information / Quest Hub: Staffing the space station with NPCs that are (presumably) working on behalf of the player presents a wonderful opportunity to make content of various types available. Perhaps the NPCs here could provide information on systems/events occurring elsewhere in the gameworld that the player could then go visit. Likewise the space station could serve as a hub for communications, where the player could contact the station remotely and query various sources.

Research Station: Some types of scientific research may still be better suited to being in space, or at least further from a gravity well. Perhaps the space station would still be a suitable content location for some of the forms of crafting available in the game.

Planetary Gateway / Defense: This depends on where the space station should be placed. If it were to be in orbit or otherwise near the homeworld of the player, it could serve as a planetary gateway. For multiplayer this could be the access point or neutral territory to restrict unsavory sorts from getting down to the surface.

These are just a few ideas that came quickly to mind. I encourage my fellow forum posters who are interested in not seeing this aspect of the game vanish before we ever could have experienced it, make their own suggestions. Perhaps only a new idea or a fresh perspective on the situation will be necessary to revitalize this concept and keep it in the game.

Ideally we will also be able to learn at some point why the space station has been removed, thus we know what barriers/problems & decision gates that the developers encountered that lead to the change.

 

I think it would be nice if the space station was converted into a place of commerce.

Like a marketplace for things, granted it might be kinda redundant since the theme of this game is exploration and such but I think it'll be handy for people after specific items they are having a hard time getting. For example, you need say a robot brain to build your mecha guard, unfortunately the damn robots you beat up aren't dropping it, instead of woe and anguish you can now visit the space station to purchase one from other players.

Though I don't have high hopes for this idea, cheaters and inflation would probably ruin it but it's just a thought.
Maybe just a club house for meeting other players?

 

Depending on the size of the space ship the purpose served by the station is easily split between the homeworld and the ship.

But I wouldn't mind the option of taking a spaceship instead of a homeworld. A spacer's life for me.

 

I figured they took all of the functions of the Space Station and put it into the format of a Spaceship which has the benefit of mobility. Like Inconspicuous suggested, I think that Space Stations could make interesting Hubs for players if they are implemented in a new fashion. I suppose we'll have to wait it out and provide feedback when appropriate.

 

I liked the idea of space stations, didn't realise they removed it till I read this. Could only come up with the some ideas below.

Defense mission: The post-release updates will feature FTL-insipired combat, where players (and friends) may pit starship against starship. The space station could be built to guard against planetary siege, where players man the station like how they would man the space ships to defend from waves of enemies while running around fixing damaged components or replenishing depleted shields. Maybe even a PvP game mode where a group of players will have to fight off other teams in spaceships.
Players may construct a space station or maybe haul one over from a nearby system with a high end spaceship to blockade a planet and disallow anything from leaving or landing on the planet. It could be used for an end game mission where the players may request for supply drop pods while raiding or laying siege to the planet. Maybe allow players to infiltrate enemy space stations (with the necessary equipment or teleporter level), killing all enemies posted there and allowing players to hijack the station and blockade the planet instead. Vice versa, there could be missions or events where raiders may attempt to take over a friendly or player owned station.

NPC hubs & dungeon: Located in hidden systems, certain unique or hard to find npcs may gather and sell blueprints/weapons/equipment should the player stumble upon it by chance, or even via a quest. Abandoned space stations may become a nest for space raiders or other space faring lifeforms or monsters, allowing players to explore and/or defeat the enemies infesting this area to complete a quest, maybe even finding a rare monster to tame that can only be found in such space dungeons. Possibly a space station biome?

At worst, it could be a gathering hub for players, instead of on a planet should they choose to. Or it could still be implemented, if only aesthetically, to give planets or systems more personality or atmosphere.

 

Are we still getting an asteroid base-thing? It's supposed to be similar to the space station.
I am hoping we will be able to explore abandoned space stations. They said there will be places to explore other than planets!

 

Tiy did give reasons for the Space Station removal. Here's a quick exert from the original post in the AMA.

So seeing as it was frustrating the development of the multiplayer side of the game I don't think I would want to revitalize the original idea since they have already designed around it. They could always fiddle with it after the game is ready, Tiy does want to keep updating the game indefinitely (as long as people keep playing) so there's no harm in waiting to see what they do with it.

You can read all of Tiy's AMA posts here: http://www.reddit.com/user/Tiyuri
Bacon's Thread also has a lot of updated information: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/14-4-ama-new-game-info-updated.17555/

 

Hrm, I thought this was the case regardless of whether there was a space station?

I'd like to have space stations somewhere in the game anyway, where players can take over and refurbish, or build over their homeworlds as a more convenient base. Here are some ideas, adding on to what the OP and other people have suggested, and adding some new ones. At the very least, derelict space stations filled with salvage, and of course dangers lurking in the dark, dank corners.

1. Why not make the space station the homeworld protection mechanic?
When you build your space station, you can construct a Shield Generator ('dungeon protection device'), which requires marauding enemies to storm the space station first and disable the generator before they can land. This would open up another realm of possibility, namely SPACE INVADERS! After all, the technology for FTL travel is easily available and affordable enough for individuals to acquire and use them, implies a very technologically advanced, Starbound inter-galactic community exists.

And where such a community exists, inevitably comes groups of scum and villainy, space pirates just looking for ripe, poorly defended targets to plunder. Or worse.

2. And you probably won't want to be standing around on your homeworld while the land and weather upheavals are in progress.
In the planet orbital rendering, the terraforming changes can be made while the actual map is being generated accordingly. This would ease the strain on processing (probably, though im no coder), and save the trouble of making convincing, drastic environmental changes in real time.

