If I understand things right, there are already procedurally generated NPC villages throughout the universe. What if after you discover these villages, there was the option to expand them? It would be similar to how it's done in Terraria. In Starbound, the player would fund the village, per say, by offering them pixels or resources (wood, metals, rocks, etc.). The NPCs would offer the players blueprints which would detail necessary components for different structures (a blacksmith, a market stall, a house, etc.), and then the player would go about creating these buildings. The buildings would provide new things for the player and the village (Blacksmith would allow for armor/weapons to be sold; houses would spawn new NPC villagers). And these blueprints would slightly differ from race to race. Perhaps in order to gain access to these blueprints, the player would have to complete Side Missions provided by the inhabitants of the NPC village or they would have to provide a certain number of resources/pixels. NPC's would spawn and occupy the new structures after a set amount of time. As the village expands, the village would grow into a town, and then into a city (different tiers). As the village progresses, the player would gain access to more structure blueprints and better goods to buy from the merchants. If the planets are small enough, perhaps cities could span the entire surface, or at least most of it. I understand that it wouldn't be something easy to implement and it obviously wouldn't be something added by release day, but I believe this would be another great way to both engage and immerse players into the world universe of Starbound. As such, I believe this or something similar in nature would be great for a post-release content patch. Agree, disagree? Feel free to post feedback.
Villages are an interesting thing to be expanded and worked more. Even random generated they have that potential.
I like it, and I like that you have to expand certain criteria, instead of simply building generic house #432.
This would make the game more enjoyable for me. Being able to nurture a small village to becoming a small town, up to the point where they may even start colonizing other planets. Start forming a small empire/group of villages, all of which you can help out to grow larger.
Those are my thoughts exactly! One of the things I loved about Terraria was the fact that I was essentially building a small village. How great would it be if we could continue with that concept a few steps further? Really give meaning to a "Homeworld." Although we're not too terribly sure what a "Homeworld" even is in Starbound.
This is one of my favorite suggestions so far. I think the villages in Minecraft's 'Millenaire' mod expanded in a similar way with the help of the player, though much simpler and on a much smaller scale. Turning an entire planet into a metropolis of sorts is an incredibly appealing idea.
Yes, right now NPC villages are just bland. Either pure murder-mayhem food or just run by and ignore. There should be a more compelling reason to deal with NPC's than clicking on them to see what their one-liner is.
There should be a governor, a mayor or even a spokesperson on villages where you can agree on what to change to the village like bring resources or create infrastructure. Then there should be hard to find villages where there are no governor, mayor, spokesperson where you have a much broader options to the village that you find. Heck, you might just be elected by said village and gain popularity. There should also be different advantages to what races' villages you wish to expand. For example get unique weapons by the Glitch and etc.
