Preface: So with the Starbound economy currently being developed, with consideration placed on the farmer/gatherer play style and the adventurer play style, I would like suggest a final consideration to another play style that many, many, many of us Starbound players enjoy: builders. Many of us really enjoy being able to shape our world in a sandbox, however, there has not been much reward for actual building in this game yet. Right now, building has always been for utility: We build to make a farm, we build for creating storage space, we build for organization of our tools, we build to facilitate transports, etc. But we have never build for the sake of building and get rewarded for it. There are no differences in term of practicability nor reward between digging a hole makes out of dirt and put down the most basic of items in there in there and building a fortress furnish with top tier furniture. It doesn't motivate us from putting in the effort to build, and reward a nomadic playtstyle where a home is not needed, or a colonist play style where a planet is only a place for exploitation. There is no reward for high level terraforming and creating a home out of the wild. Let's change that. So, what am I suggesting? I am suggesting a lot of big things to specifically reward the players for building homes, by putting values into their land and their construction. Real estate and architectural jobs. Here is how I imagine it will work (names of items and concepts are tentative and can be changed): Add a new shop in the outpost that sells a new item called Land stakes. Land stakes are placeable item, which, once placed, will scan the area near it for obstructions (similar to the Base in a Box mod) and then provide an outline of the area of blocks that you "claim" and ask you to name it. This will be your building area. Different type of land stakes has different shapes of the outline (long box, tall box, etc), with higher tiers of land stakes has larger sizes, claiming more blocks. Will be quite expensive. Once you are done building in the building area, you can interact with the placed land stakes to perform one of the following actions: Lock down the area and shield it, then give you an unremovable land deed with the name of the land, coordinate of system, name of planet, and the Land Value (see in the next section, New Metric) in the description. Once claimed, you can't place/break blocks/objects (to prevent changes in finalized land value which can't be updated in real time) but you can paint, rewiring, using all objects and item in your house as long as you have the land deed. Guests without land deed can use some furniture and crafting stations, but cannot access storage objects nor place/break blocks/objects or interact with wires and others. Lock down the area and shield it, then give you a n unremovable rent contract with name of land, coordinate of system, name of planet, and Land Value (see next section, New Metric) in description. If you haven't spawn an NPC in the building using the NPC villager spawner (special NPC shopkeepers like cooks and doctors does not count), after a while a random NPC will move in your building, and periodically, will generate pixel for land owner The NPC will only pay you rent when you interact with them if you have the rent contact in your inventory. Rent is determined by land value. You cannot break/place blocks/objects once you put your place up for rent. If the NPC die, you must spawn a new one either by the spawner or use the evict action below and then put it up for rent again. Just return the stakes back to you. Breaks all the blocks you placed in the building area and return them to your inventory along with the land stakes. Drops overflow on the ground near you. (have storage boxes nearby!) Only available if you have a land deed (see Claim, above): Return the area to unprotected building state and take away your land deed. Only available if you have a rent contact (see Rent Out, above): Return the area to unprotected building state, cause the NPC (if still alive) says good bye then teleport away, and take away your rent contact. I propose a new metric, Land Value, to evaluate the worth of a particular piece of land/building after it is claimed and finalized with a Land Stakes Land value will be calculated in 3 areas: Land value inside the building area will be evaluated by: Amount of block placed and value of those blocks. Amount of living space (defined by a space surrounded by solid blocks, has a background, lights, and a door) Amount and variety of rooms (type of rooms defined by the types of objects inside living spaces) - The more rooms, and the more types of rooms that you have, the higher the value of the place. Value of objects placed. (items and objects inside storage does not count) Land value outside the building area (only a reasonable area is considered) will be evaluated by: Trees - having trees, in any amount, provide better value than having none at all Pond/Lakes/Oceans - having some blocks of liquid over an area increase land value Nearby NPC and/or claimed land- the existence of a neighbor increase land value. Danger - any dangerous blocks or objects like poison/lava or sharp rocks/spiked vines will reduce the land value quite dramatically. (with the exception of some player placed objects like sentry guns for protection.) Land value of the planet will be evaluated by: The risk level of the planet - the risker, the more it worth. This is to play against the above value of danger to reward terraforming. If you are able to terraform a dangerous world to a habitable place, you should be rewarded for your effort. The existence of friendly, not-player-owned villages will increase land value. The existence of dungeons will decrease land value due to being dangerous. (not sure if the game can track if a dungeon is cleared or not. But if it can, then a cleared dungeon will increase land value - tourists attraction!) Put in a Job board in outpost for repeatable quests, and other side quests Have quests that require players to build houses with certain requirements of rooms on planets with certain conditions. E.g: Building a simple house with a bed, table, chair and a furnace on a garden planet using a given land stake with customized outline in shape. What will this (hopefully) do? I know what I am asking is a lot to ask for, but it will be beneficial for the game in the long run because: It actually gives people a reason to build stuff on planets It also provides a way where players can protect their houses using the shield mechanic in game It provides a new way of making a living in the Starbound economy for players who are not farmers or adventurers, but are only builders It also provides a multiplayer real estate market with the land deeds and explorer going out to find new lands. Now we only need a way to losslessly trade pixel. You now finally have an excuse to make decorations and furniture to prettify your house other than "it looks cool!' because those things increase your land value. It represent the idea of Starbound, of the player character being cast away to the stars and finding a new home to themselves, by exploring and claiming lands in their name. What else can be improved for this suggestion? All the devils in the details need to be flatten out to help the developers to implement this idea easier before even going to the technical hell of codes. The concept must be solid first, and I don't think I can do this alone. To begin, I haven't have a faintest clue of how much pixel a block of claimed land should worth to place a price on the land stakes. And then, while defining claimed areas by bounding boxes are simplest way to do it, an efficient gamer will quickly realize that the way to make the most money out of your land claim is to make square, blocky houses filling all of the building area. Which means it discourage creativity in shape of your building. I haven't thought of a way to circumvent this. If you have forced house shapes outlines, it still discourage creativity. If you have the box only counts a certain % of the player placed box into land value, it does not feel rewarding. Either people have to deal with it, or we have to think more. The limits in size of building boxes can also be a problems for truly gigantic construction. How do we make it so that multiple boxes can joined together? There are also the problem of defining the land value: I figured that the values calculated inside the building area will be precise and numeric, being the main bulk of the land value, while the other factors from surrounding area and of the planet will just be bonus flat points added if requirements are fulfilled ( Example: Do you have a tree? yes? Get point. No? No point). Still, the actual values still need to be figured out, and it is going to be a lot of things to work on. I also think there could be some other factors that we can account for the land value that I haven't thought about yet or considered possible. About the rent amount from NPC: How much should they pay you? Building a house is a big investment at first, but you get basically infinite payout afterward with no further work, so in the long term, it will worth a lot. How to make it feel balanced comparing to farmers/miners going day in and out farming and collecting stuff to craft and sell, and to adventurer risking their lives to find goodies to sell? Also, should rent payment be a % of land value, or a tiered flat payment that gets increased every time the land value reach certain amounts? Any other ideas of improvement that I have not considered would also be very helpful. ------------- TL;DNR: Monopoly in Starbound! Land ownership! Building! Capitalism!
That would give me a motivation to build a house, sincerely i don't have any at moment, i just use my ship for everything
If only you could have the "scanner" actually be a scanner, and upload screencaps of the housing projects to the Starbound forums, where other people can click the Like button. More Likes = more value! I really don't have much to add, other than this is a cool idea and I like it.
Found it! http://playstarbound.com/23rd-february/ Not as much detail as what you've suggested, but the idea is already accepted.
