Asteroids - Experimentation and analysis

So I haven't seen a whole lot of discussion about these, probably because the majority of players aren't aware that they exist (and for good reason!) but the concept fascinates me and I figured I'd open up a thread in case there are other players who know more about these than I do.

For those of you unaware, there are asteroids above the atmosphere of all (or at least some, I doubt I'll have the time to check) planets. You have to build extremely high to reach them, and outer space is very difficult to survive in, but they exist.

I first heard about these from lurking the forums; I forget the exact context, but someone mentioned them, saying that they can contain rare ores such as uranium. Being a player who likes to explore multiple planets, I was hurting for a fuel source that's more effective than coal, and so I decided to try my hand at searching for some.

Here are my experiences, condensed for your convenience. Read at your leisure; I think it's quite an exciting journey for someone who had only heard about the feature, personally.

So, after about three hours of work...

Expended:
-Thousands and thousands of building blocks
-Stacks of wood for platforms and campfires
-A fair amount of coal
-Lots of pixels from dying so much

Gained:
-A trivial amount of ores, and only stuff we can get much safer and faster on the surface
-Uh, knowledge, I guess?

In conclusion, while asteroids are cool in concept, they don't seem to be worth all the effort necessary to reach them, at least not in this phase of the beta. I would propose that the quantity and variety of possible ores inside them be increased, as well as the addition of more techs/equipment, perhaps in later tiers, that makes getting to them much easier. Something that allows prolonged flight, or the ability to land your ship on or near the asteroids themselves would make them much more worthwhile. At this point, though, they might as well not exist in the first place, which is unfortunate because they have the potential to add a whole new layer to planet exploration.

These were just my thoughts and experiences with asteroids; it's very possible I may have overlooked an easier way to reach them, or perhaps we were just extremely unlucky or didn't find enough of them. I wouldn't be surprised if you really can find ores of much higher tier than the planet below them. If you have any further information on the subject, please feel free to share it!

 

This basically sums up my experience with asteroids as well. I was extremely dissapointed in them, I had hoped that theyre unique stone would be useful at the very least but have yet to find a use for it. I feel like, unless there IS an easy way to reach them, that there should be either a completely unique ore to asteroids on each one (maybe in small quantities) or each asteroid should have uranium/plutonium guaranteed.

 

At first, I thought : this is really exciting. But as I read on and on, I can guess your (and my) disappointment. Asteroids seem really hard to reach, and not very rewarding, indeed.

Anyway, that's quite interesting, and I'll try to get my fellow players to reach them with me.

 

In past updates, all it took was butterfly boost to get to any asteroids. Now it seems rather pointless, since it's freezing cold and you're risking it to wether you'll find any ores on the first asteroid or not. I'd like to see more of an "asteroid field" kind of planet in the future.

 

an asteroid field/ring would be an awesome biome! It would be hard to pull off unless they included the chance of falling into space, since there wouldnt be a "surface", just floating asteroids.

 

hell yeah to asteroid biome, make it an asteroid belt instead of a planet

personally i think the asteroids are a pretty sweet place to build a spacestation base if nothing else.

 

I flew up to them with Gravity Bubble, a few patches back.

 

Now that is an idea I can get behind! It'd make for a very interesting risk/reward experience, assuming the biome is as cold as space itself and there is the eventual added hardship of not having air to breathe. Perhaps there can be a central, gigantic (but much smaller relative to actual planets) asteroid that has its own gravity and acts as the "planet" on which you land, with other asteroids floating above that you don't have to build 3000-block towers to reach.

 

If you could find asteroid fields to explore, along with other anomalies, I think it'd be worth it. Much better for mining, for one thing- think about how many science fiction series involve asteroid mining to supplement planetary production.

 

One thing I'd like to see in the near-to-distant future is variable gravity due to planet size and distance from planet. That way if you are up in the asteroid area of a planet, you can "jump" to the next asteroid.

 

It's odd being able to tower-climb up to asteroids. I'd much rather see them as biomes/space explorables.

 

Definitely. It felt odd having normal gravity all the way up there. Having it vary by planet size as well would make each planet that much more of a unique location to explore. This being a space game, I'm fairly certain this kind of thing goes without saying, though :L

 

An asteroid belt sector would be awesome, swinging over the void of space with a grappling hook sounds like the most bad-ass thing ever right now. Maybe when your ship is in orbit of a belt there is a chance of a stray asteroid to crash into your ship leaving ore deposits and possibly a hull breach you would need to repair?

 

I spent an hour going up, found a few small bits by going horizontal, so kept going up again. Eventually found this and then got bored. Its quite frustrating and hard work to explore, and ultimately, in its current state, its not worth it. By the way, im wearing Lake armour in my social slot and Snow suit underneath.