Preface: First I would like to preface this post by saying that this is my first here, so hi everyone! I've just begun to play Starbound, and only have 20 hours logged on it, and I've noticed something that I've seen is a pretty common observation among the community: Where are all the people? I've seen other threads about the subject, but not any that have gone into the mechanics of how such a thing would work out. So, I figured that I could help delve into the mechanics of how it could work and support the community a lil' bit. There seems to be a race to create more races and NPC's, but I would like to get the ball rolling in a slightly different direction in this thread: Companions, and how they could help you! Now, I'm not just talking about pets here, though those are all fine and good. But I feel that more dialogue and interaction with sentient species would help fill the emotional void in that vaccum they call space . Now, these Followers would be randomly generated like all the other NPC's, but could add a lot more depth and complexity to an already very deep game in many terms. Purpose: Quest-giver: Could give quests, or even be the reward to a quest! By this, I mean that the follower themselves (or even their boss) would give you a quest with more complexity than give me x for y (I would think more along the lines of building something for them, or escorting them somewhere) in exchange for their "loyalty" as a follower. (We'll get into their actual loyalty later on.) Civilian: Actually, some followers would be stricly civilian, others military, some in-between, and others as "specialists". By this, I mean that some followers could only accomplish certain tasks without violence. These tasks would likely just be brute work, like building you a village/base on the surface of a planet you have not yet colonized before. Military: These followers would obviously protect you in combat, or could even be sent out (in groups possibly?) to hunt down meat for food. This would be especially characteristic of Floran Followers, perhaps with racial benefits. There could also be followers that would have some self-defense tactics, but are mostly civilian.A good example of this could be a lowly blacksmith, who crafts and uses weapons but may be rusty with his swinging skills. Specialists: I see as being members of non-playable races that have somehow come to follow you, and have special skills. These skills could range from crafting unique items, (Back to blacksmithing, or even an engineer!) Building things, (architects maybe), and finally doing more delicate, complex tasks. These would be things like aquiring OTHER followers, setting out in their own spaceship to follow you in a fleet, or aquiring blueprints through their contacts. Prases/Activity: Phrases: A menu would come up when clicked on, with a range of options for interaction, with some of these interactions being race-based. Hullaballoo posted a suggestion on how to flesh out NPC mechaincs that I feel would be wonderful here, as the ability to casually talk to, and even small-time barter with followers (which could be grown to be called friends) would be not just fun but really useful. Having each NPC have their own interests and hobbies in the world would make "grab x for y" quests more realistic and could allow Starcraft to evolve in a new way. I wonder what the people do on their own time, after having made so many settlements on so many planets.... Activities: As previously stated, this would depend on the "class" of Follower and also their hobbys. This could be as complex or simple as the Devs choose to make it, ranging from what we aleady have in game (Food and blacksmith merchants are good examples- cooking and armor/weapon creation blueprints could stem from these peoples own endeavours on their own time.) I would assume that the followers would follow you not just off planet, but even in extreme instances in their own ships that you could also enter. They would have activities to do whilst on their own ship, such as upkeep, cleaning, eating, and drinking. Which would mean we would have to create new sprites for these actions of course ;D. tl;dr: I could go more in-depth with the activities if desired, but I don't want to over-complicate things. I believe this could be done with any amount of complexity and would add that touch of thoughtfulness and depth that is found everywhere in the game. We have an awesome art style, some of the coolest races I've seen in a loooooooooong time, and a crafting system that's already taken an iron grip of my past 2 days of just playing. Thanks for reading! If anyone has critiques/ideas post below! P.S. I'll make a visual aid for an army of followers in MS paint tomorrow. It's like 3 and I need to sleep P.P.S. I'm also kinda shady on how many followers there would be allowed. Having an army seems REALLY OP, but it would make for interesting faction warfare......
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/simple-system-for-more-interesting-npcs.61729/ Here's that thread from Hullaballo that gave me the idea. All credit goes to him in terms of NPC interaction, I just piggybacked off of his idea. Awesome work man.
