Questions comments about the gaps in the game so far.

Let me preface this by stating that I have tried to keep up with all of the various other sources of SB info since the official website seems to be the last place updated.

With that said I have question that I am hoping can be filled in regarding some of what is expected to change in this game:

Building and Exploration related questions:

1. What incentive is there going to be for players to build their own creations instead of simply pillaging an entire NPC town and making that home? The time it takes to gather the same amount and diversity of blocks used in NPC housing makes for a serious grind. Will there be quests that yield unique blocks or building material? Is the size and complexity of player made structures ever going to matter?
2. Will SB incorporate any of the exploration rewards that games like Terraria yield in terms of unique or rare loot that can only be found in certain biomes?
3. Will we see the addition of locked or trapped containers? How hard would it be to devise a system of puzzles to unlock or reveal hidden rooms or treasure besides the obvious Glitch hidden trap-door? Perhaps incorporating musical instruments to open or unlock secret doors?
4. Why is every kind of ore found on every planet? Doesn't this really deter people from leaving a particularly "easy" planet?

Monsters:

1. Any biome specific monsters such as space and moon monsters?
2. Will monsters be able to burrow or swim eventually?
3. Will there be events such as invasions or monster 'uprisings' that force the player to defend structures or towns?

Player Character:

1. Why is there no diversification in health or energy? Why do the different races all have the same basic stats?
2. Will there ever be a default racial ability (Humans can dodge via luck, Hylotl can hold breath in water 2x as long, Florans regen health faster in sunlight, Apex can jump higher and slowly slide down walls)
3. Will worn armor ever have separate effects?
4. Why are there no accessory slots, again, to promote diversification?
5. No healing other players in multiplayer?

As you can see, most of my questions relate to the missing "R" in this otherwise amazing RPG. It seems that the basic engineering of the game promotes a single, linear character model, regardless of race or allegiance, that just uses whatever better equipment that they come across. I personally feel that this is a huge 'miss' for the game, and would really like to see more RPG aspects added such as party mechanics a-la tank and healing or weapon specializations. This would prevent a lot of boredom and stagnation.

What do you all think? Be nice.

 

i'll try.

1. none, as of yet.
2. unknown.
3. all unknown.

1. unknown.
2. probably.
3. probably.

1. working as (stupidly) intended.
2. no, its tied to racial armor. amazingly they did it that way to not force you to choose between a power and a look.
3. yes.
4. there is an accessory slot: back slot.
5. they didnt consider you might wanna heal someone else instead of damaging them.

 

B&E
1.At the moment, the ship is you're home, if you need more space for storage, you might build a small house o'r pillage a village, building is optional but like most sandbox/RPG games, especially in servers, people enjoy creating their own structures. The game is rather flexible and allows you to choose whether you want to live with npc's, kill them and claim you're prize o'r build you're own floating fortress, if you like building, then the incentive is blocks and idea's, if you like exploring, its a safe-house and a place to restock on supplies (merchants) as well as a codex treasure-trove, o'r if you're a psychopath, you're welcome to go on a killing spree and take their homes, its whatever floats you're boat. i'm not sure if the quests will give you specific items, the devs have stated they will be used for pixel grind's. Its a sandbox game so that's really up to you, you could build a cathedral sized monolith, for simple aesthetics, or a dirt hole that housed hundreds of npc's.

2.Yes, there are already biome specific blueprints, and the devs promised us a lot more armors, weapons, blueprints, that can only be obtained by adventuring.

3.There are, in glitch castles the statues, some times hold loot, and there are trapdoors, and spikes. Although as far as i can tell there have been no posts about puzzle specific chests, besides the apex laboratories.

4.As you progress some ores become easier to find and there are ores that cannot be found on certain planets/tiers for example, titanium, aegisalt, rubidium, flesh block etc.

Monsters
1.No because the monsters are randomly generated pieces, although there are dungeon related mobs that are found no-where else for example Po and Mutant apex

2.No idea

3.Later on in the game yes, but not at the moment, there are some particularly nasty weather events tho,(meteorites, acid rain)

PC
1.The devs want to keep the races equal to avoid people having to choose between aesthetic and ability.

2. Unfortunately no for the same reason as 1, but they might add racial armor bonuses.

3.Later in the game, the devs said that you could find armor that would have a unique effect on you're character.

4.The back-slot is an accessory slot, but i know what you mean, SB is its own game, you cant expect it to be a clone of Terraria

5.(D-16=they didnt consider you might wanna heal someone else instead of damaging them.). Although you could just give them you're food/stimpacks.

