Imagine this setup. Every pixel is one block. The red, yellow, and green tiles are all platforms, and the other bits are solid blocks and the sky. 1) As of right now, when you approach the yellow stairs, instead of continuing to the top of the red stairs, you instead walk up by default. In order to continue walking straight, you have to hold down and then hit space. This is inconvenient. 2) When you stand on the yellow platform above the green platform and want to drop down, you must hold down and hit space as well. As long as you're holding space, you pass through as many platforms as are in your way. This has frequently killed me, even after years and years of playing and attempting to get used to it. In this scenario, you have to very quickly let go of space so that you land on the green platform instead of continuing to the ground. This is inconvenient. I propose changing the mechanics of stairs so that in the first scenario, instead of walking up by default, you have to hold W at the start to go up the stairs. Once you're on the stairs, you don't have to keep holding the button. This would cause problems with the third setup, the red stairs, as not holding W would cause you to run into the blocks behind them. I think an ideal fix would be to have a check done to make sure that there isn't a solid block behind stair blocks that the player tries to walk up, and if there is, then they continue up it as they do now. I'd also like to see the mechanics of platforms changed so that when you fall through them, you stop at each platform you land on, if only for a moment. This behavior can be observed in Terraria, and it does a great job of not killing you.
I know it's been several months since you posted this, but this issue has been posted dozens of times over about half a dozen years - and it's still a current issue. Frankly, I'm baffled that they haven't fixed it. I have a lot of respect for the developers, so I mean no offense - I'm just being honest. These mechanics are easy to fix, and I'm not sure if they haven't been able to work out what the natural means of doing this is (the perfect solution has been posted repeatedly), or if they simply have been so busy that they haven't bothered. They tried changing the drop-through mechanics once, but they did it in a way that made no sense, so the negative reaction by the community was understandable. Instead of fixing it the obvious and natural way, they just set it back to how it was before. Part of the problem is also that many players are used to the current (terrible) mechanics, so there are actually people DEFENDING the current (terrible) mechanics. Some players make arguments like, "If you just get good at the game it's easy." Starbound is not a hard game... this argument is made by people who are ignorant of better mechanics, and think the problem is that those complaining are inexperienced, while the reverse is likely true. The problem isn't that people CAN'T use the current mechanics; the problem is that the current mechanics are bad and inconvenient, and players shouldn't HAVE TO use the current mechanics. Just for completeness, I'll include the natural mechanism for these things: 1) You do not walk up or down stairs that you walk past unless holding up/down. While holding up/down merely walking forward will cause you to walk up/down those stairs rather than staying on the platform you're on - it doesn't drop you through, it just causes you to walk up or down stairs if holding the button when at the very start of those stairs. 1b) One option for the scenario you've colored red is that blocks placed directly on ground could be completely different blocks - they look the same, they come from the same stack of placeable blocks, but they're not "platforms" while placed like that. When the block beneath them or the blocks on both sides are destroyed, they become platforms, because there is empty space beneath them (or empty spaces on both sides) 2) To drop through, the proper mechanic would be that you HOLD S, and then TAP Space to drop one platform (tapping repeatedly allows dropping quickly through individual platforms). To drop through many platforms, you HOLD SPACE. This is significantly more comfortable and natural than the current setup, where holding S causes you to drop until you stop holding S. The current setup presents two problems - a) if you hold S, you'll drop to your demise (or nearly) b) if you quickly let go of S after pressing space, your character will jump rather than dropping through. These problems are not a matter of player skill or inability to accomplish what you want to - they are problems of feeling unnatural and leading to undesired outcomes from time to time. At the very least, there should be an option in the settings so that people who find the current system unbearably annoying can use the sensible system.
