The Game We Want

Eled · Dec 14, 2013

Untrustedlife said: ↑

I think they are different.. I think that this game is meant to be more exploratory action sandox-rpgish then terraria, which is just an action plat former game.
(I like both though)
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Sadly thats a promise Starbound is yet to realise. I know I know its a beta, and an early one at that. But the point remains on what we see right now, the two are almost interchangeable once you beam down from your ship.

GameQB11 · Dec 14, 2013

Untrustedlife said: ↑

I think they are different.. I think that this game is meant to be more exploratory action sandox-rpgish then terraria, which is just an action plat former game.
(I like both though)
Click to expand...

Yes, it expands on what Terraria was- but its stil basically the same kind of game with most of is content focused on that kind of gameplay. I would love if this was a 2-d mass effect / / Zelda in space game, but its not. It wants you to dig, fight and build cool bases. The story line is not a huge focus, the NPC wont give complex quest (as of now) your actions dont have consequence, theres no trading economy. You can only "explore" so much before you realize that there is in no way enough procedural content to last for 30+ hrs.

Eled said: ↑

Sadly thats a promise Starbound is yet to realise. I know I know its a beta, and an early one at that. But the point remains on what we see right now, the two are almost interchangeable once you beam down from your ship.
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This is exactly what i'm trying to say. I personally dont think its a BAD thing at all. It is what it is, an expanded almost spiritual successor to Terraria. I think some players are in denial that this is 2-d space sim RPG, with mining on the side.

Zugzwang · Dec 14, 2013

Make certain planet types have biome specific items added. Make "rare" planets that are filled with post-apocalyptic ruins. No need to take things away the original planets. If I have to fly across the universe to find a needed ingredient to make a hat that'd just be tedious.

John Doe · Dec 14, 2013

Meyjer said: ↑

Long time lurker, first time poster. Dramatic entrance!

Like many here, I've been having fun playing the Beta the past few days and trying to find innovative ways to crash the game. However, something about the exploration has been bothering me that I haven't quite been able to summerize until now.

Now, I know it's Beta. I know the game isn't complete, and I know the Dev's have a secret room full of surprise balloons they're waiting to unleash at the most inconvienant time. I know that I don't know what they're planning and that what they reveal might be exactly everything I ever wanted plus salty pickles (But I'd take the salty pickles off and put them on the plate next to mine.) But part of why they opened Beta was to see what players wanted and get feedback.

And I DO know what I want! The type of game that I envisioned and hoped Starbound to be when I first heard of its future existance, after looking up why Terraria wasn't going to be updated anymore (which turned out not to be true in the best way a lie can happen.)

To the point: The recent update on how planets are leveled made me realize that I really don't like how planets are given a level (even worse now that everything in Alpha is level 1,etc.) to broadly define its difficulty. And I worry that too much emphasis will be put on Aggressive Spawn as the sole means of creating a difficulty curve. I don't want planets to feel like a linear chain of monster gauntlets, where the only challange and discovery is that the spitballs on one planet hurt more than the spitballs on another planet.

I want planets to be as diverse and dangerous as Terraria's biomes - not just because of stacked monster stats. I want sudden deadly holes I can fall into, or thick thorns I have to slash my way through while be chased by a swarm of tiny angry bubbles. Then I want to land on a peacful grass planet, with nothing but peaceful bunnyfrogs hopping around eating eye-flowers, where I can build a little hero castle to safely collect villagers and forget all about that horrible other planet.

It is easier for me to show rather than tell. So here are some images I modified as an example of...(dramatic pause)

The game we want Starbound to become !!!11

(6 hours later)

Notice there isn't a single stat indicating the 'overall toughness' of the planet. At the top I can see which sector a planet is in, which gives me an idea of how hard spawns will be, but spawns aren't the only factor in difficulty. Just LOOKING at the stats gives you an idea of the planet's character. Notice the Gamma planet is essentially a 'barren' planet, but with a toxic atmosphere and heavy gravity, it would still be dangerous to explore.

I know I delve into specific details, but my goal is to present a clear and defined idea of "The game we want" that it can be compared to whatever secret plans the Devs have.

Biosphere indicates whether players need specific gear just to be on the planet. It boils down to "armor is nerfed here." While there are multiple names for different biospeheres to give diversity and specific kinds might give a visual affect on the planet's surface itself (glowing crystals spawning on radioactive planets, etc.), they can be summed up in three types: Green, Yellow, and Red.
Green Biosphere: Safe
Players don't need special gear to be on this planet and can frollic around singing in their birthday suits.

Yellow Biosphere: Hot, Cold, Corrosive, Irradiated
Yellow planets require special gear to safely explore. At lower tech levels, specific gear must be made for each planet (Snow suit for cold protection, Heat-Sink for hot planets, bubble wrap tuxedo for corrosive, lead undies for irradiated, etc. etc.) Failure to wear enough protective gear of the neccesary type results in the player taking damage of that type until they find 'appropriate' shelter (man made building) or die. At medium tech levels, environmental suits combine different elemental protection while increasing defense - eventually leading to all-purpose environmental armor suits that give about half the protection of normal armor.

Red Biosphere: Scorching, Sub-Zero, Toxic, Radioactive
The Super-extremes of the above, indicate a need for an SCE (self-contained environment) suit just to survive the planet. Failure to wear a SCE suit results in a quick, painful, and possibly entertaining death. SCE suits stop energy regeneration and slowly drain energy from your energy meter. Once the energy meter runs out, players begin to suffocate and white out. Players also cannot eat food while wearing an SCE suit. To replenish energy again, players must remove some part of the suit - this requires players visiting Red biospheres to either make frequent trips back to the ship, or to construct little shelters as they explore the planet so they can take their suit off. Higher tech SCE suits give bigger boosts to the player's energy meter, but their armor protection is always rubbish.

Gravity indicates how fun a planet is. Generally speaking, heavier gravity is worse. Lighter planets give a pickaxe-power bonus, due to the looser composition of the soil and ease of using heavy mining tools in lower gravity. Heavier planets give a reduction in pickaxe power to indicate the material being densely compacted. Furthermore, falling damage and damage from falling objects becomes a greater concern on heavy gravity planets.

-Very Low: Players can soar through the air like majestic sky whales. Pickaxe power increased 10%. It is impossible to take falling damage. Sand and gravel stays in place like dirt. Walking speed reduced 25%.
-Low: Player jumping height is doubled. falling distance is halved when calculating falling damage.
-Average: People fall when stepping on banana peels.
-Heavy: Player jumping height is halved. Jumping costs a tiny bit of energy. Falling distance is doubled when calculating falling damage. Walking speed reduced 25%. Pickaxe power reduced 25%. Damage from avalanches and falling objects increased 50%. Greater likelyhood of cave-ins (Random block types that usually don't fall might fall and cause damage.)
-Very Heavy: Player jumping height is reduced by 66%. Jumping costs a pip of energy. Hunger increases at double the rate. Falling distance is tripled when calculating falling damage. Walking speed reduced 50%. Pickaxe power reduced 50%. Damage from avalanches and falling objects increased 100%. Greater likely hood of cave-ins (Massive sections of rock might suddenly collapse.)

Fauna indicates the presence of animal life and the diversity of species. In game terms it indicates how many different species spawn in each biome on the planet, and the frequency of animal spawn around the player. Note this doesn't include 'civilized' species that may have settled on a barren planet in anticipation of shooting random adventurers for giggles. The abundance of animals might also have a factor on the total NPC population limit of player-built colonies, as they would be a source of food for any colony on the planet.

None: Zeus found nothing appealing about this planet and moved on to a more romantic setting.
Few: Indicates one or two species of animal spawns in each biome on the planet, on the surface this may or may not include air and land. Animal spawn rate is 50% less than normal.
Abundant: The 'average.' Indicates 3-6 species of animal spawns in each biome and you'll have at least 1 land and 1 air type for each surface biome. Spawn rate is normal.
Swarming: At least 9 species of animal spawns in each biome. I'm sure they're all friendly and want hugs.

