Not a bad idea. I like the idea of humans adapting over time to become more accustomed to something. Humans tend to be the 'versatile' race in most sci-fi settings and Starbound's not really much different, so it's fitting. I do have some concerns though. One thing to remember, though, is that humans aren't the only ones with freedom. Player character Avians are Grounded, who have a whole society that's adapted to live without the stifling Kluex religion. Apex revolutions occur constantly and are crushed constantly - the player character Apex is a survivor of just one such crushed revolution. Player character Glitch are Outcasts - free of the hivemind. Hylotl take a lot of unncessary action - the reason why they have so many problems, in fact, is their habit of sending out missionaries to try and convert other races to their 'peaceful ways', invariably pissing off the natives in the process - the player character Hylotl is supposedly just one such missionary. Novakids don't really have the memories of goldfish - they're just easily distracted, get bored easy, are drawn to new things, and never write stuff down for posterity. More ADHD, less Alzheimer's in short. Personally speaking, I prefer to avoid bonuses or maluses that directly affect damage or attack speed. Given that this is a constant, passive bonus we're talking about here, it would make the visible swing speed/DPS calculations on weapons unreliable. They don't take into account anything but the weapon's own statistics. A lot of the tools you use, aside from weapons and the matter manipulator are replaced frequently - picks and drills, the most common tool items you use, are essentially disposable. Flares and climbing ropes are consumables. In fact the only non-combat tools that exist that you can really keep long enough to build 'proficiency' with, are the grappling hook, hoe, and the matter manipulator. Of those, the MM's the only one I can see as being improved by an increase in use speed. Given the disposability of most tools, I'm guessing you'd have to earn proficiency with a given item pretty quickly, unless it's handled by item type - and how would proficiency decay or be lost? For that matter, how would you track a character's proficiency with a specific tool for this trait? Is it handled on a per-item basis? If so we'd need a way to label every item with a unique identifier and add a database to the character that lists all of the items he or she's developed proficiency with, as well as how much. The other solution is to add a database to each item that has a list of all the users that have developed proficiency with that item and how much proficiency they have. Either way, that's pretty complicated to implement - and complicated implementation is one of the primary reasons why I'm not satisfied with the Scrounger idea that I proposed.
Fair enough. It could affect other characteristics though, such as range or showing a blast cone or projectile trajectory (with more adaptation showing longer trajectory data for e.g. grenade launchers). It would definitely have to be by type. The game already has a decent granularity for item types, so I believe that could work. I mean, once you've seen one pickaxe you've seen them all. Putting a cap on total adaptation could work, and if you get too good at one type of item you get a bit worse at all others that you have adapted to. The adaptation curve would need a fair amount of time to get just right, but should be doable.
This is a neat idea. Traits that affect your HUD or interface, providing you with new info, are certainly interesting, and something that I didn't consider or even think of. Kudos. Can you provide me a hypothetical example of how this would work? It'd help me to picture it mentally.
As a background, let's start with say 6 levels of proficiency, backed by a float between 0.00 and 6.00. Once the backing number hits a whole number the proficiency level goes up by one, but doesn't go down until the backing drops to X.50 (e.g. 4.50). Let's also put in a total of 30 proficiency levels overall. The backing numbers mean that there won't necessarily always be a total of 30 points visible, but that won't be a problem. These don't need to be the final values, they're simply for use in this example. Meet Bob. He has had a MM since the beginning of the game, and has stuck with short swords and plasma rifles for most of it. He has a 6 in all of them. He also has a dagger, a rocket launcher, and a grenade launcher which he uses every so often, and has a 4 in each. We'll assume that the backing numbers are currently exactly equal to the proficiency levels. Bob picks up a machine pistol and gives it a few shots. His proficiency in machine pistols goes up to 0.06, and the others drop to (X-1).99. So he still has no proficiency level in the new weapon type, and hasn't lost any in the others. He liked that pistol so much that he kept it with him. In the meantime his proficiency with it has grown to 0.90. He has kept up his use of MM, short swords, and plasma rifles, with them at 6.00, 5.80, and 5.80 each. He uses his dagger a bit more often, and his proficiency has gone up to 4.40. This accounts for 6.00+5.80+5.80+4.40+0.90=22.9 points, leaving 7.1 points for rocket launchers and grenade launchers, evenly distributed. Bob then uses his machine pistol and gets it up to 1.00. There are now only about 3.51 proficiency for each when his proficiency level of machine pistols goes up to 1. He uses it a bit more, and they finally drop to 3.50. His level in each drops to 3 because of this. I realize that it may seem strange to see the levels of some types dropping when others don't visibly rise, but finer level granularity can help compensate for this.
Seems kinda complicated for the minor benefits it provides. Honestly, this is the kind of thing that I would only implement if it were game-wide. This is effectively a skill/proficiency system, and I can't really justify that being limited to a single race. Not saying it's a bad idea, but to me it seems way too complicated to be 'wasted' on such a minor thing as a racial bonus. Give this thing its own interface so that you can monitor your skills' development and changes, make it game-wide, and you've got a whole skill system here. Consider suggesting it separately or modding it. Dunno, might go over well - it's neat.
I think Florans should sometimes gain the "rage" effect when fighting, most of their weapons could also have the "hunting" effect like bows do.
Some of these (*cough* Hylotlcon *cough*) would destroy the current balance of the game. Hylotl's wouldn't get endgame gear, Glitch would be able to get uranium before Dreadwing, etc.
Now that you point it out, probabily the bonuses could be made into limit breaks, which would, after taking and dealing (Mostly the latter), give a special effect for a short while. I guess it could be part of the racial armor sets, so that it would be possible to get the bonuses from other species. The passive set bonuses wouldn´t affect combat directly, such as making Floran characters always cause enemies to be able to drop leather and steaks, but the limit breaks would, in fact, be able to change the course of a fight if it isn´t popped too early on. The set bonuses (In the case of the limit breaks) could, among other things, cause: Human armor sets would allow the player to shoot more quickly (Think of it as supressive fire) with a reduced energy cost so it doesn´t run out more quickly. Apex sets would be able to take noticeabily reduced damage. Novakid sets would be able to temporarily disable some enemies´ attacks by hitting them in the right spots (Due to limit breaks lasting a short while, it means you must make that short while count). Floran sets would hit VERY quickly with daggers, shortswords, broadswords and hammers. Hylotl sets would become temporarily invisible, giving a short period of time in which you can attack with impunity. Glitch sets would be able to reflect projectiles towards enemies by either getting hit or hitting them. Avian sets would make the player a lot faster, making fleeing and dodging easier.
