Hello, I am a person who recently purchased Starbound on Steam that has been following the game for some time now and I realize the potential this game has and I have created this forum thread to show a couple of ideas I have conjured up in my head that I personally think would flesh out this game more and really make people see Starbound is not just 'space terraria'. So without further ado, let's begin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space: A New Frontier I think the fact that Starbound is set in a sci-fi space environment is very interesting to me. It adds so much potential to the game because you are not bound to a single planet, but rather the stars. (ha!) The point of this topic is that I think that instead of space just being used for transportation from planet to planet, sector to sector, I think space should be another place where gameplay takes place. Here are some suggestions on what I think could be added to make space another place where gameplay takes place. #1 - Combat I think that space could be a very real place where combat could take place. If you have observed your starting spaceships, you can already see that there are some guns attached to your spacecraft. I think instead of those weapons being just aesthetic, Space should be a place where those guns will have a very useful function. For example, when you are travelling to another planet, there could be a random event where a space pirate attacks you and tries to loot your ship. You will have to defend yourself using the weapons onboard your ship, and this could be done in a FTL-style fashion. (although not too similar). There are also additional possibilities for combat, such as using the teleporter onboard your ship to board an enemy ship to take out the crew, which would enable you to loot their shiplocker with no opposition. Imagine the surprise of your adversaries when you warp onboard with a human mech! These are just a few examples of how combat could work in a space environment and there are probably lots of more ideas that could be added on to this. (PvP would be awesome in space!) #2 - Building Space also is a place where building could take place. Besides ship customization, a possibility is that you could EVA outside of your ship and build space stations (with hopefully working atmospherics, life support, etc.), mining stations onboard asteroids, SHIPS, and lots of other things. #3 - New Environments Space is a place of many different environments. This could add some diversity to the game and really make this frontier a lot more interesting. Some examples are asteroid fields (which could potentially damage your ship), radiation belts (which could potentially damage YOU!) and other weird, unique things that the Starbound team could probably think of. #4 - Random Encounters Random encounters in space could be very, very interesting. An example is listed above, in the combat section, where you could encounter some space pirates. However, there are other events that could happen for random encounters. Some good, some bad. Another example is when you are flying to another sector, when suddenly you receive a transmission asking for help. It could be a trap, but taking the risk and investigating it could result in a reward. One more example is travelling merchants that could sell desperately needed supplies, and let's not forget zombies onboard derelict ships. #5 - Customization Another idea is customization. While you are already able to customize your ship to some degree, it would be interesting to be able to add more engines, a more efficient power reactor, more and better guns, a shipboard AI, etc. These things would require materials but perhaps you could buy these things from a merchant or even 'liberate' them from another passing ship (hint, hint, nudge, nudge). Maybe you could even build your own ship while in a shipyards in orbit of a planet! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are just a few examples of how I think space can be fleshed out to not be just a medium used for transport but rather another place where lots of fun gameplay takes place. This being said, I realize that Starbound is still in beta and I would not be too surprised if the devs are already planning on this (I would most likely be delighted). Thank you for reading this, and congratulations on your game! P.S - Please forgive me for my english mistakes.
