Replicator and other mid-end game ideas

So, I have many memories from Terraria, especially when playing in a communal server with friends, of having to search around for ingredients, both to add some from adventuring and to grab a few for some recipe or another. Also the large amount of stuff I would create (and invariably haul back with me) while adventuring, which would fillup several chests at a time. Add to this that I also have been watching Star Trek, which any space exploring game cannot help but remind me of, and wondered if that would be a possible tech in this game. Enough babbling, bullet points!

-Replicator - essentially a vendor, either just creating specific low-level items/components for free, or having a depository for materials it draws on with each "purchase" that is one-way. Might also be used for item recycling.

-Single-item chests. Hold an infinite amount of said item, but nothing else. That way those of us stockpiling huge piles of dirt, stone, or what have you don't feel bad filling up a dozen chests when digging to the center of a planet.

-Dissassembler - Other people have brought up this one, so I'll just add in that I like the idea. It would have to be added with care, though, as you don't want people getting too easy access to hard to find materials if things created from them can be found lying about the worlds more easily. Possibly add in a cost of use, or limit what it can return.

-In general, a way to put in signage that is legible without activating it, so we can label the sections of containers when in a communal universe.

 

a fantastic idea, if well maintained. I think the replicator should have cost like put a certain amount of X in to get a certain Amount of Y out. like 10 copper 0re got u pne gold bar and so on, if that is what u meant by a recycler.

 

-I think the replicator is good idea, but I sense balance issues for new players/characters with access to this sort of thing. In Terraria I always felt a little guilty if I had an altternate character make me, say, some copper armor, and I always felt most satisfied carving a little niche all by myself. If there was a way to make sure only people of a certain tier could use it, then totally!

-Single item chests, huh? I like it. I don't think it would be that hard to integrate; just slap some mumbo-jumbo about tiny black holes or digitalized matter or something on there and you have yourself a fitting sci-fi reasoning for it.

-Disassembler also a FANTASTIC idea. Cost of use should be a must to discourage abuse.

My god, yes. Unlabeled terraria chests are the single greatest source of frustration in the whole damned game!

 

I dont know where i read it, but it was about the currency, pixels(?) and basically i can see a replicator generating pixels when you put stuff in, and when you want stuff out it costs pixels. with everything having its own value. Especially for base materials this can cut down the grinding part of looking for X amount of material Y to make something.

 

From all the ideas I like the Single-Item chest most. It's just a simple thing that adds so much to the question how to store all the stuff that accumulates over the time. Maybe it should be limited in some way, say 9999 or 99999 items because having a 9 digit number displayed might be a bit - well think of how Terraria did it: the numbers where in the bottom right corner of the item symbol. Now imagine that being a large number going on over the next few items. But that really depends on how the amount would be displayed in Starbound or this chest.

I like what you added to the original idea. Generating pixels with items (the higher the tier, the higher the price). And generating items when inputting pixels (the more pixels, the better the item). Maybe you should be able to choose a item category, gun/sword/pants/headgear/blah, and get a more or less random item of that category (like said: the more pixels, the better the item). Or you choose a base material (glass or something) and have a per block price.

 

Yes all those ideas are awesome for extend our gameplay experience in Starbound. /me signs

 

For the replicator. I'm not sure about doing a straight money conversion. I was more thinking materials in, so it would basically be a crafting dump site, but only for low-tier items. Good for having a one-stop shop for crafting up basic ammo or structural bits and pieces for your buildings, but not for higher end items/gear. Mostly it's a convenience idea, so shouldn't be able to be abused too badly. You could even have multiple tiers of replicators, possibly. A straight up pixel vendor that spits out random stuff could be interesting, but probably wouldn't find much use beyond novelty for me, personally.

For the quantity of the single item chest, you could even just forgo a number entirely, or at least once you get past 500 or so. Just have a color code or something. Red for More than 500, less than 750, yellow is 750 to 2k, green for over 2k., for example. That way the system can keep track of it without the interface getting annoying.

The disassembler was actually originally just a thought for how to power the replicator. Stuff goes in, broken down to base components, and those are used to create new things later on. It would only be able to handle specific components, so putting in something not made with those or made with only parts of those would not be very beneficial, but that's just part of the limitations and to prevent too much abuse. I'm mostly thinking about how my friends and I would inevitably try and remove everything that wasn't impossible to take from the Terrarria dungeon, and then have nothing to do with it. I mean, those hanging lamps? Neat! 50 of them? Maybe not so useful. But if you could break them down into chain/iron bars for building other things you wanted (maybe you need a bucket brigade) would be nice, in my opinion.

