Random Generation

Seeing as most of the monsters in Starbound are randomly generated, I'm wondering whether any of the plants ( Trees, bushes, grass and such) will be randomly generated? I mean I'm sincerely hoping they do because it opens up thousands of possibilities regarding Biomes and gameplay. Randomly generated crops anyone?

 

I'm sure the placement of plants such as trees/mushrooms/<insert planetary equivalent here> are random, just like everything else. Unless there are random (for lack of a better term) "NPC" villages, then I don't see too many random crops. (no idea if there are random NPC villages or not, haven't followed that closely due to wanting surprises, but won't be upset if someone "ruins" it for me)

I, for one, would be annoyed if I planted one thing, and the game decided to randomly grow something else.

 

Well, plant generation might be a big drain on the CPU requirements, but it's definitely an interesting subject!

 

I'm pretty sure food has been more or less left out of random generation. I've seen a few examples of "Earth" crops and livestock. This is probably because the game uses recipes that would be useless if the ingredient you're looking for is one-in-a-billion. >_>

 

I'm pretty sure crops are procedurally generated I can't confirm it, though.

 

I am not complete sure on the subject but I prefer how it looks now.

 

OP is asking whether plants (not planets) will be randomly generated. Personally, I have my doubts about that, but what can we do.

 

They might come out with 'variant' crops i.e. purple corn and the like, that still works for recipes that call for the base crop.

 

I voted 'maybe'.

My reasoning is essentially this. If it's relatively easy for the dev team to implement and doesn't do anything to hinder the game such as loading times or anything like that, then I see no reason at all to not have randomly generated plants. Honestly don't think it'd be too big an issue given the nature of how the rest of the game is handled, so I'd lean towards yes. However, if it puts too much strain on the game for whatever reason or it would push back the development of the game, then I'd have to say I would pass.

 

I mean they are randomly generated to some extent. But not entirely, the art isn't generated. But take the trees for example,

• The arrangement of the trees
• The height of the trees
• Whether or not a tree has branches and what type of branches, as well as how many branches.
• What type of stem texture it has and what foliage it will have.

But I think you already knew all this, beside all this I doubt we will be seeing any procedually generated graphics, so to say.

Hope it helps.

Ha, but if I would be answering your question I would definitely like to see that. Just doubtful it will happen! But don't take my word for it.

EDIT: Despite this limitation, there's nothing stopping you from making (by hand, spriting) 50 different variations of one crop. Creating alot of variety. Which is always good.

 

I think that if Chucklefish decided to have randomly generated crops, It wouldn't be feasible to create variations on existing preset crops, but maybe make entirely non existent ones?

Before posting, I spent a lot of time working on a random fruit generator. The project never got off the ground but I have plenty of sprites left over, Maybe this could be a good example of what fruit and vegetables we could find in game?


Essentially the generator would insert a random pattern, colour and stem to each fruit and assign different status effects, Eg. Healing and hunger effects. The sprites would be rendered on top of any plants that dropped them, think apple trees and berry bushes and the player could easily harvest them from there.

 

I thought the devs would need to insert new plant parts for the plants, but if your method works, then procedural generated plants might be a reality, as a vanilla feature or a mod.

 

This! ^
With a bunch of colors, formats and status effects, the game could randomly (or procedurally) make unique fruits and vegetables to be generated in each planet!
There could be even some chemistry attributes in each plant, for some TES-like potion brewing, like; By mixing 2 fruits with the "water breathing" attribute, you'd make a water breathing potion, and it could even have the mixed colors of the used ingredients

have a cookie diplomat dude

 

Agreed. It might be easy to do; so easy in fact, a modder could even do it, in case the Chuckling Fish decided against it. It's a really good concept, and I hope it....

"comes into fruition."

 

Ran it through a couple of colours and patterns and put the stems on, I'm definitely going to get back to this project and maybe see if i can't get into the game as a mod or something.

Here's an idea of what the random generator should do,

A bit shoddy but i should be able to refine it

Cheers and thanks for the great comments

 

Not everything needs to be randomly generated. Lately I'm thinking the procedurally generated mobs was a bad idea. Anyway, I like the way Sci-Fi is suggesting it's done. They're put into the game as a particular thing, but the general shape/appearance can vary.

 

I want randomized juice flavours.

 

The trees at least are randomly generated (assembled) to some extent: Height, bark type (wood, weird stuff, metal), foliage type (leaves, brains, clouds, etc.) and so forth. I would assume the biome/seed calculation for each world determines what components are chosen for the dominant vegetation type.

 

Randomly generated crops would be awesome if they don't already exist.(put it as a suggestion in the suggestions page. Btw does anyone still use the suggestion voting page?)