Planets dont feel different enough from each other....

Yeah, I had my hopes up when I first saw "tentacle world" and was really disappointed it was just decoration! Agree with your suggestions.

 

I am sure there's going to be a lot more with certain world biomes once balancing and fine-tuning is done. Maybe even before that. I get the impression that Team Chuckle is working hard to streamline things at the moment.

 

Yeah, I fully agree with you. But you can see stuffs are not finished yet, the dome generation are not fully configured, and oceans seems missing.
They all use the same parameteres in planetgen.config :

Code:

"surfaceTerrain" : {
    "hills" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "barren" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "canyons" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "chasms" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "dunes" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "flats" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "totallyflat" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "mountains" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    },

    "islands" : {
      "surfaceSelector" : "normalSurface",
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    }
  },

  "undergroundTerrain" : {
    "undergroundCaves" : {
      "caveSelector" : "normalCaves",
      "bgCaveSelector" : "solidbackground",
      "subBlockSelector" : "largeClumps",
      "oreSelector" : "commonVeins"
    }
  },

I'm confident that there will be a mod for that ! I noticed that there's also a gravity range that is on [80,80], so different gravities seems planned.

I stay hopefully for now, can't wait to see what the next patch brings !

 

I also agree that everything feels similar.

I understand that a quality of this game is that everything is randomly generated but there is only so much randomness you can have before it all starts being the same.

This thread was really interesting to me:
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/the-game-we-want.48657/

Hopefully they can look into adding some of the things the OP suggested here.

 

If you think about it, a lot of the stuff in the game now is just something there to be a placeholder.

For example, when I go to a moon, I see the same random wildlife that I see on a forest planet. But, that's just the way it is for now. Once they can move on to the fine details, it wouldn't surprise me if things changed. It's after the heavy work is done that dev teams look at such things and say "that should be different"

 

well i must disagree... i think the devs attention is too much focused on the player base. they look into details betatester post here in this Forum... they are changing weapon stats, mob health, birds agro, Pixel storing machines when the universe itself feels kinda the same everywhere you go and put that into a Tier System.

To be honest right now the game feels more like a classic 2d fighting game, with Million Levels to gear up before kill the next Boss.

They should use their time to make the Setting of the game perfect...

If you think about the game and this ideas in combination, i think a lot of Players wouldnt complain about finding no ores on the planets, cause they read it before landing on that grassy forest planet....

you know what i mean?

 

I know they're pumping out encounter stuff still, there's prolly a long way to go on that with more to come over the long-term development of the game. Know there's some planned biomes that haven't been implemented yet too. Going to be a game that grows more diverse as it grows old. We're still early in, and the basic gameplay systems are the foundation that takes priority.

That said: I'd like to see more biome specific sub-biomes, and greater ties to biome in relation to ore, creature/NPC pop, and village/dungeon spawns. Sorta feels odd that every planet has life too, seems like that should be far more uncommon--but that's prolly a difficult thing to balance with randomization due to player need for various organic resources. Would be cool to see more biome specific weather too, like health-damaging sandstorms in desert/arid biomes and blinding ashstorms in magma biomes.

Also have to throw in that I'd rather the planets be smaller and more unique than gigantic and all-inclusive. Not that there shouldn't be larger super-varied worlds, but maybe make it much more of an uncommon sub-type of planets. I kinda like the Star Trek take where few planets are as varied as Earth, which attributes to humanity's particular biological knack for adaptability in comparison to other races.

 

It's still part of the streamlining process, but you are right. It's not quite the streamlining I originally thought. I, too, wish they'd go more in a free-form direction. This going from sector to sector by beating bosses feels more like a classic Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania style of things. It contradicts the nature that Starbound was originally designed with. At least it feels that way. They may see this themselves, though.

 

I have this idea in my head for mod, but since I can't mod at all, I'm kinda just sitting around hoping someone with the exact same idea comes along and does it.

Basically the jist of it would be to get rid of crafting stations as they are, and revolve the game around finding crew members with that level of knowledge to get onto your ship, and basically become those crafting stations. For example after the first boss fight and crafting the distress beacon, another small ship lands where you are, with a guy who specializes in Spaceship Engineering who saw your ship, got the distress signal and came over here to help you, if you let him live on your ship.

Wham bam, your ship upgrades with a lab, and he knows how to make all of the stuff in the "metalwork station", if you bring him the materials. (That way the pixels make sense, since either you're paying him for his work, or he needs the pixels to power his tools or whatever.) He also upgrades your FTL drive to get you to the Beta sector, and adds his distress beacon finding thing to your star map. This lets you scan for these beacons at any time, with the story one being labeled as [URGENT], and the others pointing out specially crafted dungeons (but still procedurally generated, like the Apex tech chest dungeons) that will have NPC crew members to find that don't relate to progression, such as cooks, merchants, the "creature capture station" person, maybe a guy who can upgrade the scanners on your ship to better tell you their composition, one who can do the same to tell you who the distress beacon signal is coming from, random villagers, etc. The story one of course, leads you to a robotics expert, and if you beat his crazy machine gone haywire, he offers to use his skills and the robot's processor to upgrade your ship, and joins your crew becoming your "robotic crafting table". etc. etc.

Planets without distress beacons on them (read: MOST of them), would not be useless to explore since those could contain the random assortments of dungeons and towns that are in the game right now, and more of course, that offer up the things you can't find if you strictly go hunting for distress beacons all of the time, such as the tech chests, and the towns, and the apex labs and what not.

It's a small change, but it would do loads to set the game apart from the other games like it. Not to mention gives purpose to the overall exploratory nature of the game, without forcing it, or trying to trap the people on the planet once there, so that they don't blow through all the game has to offer in one sitting.

This all would combine with doing things like shaking up things on planets outside of biome types, like gravity, and weather. Maybe replacing the "named" ore progression system, with one that just requires you find ore "types", and letting the players name them themselves? (ex. "Hey, I found this bright-green ore, my scanners say it looks like it could be a decent source of fuel, I'm gonna name it Kryptonite!" or "Ok, for my next armor, the armor guy says I need 67 bars of 'a metal that looks sturdy yet flexible', oh hey, this planet has lots of 'sturdy + flexible + flammable + conductive' metal on it, that I've named Craptonite" make the armor, and receive a "Craptonite Armor" description: 'This armor should keep me warm... Maybe a little too warm?' [...because it's highly flammable you see] Maybe make a player take more fire damage and lightning damage in it, etc.) It's still pretty much Cerilium, but by involving the player in letting them name the stuff, they feel more inclined to go out there and "discover" more stuff. Also, by switching to the type of the ore, having them be identifiable by the graphic sprite they use (hard metals are jagged, rare jewels are triangular, etc.), instead of by color, you open up another reason for exploration, being, finding the colors of ore you prefer, with which to make your stuff. Lastly, the "home planet" thing would open up brand new recipes and schematics for you and your crew. Make a planet safe, and move your engineer there, and make him a big enough house, and he can set up an intergalactic research lab, letting him find out what ores are where in the universe, and how to better use them to make stuff. Your chef guy can get a green house going (build me a house that's "ye big" with glass walls!) and start planting exotic crops for you to use in recipes, for food that offers better healing or buffs, etc. etc. All types of stuff that make setting up a home planet meaningful, but not something you HAVE to do to enjoy the game. (Not to mention getting all of those freeloaders off of your ship.)

This was supposed to be a short post, but yeah, if it matters any, that's the Starbound that I want to play.