Not much space in a game about space

I have not played the entire game yet, but I'm about half there. Let me just say I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

But I sometimes feel restricted.

I especially feel this way when I'm in my spaceship. First off, I don't know of any way to customize the ship or expand it. But that isn't my real problem.

Space Is only something a player can only look at through their cockpit. How I long to just put on a space suit and jet pack and eject myself from my ship. What then? Who knows! Build a satellite space station! Mine an asteroid! Build lasers onto your ship and gun down an incoming meteor shower! Fend off a swarm of fire breathing space dragons! Just be an all around pulp fiction hero!

Unfortunately the way travel works in the game right now restricts all that. Your ship autopilots itself to whatever planet you tell it to go to. BUT WAIT! What if your ship had a mode where you could pilot it manually? The coordinate system would be compatible with this.

Think of it. Sailing the stars Rather than quick traveling them like it's some fantasy rpg.

I know the focus of the game is planets, but what if there were a focus on space as well?

 

George tweeted yesterday that he was working on ship expansions. So there's that.

But in regards to a more active flight system? Probably not in the cards. Since the whole thing is basically a lampshade for the procedural planet generation system.

 

While this is true, I do foresee alot more space based biomes to explore, that will reinforce the futuristic theme. Space stations, city worlds, alien hive worlds (think 40k tyranids) ect. The game is still so early in beta. They are getting the core mechanics tightened up. The game shares some obvious development parallels with Terraria, and look what a staggering amount of content was added to that game.

 

Astroids are a thing you just have to go high enough, super cold way up there though.

 

Their are plans to make a ftl style combat system post full release.

 

Hive worlds.. Reminds me of mass effect collector ships. Would looooooove this

 

I think the current asteroids could be a neat nitch in building a home and more could be done with them or that area. like abandoned satellites or stations. Yet the extremely limited ways to reach that layer stinks. A stack of tables to heaven or get lucky with tech. I think the Gravity Bubble.

 

The current height system allows you to find natural asteroids with plutonium at space layer,and it's quite a fitting location for a space station.

 

Most likely it will be more available with implementation of hovering and flying transport.

 

That is in the cards, and on the way. Don't forget that this is an early beta release, of course.

I'm sure they will add more functionality to space, but hopefully it doesn't come about by crippling the functionality of planet-based life. And hopefully they don't allow you to directly modify your ship, or leave it. Instead, being able to teleport/beam to certain regions of the void between planets and stars, and thus being back under the planetary-generation design (even if no planet is there) would work well.

Imagine trying to manually input the calculations needed to perform a faster than light jump. Heck, try and imagine the calculations needed to dock a simple supply rocket with the space station.

You don't want manual control. You want automated control with more openness and freedom to ram yourself into a star.

For that, I'd hope that they wait and finish the rest of the game, as it would take away from the core element of the game which is planetary exploration and decimation.

The split would cause a disharmony between the game's elements, unless it is really worked at and was given a lot of dev time.

 

It's possible we might get some kind of boss you fight in (or on the outside of) your ship. I wouldn't expect much more ship combat/missions than that. Sure, a ship expansion system is in the works, but I suspect it will be more for extra building space within your ship than adventures.

 

Ship combat is confirmed. After the initial release really, but it is.

 

Oh? Cool. You have links to any mock-ups/statements?

 

Unfortunately - no. I believe a bunch of people on this forum may direct you to some.

 

It's entirely possible to add more to it without bypassing the fact that FTL is essentially a loading screen; more interactive bodies besides planets. Rater than selecting a celestial body, you'd select a ship graveyard, asteroid field, abandoned space station or more. They'd simply be worlds that generate differently than planets. This is very open, and even if devs don't do it, modders will.

 

I really hope they can get biome specific gravity. Or make space a liquid layer. Because slipping off a asteroid in orbit and immediately falling back to the planet at terminal velocity leaves a little to be desired.

 

Two developer tweets that might be of interest to people in this thread:
https://twitter.com/Tiyuri/status/412656034835333120

https://twitter.com/George_Five/status/412657249752842240

 

I'd say the higher you go the less gravity there is, all relative of course to the planet's base gravity and height.

 

Why not have those thing as sort of "random encounters"?
You're traveling to another planet, and BOOM! you encounter a space station!
You're traveling to another planet, and BOOM! meteor storm!
You're traveling to another planet, and BOOM! space dragon attack!

Note: I'm not being sarcastic

 

Made me chuckle, I'd like this a lot, but I just don't know if it would work, as the FTL jump is technically a loading screen for the planet you're going to. Although, if the random encounter was predetermined to happen just before you jumped in to ftl, it would load the event and not the planet, and then load the planet afterwards, that could work. They have tons of time to do this stuff, and I bet they have half of it planned, I just can't wait to see this game evolve!