Flora Indicates the presense of plant life and the diversity of plant species. A higher rank indicates different kinds of trees, shrubs, herbs, and the likelyhood of food sources and gardenable plants being found there. It might alsobe the primary indicator for 'Maximum Population' of any player made settlements in terms of NPCs. Building a settlement on a barren planet with no Fauna might require you to build hydroponic farms or import your own plants before NPCs can live there, whereas a Cornucopia planet can have 20+ NPCs living there before you need to start thinking of adding more food sources.

None: A lithevore's paradise. Otherwise, hope you brought a sandwich.
Few: Indicates a few plants - one type of tree sparsely spread out over the entire planet, with few sources of plant matter. Low chance for 1 gardenable plant to grow.
Abundant: Indicates a lush planet with 1-2 types of trees that spawn in dense clusters. Fair chance for 1 type of gardenable plant to spawn, rare chance for 2.
Cornicopia: Indicates a 'gaia' planet brimming with life. At least 2, probably 3 types of trees grow on the planet and pack themselves tightly all over the surface. At least 1 gardenable plant naturally spawns, with a good chance for 2, and a rare chance for 3. Furthermore, plants and trees automatically regrow themselves and don't need to be replanted - it's impossible to strip this planet of its forest.

Minerals No one cares about these so we'll just move on...

Oh right, mining game. Minerals would indicate the relative amount of ore on a planet, but not neccisarily the Rarity of it. Minerals could be Abundant/Plentiful, but still only go up to Iron as far as rarity is concerned. By now I think you get the pattern so I wont make a color chart.

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Edit Dec 13: I was only kidding when I said no one cares about these. They are of course a core mechanic of the game ~ to give a more specific example though, Mineral spawn could directly correlate to the difficulty of the planet. Light gravity gives -20%, Heavy gravity gives +15%, More plants gives -20%, a planet of in-laws adds 100% to mineral spawn, etc.

Certain planet features could also affect WHERE spawn happens. A harsh surface environment would mean more ore is exposed on the surface, giving people who don't like to mine to the core of a planet incentive to run around in a meteor storm grabbing chunks of ore off the surface. I'd hope the devs would have a lot of fun throwing curve-balls into how planet variables affect ore spawn! But all would be geared towards more difficulty = higher rewards.
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Hazards Indicate specially scripted conditions that alter planet variables or introduce new systems altogether, and are really what give a planet charming personality. Hazards generally add difficulty to a planet and come in two levels: Yellow (which indicates a minor inconvienances) and Red (which indicates something which greatly alters how life for players works.)

Example Hazards:
Meteor Showers (yellow): The planet's orbit regularly puts it within the trajectory of space debri. Most of it burns up in the atmosphere, but what doesnt results in random 'fire rains' that light up anything caught in it.

Meteor Storms (red): The planet's orbit regularly puts it within the trajectory of large space debri that easily penetrates the atmosphere. In addition to the 'rain of fire,' anything not underground runs the risk of being destroyed by massive comits.

Pirate Raids (yellow): For whatever reasons, pirates love to come here, and do so randomly.

Acid Rain (yellow): This planet rains an unfavorable chemical. Players caught in the rain take continued toxic damage until they find cover - and any player gardens will immediatly die if exposed to the planet's rain.

Global Storms (yellow): The planet is regularly covered by massive and fierce storm systems (Dust, Rain, Snow, whatever fits the Type.) When they hit, it clouds all vision on the surface, and produces cracks in player-built structures on the surface. Any player placed blocks weaker than stone run the risk of being blown off.

Tectonic Plates (yellow): Indicates highly active tectonic activity. Lava spawns in vertical columns underground about 2/3rds up from the planet's magma level, Resulting in players encountering lava much sooner when digging, and well as limiting horizontal movement, forcing players to return to the surface to avoid large 'walls' of lava, or finding a clever way to deal with it.

Volcanic (red): Similar to tectonic plates, lava spawns in vertical columns, but at least one of those columns reaches the surface and creates a live volcano site. Lava regularly overflows from the top of the volcano.

World-Eater Worm (red): No one is entirely sure how these giant worms populated so many planets, but whenever a planet has an infestation of World-Eater worms, it spells trouble for anything on the planet that hasn't yet lived a life with no regrets.

Boons are the opposite of hazards and much less common. They indicate special qualities of the planet that generally make the planet more favorable. Example of boons could be "Rich Soil" which doubles the growth rate of plants not grown indoors. "Rare Minerals" which alters the curve of ore spawned to favor the rarer types, "Regenerating Microbes" which gives all life a slow and constant life regeneration.

Anomalies is an area to put vague clues about what can be found on the planet. Anomalies become mini-quests upon landing to discover the source of them - and once discovered an anomaly will be listed in the planet chart if applicable. Anomalies can include "Odd Organic Readings," "Merchant Beacon," "Distress Beacon," "Request Beacon," "Bacon Beacon," "(Race) Activity," "Odd Energy Signature," "A strange formation," etc. The same anomaly could mean completely different things - 'Glitch Activity' could be a glitch city, a glitch merchant, glitch pirates, glitch castle, or a bunch of Apex with boxes on their heads who, upon being discovered, all point and laugh and say "LOL YOU THOUGHT WE WERE GLITCH."

Synergy: One of the benefits of having planets with so many variables is the synergy. Heavy gravity would be annoying all by itself. But it makes meteors even deadlier, and makes it harder to move around or fight native life, even if it's small and weak. Throw heavy gravity in with a Toxic atmosphere, and it will be a struggle just to exist on the planet. Planets will still be dangerous without having to pump up monster stats or NPC spawn to create a difficulty curve. Likewise, people would seek out different 'types' of planets for different roles - a planet with lots of rare ores on it may not be the best planet to live on or explore for loot. Earlier Planets in the Alpha and Beta sectors would be the most likely to spawn 'greener' planets that are easier to live on, and would still be useful in the later part of the game as colony planets for populating your own cities.

This also gives a chance to further flesh out races, which will affect which planets are explored in single player mode and give a good reason to have a diverse group in multiplier (Good chance at least one of you will still be able to wear full armor and protect the rest of the group.)

Apex: Immune to cold biospheres. Tiny boost to HP due to their primitive monkey bods. Can eat human food.
Avian: Immune to hot and cold biospheres. Receives 25% extra penalty to Heavy and Very Heavy gravity.
Floran: Immune to corrosive biospheres. Can eat raw meat and all but a few plants.
Hylotle: Immune to corrosive biospheres. Receives no pick axe penalty on Heavy gravity planets and only 25% pickaxe penalty in Very Heavy gravity (they have evolved to work under extreme pressures.)
Human: Coming from a home planet with a diverse biosphere, humans are the cockroaches of the universe and can adapt quickly: their yellow biosphere equipment gets a 50% bonus to elemental resistance and their SCE suits have 25% more energy.
Glitch: Immune to Irradiated and Radioactive biospheres. Must wear an SCE suit in Corrosive biospheres. Glitch food plants are immune to acid rain.
Novakid: Immune to Hot, Irradiated, Scorching, and Radioactive biospheres. Must wear an SCE suit in Cold biospheres. Takes corrosive damage while submerged in water. Novakid food plants only grow in Radioactive and Scorching biospheres.

BUT ANYWAY

I know the racial examples aren't balanced. The purpose of this post is NOT to get into the nitpicky details of balance or to make a big list of 'junk' we want to see on planets. Its to create a fleshed out idea of the game we want to play, so that people can either go "YES THATS THE GAME I WANT TO PLAY" or "NO THAT GAME LOOKS STUPID IM GOING BACK TO WOW" so the devs might have a clear idea of what we want!

If you disagree and prefer the idea of planet difficulty being based on monsters as an ever-scaling gauntlet then by all means tell me to shut up and make fun of my presumed body mass index size, or critically point out how illogical my idea of space exploration is and that my numerous typos invalidate my entire argument.

If you agree, then maybe give a nod so that the devs can tell how strongly people feel about this!

And if you happen to be a Dev, and this is already largely the direction you guys are going in, then please feel free to be like, "Yo bro, chill, that's what we's doin dawg."

Edit Dec 13, Response to most Responses!

