Star-map tiers are...lame

major potential here folks. I think this would conquer the, why do we drown underwater but not on the surface of the moon thing two. I remember a planet description from ME about a seemingly perfect planet that wasn't colonized because of micro organisms in the air that cause anaphylactic shock or some such unless your in really high altitudes... Tech Tiers to help explore seems really doable in a metroidvania sort of way. Varia suit samus anyone? Also, why not take it to the next logical step of race specific planets? one obvious one would be an all ocean planet that other races would need serious tech to even attempt, or ones really high up for the bird people, or just jungles of toxic crap that apex are immune to? Make use of seemingly token racial bonus's. The planets can all have unique items or resources that are on,y really sought after by the other races. The one universe idea really has some merits.

 

I absolutely LOVE this idea! I'd been feeling that after the removal of the 1-100 system that there was no reward whatsoever for exploring new planets in the same tier, but this could help a lot.

 

I think it is quite obvious that if things were this way, snow planets would be tier 2


it could be like this

tier 1(forest/jungle) - mine and hunt for leather to make snow armor, the penguin boss would have something useful for snow biome.

tier 2(snow/ice) - find materials to make armor/clothing that will keep you cool, robot could produce something that helps for next tier

tier 3(arid/desert) - unsure about progress after reaching this point. Bone Dragon could provide something useful for next tier.

tier 4(moon)

Maybe the bosses could drop key components in better crafting tables, armor to get started in next tier, and useful rare items that might be useful in a later tier.


EDIT: after this small brainstorm I made a thread based on this idea here: http://community.playstarbound.com/...-biome-progression-system.49050/#post-1505708 Of course giving credit to this thread for the idea.

 

I personally think all (or at least most) planets should have enough content for all tiers of play. I want to be able to look at each planet like a self contained world like a map in Terraria.

I should be able to return to my starter planet and take on difficult challenges. Of course, i would sprinkle in some planets that are either generally easy (peaceful planet) or tough (hostile planet).

 

Absolutely. I didn't mean to insinuate that your home has to be your first planet, what I'm saying is that you're home planet should be a place that is interesting or convenient to you that you have found and explored in a constantly growing single universe. This is opposed to the current system where there is some "sector", effectively an entire universe, that you would only really visit (maybe) due to a planet that you stopped to build on. Chances are we'd all just wait till tier 10 to build anything, and pretend the last 9 sectors don't exist, or build on a lower sector and ignore most of the map because we are already in higher content areas.

 

I just saw a similar post with similar ideas on reddit too! I guess the beta is sinking in subconsciously, and community as a whole is starting to simultaneously becoming aware of these issues hive-mind style =)

 

This is awesome to hear. I really enjoy that the community is having such a great feedback attitude. Everybody want Starbound to be as good as it can be when it comes out. I am really hyped about this game.

 

Really like the idea, OP. Felt the same way after unlocking the other sectors, There was no reason whatsoever to go back.

 

Thinking on the topic further, why not to some extent "tier" the planet by depth to some extent, deep exploration to the planet core, (which in our case is a giant molten ball of lead.... Hint hint for incentive to dig past hell through the "norfair" lava layer..) would require some serious gear. Someday I dream of ship mods on epic tier level 25 for building Ishimura class planet cracking mining vessels... Maybe for resources to power the "Titan" class planet generator ship to build earth 2, if EA and twentieth century fox don't sue us first lol , A guy can dream though. Whoops that one kinda got away from me there...

 

That would be great

 

Yes, as well as listing all the biomes present on the planet!

 

I would love that! Makes the scanner feel less empty and seems more high-tech than what we currently have.
And yeah, there isn't much incentive to explore all that much, it kinda sucks. Maybe when the home planet thing kicks in and we start getting NPCs, they'll give more of a reason to explore random planets, like to find certain parts that are specific to certain biomes.

I also think space battles could be used to add variety to exploration in one way or another... that should be a major feature in exploring, in place of the bosses.

