Critical, Game-Breaking Issue

((Cross-posting from the /r/Starbound subreddit, with minor editing))

I ran into a very concerning issue with Starbound just a few moments ago, and it's the sort of thing that, if it goes live, will absolutely kill the game. This is critical.


So, I'm on a Grasslands biome in Gamma Sector. I'd been looking for a nice homeworld, and I found a tiny little planet that was perfect. I spent about an hour on the surface, terraforming and exploring and making sure there wasn't anything hidden or nasty.

Planet checks out, looks awesome, cool! Time to settle in!

I transport everything I have from my ship onto the planet, put it all neatly in boxes. I dig right into building a pretty cool house... my plan was something really epic. This is the first time in my 60+ hours of playing that I really started to try and make a home away from my starship.


Two hours into building, out of nowhere, a GIGANTIC, single meteor hits. It lands right on my boxes and blows them all up, scattering literally THOUSANDS of my items all over the place. (Okay, it most likely blew up the ground tiles beneath the boxes, but the end result was the same.)


Everything... ruined. All of the work, all of the effort I put, completely gone.

There was no warning that this would happen, no prior incidences of meteor showers on this planet (part of my initial survey was to make sure of that).

By pure, random, out-of-freaking-nowhere, all of what I built was gone. Even worse, I had to scramble to try to recollect all of my assorted items... I was terrified to even log out, lest I be guaranteed to have my entire character's history vanish.


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I wouldn't be nearly as upset if there was some sort of indication, warning, ANYTHING letting me know that on this planet I might not want to build. Yes, from a in-universe perspective it's fitting—idyllic planet hiding a dark secret, etc—but from a gameplay perspective this... this is unacceptable.

One of the biggest draws of Starbound is being able to build and make wonderful, incredible structures. Punishing players for playing the game by destroying everything at a whim doesn't seem to at all fit in with the dev team's vision of the game.




Coordinates of the planet are as follows:

Gamma Sector... -33918878, -77729613. Gamma Theta CrB 02 System, Gamma Theta CrB 02 IVb being the home planet.

 

if it didn't fit in, they wouldn't have implemented it.

 

If I recall from a previous thread, there's only one weather type per planet. Figure out what that weather is and THEN decide on building there or not.

 

The only thing in this I can see would moderately like to be implemented is a bit of warning. You might be able to see them coming, maybe a one-minute timer to head down into a bunker, scurrying to scavenge what you can...
Would be cool.

 

I suspected this could, eventually, happen to someone. Large meteorite weather can hide it's presence long enough to give a false sense of security.
I guess, when planet scanning is implemented, it should give you weather forecast.

 

Seems like a PEBCAK issue. Moving everything planetside (When the ship can be used as safe storage) without first establishing what kind've weather system the planet has. On "wet" biomes, like grasslands, jungle or forest, spending an extended period (1-2 game days) without seeing any kind've precipitation should set off alarm bells; meteorite weather zones never rain as it's presently set up.

The meteorite system needs reworking of course, to be less unpreventably destructive. But still think it was a bad idea uncrating your ship in the open, and that's not a real "issue", any more than it'd been an "issue" if you'd built a house and brought down the UFO upon it. More like oversight and poor risk assessment

 

Actually, yeah, I'll agree with this now that I think of it. I do remember a couple planets that seemed to have no weather at all because nothing ever happened for hours...and then the bombs started dropping. I guess the only other option for now is to hang around as long as you can until you can verify the weather for that planet or else move on to another one and try there.

 

I, personally, hope they don't weaken or destroy the block destroying potential of meteorites, given it's possible to avoid them entirely.

All I feel they need to do to adjust this is, as was said by someone else, let planet scanning, when implemented, tell us whether or not a given planet will have meteorite showers.

 

Yeah. I was on the planet for a couple of hours before this happened.

It's a game-breaking issue in that this isn't a Roguelike game. Starbound's goal seems to be go for a game that encourages building and crafting of large, elaborate structures.

What happened to me was something concerning enough that I wanted to bring it to the dev team's notice. I sincerely doubt that this is an intended feature. "Oh, hey, player, that house you spent all that time and effort on? GONE WITHOUT WARNING."

I'm a beta tester, I'm providing feedback on something that is of great concern.

 

Also, I want to clarify:

I am not asking for meteors to be nerfed. The fact that they destroy blocks is fine. What is not fine, however, is when something that destructive, that massive, happens literally without any warning or precaution whatsoever.

EDIT: I'd like to also mention that these weren't meteorite showers.

It was a single. Massive. Meteor. Just one, and it was aimed directly for me. Seriously. It was uncanny. It was probably about two-thirds the size of the UFO.

 

I actually had something similar happen to me though nowhere near as horrid in the end. I didn't lose anything but I managed to come out of a cave I'd found after a spelunking run and the moment I clear the mouth of it, a meteor about this size lands right behind me.

My immediate first reaction was to the lack of any indicator that this thing was coming, no glow, no rumble, nothing. THAT needs to be fixed.

I'd also rather like there to be some sort of use for that meteorite rock it leaves behind but that's beside the point.

 

I think meteors only shower down around your current location, each time it's happened on my new character starter planet (horrible luck indeed) there were massive craters all across the surface above my hobo cave, but no damage elsewhere on the planet.

Some space god finds our presence detestable it seems.

 

Well that stuff is only based on what kind of planet you live on. It's kind of lame indeed but it's always a bad idea to settle in a place where you've seen meteor showers. A nice little effect that gives a warning wouldn't hurt anyone though.

 

Yeah, I recall somebody posting a picture of a pretty huge crater that definitely wasn't made by no "normal" meteor from a shower. But I also recall somebody saying that they'll eventually add more planetary information so you'll have a better idea of what to expect besides a blanket "threat level."

 

They said they want to list more details about the planet before you go down. If they list 'meteor shower' and 'large meteors' for weather that would fix this.

I still want a craftable shield tower though.

 

I agree with the planet scanning solution, If your going to make a homebase you need to know the risks of the area. Id rather have that then to remove this chance of huge meteor.

 

I'm all for more difficulty in starbound, but Meteorites are a little sloppy right now and need some tweaking. I think they either need to be better scaled to the integrity of the materials used to build a structure, or certain kinds of blast panels or bombshelter blocks need to be made readily craftable. I'd even go for a craftable ship upgrade so that people need a way to more readily see whether a planet has meteorite shower capacity or whatever quirks are on that planet so that a player can better prepare before beaming down for the first time.

I think a combination of those things would encourage people to rummage through their belongs and pick the best suitable gear for the job.

I also think meteorites need to fall all over the planet in more varying sizes besides huge, because it breaks immersion a little after you realize the meteorites are "spawning" in your field of vision!

The Devs will probably address a lot of these things, but those are just my ideas.

 

Better layer on that steel, boy. Ain't no bug. Be ready.

 

This was hilarious! But I'd be super pissed if that happened to me, so I think this should probably be looked at.