"I agree on most of it/everything EXCEPT those rubbish ideas of racial adaptation."
I like how strong a division there is here - some people feel strongly races should remain a purely aesthetic choice, some want more meaning behind racial choice, and everyone agrees my examples are terrible, which is why I didn't edit them lest we lose our unity. The arguments for these could well be another forum debate entirely so I don't want this to be the primary focus - As it stands with how the game works right now, there really isn't a lot the devs could do to code racial differences without modifying some core mechanic of the game, which would bias people towards certain races depending on their play style, and I agree that would be bad. But IF a game mechanic like the 'Biosphere' one proposed here IS implemented in some way, it would give the potential to give each race an environment it doesn't get nerfed in, which makes the early game of an Apex play out differently than the early game of a Floran. The game already lightly supports this idea with hinting that certain food types will be poison to other races. However, both sides agree that my examples are rubbish - so at least we can all agree on something.

"There should be a scanner system so we don't see everything at once / I think all those stats should be hidden"
I'm sure that IF a more dynamic planetary trait system like the one exemplified above is created, then the following question will be how much of what traits should be revealed, how, and when. But those are all specifics and ideas that hang on the idea of having a planetary trait system like this in the first place! So I didn't want to get into detail of how to reveal the traits that don't yet exist. It would come down to how the traits function in the first place, and THEN mechanics for scanner systems could be thought up.

"But people can give the Seed # to others, and as soon as a rich planet is discovered, everyone will go to it."
First, this is a fair point. However, it's going to happen with ANY system you create a fixed seed spawn with. People are already giving away seed numbers to Airships near landing points for quick gun access. And that's sort of the purpose of having a seed system in the first place! Casual players will probably look up a seed # when they need something specific and can't find it. Explorers are still going to explore, because they want to find planets no one else has and maybe the next popular seed! And Munchkins will always try to find seeds near quick advancement...you can't beat munchkins. No seriously, don't try - a game coded to try and prevent munchkinizm (highly scientific term) will be totally not fun and feel hostile to a casual player. Just keep merchant stock and loot randomly seeded, to lower the power of munchkinizm, and at the end of the day remember - if a player's idea of "Fun" is rushing to grab a good item early in the game, then just let them--Because a game is about having fun.

"These ideas are awesome and you are awesome and I love this post because it's awesome and I love you and can I build a shrine to you."
Thanks! It's all very true and yes you can, but please only use silver because gold is tacky.
In seriousness, the idea is hardly 'mine' and the fact that I have to reply to people in an edit like this tells me it's taken a life of its own, and some of the replies suggest I succeeded in articulating what most people already wanted (and maybe my obsession with the subject helped create workable examples.) But all the same I'm glad I'm not the only one along this line of thinking!

"These ideas are good and the dev's ideas aren't good and they should make you their dev king."
As good as I would look in a crown and glasses, it's not my intention to come off as complaining or create a bandwagon of bashing against the game or the Devs. I am having fun playing the Beta, both alone and with friends! It's the fact that this Dev team cares so much about the opinions of their community and listens to feedback to perfect their game, which is hard to find in todays gaming market, that inspired me to write this up in the hopes of creating an even better game. And there is a good chance that they have similar, or even better, ideas, that they haven't revealed yet (they have, after all, spent a bit more than 8 hours developing their game - unlike my post.) I have no doubt the Dev team wants to create the best game possible more than anyone else, and am hopeful that the feedback this post inspires is positive and helpful towards that goal. We're all on the same team, dawgs, so keep blows above the belt...... I'd still take a shiny hat though.

"These are all amazing ideas but it would take a bajillion years/trazillion moneys and by then I'd be a skeleton and couldn't play it because my hands would be too arthritic to use a keyboard."
First of all, I'm sure optical-reflection mice will exist by then, so you could still play the game using your eyeballs.

Second: It is our (self proclaimed) job as a community and the purpose of Beta to give an idea of what we as players want. It is the devs who then take these ideas and determine the feasibility and worth of implementing them. We shouldn't let the notion that "This is probably too difficult" prevent the idea from being brought up, because that's for the dev team to determine. If there is a clear and strong 'demand' for an aspect of gameplay that they might have overlooked or thought there'd be no demand for, then the Devs will take that into consideration and it might suddenly become 'worth' it to invest more time and code into an aspect of gameplay.

I also expect that a system as detailed as the example I gave would certainly not be happening at the V1.0 release, unless they already had most of it secretly coded. BUT, it's possible that if this was the long term goal, they could gear code now to add more code later to eventually lead up to this through expansions and updates.

Or they might make a 'meet in the middle' system, using the general ideas presented here. For example: Giving planets four qualities that it can draw from when being generated: Hazards (bad), Boons (good), Quirks (neutral things, like having a Tidal-Locked orbit or a planet-sized crater), and Anomalies/Alerts (One time hooks.) Then all the previously mentioned 'Planet Stats' would be listed in one of the above, only if it deviated from a 'normal' state.

All I'm sayin is... The fat lady doesn't even know her lines yet, so editing the script isn't out of the question.

...... please don't make the end-boss of the game a giant lady. That's not at all what I was saying.
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You Sure are a genius!! This is the feel that I want starbound to have.... !!

Rylyn · Dec 14, 2013

Best thread.

Hands down.

All of my ideas of Starbound as a game are here.

I want this game.

We all want this game.

Please Ty, please Chucklefish. Read this, and do it, or at least as close as possible.

And thanks for this post man.

TheApothecanary · Dec 14, 2013

I LOVE THIS IDEA.
+1 (I saw other people saying +1 so i did it)

MurtaghInfin8 · Dec 14, 2013

This is what we need to feel like a different game from terraria. I want it. I want it bad.

Titanium · Dec 14, 2013

Untrustedlife said: ↑

You should really reread the OP.
There are plenty of interesting things the op wants.

Not to mention very hot planets was part of it, and hazards, and other things.

I quoted it so you can look at it.
Read teh WHOLE THING before replying to me and you will see what I mean.
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Please, just.

Please. Stop replying to every single one of my posts. I'm begging you.

But on point. You are not acknowledging what combinations of things will be boring/confusing, and how just a couple presets of "hazards" are not enough to keep a game like this alive.

sxlwa · Dec 14, 2013

Love the idea. Not sure I'd reveal everything on a scan, you DO want some surprises - but overall much better, especially if they keep the sector system in place. If they ditch the sector system (which I would do) it may make sense to list the difficulty level of the planet, since that affects what kind of stuff you can find. Otherwise everything you suggest sounds awesome to me.

diegopau · Dec 14, 2013

Meyjer said: ↑

Long time lurker, first time poster. Dramatic entrance!

Like many here, I've been having fun playing the Beta the past few days and ....
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If you could fusion, in your first post, the ideas of this thread with some of ideas (and pictures) on this other thread http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/star-map-tiers-are-lame.48688/
it would be awesome, we could get the perfect mix!!.

Also I quote my own vision as I already stated it in that thread:

diegopau said: ↑

I want to explore a universe, and reaching every new planet should be something challeging and exciting, but then its yours and it has a meaning to keep your base there (if you move to another sector or if it is so easy to move from planet to planet what is the meaning of building a base in a planet??). It should be hard to travel to a far away planet, instead you are "conquering" the universe planet a planet (like probably humanity will do some time in the future), travelling first to the neighbours, avoiding the hardes ones and travels that you just can't land cause you dont have the technology yet (too cold, too much gravity, very toxic atmosfere, giant monsters, etc.). The maps as in http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/star-map-tiers-are-lame.48688/ would be really perfect!.
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diegopau said: ↑

Why to unlock planets when you can instead unlock (or get) a technology that alows you to survive in this planets?. This is for me there real experience of exploration: next to my planet there is a very cold planet and with toxic air, I can extract some data about the surface of this planet from my current planet, enough to know if the gravity/temperature/air are ok for surviving (only if i have the right technology, but this one is easy to get at the beginning), if I go there with my spaceship then i can get some more interesting data (maybe about what resources can I get or even a very simple map with some important points of the planet), and with all this i can make a bookmark and some annotations, so the trip was worth it and i can leave it for when i get stronger / the right technology.

