I'd love Starbound to start from scratch.

Ideally, story mode starts you on the space station, sandbox mode starts you on a random planet. A compromise.

 

This is a thought provoking conversation, and makes me think of how much I love games that don't even try to hold my hand at the start.
The example I'm thinking of, which is a little off-genre here, is the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil. After the intro cutscene ends, the game basically goes like this: "You are in an old mansion. You have a knife, a gun, and just enough bullets for one clip. Some of these doors are locked right now. Some aren't. SURVIVE." Screw navpoint markers and explicitly stated missions. Everything is on you. You find the keys, you solve the puzzles, and you win the game.

I'm very curious to see how they meld everything together in Starbound to make the story missions.
And I'm guessing the space station isn't really going to have much of anything at the start. Maybe just a person or computer that functions like the Guide does, just telling you some basic crafting recipes or something.

 

Okay, first post on this topic and I haven't read anybody's posts, so here's my suggestion. Have the game start like Mass Effect where you will be able to choose your heritage.
1. Hero
2. Street Rat
3. Rich Guy
4. ETC

Each one will determine how you will start the game, how much materials and money you start with, some storyline change, and difficulty.

There you go, my suggestion.

 

Forgive me if I wasn't clear. I don't want the station and ship to have all of the blueprints, just the most basic of things that are needed. This way players don't have to rely on their starting planet having those, they are there no matter what. And varying planets having varied blueprints on differing items etc, this makes it so exploring is still a key part, and you have to, to get the really good stuff. But that you have the basics of what you need and don't have to worry so much about the RNG on your first planet.

 

This is actually exactly how I hope it is. I want to have enough to get started with combat so I can survive exploration and have to work for everything else. A "guide" computer on the station would probably be nice too, just so I don't wander around aimlessly for a while. But as for progression, I think some stuff should be story driven. Like unique weapons and armors. However, I think you should be able to work towards most everything just based off of research and finding blueprints on other worlds.

Perhaps main quest line missions would have you fix up the various parts of the station. They'd explain what you need to get and how you fix it. All the while, you can fix those parts without the mission by getting those same parts and just fixing it by yourself. That would be cool. Then if you get lost, you can be guided.

 

Why not just have a survival AND story mode, best of both worlds.

 

I'd like that!

 

That's opening the door to duping... If you'd get free items nobody is stopping you from creating 1000 rich chars and collect their stuff.

 

Since you start on an abandoned space station, it would be cool if every player found something different while scavenging their station for the first time.

 

From what I've seen, I'm thinking the space stations work as a hub that's the same for everyone on a multiplayer server. Not sure what will happen in singleplayer though.

 

True, I was thinking of it on a more singleplayer kind of aspect. But the space station has to give you something, right? It would be kinda weird if it just threw you onto a randomly generated planet without any weapons. In Terraria you started with a Sword and some tools, and in Minecraft you didn't have to worry about hostile mobs until night time. So, Starbound will either have to give you tools at the beginning or make it so you can get your first weapons without getting slaughtered first.

 

You got a point! And i've got no problem with starting equipment.
I'm not sure that the space station itself will drop you on planets. I think there's a shuttle for that, and the space station is just a home. But yes, I'm sure they'll provide with a way to defend yourself.

 

Yeah, you're right, there's a dropship separate from the station itself.

 

Well, i think you start out with a shovel and a revolver and hope for the best.