One thing this game lacks is content, not new features. I'd focus on that first. But eh, who am I to judge others.
Personally, I think it has plenty of content, but not quite enough features to make a proper house. It's got a good foundation and the essential infrastructure, as well as lots of assorted furniture and decorations to make it interesting, but it lacks some of the features that make other homes(games) more interesting, such as a tv(space system), gaming system(factions), better kitchen(better mob gen), a more appealing bedroom(some less doofy and more interesting NPCs), better lighting(more dynamic usage of their lighting engine), perhaps a sun room(better quests and such), and probably a couple extensions (more pre-made missions and such. Like a new floran arena that's more like arenas in other games rather than just what we have now.)
I don't want to expand on all that is lacking, really. But following your thought, I'll just say, that there're some nitpicks here and there that'd greatly affect the gameplay experience. Many of what's lacking can be seen in the Steam WS, just browse through the mods. More furniture, colored blocks, vanity, AI reworks, mission expansions... Just some rework, not much new - but such a new experience when you start up the game anew, dayum.
Well, mods do a good job adding content as it is, though I have to agree that there's a lot of room for improvement for the base game's mechanics and systems (AI especially, I mean, how hard is it NOT TO STAND IN BOILING LAVA?!). However, when the workshop's already done the job of the devs in adding new content, you may as well just enjoy the extra content while the devs add some more grounds upon which content can be built. One idea would be to add better custom mission support. Just have a sail thing allowing you to transport to user created levels you've acquired on the workshop! Wouldn't that be cool? And expanding on the multiplayer is a big one. If they had better server support and the like, they'd do pretty great.
Workshop is for new stuff to add to the game, not for hotfixes to the game. Many people prefer vanilla SB, and of course that means they won't see much, mostly because the best stuff is in the mods. It's a little bit saddening that the devs don't look too often at the mods created. Look at the rail crafting table: such a huge piece of SB, adds so much to the game! And it was created by a modder. Then there was that mod that added new weapon types, though the modder broke the NDA and it got deleted. There is also FU, new music instruments, new music etc etc etc. I just wonder why can't that be added to the game, at least partly? They did it before, why ignore now?
Been there, done that. It's been changed around a little, but the feature's still there. The Dreadwing mission is a good example for a "proper" "visit a custom level" quest, but the key is player.enableMission(<missionID>). You can now select that mission from SAIL's missions tab.
The issue is that if they were to implement things from mods (which they have) devs often get very criticized for being "lazy" and "unoriginal" (which has happened to SB, which you can plainly see if one were to browse the steam reviews), and is generally frowned upon. It is saddening, but it's also saddening how saddened people are when they think their game devs are being plagiarizing douches. I meant more along the lines of a level browser, similar to LBP. Perhaps implementing it in game, allowing players to build planets, and allowing players to set up a "public teleporter beacon" to share the planet.
What we need are devices that can automatically use certain items, devices that can move blocks around, and devices that can pick up blocks. I hope that's the next update after this one. But the idea of a LBP-style level browser would also be nice. It could just use the workshop.
Man, I still miss all those old weapons. Bouncy plasma shotguns were so fun to mess around with, now they're all just elemental bullets. It really feels like guns just had all the fun sucked right out of them. Hopefully they add more gun types, or staff / wand types. I'd love to see way more different ways of dispensing death in the cosmos!
Yeah, the bullet types were all pretty great and it'd be nice to see CF just toss out being realistic and go back to just awesome silliness as it had before. Same with planets too, I'm tired of the same colors for the same planets with the same biome types. Why can't we have more silly variance in everything? And don't forget the awesomeness that we're the old creatures. Wth their silly walk cycles and awesome combinations.
Yeah, having spawned in some weapons with old projectile types, most of them seem quite practical as well, so it'd make sense for a civilization with the capability to create weapons with such projectile types to do so; and considering that some guy in the space equivalent of a rural village can dole out matter compression technology prototypes, I think it's safe to say that Starbound's civilizations definitely could make such things. Besides, we have a hat which is a cat's butt. Seriousness went out the window a long time ago in its attempts at Ascending. So what I'm saying is, maybe the Chucklefish devs should take a short pseudo-break after the current update, and focus on reenabling and, if necessary, reworking some of the old procedurally generated stuff. If some of the projectiles seem too cool for procedurally generated weapons, just generate a random example, rework the sprite and call it a legendary.
Derelict ships just floating ominously by in space, maybe containing lost treasure and goods, or maybe something more sinister... Perhaps pirate ships that will board you and you will have to fend off pirate boarding parties along side your crew. If you defeat the pirates, then you get a reward, or the pirates just fly away with their tail between their legs. Pirates would increase in difficulty based on the star type you are orbiting. Can we also have pirate stations filled with pirates but also booty?
Well, the old procedurally generated creatures are still around. We just have hand designed ones as well because, bluntly speaking, procedurally generated creatures made of mix 'n match parts often come out looking absolutely horrible. There were a lot of complaints about them at the time, which is why Tiy & Co. took time to add some hand-crafted beasties as well.
Yeah, I love seeing both at once. The randoms sometimes add a little bit of spice to things, but I'd love it if they could do more than just charge at you for attacks.
That is one of the things that SB's development went backwards on, I missed the creature with the actual attacks, instead of touch damage. Bleh to touch damage! Also, some more of the original variety of worlds, while keeping the upgrades to the visual style would also be awesome
I don't terribly mind contact damage itself, but on its own it makes for fairly uninteresting gameplay. That and how quickly it goes off, makes things a tad frustrating at times. Like those little bouncing acorn things, having three of those jumping around and then a bird comes to say hello? Yeah, it sucks when that happens. The damage racks up so quickly and it's hard to get a hit in on the jumping brats. I found a grenade launcher with Fire damage, that takes them out in one hit on earlier planets though, but eesh even still... Would be nice if the delay between damage was a bit longer. Or if they all had actual attacks again, that'd be nice too.
This looks amazing. Star Control style battles, 4x Strategy FTL style ship meta Player Created space stations, Shipyards Player AI Fleets to guard and attack This game will have every base covered