Then if even knowing that this planet is cold and toxic i want to go there and beam down without the right technology, I CAN, and i will last for a few seconds before dying either of cold or of unbreathable air!. Or I can leave it for when I am ready (with the right technologies and weapons). This is how in real life will work, its more fun, and you have the progression and the "tiers" anyway.

The situation of this planets should be totally random, like in a real universe. But not senless random like now... i don't ask for a super realistic game, but come on, it is not so hard to make cold planets the ones that are far from the start and hotter the ones that are close to it, and earth like the ones that are somewhere in the middle and have a earth (or superearth) kind of size... and taking into account the size of the star too! So you can guess how hot a planet is just looking at how far is from the star and how big the star is, and you can guess the gravity of the planet by its size and you can even get a clue of what kind of planet it is with the color of it without having to clic in the planet. I can't avoid feeling bad when i find a snow planet that is really really close to a very big star!! or a very cold planet that is very far from the start but with satellites that are really hot!

And having a map like NeedsLoomis showed at the beginning "slowly growing out our little area of space into a big map of conquered and explored planets" its a must have for me, it really makes you want to explore and be proud of your progress.

Also with this system, wonderful things can be added once we go from beta to realease, planets should grow and grow on variety: planets without a living thing, too hot, where you can survie a minute or two but you can get an unknown mineral from its surface, not present in any other planet; a planet with giant monters that drop amazing things but you can't even try to kill them now, so you beam down and think "what the heck..." and make your annotation and 2 months later you come back with a crazy powerful weapon or some mech; a planet with a gravity so strong that you walk really really slow and suffere damage so you can only go down with the right mech...

The first planet should be easy of course, and they can make it that the moon/moons of this first planet are quite habitable too, and maybe this first solar system has 2 - 3 planets in the "habitable zone"... and then, for the rest of space, randomness as I described before.

And of course in the future diferent races should have more/less tolerance to some kind of environments.... I could go on like that forever, this game have too much potential, and possibilities, but its my opinion that they are choosing the wrong aproach and wasting this chance of feeling like you are really lost out there, in space as it is, and having a natural progression in a "real" agressive universe.
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Raveston · Dec 14, 2013

This is the most in depth suggestion of an idea I've seen in other places, and I am totally down for what this is all about. This would add SO MUCH to the depth of the gameplay. I hope the devs, at the very least, look at what is being said here and take it into consideration.

Insignus · Dec 14, 2013

I very much like this idea. As I recall however, when I posted my similar idea a while ago, it didn't quite get the same response. Probably because I didn't have any snazzy visuals.

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/environmental-hazards.6733/

To summarize the sentiment:

Regardless, environmental challenges please. If I'm not running from cave to cave to avoid burning alive and carrying oxygen tanks with me or summoning them from a dropship whilst searching for alien artifacts, I won't feel the thrill!
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As to the whole "Scan the planet" deal, that would best be served by having a ship upgrade or specialization. That way, if you're an adventurous type, you can go the full prometheus and land on every planet with full hazard gear (Having the occasional deadly deadly secret poison atmosphere would be humorous), or stratrek it up and scan for hazards, with different levels of scanner yielding different levels of detail.

Tigerr13 · Dec 14, 2013

Meyjer said: ↑

Long time lurker, first time poster. Dramatic entrance!

Like many here, I've been having fun playing the Beta the past few days and trying to find innovative ways to crash the game. However, something about the exploration has been bothering me that I haven't quite been able to summerize until now.

Now, I know it's Beta. I know the game isn't complete, and I know the Dev's have a secret room full of surprise balloons they're waiting to unleash at the most inconvienant time. I know that I don't know what they're planning and that what they reveal might be exactly everything I ever wanted plus salty pickles (But I'd take the salty pickles off and put them on the plate next to mine.) But part of why they opened Beta was to see what players wanted and get feedback.

And I DO know what I want! The type of game that I envisioned and hoped Starbound to be when I first heard of its future existance, after looking up why Terraria wasn't going to be updated anymore (which turned out not to be true in the best way a lie can happen.)

To the point: The recent update on how planets are leveled made me realize that I really don't like how planets are given a level (even worse now that everything in Alpha is level 1,etc.) to broadly define its difficulty. And I worry that too much emphasis will be put on Aggressive Spawn as the sole means of creating a difficulty curve. I don't want planets to feel like a linear chain of monster gauntlets, where the only challange and discovery is that the spitballs on one planet hurt more than the spitballs on another planet.

I want planets to be as diverse and dangerous as Terraria's biomes - not just because of stacked monster stats. I want sudden deadly holes I can fall into, or thick thorns I have to slash my way through while be chased by a swarm of tiny angry bubbles. Then I want to land on a peacful grass planet, with nothing but peaceful bunnyfrogs hopping around eating eye-flowers, where I can build a little hero castle to safely collect villagers and forget all about that horrible other planet.

It is easier for me to show rather than tell. So here are some images I modified as an example of...(dramatic pause)

The game we want Starbound to become !!!11

(6 hours later)

Notice there isn't a single stat indicating the 'overall toughness' of the planet. At the top I can see which sector a planet is in, which gives me an idea of how hard spawns will be, but spawns aren't the only factor in difficulty. Just LOOKING at the stats gives you an idea of the planet's character. Notice the Gamma planet is essentially a 'barren' planet, but with a toxic atmosphere and heavy gravity, it would still be dangerous to explore.

I know I delve into specific details, but my goal is to present a clear and defined idea of "The game we want" that it can be compared to whatever secret plans the Devs have.

Biosphere indicates whether players need specific gear just to be on the planet. It boils down to "armor is nerfed here." While there are multiple names for different biospeheres to give diversity and specific kinds might give a visual affect on the planet's surface itself (glowing crystals spawning on radioactive planets, etc.), they can be summed up in three types: Green, Yellow, and Red.
Green Biosphere: Safe
Players don't need special gear to be on this planet and can frollic around singing in their birthday suits.

Yellow Biosphere: Hot, Cold, Corrosive, Irradiated
Yellow planets require special gear to safely explore. At lower tech levels, specific gear must be made for each planet (Snow suit for cold protection, Heat-Sink for hot planets, bubble wrap tuxedo for corrosive, lead undies for irradiated, etc. etc.) Failure to wear enough protective gear of the neccesary type results in the player taking damage of that type until they find 'appropriate' shelter (man made building) or die. At medium tech levels, environmental suits combine different elemental protection while increasing defense - eventually leading to all-purpose environmental armor suits that give about half the protection of normal armor.

Red Biosphere: Scorching, Sub-Zero, Toxic, Radioactive
The Super-extremes of the above, indicate a need for an SCE (self-contained environment) suit just to survive the planet. Failure to wear a SCE suit results in a quick, painful, and possibly entertaining death. SCE suits stop energy regeneration and slowly drain energy from your energy meter. Once the energy meter runs out, players begin to suffocate and white out. Players also cannot eat food while wearing an SCE suit. To replenish energy again, players must remove some part of the suit - this requires players visiting Red biospheres to either make frequent trips back to the ship, or to construct little shelters as they explore the planet so they can take their suit off. Higher tech SCE suits give bigger boosts to the player's energy meter, but their armor protection is always rubbish.

Gravity indicates how fun a planet is. Generally speaking, heavier gravity is worse. Lighter planets give a pickaxe-power bonus, due to the looser composition of the soil and ease of using heavy mining tools in lower gravity. Heavier planets give a reduction in pickaxe power to indicate the material being densely compacted. Furthermore, falling damage and damage from falling objects becomes a greater concern on heavy gravity planets.

-Very Low: Players can soar through the air like majestic sky whales. Pickaxe power increased 10%. It is impossible to take falling damage. Sand and gravel stays in place like dirt. Walking speed reduced 25%.
-Low: Player jumping height is doubled. falling distance is halved when calculating falling damage.
-Average: People fall when stepping on banana peels.
-Heavy: Player jumping height is halved. Jumping costs a tiny bit of energy. Falling distance is doubled when calculating falling damage. Walking speed reduced 25%. Pickaxe power reduced 25%. Damage from avalanches and falling objects increased 50%. Greater likelyhood of cave-ins (Random block types that usually don't fall might fall and cause damage.)
-Very Heavy: Player jumping height is reduced by 66%. Jumping costs a pip of energy. Hunger increases at double the rate. Falling distance is tripled when calculating falling damage. Walking speed reduced 50%. Pickaxe power reduced 50%. Damage from avalanches and falling objects increased 100%. Greater likely hood of cave-ins (Massive sections of rock might suddenly collapse.)

