Hello all! I've been playing Starbound for a few weeks now, though I'm new to the forums, I've noticed room for what I consider to be a useful feature. You know how when on a new planet, you have to figure out what wants to kill you, and what doesn't? It can be a pain when passive and aggressive mobs look similar, or you forget, or its dark, ect. I was thinking of some sort of monster scanning system as an item, kind of like a HUD that will tell you whats hostile and passive, but only works if you scan a monster. It would be an item to craft, and would say attach to your helmet slot. Not only will this tell you whats passive or aggressive, but perhaps it could also give you the option of naming and setting descriptions for that particular type of monster. I feel this would add to gameplay as well as roleplaying aspects as you go around constantly discovering unnamed beasts across the universe. This is just a thought I had, and as such has plenty of room for improvement, so feel free to let me know your thoughts on it.
It's better than jumping in a hoarde of them with a shield and dagger, just to find out they're all hostile and they all know body slam.
I think that it's one of the main ideas that one doesn't know if the monster is hostile or not. That makes the game more unpredictable.
I think the scanning system would be a good addition to the list of craftable items for the creature station since it concerns monsters and that station has only 2 recipes so far So the player will have access to that technology after tier 3. As for actually scanning the monsters, i think it'd be ideal if having the hat lets you scan them by using the investigate key. Alternatively it could be a special tool like the brain-extractor and maybe you'd need to aim a scanning beam and hit the monster with it to determine its aggressiveness. Maybe a later upgrade to either of those items would let you scan for one of their abilities. I definitely think it would be a nice addition.