 

Well from looking at the http://playstarbound.com/roadmap/ it says most of the universe generation is done.... That might be a bit outdated so I'm not 100% sure on it.

 

Space stations would be a nice touch e.g
Markets
Abandoned stations
Military Labs

And would love to see Oxygen and Hydration to be implemented.

Going to the moon/Toxic Planets should require a head item which gives you oxygen through oxy tanks.


New items/ how oxygen could work could be added for this :


No mask - 30 seconds of air

Oxy Mask - 8 Plant Fibers + 8 Copper + 150 Pixels - Slows Oxy depletion a little. (40 Seconds)

Oxy Helmet - 8 Glass + 8 Iron + 300 Pixels - Slows Oxy depletion by half (1 minute)

Oxy Tank - 16 Iron + 200 Pixels - Requires Oxy Compressor - Negates Oxy depletion for 3 minutes

Oxy Compressor - 20 Plant Fibers + 20 Iron + 450 Pixels - Creates an Oxy Tank with 16 Iron

Oxy Grenade - 5 Iron + 5 Plant Fibers + 100 Pixels - Creates an Air bubble at location for 1 minute

 

Maybe they just mean the ability to generate worlds? Either way Im hoping its not too late to make big changes.

 

Also throwing my two cents toward how nice this idea sounds. Having the tiers broken up not by placement, but by survivability sounds much more intuitive. After all, a planet is by and large self contained. You shouldn't expect every planet within a single area to all conform to a certain level of lethality. Hell, look at OUR solar system. We've got planets that'd boil you, planets that'd freeze you, planets you can't even stand on, and our little planet, the tier one planet. Tiering in such a way would feel much more intuitive than the way they've got it set up now.

 

That pretty much summarises all I was expecting from starbound before I played it the first time, and for some time until I realised I was limited due to a progression system...

I confess I had mixed feelings about it for a while. I just don't know if I will like it in the long term, and I had thoughts about making that point here on the forums (glad you made it) but I think I'd very much prefer to have total freedom and have the progression be totally dependent on my skills and my pacing and resource management, rather than on artificial restrictions.

With only a few days of experience in the game the restrictions already feeling a bit obnoxious, as if I could stride my way up through the progression but the game is constantly getting in the way and saying "No no no no! Not so fast." And part of that is caused by the tutorial, but that I don't complain about because I would guess they've already planned to implement a way to not have to take the tutorial later on.

As for the rest of your post, I pretty much agree completely as well.

 

The problem with that is that it makes the beggining boring in comparison. Variety should be everywhere, on the start, the middle and the end of a game. The start because it's supposed to captivate the player, the middle to maintain interest and keep being fun, and the end because it's supposed to become a memorial event.

What the OP is suggesting, in my view would be a lot more fun. Imagine yourself laying your feet in a planet in your first space trip and finding it has a lot of nice resources and cute animals to breed, and then you get kicked in the butt and have to flee. Or imagine you lay your feet in there and start taking damage from a toxic atmosphere. Well, that would be something concrete that might motivate you to work your way up. It's something you saw and felt curious about, but have no means to explore yet. But it's right there! Teasing you. Making you drool and curse at the gods that you don't have a gas mask or an overpowered sword yet.

Working my way up for a new universe with totally new planets (which is something I already have where I stand) in which I have no clue what I'll find besides the same stuff I've been finding where I stand, isn't much of a motivation inducing mechanic to me. Knowing that there's something else there... might be an incentive, but since it's nothing concrete and I have no clue where to find it, if I ever will, there's nothing making me want to rush my way into it.

Currently I don't have any motivation to progress really. I've been taking it slow and just looking around planets. I've been in the beta sector once just before last character wipe and that was because I was bored and with nothing else to do and decided to go kill some penguins. Otherwise I've been just exploring the good ol' sector alpha for days with no reason to progress, because the new sector is kind of a blank propposition. It's like taking a blind leap.

The only thing I can think of that can make me want to move on to the next sector is having a weapon that is so overpowered for the sector I'm in that it's no longer fun.

 

I thought they'd settled on this... just about forever ago.