Fauna indicates the presence of animal life and the diversity of species. In game terms it indicates how many different species spawn in each biome on the planet, and the frequency of animal spawn around the player. Note this doesn't include 'civilized' species that may have settled on a barren planet in anticipation of shooting random adventurers for giggles. The abundance of animals might also have a factor on the total NPC population limit of player-built colonies, as they would be a source of food for any colony on the planet.

None: Zeus found nothing appealing about this planet and moved on to a more romantic setting.
Few: Indicates one or two species of animal spawns in each biome on the planet, on the surface this may or may not include air and land. Animal spawn rate is 50% less than normal.
Abundant: The 'average.' Indicates 3-6 species of animal spawns in each biome and you'll have at least 1 land and 1 air type for each surface biome. Spawn rate is normal.
Swarming: At least 9 species of animal spawns in each biome. I'm sure they're all friendly and want hugs.

Flora Indicates the presense of plant life and the diversity of plant species. A higher rank indicates different kinds of trees, shrubs, herbs, and the likelyhood of food sources and gardenable plants being found there. It might alsobe the primary indicator for 'Maximum Population' of any player made settlements in terms of NPCs. Building a settlement on a barren planet with no Fauna might require you to build hydroponic farms or import your own plants before NPCs can live there, whereas a Cornucopia planet can have 20+ NPCs living there before you need to start thinking of adding more food sources.

None: A lithevore's paradise. Otherwise, hope you brought a sandwich.
Few: Indicates a few plants - one type of tree sparsely spread out over the entire planet, with few sources of plant matter. Low chance for 1 gardenable plant to grow.
Abundant: Indicates a lush planet with 1-2 types of trees that spawn in dense clusters. Fair chance for 1 type of gardenable plant to spawn, rare chance for 2.
Cornicopia: Indicates a 'gaia' planet brimming with life. At least 2, probably 3 types of trees grow on the planet and pack themselves tightly all over the surface. At least 1 gardenable plant naturally spawns, with a good chance for 2, and a rare chance for 3. Furthermore, plants and trees automatically regrow themselves and don't need to be replanted - it's impossible to strip this planet of its forest.

Minerals No one cares about these so we'll just move on...

Oh right, mining game. Minerals would indicate the relative amount of ore on a planet, but not neccisarily the Rarity of it. Minerals could be Abundant/Plentiful, but still only go up to Iron as far as rarity is concerned. By now I think you get the pattern so I wont make a color chart.

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Edit Dec 13: I was only kidding when I said no one cares about these. They are of course a core mechanic of the game ~ to give a more specific example though, Mineral spawn could directly correlate to the difficulty of the planet. Light gravity gives -20%, Heavy gravity gives +15%, More plants gives -20%, a planet of in-laws adds 100% to mineral spawn, etc.

Certain planet features could also affect WHERE spawn happens. A harsh surface environment would mean more ore is exposed on the surface, giving people who don't like to mine to the core of a planet incentive to run around in a meteor storm grabbing chunks of ore off the surface. I'd hope the devs would have a lot of fun throwing curve-balls into how planet variables affect ore spawn! But all would be geared towards more difficulty = higher rewards.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hazards Indicate specially scripted conditions that alter planet variables or introduce new systems altogether, and are really what give a planet charming personality. Hazards generally add difficulty to a planet and come in two levels: Yellow (which indicates a minor inconvienances) and Red (which indicates something which greatly alters how life for players works.)

Example Hazards:
Meteor Showers (yellow): The planet's orbit regularly puts it within the trajectory of space debri. Most of it burns up in the atmosphere, but what doesnt results in random 'fire rains' that light up anything caught in it.

Meteor Storms (red): The planet's orbit regularly puts it within the trajectory of large space debri that easily penetrates the atmosphere. In addition to the 'rain of fire,' anything not underground runs the risk of being destroyed by massive comits.

Pirate Raids (yellow): For whatever reasons, pirates love to come here, and do so randomly.

Acid Rain (yellow): This planet rains an unfavorable chemical. Players caught in the rain take continued toxic damage until they find cover - and any player gardens will immediatly die if exposed to the planet's rain.

Global Storms (yellow): The planet is regularly covered by massive and fierce storm systems (Dust, Rain, Snow, whatever fits the Type.) When they hit, it clouds all vision on the surface, and produces cracks in player-built structures on the surface. Any player placed blocks weaker than stone run the risk of being blown off.

Tectonic Plates (yellow): Indicates highly active tectonic activity. Lava spawns in vertical columns underground about 2/3rds up from the planet's magma level, Resulting in players encountering lava much sooner when digging, and well as limiting horizontal movement, forcing players to return to the surface to avoid large 'walls' of lava, or finding a clever way to deal with it.

Volcanic (red): Similar to tectonic plates, lava spawns in vertical columns, but at least one of those columns reaches the surface and creates a live volcano site. Lava regularly overflows from the top of the volcano.

World-Eater Worm (red): No one is entirely sure how these giant worms populated so many planets, but whenever a planet has an infestation of World-Eater worms, it spells trouble for anything on the planet that hasn't yet lived a life with no regrets.

Boons are the opposite of hazards and much less common. They indicate special qualities of the planet that generally make the planet more favorable. Example of boons could be "Rich Soil" which doubles the growth rate of plants not grown indoors. "Rare Minerals" which alters the curve of ore spawned to favor the rarer types, "Regenerating Microbes" which gives all life a slow and constant life regeneration.

Anomalies is an area to put vague clues about what can be found on the planet. Anomalies become mini-quests upon landing to discover the source of them - and once discovered an anomaly will be listed in the planet chart if applicable. Anomalies can include "Odd Organic Readings," "Merchant Beacon," "Distress Beacon," "Request Beacon," "Bacon Beacon," "(Race) Activity," "Odd Energy Signature," "A strange formation," etc. The same anomaly could mean completely different things - 'Glitch Activity' could be a glitch city, a glitch merchant, glitch pirates, glitch castle, or a bunch of Apex with boxes on their heads who, upon being discovered, all point and laugh and say "LOL YOU THOUGHT WE WERE GLITCH."

Synergy: One of the benefits of having planets with so many variables is the synergy. Heavy gravity would be annoying all by itself. But it makes meteors even deadlier, and makes it harder to move around or fight native life, even if it's small and weak. Throw heavy gravity in with a Toxic atmosphere, and it will be a struggle just to exist on the planet. Planets will still be dangerous without having to pump up monster stats or NPC spawn to create a difficulty curve. Likewise, people would seek out different 'types' of planets for different roles - a planet with lots of rare ores on it may not be the best planet to live on or explore for loot. Earlier Planets in the Alpha and Beta sectors would be the most likely to spawn 'greener' planets that are easier to live on, and would still be useful in the later part of the game as colony planets for populating your own cities.

This also gives a chance to further flesh out races, which will affect which planets are explored in single player mode and give a good reason to have a diverse group in multiplier (Good chance at least one of you will still be able to wear full armor and protect the rest of the group.)

Apex: Immune to cold biospheres. Tiny boost to HP due to their primitive monkey bods. Can eat human food.
Avian: Immune to hot and cold biospheres. Receives 25% extra penalty to Heavy and Very Heavy gravity.
Floran: Immune to corrosive biospheres. Can eat raw meat and all but a few plants.
Hylotle: Immune to corrosive biospheres. Receives no pick axe penalty on Heavy gravity planets and only 25% pickaxe penalty in Very Heavy gravity (they have evolved to work under extreme pressures.)
Human: Coming from a home planet with a diverse biosphere, humans are the cockroaches of the universe and can adapt quickly: their yellow biosphere equipment gets a 50% bonus to elemental resistance and their SCE suits have 25% more energy.
Glitch: Immune to Irradiated and Radioactive biospheres. Must wear an SCE suit in Corrosive biospheres. Glitch food plants are immune to acid rain.
Novakid: Immune to Hot, Irradiated, Scorching, and Radioactive biospheres. Must wear an SCE suit in Cold biospheres. Takes corrosive damage while submerged in water. Novakid food plants only grow in Radioactive and Scorching biospheres.

