Intro After reading just about everything I could find about the humans in the codex; I began to wonder. Did all of the humans that fled Earth just happen to find new planets? No, of course not. That would be silly. There has to be at least some human escape ships that did not get quite as lucky. So my proposal for a side quest, in the simplest form, is to help the humans build their settlement. As a human player character, you find yourself hovering over a planet. I believe that not all the humans would be as lucky as the player. As a random event, and a side quest that can be failed if the player decides not to help, is for the player to either witness a a space craft crashing into the planet (this would make the screen shake for a couple seconds, it could be dependant on how close you are for the screen to shake, or to find the remains of a destroyed ship and some human survivors. Why would this fit in Starbound, you might ask? Well tell me, how many natural human civilizations have you found (excluding prison planets, they're there for a reason) while exploring? For most of us, the number would be a big zero. How many human merchants have you found? Probably none that occurred naturally. Perhaps the human player (And I'm only using human characters as a reference, this quest could be accessible to all races) was just one of the first to find a new planet. Humans could become more frequent for a server after time goes on. This would mean a planet that did not previously have humans before could catch the virus new arrivals. The Gist of it. Now, how the quest would actually work then have to help protect the humans, and gather resources for them, and even build. How it would work The humans could start off building a shelter, or the player could provide this. Though note, if the humans believe a shelter is not good (for example, you made it a death trap) they would begin to dismantle it. Humans, after building/ receiving shelter would then begin with making a farm. They will clear the land themselves, but would be more than happy to receive help from the player. These people won't be as helpless as the NPCs you can find right now roaming in the wild. Though they'll still need some help. After a farm is set up, things will get interesting. They'll still be autonomous, they could begin working on making storage rooms, but the aggro around the general area will start to increase. Monsters will start wandering by every now and then in the beginning, but as time goes on hordes of monsters could appear. Though after a horde, things will die down a little bit before the next attack happens. Attacks won't happen in rapid succession. It could be days before the monsters get bold and try to attack humans again. The Goal The goal for the humans, is to build a city. This won't be instant, but I'll be darned if it wasn't cool to watch NPCs build a village before your very eyes. It could takes weeks (in game weeks) for the humans to finally finish their home. This would be complete with farms, homes (actual homes, not flimsy shelters) an armory, shops, and other things to make it feel like home. Failure? Should the player decide not to help the humans, there would be different outcomes. Here are some that I have thought about. 1. The humans manage to survive on their own, and build their city. The humans are not helpless without the player. They are capable of holding their own. There might be casualties, and the more dead humans, the less city that will exist. One important thing I forgot to mention earlier was that humans won't build more than they need to. They won't build twenty houses if only five of them are alive. 2. The humans are killed off. The mobs come along, and pick off the humans. Eventually, there are none left. 3. The humans flee. The player could have helped them make a shelter,they could have made their own, but it just wasn't enough. The mechanics that survived the crash work on the ship happen to be some of the few that were alive post crash. After all their friends were killed off, they decide to fix the ship, and fly away. So there's my suggestion. I think it'd be pretty awesome if it was possible to just help NPCs build their own empires. If this gets any interest, I'll write out how I believe the sequence should be, different conditions for the crash sites, and the like.
I am all for this part. I would prefer colonization to not be just for humans, but something you could assist any race with while playing as any race. Go to village/city -> get quest to colonize a new world+gear to help out-> find a world -> build structures -> add npc's or npc's arrive.