All 3 of those things can actually be combined into one, really, with the infinite chest simply being the replicator storage bank. If it has only x amount of components, you can put in a bar graph for general quantities, maybe on a logarithmic scale if you want to get fancy, so people know what it's short on for output, versus what you have an abundance of. Downside would be the idea that what goes in does not come out, and even if it can be rebuilt from the replicator (put in a bucket, replicate a bucket) you'll end up having a net loss of material for powering the machine. Probably should've added that to the original post, but I was tired.

And, yes. I like signs. Heck, I just want one to be able to post more easily read messages to friends on a server if we're not playing at the same time. You know, "I found something nifty, it's in this chest" or "Watch out, I dug a hole out back and hit acid"

 

i love the dissembler idea but in multiplayer i can see a lot of trolls as for the rest of the ideas i think there pretty good

 

Never really thought of public servers, so trolling wasn't on my mind. I could potentially see a problem, too, but it would only make what I could imagine acts of trolling to be slightly easier,not add anything new. I'm assuming that we will be able to delete items like we could in Terraria (eventually, at least) and someone can always come in to steal your materials if you leave the server open, so I'm not sure that it would really be much of a trolling problem. Unless I'm just not seeing it?

 

fantastic idea at high level help player

 

does this remind anyone of Tekkit? (Minecraft mod collection) anyway, when i first read the title i thought of energy collectors (a block in tekkit that you have to craft from very expensive parts that allow you to convert sunlight into mass) which were very OP once you got enough of them, but i had good memories while making all of the different components to make other items.
anyway, so long as these aren't OP or powered my energy instead of mass i think it would be an awesome idea for recycling. in terms of, put 10 buckets in get 9 buckets out, 1 bucket converted to energy for the use, isn't that bad, i mean, why disassemble an item if you need it? you should put stuff you don't want or have an abundance of, like dirt, or stone, or if you have 1,000,000,000 batteries you could convert those into other things, recycling!

in short, if it is not made OP i support it! (also it would add to the scifi feel to have replicators)

P.S. just make sure not to have the replicator make more replicators! we wouldn't want an army of replicators replicating replicators to take over the world with their replicated replication power!!!

 

Exchanger - Exchange a certain amount of lower-mid tiered items into high tiered items. Example: 10 Copper - 1 Tin, 100 Copper - 1 Gold and vice versa

 

This would be great to have, given the dirt mountains you will invariably pile up. Perhaps even one that converts them into power (if a power system gets added, ofc)?

 

Dirt powered generator? Yeah...

 

ALL THE THINGS should be able to converted, not just dirt. dirt, obviously, not that valueable... But the mass should balance it out.

Hope that clarifies what I meant a bit.

 

Yeah, that's kinda what I was envisioning, at least to some degree. Plus it'd be hilarious, especially if you could start being "evil" and just start literally strip mining planets. Lots of generic resources, but you'll lose any fancy stuff.

 

An end-game machine like the Quarry from IC2 of Minecraft Mods, would help this statement

 

Ah. No minecrafting here, so I'm afraid I'm just trying to create terms out of my own noggin. But sure! And, honestly, it'd be nifty, but the more that I think about it, the less I actually like the idea. Unless you actually get on the planet to use it. Have to have some sort of cost or danger involved, in my opinion, otherwise it just gets to be boring.

 

I'd kinda like a whole series of Replicator items, some of which would have limited and specific replicating abilities. Say a "Nutrimat" style replicator for food only, or a "3D Wooden Printer" that could produce any wooden item given enough raw wood input, a "Moisture Vaporator" that could generate free water. Depending on their usefulness, these could be fairly cheap and easy to produce, while the sort of all-purpose Replicator that could literally generate anything would be a high-end tech item requiring hard-to-acquire items.

 

Nice thinking! I had definitely figured a full on Star Trek replicator would be quite late-game, but the possibility of other types would be cool, too. Probably have to have some tweaks, such as the nutrimat food being edible, but not providing bonuses fancier food does, or something. 3D printers are great, but conceivably over powered? I dunno. All depends on implementation, of course.