This Idea is in concert with being able to expand/upgrade your ship (mentioned in the "future of starbound" newspost), but: It'd be cool to be able to land your ship on planets, instead of simply beaming down. It would make it possible to have your "base"/house on any planet you go to, instead of having to build an entirely new one on every planet you like. It would also give the player a better reason to spruce up their ship--I currently find mine to be "that rectangle that has my crafting stuff and gets me to new planets", instead of a place I'd actually live in and travel the stars in. having to actually go back to your ship on-world to get in and lift off for new places would also tie you to it more, but some folks wouldn't enjoy having to walk all the way 'round the planet to it if they've been exploring for a good while, so keeping the "beam to ship" button might still be in order. a side idea of this would be marking out and keeping a list of landing pads for your ship to land or dock at, rather than just the initial spawn point on the planet (this would be useful for people who want to visit towns in the future for purchases, without having to cross the world to get to town after getting to the planet's surface).
It would be nice for me but in a litle diferent way: I think when you land, it could be like a nice defencive place. Ships guns could shoot monsters that are near spawn and that would be nice...
I think it sounds like a neat idea, but I'm not sure how they would implement it for two reasons: In order for this to be more useful than the current mechanic, the ship would have to touch down on the surface rather than hover just above it, correct? If that is the case how would they keep the ship from interfering with objects or blocks on the surface? In multiplayer, how would they keep ships from interfering with each other? I'm not sure how this would work but I think that if this makes its way into the game then players have to be able to choose the spot on the planet that the ship lands. It would have to be chosen while the player is on foot (maybe you press a button on the UI and it brings up a phantom ship that you move around with your mouse) to keep players from using their ship to explore the planet surface. I think this would be extra useful if players want to build docks for their ship for the aesthetics. Edit: Just after posting it I came up with an idea - before the ship can land, the player must first beam down and build a dock then choose the landing area. It'd be cool also if you had to use a specific block for the landing pad, like smooth steel or something similar. This would solve my first concern but I still am not sure how it'd be implemented in multiplayer.
I like this idea, it could also fit in quite nicely with an idea of having multiple ships perhaps (since you'd only be able to fly one ship at a time.) EDIT: Also the point above this I agree with, you should have to build a dock first. Since the devs plan to expand ships, it would add an interesting choice too, do you keep your ship small and easy to build small docks/landing pads for, or do you have a huge ship, which requires extra large docks to land at, which would obviously be harder to build?
building a dock or landing pad seems the easiest way, yeah. though in a rough spot (like the beginning of the game and such) you could have it hover X distance above the ground with a rope ladder or something to get back up to it.
I was thinking that but it could potentially interfere with the terrain, buildings, trees or air ships. So I propose that the ship remains in orbit until a dock is built, the phantom ship is placed and maybe then you have to beam back to the ship and press a 'land' button.
Love the idea of landing on planet! building a dock would be fantastic while encouraging the construction of a planetary home! some idea to deal with ship landings in Multiplayer: 1. Only 1 ship can land on a planet at a time 2. perhaps larger space ships can utilise a shuttle to land on the planet instead of landing ship (if its rediculously huge) 3. simply limit 1 ship to one docking mechanism, allowing planets/asteroid fields to be turned into galactic bases
To me, this further discourages the building of a house since you have a premade house that you can just take wherever you want. Especially if the beam down button would be kept, it would completely remove any risk you have above ground since you could have a secure home with virtually no effort and you can teleport there whenever you're on the surface.
I don't like this idea. I'd much rather be able to land my ship next to my friend's in a base that we built. I think that your #3 sounds pretty good though! I don't build a base on every planet I visit currently. I build a base on one planet and I teleport back to it when I need to store and craft stuff. At least if I can land my ship on a planet then I'll be encouraged to build a dock on that planet. So for me the opposite is true - this actually encourages building.
There is a mod that will beam your ship down to the surface. I found it very interesting, haven't tried it though. What I would love to have is maybe a server or account wide space station and our current, tiny dropships to go to planets with. With many, many guns on them of course.
I have read multiple posts on similar subjects and I believe the most sensible thing would be: Store player's position at saves. This removes the save-and-reload "exploit" and gives exploration a grander meaning. Sorry to bring this into the discussion, but I think it has its part in this. It seems inefficient to me to take the entire ship down to the planet, instead a shuttle would be preferable which holds some (but not that much) storage space. This would then serve as the main base on a planet. Player may choose to expand it or build other bases around the planet according to his/her needs. Player may beam to the mothership from either the main base, or from beam pads, crafted and placed at other bases. I think this would be cool. It would give exploration more meaning and finally make it a proper challenge. You would have to prepare and pack properly before setting out on an adventure.
This. Build a dock- dock appearance changes based on the ship size, or possibly a shuttle depending, as previously mentioned. This encourages building for me as well... I tend to build one single major base. Furthermore it explains better the great need for fuel- it takes very little fuel to actually get anywhere in space, and we are supposed to be using a super hi-tech ship. It should be able to atomize and utilize fuel and extremely efficient rates. Amplifying ideas- Ship dock craftable using metals, in stages. When placed on planets surface unfolds into structure piece.(idea don't shoot me x.x) Docking area needs to be cleared and leveled with backdrops removed. This discourages arbitrary landings, and encourages beaming down for planetary exploration. Holoship placement (Already mentioned but I love it).
a prefab landing pad might be cool, though i'd reserve it for the shuttles--i'm sure folk's would want to build a dock to match their ship's grandeur. I do agree that the dock dimensions should work with the shape of the ship--you could build the dock higher up and head downward for the base proper (your ship hovering/idling at the dock), or flatten out a big enough area for it to land completely and do so.
If this were set up so that the landed ship could be beamed into from the planet, and had the option to return the player to the last location beamed to the ship from, it could serve as a viable alternative to a "pause feature", as one could quickly beam to their ship and be able to beam back without having to worry about losing their position.
that'd actually solve a lot of other people's worries--you'd help folks who need to just drop everything and do something irl (people with kids, pets, and other lesser lifeforms in their care), as well as allowing people to play multiplayer without someone mucking things up by pausing constantly. since they've already got it set p that you're invincible on your ship, it prevents you from getting ganked while you're afk, though iirc they still need to let you lock your ship's chests, since some people on servers have sticky fingers >_>