 

I think the space station was a VERY early idea that was, as mentioned in Quantums comment, replaced by everyone having their own ships (yes, that early, before ships even). I think the idea was that you didn't actually fly around the galaxy, you simply found a planet from the spaces station, then clicked "travel" or something similar to go there. In that case, I highly favor the individual space ships.

I still think a space station could be an excellent idea. A central hub where players can meet and interact in different ways. Trading, missions, etc. Almost like a giant floating city. This way, there is no need to "evolve" the space station because it is essentially just a city/meeting hub, instead of a "ship" players can customize.

Something like this might be more important than you think. Minecraft for example doesn't allow for multithreading/multiserver setups so your player limit is really limited by the fastest server you can find. This ended up limiting the best servers to 50 - 150 players(usually). Tiy stated somewhere that you will be able to "daisy-chain" servers together. While I am not a programmer, to me that sounds like we may be seeing some serious servers more akin to MMO's; 500+ players, maybe even more. How this "daisy-chaining" works, I have no idea. Multithreading? Clustering? Maybe a more educated person can chime in and give a better speculation.

For all I know I am completely wrong, so please take that with a grain of salt. If I'm not however, a server with several hundred people could benefit greatly from a giant central hub.

 

indeed, a central hub that could thrive with people would be nice, and individual space ships really was a good move now that i think about it.

 

Agreed with most of the above. We don't actually need it to evolve and change via the players. There could be multiple ones pre-generated in different systems that are used as NPC trading hubs.

 

Just makes your mouth water doesn't it? Starbound with 100+ players on a server, you could never meet another person unless there's areas where people gather. Such a delicious thought in a sense. A universe where you know your not alone, but you could go not seeing another person if not planning to meet up.

 

Awh, I wasn't aware that they were thinking of removing it. That's too bad, it was something I was really looking forward to.
Though, if the space station is replaced by highly personalize-able ships, I'm kinda alright with that.

 

Beautiful. I think I remember one of the devs saying something exactly like that in an interview.

Another thing that should be mentioned, is that even when a Minecraft server could support 100+ players, it rarely did. I think the reasoning for this is because everyone spawned in the exact same location, and build out from there in 360 degrees. This caused the initial spawn are to be very crowded, and even if you walked in a random direction, someone would find you. You first goal on a server like that is to "get lost". On a huge server in Starbound, where you simply enter random coordinates in to travel somewhere, everyone starts out lost. Think of how exciting it would be to run into other players out in the universe!

If you haven't already, I suggest listening to these interviews:

Developer Interview

Tiy and Matthew Griffin from Wanderlust Rebirth Interview

In the "Developer Interview", if you listen at about 65, Tiy actually talks about what I was talking about above. He talks specifically about a hub where players can meet up, and he even talks about a "DayZ" aspect to the game, of not knowing if you can trust other players you meet (assuming the server you are playing on has PVP enabled). At the same time, he mentions something that contradicts what I said above. He mentions flying on each others ships from the space station.

I still have no idea what this whole "evolving space station" thing is about, or why they felt it necessary. I like the idea of simply having a large central hub though, and I hope it's something the devs consider.

 

Space-mommies and Space-daddies tell their Space-childrens to never get in Spaceships with strangers....erm Space-strangers.

 

BUT! BUT!....

 

Made me laugh. Toot-toot, all aboard the SS-Pedobear.

 

that +diablo(the demon not the game)

 

I think Space Stations would be a great end-game idea for high-level crafters. The thing I got frustrated with in Terraria is the fact that all I was really working toward was a bigger sword to kill bigger bosses so I could get bigger swords to kill bigger bosses so I could etc. I LOVED Terraria, but breaking up that rhythm in Starbound with different classes of things would be great. Spaceships? Awesome. Moon bases? Shweet. Space Stations? Smashing. Orbital ride-uponable space dragons that have laser breath and whose wings beat to the rhythm of the soundtrack? Auglgarlglglrgrlg....

You get the point. High-level, super-unlockables could really give players a reason to keep playing late-game.

Auglgarlglglrgrlg....

 

I'm not entirely sure if the ideas I had make any kind of sense. If not, I apologise in advance. Some parts of it may be in the game already, some may not. This is more of an all-encompassing vision that I would have concerning stations.

Space stations are, as the name implies, space-based. Perhaps in the future they can function as a kind of player-made "planet" (as in, platform / base of some sort that maybe can even be built upon / expanded) that can be built in areas where there are no planets, like inside a nebula, or a station that is in the middle of an asteroid field (I do think we can already mine asteroids? Perhaps a station can expand on that). Perhaps the station can function as a shipyard where players can buy new ships or upgrade their existing ones. This last option would mostly be connected to space combat, which is post-release, but it may still be worth considering.

Space stations can also be social hubs where players that roleplay not getting along with another can meet some place neutral. Combined with the Director Mode Tiy mentioned recently, such a space station would offer a wealth of opportunity for gameplay. Alternatively, stations may perhaps be automated (or not) mining facilities, where players can go from time to time to collect resources like ore, oil, gases, anything. Such facilities could become pawns in a game of space chess if players go to war with one another.

Also, regardless of a space station's ultimate function, I would love for the construction of it to be no small task. It doesn't necessarily have to require multiple players working on it because that would make it impossible to get for people that can't or won't play online, but it should certainly speed things up.

Anyways, those are my random thoughts on the subject. I tried to put some logic in my post, structure-wise, but my head was all over the place, so yeah I hope it makes sense.