BUT ANYWAY

I know the racial examples aren't balanced. The purpose of this post is NOT to get into the nitpicky details of balance or to make a big list of 'junk' we want to see on planets. Its to create a fleshed out idea of the game we want to play, so that people can either go "YES THATS THE GAME I WANT TO PLAY" or "NO THAT GAME LOOKS STUPID IM GOING BACK TO WOW" so the devs might have a clear idea of what we want!

If you disagree and prefer the idea of planet difficulty being based on monsters as an ever-scaling gauntlet then by all means tell me to shut up and make fun of my presumed body mass index size, or critically point out how illogical my idea of space exploration is and that my numerous typos invalidate my entire argument.

If you agree, then maybe give a nod so that the devs can tell how strongly people feel about this!

And if you happen to be a Dev, and this is already largely the direction you guys are going in, then please feel free to be like, "Yo bro, chill, that's what we's doin dawg."

Edit Dec 13, Response to most Responses!

"I agree on most of it/everything EXCEPT those rubbish ideas of racial adaptation."
I like how strong a division there is here - some people feel strongly races should remain a purely aesthetic choice, some want more meaning behind racial choice, and everyone agrees my examples are terrible, which is why I didn't edit them lest we lose our unity. The arguments for these could well be another forum debate entirely so I don't want this to be the primary focus - As it stands with how the game works right now, there really isn't a lot the devs could do to code racial differences without modifying some core mechanic of the game, which would bias people towards certain races depending on their play style, and I agree that would be bad. But IF a game mechanic like the 'Biosphere' one proposed here IS implemented in some way, it would give the potential to give each race an environment it doesn't get nerfed in, which makes the early game of an Apex play out differently than the early game of a Floran. The game already lightly supports this idea with hinting that certain food types will be poison to other races. However, both sides agree that my examples are rubbish - so at least we can all agree on something.

"There should be a scanner system so we don't see everything at once / I think all those stats should be hidden"
I'm sure that IF a more dynamic planetary trait system like the one exemplified above is created, then the following question will be how much of what traits should be revealed, how, and when. But those are all specifics and ideas that hang on the idea of having a planetary trait system like this in the first place! So I didn't want to get into detail of how to reveal the traits that don't yet exist. It would come down to how the traits function in the first place, and THEN mechanics for scanner systems could be thought up.

"But people can give the Seed # to others, and as soon as a rich planet is discovered, everyone will go to it."
First, this is a fair point. However, it's going to happen with ANY system you create a fixed seed spawn with. People are already giving away seed numbers to Airships near landing points for quick gun access. And that's sort of the purpose of having a seed system in the first place! Casual players will probably look up a seed # when they need something specific and can't find it. Explorers are still going to explore, because they want to find planets no one else has and maybe the next popular seed! And Munchkins will always try to find seeds near quick advancement...you can't beat munchkins. No seriously, don't try - a game coded to try and prevent munchkinizm (highly scientific term) will be totally not fun and feel hostile to a casual player. Just keep merchant stock and loot randomly seeded, to lower the power of munchkinizm, and at the end of the day remember - if a player's idea of "Fun" is rushing to grab a good item early in the game, then just let them--Because a game is about having fun.

"These ideas are awesome and you are awesome and I love this post because it's awesome and I love you and can I build a shrine to you."
Thanks! It's all very true and yes you can, but please only use silver because gold is tacky.
In seriousness, the idea is hardly 'mine' and the fact that I have to reply to people in an edit like this tells me it's taken a life of its own, and some of the replies suggest I succeeded in articulating what most people already wanted (and maybe my obsession with the subject helped create workable examples.) But all the same I'm glad I'm not the only one along this line of thinking!

"These ideas are good and the dev's ideas aren't good and they should make you their dev king."
As good as I would look in a crown and glasses, it's not my intention to come off as complaining or create a bandwagon of bashing against the game or the Devs. I am having fun playing the Beta, both alone and with friends! It's the fact that this Dev team cares so much about the opinions of their community and listens to feedback to perfect their game, which is hard to find in todays gaming market, that inspired me to write this up in the hopes of creating an even better game. And there is a good chance that they have similar, or even better, ideas, that they haven't revealed yet (they have, after all, spent a bit more than 8 hours developing their game - unlike my post.) I have no doubt the Dev team wants to create the best game possible more than anyone else, and am hopeful that the feedback this post inspires is positive and helpful towards that goal. We're all on the same team, dawgs, so keep blows above the belt...... I'd still take a shiny hat though.

"These are all amazing ideas but it would take a bajillion years/trazillion moneys and by then I'd be a skeleton and couldn't play it because my hands would be too arthritic to use a keyboard."
First of all, I'm sure optical-reflection mice will exist by then, so you could still play the game using your eyeballs.

Second: It is our (self proclaimed) job as a community and the purpose of Beta to give an idea of what we as players want. It is the devs who then take these ideas and determine the feasibility and worth of implementing them. We shouldn't let the notion that "This is probably too difficult" prevent the idea from being brought up, because that's for the dev team to determine. If there is a clear and strong 'demand' for an aspect of gameplay that they might have overlooked or thought there'd be no demand for, then the Devs will take that into consideration and it might suddenly become 'worth' it to invest more time and code into an aspect of gameplay.

I also expect that a system as detailed as the example I gave would certainly not be happening at the V1.0 release, unless they already had most of it secretly coded. BUT, it's possible that if this was the long term goal, they could gear code now to add more code later to eventually lead up to this through expansions and updates.

Or they might make a 'meet in the middle' system, using the general ideas presented here. For example: Giving planets four qualities that it can draw from when being generated: Hazards (bad), Boons (good), Quirks (neutral things, like having a Tidal-Locked orbit or a planet-sized crater), and Anomalies/Alerts (One time hooks.) Then all the previously mentioned 'Planet Stats' would be listed in one of the above, only if it deviated from a 'normal' state.

All I'm sayin is... The fat lady doesn't even know her lines yet, so editing the script isn't out of the question.

...... please don't make the end-boss of the game a giant lady. That's not at all what I was saying.
Click to expand...

Hey man, wicked idea. I really love it and hope they implement this as soon as possible as I feel a void as well when exploring. Thanks for this!

TLiciousX · Dec 14, 2013

Thanks for putting in so much work on this. This is definitely the game that I want, the game that I came here to find. I've been trying to summon up the courage to ask if that was just me or...?

I really am keen to hear the developer response. Ideally, we will hear 'oh yeah, all that's already in the works just be patient!'. Because if this is not what Starbound is aiming to be, then I would like to be disappointed sooner rather than later.

krulin said: ↑

I agree, but I don't think any of this should be visible to the player. It takes all the fun out of exploring if everything is laid out for you. I could see having a scanner upgrade(s) for your ship later to see this kind of detail, but right off the get go I don't think it's something the player should see.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I was first to do so, but I've made a suggestion that instead of difficulty levels, they could let you throttle the level of information available in your playthrough. Could keep the game fun for hardcore 'into the Unknown!' explorers like me but also making the game fun and viable for the power-levelers too.

Jailer'sDove · Dec 14, 2013

Oh man, this would improve the replayability ten fold. Very similar to Dwarf Fortress type generation. Please consider following this idea Devs.

Froggod · Dec 14, 2013

Yes. Please try to do this

Sweetcandyflip · Dec 14, 2013

This is by far the best thread i´ve found in this Forum, so i liked your post and spread it!
Right now everyone complains about beta and why

(Combine as you like)

Tier 1/2/3/.... Mobs/Armor/Weapons are bad/good/op

and

T1/2/3 Ore/Boss are too easy/hard to find/kill.

