Active Home Planet (while off world) I would have more interest in returning to a planet to build a base if the world I set as Home remained live/active to some degree while I was exploring elsewhere. What we could gain from an active Home world: Farming mechanic. Currently I cannot farm and explore the galaxy. While off world the plants do not mature as I assume the world is no longer loaded. The variety of plants and seeds you have provided is a tease when I cannot setup a farm and leave the planet. <edit> NPCs: Another thing that could be gained from an Active Home Planet could be NPCs that generate bonuses or income (pixels) overtime even while you are away or off world. The amount they generate could be set or could increase through improvements of the base or tech tied to the home planet. Having to return to pick up this income or other bonuses derived from NPCs would encourage visits to the Home world. A large machine or NPC that generates fuel overtime might offset the expense of returning. And like @KridOCaign mentioned below I believe the NPCs would need to respawn after some duration. <edit> Periodic/Random Events: Perhaps receive warning messages of impending attacks or goods requests (all these things could come in the form of quests) from your home planet (even while traveling) if your base has certain structures built (e.g. communications equipment) I am sure the developers can come up with additional content that could mature on a live/active planet. (I have enjoyed the game so far but there has been no real need to build a terrestrial base. I think providing bonuses or additional content to a world set as Home could increase the players desire to build without forcing it.)
Great idea, I really think the game needs more reasons for the player to establish themselves somewhere. Right now we are just locusts consuming natural resources and then moving on...
@Brannoncyll I totally agree. I think with making the Home world important and allowing things to happen to it while you explore it will give us a good reason to return to the home world and add improvements or expand technologies. Allowing it to be the hub for quests would also be cool.
I think that makes a lot of sense and perhaps the mechanic used to keep your spaceship active could be used on the planet designated as home. I still feel something like this would keep players interacting with and returning to their planet.
A friend of mine has opted to not bother exploring because she really likes growing crops. So she is stuck sitting in her farm watching plants grow (since they don't even seen to grow when off screen, let alone off planet). I really like the idea of having the community at your home planet/base then them requesting resources. It could give more direction in hunting/gathering outside of just looking for the next tier upgrade. It could also give any number of items in the game a purpose as the town might request a certain type of rock, crop, or even furniture. I think that could add a lot to the game. This is, of course, assuming there's a good enough reason to do on scavenger hunts for NPCs. If it is to get 5 pixels ... it wouldn't really both worth it outside of just having some direction (for people who want direction).
If we get active planets then we need to be able to deploy respawners for NPCs. I would hate to build up a village, then come back from a mining trip to find everybody slaughtered by native creatures - which is the fate of pretty much every other town I've found.
In fact we need some kind of chunkloading. Spaceship might be perma-loaded, and there might be some device to load planet areas. Depends on how the world partitioning works under the hood. <offtop> Summoning ChickenBones into thread </offtop>
@_kip Yeah I would like to see what I feel like now is 2 separate games brought together. One game is the progression of space exploration and combat on different planets. The other game is building structures and farming. I think as @Target-san mentioned all of this depends on what the underlying game technology can allow. For me I would love if the 2 games I mentioned both tie into the progression of going deeper into space. Perhaps a tech type setup for the town or like the space map upgrade that allows new things at the home planet. Another idea for an active home planet (and to keep us returning) could be NPCs that generate income (i.e. pixels) that you can pick up when you stop by.
Updated the original post with some additional benefits that could be gained via NPCs on an Active Home Planet.
totally agree, the idea behind a farm is that you spend some time to set it up than it goes by itself, the home world should always be active, there's no point in making a farm if have to watch it grow beside space efficiency. Phase 1: Set up farm Phase 2: Take care of your other business Phase 3: Profit
@thakandar Minecraft uses infinite plane with finite height, partitioning by X and Z coordinates into chunks. Terraria (as for 1.1) loads the whole world into single huuuge array. I suspect that Starbound uses grid space partitioning into square cells. As for loader device, I'd prefer the one that loads fixed area and eats some not-so-common fuel
Ideally, every world should be active, but I understand how this would be incredibly consuming for the engine. So yes, the homeworld remaining active is a great idea.
@Target-san I think a fixed area would work just fine. For myself and I am sure others the active home planet or base also lends itself to the idea of a Persistent World. Where even while you are elsewhere in the galaxy things are still happening back home. The crops you planted have grown.,NPCs have done whatever it is they do, etc.
I would rather like to see homeworlds loaded even without players around, yes. Especialy for the purpose of farming (since that is the sole mechanical reason to have a homeworld as far as I see it, currently). Might be an idea to limit it only to certain interactions, such as ticks for plant growth. Now just to push for biofuel from farming and we'd be set with the fuel issue and make both exploring far-off planets and mentaining your homeworld easier and more fun.
total agree with this idea ! actually i jsut build on the Tiers im working on, and i move when planet is empty
I actually love this suggestion thread. I personally created a small Glitch village (with use of the 3D printer bug for more spawners, :[ ) before the Great Wipe, and I was really pleased with it, but it was so much of a hassle to move back and forth, especially once I got into Gamma and X sector levels (prior to Delta being added). Another grip I have about home planets, is that in the game's current file system, the world/universe data is stored separately from the Player data, so storing things on your home-planet is a major waste, especially compared to your ship (which mine has literally become a grid of small 16x16 crates to maximize storage space). I understand that this is how the game was written, and may not be worth the change, especially seeing how easy it is to just pick a new home planet, (which I've done accidentally, there really should be a dialogue box asking if you're sure you want to change the home planet) I really enjoy the idea of creating either a massive castle, or a massive town and filling it with all types of races, but as the OP stated, there is almost no actual gain from doing so, outside of personal building enjoyment.
I love this suggestion for the ability to grow a farm, as far as the NPC suggestions go I'm ambivalent, but I have built a nice little base on my starter planet, because I wanted to really test how building worked and felt, and I included a medium sized garden, and would love to put the work into a full blown farm, but as it stands there is very little point, I beat the UFO and have been exploring other worlds, beta mostly, and my garden's efficiency has dropped to zero, I think the farming aspect is really cool, and even have a few mod ideas I might implement for breeding plants, but without an active world, or a stronger API so I can mod it active, the farming system will be near dead to me (bigger ships so I could dedicate a farming area would work as well and be cool in it's own right).
Instead of making your homeworld always active, ALL planets can be! It would work like playing animal crossing. You go to planet X and take all the trees. you then go to planet Y. you spend 10 hours on planet Y. When you go back to planet X, planet X is regenerated as if 10 hours had passed (it should all be calculated on the spot on the way back to planet X. this should be done for every planet you ever visit. this way, no processing power is being used at all time to calculate for both planets are progressing and all planets will feel more alive. (BTW this is like animal crossing because time doesn't really pass while not playing, it just calculates what WOULD have happened in the time not playing based on how long you didn't play.)
I think the planet side storage was similar in Terraria? Though they provided 2 types of chests that could be placed that had storage tied to the player. I would definitely like to see the base be more important. I am not sure what is possible code or engine wise, but I think having it Active or like @Bernkastel_Kues suggested having it calculate what would have happened as if it was active during the time you were away would enable many possibilities. My favorite ideas being farm growth while away, NPCs or crafted/found Machines generating pixels or resources, and quests and random events that could be communicated to you across space. All these things would encourage return trips to your home planet.
