I feel there should be more to planets

There really isn't enough on a single planet. I know some people say all the planets will be the same if there was more on them, but I think I would much rather prefer planets caked with content rather than planets caked with...well...nothing. Plus, the argument is kind of mute since you end up getting a lot of same-planets that have nothing on them. It feels like such a waste of time to travel a whole planet and find nothing.

I like to play games for their intrinsic value, and I think making many planets barren with a few planets with nuggets (dungeons, etc.) focuses more on extrinsic values. I know extrinsic rewards like the chance to find a treasure room are cool, and I like that too, but it's really hard to find any intrinsic value from a planet that lacks dungeons or anything really cool, and intrinsic value is arguably the most important part of a game. What's the point of having cool rewards in a game if the game itself sucks (and no, I'm not saying Starbound sucks. I think it has a lot of potential, but I do believe it needs more intrinsic rewards).

Here's a video from extra credits that explains the importance of intrinsic rewards over extrinsic rewards. They do a lot better at explaining the concept than I do.

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic:

Just some ideas:

Creature Mobs - How about a nesting ground of monsters somewhere on the planet where you have to fight off tons of enemies? I think that would be a cool addition to the game.

More dungeons - When I find dungeons, I find them fun. It's nice to be able to explore them and slay the enemies. I think they could use some more depth and lore though.

Harder planets with easy biomes - I would like to see planets with really strong creatures etc. without visiting a fire star with fire biomes. It would be nice to face some tough baddies on like a garden planet or something.

Puzzles - Ties more into the dungeon thing, but some puzzles to tease our brains would be pretty cool. I think the only puzzle in the game is in the Floran hunting ground. I mean I guess there's mazebound too...but that's it.


Really, I'd just like to see more to do on planets in general other than run through the whole loop and hope you find something, and if you don't find anything cool on the surface, well, it kinda sucks.

 

I think the idea of the planets is not to get too attached to them (except your homeworld).

I think that helps to encourage more exploration over staying on planets for periods of time. Plus there are so many planets in the universe that the devs cant make something unique on each and every one of them. But i do see where you are coming from, the game still lacks of lot a depth but think of it this way, its still in beta and the devs are constantly listening and implementing new things that players want.
Have patience my friend

 

Well back in Koala there were a lot more dungeons and towns on planets, large planets could have like 5 dungeons and/or towns, and even the smallest planets almost always had atleast 1 or 2.

Now even large planets can't have more than 1 or 2, MAYBE 3. dungeons/towns (I use a bunch of mods so I can't tell if they increase the limit, but I know they don't decrease it).

I think ~even if unrealistic~ every planet should have SOMETHING to find on the surface, a village, a dungeon, or a few structures scattered all over (I noticed that these almost don't exist any more, compared to before..)

 

I think you're right about that being the idea, but the result is that there's no real point in visiting more than one planet of any given tier. It ends up not encouraging exploration at all, because aside from npc settlements and dungeons, you know almost exactly what to expect from a planet before you even beam down.

I know it's not feasible to make all one billion planets truly unique, but I'd greatly prefer having a reason to get attached to a handful of planets than to have a universe of disposable clones.

 

They should make at least one dungeon/planet. Currently, you can find planets without any surface dungeons, which can be lame.

 

In this current version of the game, the "Home Planet" is the central hub for all your characters. Building a base here benefits all your characters and helps your "HARDCORE" characters start out.

I would like to see the return of spawning on a different planet rather than having ALL your characters share the same "Home Planet", I thought the outpost was supposed to be the main hub for the characters. Maybe have it as a added selection in character creation next to the difficulty level were the character will spawn over the original "Home Planet" or not.. It would be nice to be exploring a distant system and find one of your other characters bases, or the base of a Hardcore character that died off a long time ago .

This is all apart of exploration, some systems may have several dungeons/villages, but not every system is going to have those. Its not about planets, more or less, but the systems themselves, whether it has inhabitants, or is an untouched system with no dungeons at all. I found it odd to be exploring a Fire Star and land on a volcano to find a Floran Dungeon.