They only see Details and not the whole structure of the game like you...
The Devs Need to make this great random Generator Engine even more random...

Respect for this great Vision you have!

Torren · Dec 14, 2013

Absolutely blown away by this post. Yes, yes, one hundred times yes.

Verranicus · Dec 14, 2013

Meyjer said: ↑

Long time lurker, first time poster. Dramatic entrance!

Like many here, I've been having fun playing the Beta the past few days and trying to find innovative ways to crash the game. However, something about the exploration has been bothering me that I haven't quite been able to summerize until now.

Now, I know it's Beta. I know the game isn't complete, and I know the Dev's have a secret room full of surprise balloons they're waiting to unleash at the most inconvienant time. I know that I don't know what they're planning and that what they reveal might be exactly everything I ever wanted plus salty pickles (But I'd take the salty pickles off and put them on the plate next to mine.) But part of why they opened Beta was to see what players wanted and get feedback.

And I DO know what I want! The type of game that I envisioned and hoped Starbound to be when I first heard of its future existance, after looking up why Terraria wasn't going to be updated anymore (which turned out not to be true in the best way a lie can happen.)

To the point: The recent update on how planets are leveled made me realize that I really don't like how planets are given a level (even worse now that everything in Alpha is level 1,etc.) to broadly define its difficulty. And I worry that too much emphasis will be put on Aggressive Spawn as the sole means of creating a difficulty curve. I don't want planets to feel like a linear chain of monster gauntlets, where the only challange and discovery is that the spitballs on one planet hurt more than the spitballs on another planet.

I want planets to be as diverse and dangerous as Terraria's biomes - not just because of stacked monster stats. I want sudden deadly holes I can fall into, or thick thorns I have to slash my way through while be chased by a swarm of tiny angry bubbles. Then I want to land on a peacful grass planet, with nothing but peaceful bunnyfrogs hopping around eating eye-flowers, where I can build a little hero castle to safely collect villagers and forget all about that horrible other planet.

It is easier for me to show rather than tell. So here are some images I modified as an example of...(dramatic pause)

The game we want Starbound to become !!!11

(6 hours later)

Notice there isn't a single stat indicating the 'overall toughness' of the planet. At the top I can see which sector a planet is in, which gives me an idea of how hard spawns will be, but spawns aren't the only factor in difficulty. Just LOOKING at the stats gives you an idea of the planet's character. Notice the Gamma planet is essentially a 'barren' planet, but with a toxic atmosphere and heavy gravity, it would still be dangerous to explore.

I know I delve into specific details, but my goal is to present a clear and defined idea of "The game we want" that it can be compared to whatever secret plans the Devs have.

Biosphere indicates whether players need specific gear just to be on the planet. It boils down to "armor is nerfed here." While there are multiple names for different biospeheres to give diversity and specific kinds might give a visual affect on the planet's surface itself (glowing crystals spawning on radioactive planets, etc.), they can be summed up in three types: Green, Yellow, and Red.
Green Biosphere: Safe
Players don't need special gear to be on this planet and can frollic around singing in their birthday suits.

Yellow Biosphere: Hot, Cold, Corrosive, Irradiated
Yellow planets require special gear to safely explore. At lower tech levels, specific gear must be made for each planet (Snow suit for cold protection, Heat-Sink for hot planets, bubble wrap tuxedo for corrosive, lead undies for irradiated, etc. etc.) Failure to wear enough protective gear of the neccesary type results in the player taking damage of that type until they find 'appropriate' shelter (man made building) or die. At medium tech levels, environmental suits combine different elemental protection while increasing defense - eventually leading to all-purpose environmental armor suits that give about half the protection of normal armor.

Red Biosphere: Scorching, Sub-Zero, Toxic, Radioactive
The Super-extremes of the above, indicate a need for an SCE (self-contained environment) suit just to survive the planet. Failure to wear a SCE suit results in a quick, painful, and possibly entertaining death. SCE suits stop energy regeneration and slowly drain energy from your energy meter. Once the energy meter runs out, players begin to suffocate and white out. Players also cannot eat food while wearing an SCE suit. To replenish energy again, players must remove some part of the suit - this requires players visiting Red biospheres to either make frequent trips back to the ship, or to construct little shelters as they explore the planet so they can take their suit off. Higher tech SCE suits give bigger boosts to the player's energy meter, but their armor protection is always rubbish.

Gravity indicates how fun a planet is. Generally speaking, heavier gravity is worse. Lighter planets give a pickaxe-power bonus, due to the looser composition of the soil and ease of using heavy mining tools in lower gravity. Heavier planets give a reduction in pickaxe power to indicate the material being densely compacted. Furthermore, falling damage and damage from falling objects becomes a greater concern on heavy gravity planets.

-Very Low: Players can soar through the air like majestic sky whales. Pickaxe power increased 10%. It is impossible to take falling damage. Sand and gravel stays in place like dirt. Walking speed reduced 25%.
-Low: Player jumping height is doubled. falling distance is halved when calculating falling damage.
-Average: People fall when stepping on banana peels.
-Heavy: Player jumping height is halved. Jumping costs a tiny bit of energy. Falling distance is doubled when calculating falling damage. Walking speed reduced 25%. Pickaxe power reduced 25%. Damage from avalanches and falling objects increased 50%. Greater likelyhood of cave-ins (Random block types that usually don't fall might fall and cause damage.)
-Very Heavy: Player jumping height is reduced by 66%. Jumping costs a pip of energy. Hunger increases at double the rate. Falling distance is tripled when calculating falling damage. Walking speed reduced 50%. Pickaxe power reduced 50%. Damage from avalanches and falling objects increased 100%. Greater likely hood of cave-ins (Massive sections of rock might suddenly collapse.)

Fauna indicates the presence of animal life and the diversity of species. In game terms it indicates how many different species spawn in each biome on the planet, and the frequency of animal spawn around the player. Note this doesn't include 'civilized' species that may have settled on a barren planet in anticipation of shooting random adventurers for giggles. The abundance of animals might also have a factor on the total NPC population limit of player-built colonies, as they would be a source of food for any colony on the planet.

None: Zeus found nothing appealing about this planet and moved on to a more romantic setting.
Few: Indicates one or two species of animal spawns in each biome on the planet, on the surface this may or may not include air and land. Animal spawn rate is 50% less than normal.
Abundant: The 'average.' Indicates 3-6 species of animal spawns in each biome and you'll have at least 1 land and 1 air type for each surface biome. Spawn rate is normal.
Swarming: At least 9 species of animal spawns in each biome. I'm sure they're all friendly and want hugs.

Flora Indicates the presense of plant life and the diversity of plant species. A higher rank indicates different kinds of trees, shrubs, herbs, and the likelyhood of food sources and gardenable plants being found there. It might alsobe the primary indicator for 'Maximum Population' of any player made settlements in terms of NPCs. Building a settlement on a barren planet with no Fauna might require you to build hydroponic farms or import your own plants before NPCs can live there, whereas a Cornucopia planet can have 20+ NPCs living there before you need to start thinking of adding more food sources.

None: A lithevore's paradise. Otherwise, hope you brought a sandwich.
Few: Indicates a few plants - one type of tree sparsely spread out over the entire planet, with few sources of plant matter. Low chance for 1 gardenable plant to grow.
Abundant: Indicates a lush planet with 1-2 types of trees that spawn in dense clusters. Fair chance for 1 type of gardenable plant to spawn, rare chance for 2.
Cornicopia: Indicates a 'gaia' planet brimming with life. At least 2, probably 3 types of trees grow on the planet and pack themselves tightly all over the surface. At least 1 gardenable plant naturally spawns, with a good chance for 2, and a rare chance for 3. Furthermore, plants and trees automatically regrow themselves and don't need to be replanted - it's impossible to strip this planet of its forest.

Minerals No one cares about these so we'll just move on...

