After having watched the latest Twitch Stream of 28th July about colonisation some serious concerns, but also some ideas to eliminate them, came to my mind. The original idea of colonisation in Starbound, as I understand it, is to give the player a lot of freedom in whom "to call being a settler" in the players own settlement and at the same time making it interesting to go exploring different worlds (planets) to find blueprints for "special" furniture to then to be able to "invite" some special settlers, if the player so wishes. Currently this is realized by scanning the room(s) a colony deed is placed in for all kinds of matching furniture and storage, but not for any kind of blocks used to build this room. The intention behind this is (as communicated by Chucklefish so far) to give the player as much freedom as possible in the way a player wants to build his/her settlement. Now to the resulting proplem I see with this and how I think this is solvable: Problem I see: As can be clearly seen in the above mentioned Twitch Stream, most rooms are build out of wood (to make the impression of some form of "building aesthetics"), but then each different room is decorated with race or other specific furniture to make specific characters spawn. This is all cool and dandy as long as a player doesn't want more than to have a crazy looking "hobo settlement" (as seen in the Stream), but what about all the players (I seriously believe I am not the only one), who want to take over an Apex Lab or an USCM Underground Base they found during their journeys and don't want to ruin the overall aesthetics of the building or simply want full freedom in furniture style? Like for example a player build Outpost in the exact same overall style, but inhabited by all kinds of different races and professions, like the original Outpost? Yeah, right. As it currently is, this is IMPOSSIBLE for any player to achieve. My ideas for a possible solution: - Scanning for the kind of furniture and how much storage is present in a room is a great idea and should be kept, but scanning for the race the furniture is assigned to should be removed. This opens up the possibility to have an Avian Cook spawn in an ultra modern "Outpost Kitchen" for example. - Resulting problem is: How to determine the race the player wants the settler to belong to now? I seriously think that this is very easy to solve without adding too much complexity to it or making it unnecessarily complicated for the player. Currently there is only one type of colony deed for the player to buy. I think that having a specific colony deed for every race is easily to add to the code and easy to handle by the player. To spice things up a little there could be a "race-unspecific" deed to be bought at the outpost which then spawns a random-race character and the other race-specific ones to be bought from race-specific merchants found in race-specific settlements the player comes across during his travels (exploring planets). - Resulting problem now is: What about the very special settlers, like the light merchant or the frog merchant? I think of two possible solutions. One is to have the special characters, who also happen to be present on some worlds and therefore can be found by the player, to have "their special deed" in their own shop for the player to buy. The other is, additionally to the specific furniture blueprints the player can find, to have a blueprint for these special deeds, which unlock them for the 3D Printer for "a special price". - A problem, quite some players have mentioned over and over again and is also one of my concerns, is that players want to change the clothes of their settlers. I believe it was mentioned by the developers once to also scan what is inside storage containers/lockers present in a room to determine some things. Even if the implementation of this never was mentioned or thought of, I think that this is a very nice way to not only determine what the player wants a settler to wear, but also what kind of settler a player wants. Some examples: If a player wants to have a "normal" settler, he just puts the clothes he wants the settler to wear into a crate in the room. If he wants a guard, he has to put armor, weapons (melee and / or ranged) and maybe a shield into the crate. If he wants a cook, he puts a chef-outfit and a spoon into the crate (the chef-outfit needs to become blueprints to buy or find). And so on... The very huge benefits I see with this last approach are: - Relatively easy to change the current code, because the underlying methods are already implemented (scanning for matches to determine corresponding settler). - No additional interface necessary to implement to be able to outfit settlers the way the player desires. - Full control for the player over what and how to build and at the same time full control over the races and professions of his settlers without ruining the overall aesthetics of his building(s) he his after. - This gives making clothes at the Yarn Spinner and especially all kinds of blueprints for them the player already can buy at race-specific merchants the importance they deserve. It also helps the player a lot to get rid of the "tons" of plant fibre collected especially through farming in a more meaningful way than just putting it into the trash. - Now all the weapons and shields the player can craft and find on planets randomly can be put to another cool use than "just" gun-turrets. If only I think of a Glitch Guard in Avian armor carrying a "top-notch" rocket launcher I start to drool. - I see no problem to keep scanning for lights, a bed and more storage containers for merchants. Now, the most imortant part is: what do the rest of you players out there think about my ideas and maybe how to improve them further without adding too much additional work for Chucklefish. Let the discussion begin...
Interesting Ideas. Have seen the Video too, and I must say, this settlers was a little too "colorful" for my taste. I mean, a Glitch Thief in Rainbow coat and then be a Guard? HELLOOO? And what is this with this Monster Guard, that spawned in the Rock "Bunker"? The rest... Well, went so... But what bothers me is: How is the settling been solved on hostile planets, or is that still in the work? I mean, have the settlers automaticaly the right Equipment for deadly cold, blazing hot, airless, radioactive or acid planets? Will they drowning, if the Player likes to make a Colony on an Ocean Planet and they "hop down the Colony Island"? I think this should be cleared in upcomming Live Streams too. Another thing that cames me in mind, are the Climate Suits for the different Planetary Biomes. (Deadly cold, Airless and so on...) At the Moment they give only protection for the Atmospheric Climates, and the Airsuit prevents droving in most liquids. But what is with Lava, Acid Rain and Water and maybe Liquid Stuff, that is so cold it will freeze the Character to death? (Not implemented now I know, but could be.) Here came me the Idea for later Gameplay, to build in an Upgrade System for the Suits, to make them better for more aggressive stuff on that deathly planets. for example: The Heat suit could be upgradet with liquid nitrogen, that can be found on Airless Iceplanets or moons. A better cold resistenz could be brought with a mix of Lava and Alien Juice or something, to prevent freezing to death in this Nitrogen Liquids. Another Upgrade could be made for the Radioactive Protection suit, so it becomes a complete ABC Suit (Atomic, Biologic, Chemical Protection Suit). Means it gives Protection before Acid and Toxic stuff too. For the Air Suit, I have no Idea at the Moment. Maybe make a suit out of it, that becomes the Ultimate Suit that protect from all of this, and is needed for the Endgame, on Tentacle Flesh Planets, and that World Destroyer Monster... It would give the Game another layer of interesting and meaningful Upgrades, that could be found or combinated with quests for some people, or will be buyable or implemented, after some time, or from special Settlers like "Eggheads". ^^ What do you mean?
Thanks The Rainbow Glitch guard is the settler determined by the rainbow furniture set. The "Monster Guard" is the Alpaca Guard determined by the stone furniture set. It was mentioned that this is still worked on and that houses/settlements on more hostile planets will have to be maintained by the player, because different conditions/weather effects will cause harm/destruction to the house(s) so that they need to be repaired. Sorry, but what has all this to do with this topic? ...and this thread having more than 50 views and just one asking things which have nothing to do with the topic speaks volumes too.
It was in my mind for some Time, thought it was a good Idea to write it up, and because this was over some Ideas for the next patch, (K, mostly over that Settler stuff),i had written it up here. But Okay, if this wasn't the right place, I make an own post in the suggestion section were it belongs. ^^ Hmm, another nightly patch is going on. Hope that this time I don't loos my stuff on the ship too. (After Yesterday Patch I lost my Planetary home with all stuff that i had there...)