 

If you feel that the official website is the last place updated, is it safe to assume you started (and/or stopped) following Starbound back in Angry Koala or before? They've made a pretty sizable effort to make sure that the official forum gets updated with news posts, so it's kinda dating yourself to say that they abandon us here.

For your question about racial differences, this was done on purpose. If Avians have a bonus to jump height, or Apex have a bonus to runspeed, etc, then people will pick certain races because of their passive abilities. Not because the racial backgrounds, not because the racial cosmetics, but because "they're better." There is a small version of this going on with Apex, because their starter cooking recipe provides endgame-quality healing for entry level ingredients.

If you really want to talk about Racial abilities and such, then you could consider going to the Suggestions -> Mechanics forum, there are probably 10 discussions there if you search for "racial" in that forum.


As to a lot of your questions, they are not features that would be developed first and foremost in an incomplete game. First, Chucklefish needs to create colors, and then we can paint. There's no point to creating paintbrushes and easels and canvas if we don't have paint.

 

i liken programming a game to building a clock. it's a nightmare, sometimes, getting all of those gears and springs the right size and aligned properly. designing and building at the same time is maddeningly complex.

 

That's a good analogy... is analogy the right word? Anyway...

Sometimes, it's easier to build a ton of "parts" and then try to put them all together later, once you feel you have enough to make something functional. It could be that they are adding outposts to the game, knowing that they are probably overtuned, not-covered-by-previous-lore, and highly advertised structures just to try out some of their parts, and see if they work together.

I hope they would not add outposts as something you could identify from space, when Starbound gets closer to release. During beta? Sure, this allows more people to test and experience them, and provide feedback. They've got a lot of new parts in them, and each of these parts requires testing anyway. Renting, Hiring, Selling, "safe zone", etc. These are new concepts that don't exist elsewhere, and it seems like it would be kinda silly to spread them across the galaxy, because it makes them that much harder to test.

 

not if they were applied to all towns and villages. that'd be kinda easy. you are pretty much guaranteed a settlement of some kind on every planet. i dont think i've managed to travel to 5 new planets in a row without coming across a non-hostile settlement.

analogy is the right word, by the way.

 

This is like, the best idea ever.

 

There already is items found in certain biomes.
Every ore is most certainly not found on every planet. Alpha and beta sectors have iron, gamma and delta have titanium, x5and x6 have aegisalt, x7 and x8 have cerulium, and x9 and x10 have rubium.
They have stated multiple times that there will be no racial abilities, so nobody will choose the gameplay-superior race, however there will be racial armor perks since you can eventually unlock all armors.

 

the things about all those ores you listed past iron.... they just take the place of iron.

 

Responding to your OT

Well, if I was going to the moon, I'd want to don my Space Suit to allow me to breath easier. If I was travelling to an underwater planet, then also wearing appropriate clothing/armour to allow me to breath under the H2O makes sense? A sunbaked desert biome? Well, let's strap on that energy-solar gear to keep me walking to the next outpost. They've clearly stated no race attributes will be given to our nekkid little bods, so I see no issue with folks wanting the same gear to more easily "survive" specific environments. Now, if we are able to dye them or add on bling, via mods or vanilla, THAT would make some visible difference to individualize our characters!

I'd love to see manequins that I could store each set of armour on, have them displayed in a "dressing room" which would allow me to pick and choose at my leisure. Of course, at home in my ship I'm a nudenick :barefeet:

 

Um, there is a suggestions forums that you can use for some of these.

 

Here's something fun...

Racial Armor being given abilities may end up with a certain race's armor being worn almost exclusively on certain planet types. It's possible, especially if Hylotl armor confers any sort of water-breathing advantage.

That being said...is this problematic? If you say that the other race's armors are not being utilized at all, then in this one specific case (ocean biomes or water planets) that is correct. But on any planet that does not heavily include water, this theoretical Hylotl armor would be used almost as rarely as other armor types on water worlds.

If the concerns about swapping armor types for different planet types are based on appearance, then that's why there are vanity slots. I don't know of too many people that actually show more than casual clothes when they adventure.

If the concerns are about "being required" to have multiple sets of armor, then that's valid but we can't really address them until we see what flavor of benefits each Racial armor gets. Hopefully the bonuses are small enough that I don't really need them, even on the "best case" scenarios for each armor type.