 

Along the side-topic of needing a reason to explore planets... If we could craft or find slightly better armor than you can normally craft in any given tier by collecting/finding ~something~ from normal planets, there would be a non-vanity reason for exploring extra planets.

Atleast if you're interesting in the farming systems and the colony systems being worked on, going to different types of planets in the same tier helps you out a lot. Some veggies only spawn on some worlds, same for some dungeon/town types to find furniture in.
As it stands, finding special weapons in a different biome is usually just a side-grade except for the few legendaries.

 

You also do have the micro dungeons found below the surface.

 

Which rarely have enemies or decent loot. nightly is pretty cool with its portal dungeons, but that doesn't help the fact that the surface is kinda boring.

And underground is very samey per world, except for running into different block types. . . . I like the background scenery above-ground

Floran dungeons have a lot of burning coals and lava in them at least!

 

I think having a dungeon every planet might be a bit much. I would love to see more though. Planets are already feeling very samey, guaranteeing a dungeon a planet would probably add to that, especially since dungeons themselves tend to be similar. Reminds me of all those dungeons in Oblivion you couldn't skip through the woods without tripping over, and they all looked the same. I'd say have some amount of dungeons or villages per solar system rather than per world. I'd also like better world scanning in your ship allowing you to see better what features are found on the surface.

About the starting homework thing, I think it might be a nice idea during character creation to have an option either to start on a random world the way it used to be, or select a previously created character to start on their home world.

 

Well I was thinking a planet could have at least either a town, a dungeon, or the surface have various small structures scattered around in lieu of a town/dungeon. The small structures could be something as simple as some piled up rocks or logs... Just something to find besides random chests and trees.

 

There are already micro dungeons implemented in game

 

Even if there were only a random chance of having things like an alien nest or something on each planet (like 5% or something) it would still make exploration way fun because then you could go hunting on say, Ocean planets to see if you could find a nest. People would be exploring planets all day and night just to see the crazy new nest designed for that particular planet type.

 

I don't really disagree with what you're saying, but I'm not sure why you quoted me.

 

They cut down the number of dungeons/villages that can spawn to 0-1 from what I was told.

It use to be higher, and I think it should be higher and depend on the size of the planet. Maybe 0-1 of the tiniest of planets, but the biggest I think should have like 2-3

 

Hold on, lemme fix that.

I'm not the only one who thinks this, right?

 

terrably lame

 

To be honest, surface dungeons kind of lose their zip after a while since they've (usually) got no unique mobs, and no meaningful loot (unless you're a builder).

One of the big differences between Starbound and Terraria that's actually hurting Starbound is that you can't really become more powerful as a result of exploration, aside from simply finding a weapon with better dps in a chest or something. In Terraria, different areas provided unique challenges and rewarded you with loot worth wishing for, or at least materials to make new and interesting gear. In Starbound, higher level areas have the same challenges with bigger numbers, and reward you with ores that make the same gear with bigger numbers.

I mean, the slime cave biome has generic mobs and lets you gather slime balls from smashables which can be used to make one-time use grappling hooks. Imagine if there were a host of slime creatures sliding along walls or dangling from ceilings, and you could use slime balls to make poison-proof armor or slime guns or something. Maybe these are the kinds of things they already have in mind, and we just have to wait for them to finish making the missions. Here's wishing.

 

I'm not sure, because I can go both ways on this.

My first reaction , is to realize how vast space is, even just a single galaxy . To that end, the likleyhood of finding such things as a thiriving civilization or the remnants of one on any given planet should be relatily low . Stumbling upon these things from choosing a random planet should feel like an acheivement , considering that you happned to pick just the right one.

But I also get tired of the "forever alone " and empty feeling you get while playing in a galaxy that has 8 space faring races ( I count the agarans, though they only appear to be at a late iron age of advancement). With that in mind, I expect to see at least one small to medium colony per habitable star sytem , and the occasional large settlement about every two.
I also expect to see the odd research station or military base and the less habitable planets as well .