Oh right, mining game. Minerals would indicate the relative amount of ore on a planet, but not neccisarily the Rarity of it. Minerals could be Abundant/Plentiful, but still only go up to Iron as far as rarity is concerned. By now I think you get the pattern so I wont make a color chart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edit Dec 13: I was only kidding when I said no one cares about these. They are of course a core mechanic of the game ~ to give a more specific example though, Mineral spawn could directly correlate to the difficulty of the planet. Light gravity gives -20%, Heavy gravity gives +15%, More plants gives -20%, a planet of in-laws adds 100% to mineral spawn, etc.

Certain planet features could also affect WHERE spawn happens. A harsh surface environment would mean more ore is exposed on the surface, giving people who don't like to mine to the core of a planet incentive to run around in a meteor storm grabbing chunks of ore off the surface. I'd hope the devs would have a lot of fun throwing curve-balls into how planet variables affect ore spawn! But all would be geared towards more difficulty = higher rewards.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hazards Indicate specially scripted conditions that alter planet variables or introduce new systems altogether, and are really what give a planet charming personality. Hazards generally add difficulty to a planet and come in two levels: Yellow (which indicates a minor inconvienances) and Red (which indicates something which greatly alters how life for players works.)

Example Hazards:
Meteor Showers (yellow): The planet's orbit regularly puts it within the trajectory of space debri. Most of it burns up in the atmosphere, but what doesnt results in random 'fire rains' that light up anything caught in it.

Meteor Storms (red): The planet's orbit regularly puts it within the trajectory of large space debri that easily penetrates the atmosphere. In addition to the 'rain of fire,' anything not underground runs the risk of being destroyed by massive comits.

Pirate Raids (yellow): For whatever reasons, pirates love to come here, and do so randomly.

Acid Rain (yellow): This planet rains an unfavorable chemical. Players caught in the rain take continued toxic damage until they find cover - and any player gardens will immediatly die if exposed to the planet's rain.

Global Storms (yellow): The planet is regularly covered by massive and fierce storm systems (Dust, Rain, Snow, whatever fits the Type.) When they hit, it clouds all vision on the surface, and produces cracks in player-built structures on the surface. Any player placed blocks weaker than stone run the risk of being blown off.

Tectonic Plates (yellow): Indicates highly active tectonic activity. Lava spawns in vertical columns underground about 2/3rds up from the planet's magma level, Resulting in players encountering lava much sooner when digging, and well as limiting horizontal movement, forcing players to return to the surface to avoid large 'walls' of lava, or finding a clever way to deal with it.

Volcanic (red): Similar to tectonic plates, lava spawns in vertical columns, but at least one of those columns reaches the surface and creates a live volcano site. Lava regularly overflows from the top of the volcano.

World-Eater Worm (red): No one is entirely sure how these giant worms populated so many planets, but whenever a planet has an infestation of World-Eater worms, it spells trouble for anything on the planet that hasn't yet lived a life with no regrets.

Boons are the opposite of hazards and much less common. They indicate special qualities of the planet that generally make the planet more favorable. Example of boons could be "Rich Soil" which doubles the growth rate of plants not grown indoors. "Rare Minerals" which alters the curve of ore spawned to favor the rarer types, "Regenerating Microbes" which gives all life a slow and constant life regeneration.

Anomalies is an area to put vague clues about what can be found on the planet. Anomalies become mini-quests upon landing to discover the source of them - and once discovered an anomaly will be listed in the planet chart if applicable. Anomalies can include "Odd Organic Readings," "Merchant Beacon," "Distress Beacon," "Request Beacon," "Bacon Beacon," "(Race) Activity," "Odd Energy Signature," "A strange formation," etc. The same anomaly could mean completely different things - 'Glitch Activity' could be a glitch city, a glitch merchant, glitch pirates, glitch castle, or a bunch of Apex with boxes on their heads who, upon being discovered, all point and laugh and say "LOL YOU THOUGHT WE WERE GLITCH."

Synergy: One of the benefits of having planets with so many variables is the synergy. Heavy gravity would be annoying all by itself. But it makes meteors even deadlier, and makes it harder to move around or fight native life, even if it's small and weak. Throw heavy gravity in with a Toxic atmosphere, and it will be a struggle just to exist on the planet. Planets will still be dangerous without having to pump up monster stats or NPC spawn to create a difficulty curve. Likewise, people would seek out different 'types' of planets for different roles - a planet with lots of rare ores on it may not be the best planet to live on or explore for loot. Earlier Planets in the Alpha and Beta sectors would be the most likely to spawn 'greener' planets that are easier to live on, and would still be useful in the later part of the game as colony planets for populating your own cities.

This also gives a chance to further flesh out races, which will affect which planets are explored in single player mode and give a good reason to have a diverse group in multiplier (Good chance at least one of you will still be able to wear full armor and protect the rest of the group.)

Apex: Immune to cold biospheres. Tiny boost to HP due to their primitive monkey bods. Can eat human food.
Avian: Immune to hot and cold biospheres. Receives 25% extra penalty to Heavy and Very Heavy gravity.
Floran: Immune to corrosive biospheres. Can eat raw meat and all but a few plants.
Hylotle: Immune to corrosive biospheres. Receives no pick axe penalty on Heavy gravity planets and only 25% pickaxe penalty in Very Heavy gravity (they have evolved to work under extreme pressures.)
Human: Coming from a home planet with a diverse biosphere, humans are the cockroaches of the universe and can adapt quickly: their yellow biosphere equipment gets a 50% bonus to elemental resistance and their SCE suits have 25% more energy.
Glitch: Immune to Irradiated and Radioactive biospheres. Must wear an SCE suit in Corrosive biospheres. Glitch food plants are immune to acid rain.
Novakid: Immune to Hot, Irradiated, Scorching, and Radioactive biospheres. Must wear an SCE suit in Cold biospheres. Takes corrosive damage while submerged in water. Novakid food plants only grow in Radioactive and Scorching biospheres.

BUT ANYWAY

I know the racial examples aren't balanced. The purpose of this post is NOT to get into the nitpicky details of balance or to make a big list of 'junk' we want to see on planets. Its to create a fleshed out idea of the game we want to play, so that people can either go "YES THATS THE GAME I WANT TO PLAY" or "NO THAT GAME LOOKS STUPID IM GOING BACK TO WOW" so the devs might have a clear idea of what we want!

If you disagree and prefer the idea of planet difficulty being based on monsters as an ever-scaling gauntlet then by all means tell me to shut up and make fun of my presumed body mass index size, or critically point out how illogical my idea of space exploration is and that my numerous typos invalidate my entire argument.

If you agree, then maybe give a nod so that the devs can tell how strongly people feel about this!

And if you happen to be a Dev, and this is already largely the direction you guys are going in, then please feel free to be like, "Yo bro, chill, that's what we's doin dawg."

Edit Dec 13, Response to most Responses!

"I agree on most of it/everything EXCEPT those rubbish ideas of racial adaptation."
I like how strong a division there is here - some people feel strongly races should remain a purely aesthetic choice, some want more meaning behind racial choice, and everyone agrees my examples are terrible, which is why I didn't edit them lest we lose our unity. The arguments for these could well be another forum debate entirely so I don't want this to be the primary focus - As it stands with how the game works right now, there really isn't a lot the devs could do to code racial differences without modifying some core mechanic of the game, which would bias people towards certain races depending on their play style, and I agree that would be bad. But IF a game mechanic like the 'Biosphere' one proposed here IS implemented in some way, it would give the potential to give each race an environment it doesn't get nerfed in, which makes the early game of an Apex play out differently than the early game of a Floran. The game already lightly supports this idea with hinting that certain food types will be poison to other races. However, both sides agree that my examples are rubbish - so at least we can all agree on something.

"There should be a scanner system so we don't see everything at once / I think all those stats should be hidden"
I'm sure that IF a more dynamic planetary trait system like the one exemplified above is created, then the following question will be how much of what traits should be revealed, how, and when. But those are all specifics and ideas that hang on the idea of having a planetary trait system like this in the first place! So I didn't want to get into detail of how to reveal the traits that don't yet exist. It would come down to how the traits function in the first place, and THEN mechanics for scanner systems could be thought up.

"But people can give the Seed # to others, and as soon as a rich planet is discovered, everyone will go to it."
First, this is a fair point. However, it's going to happen with ANY system you create a fixed seed spawn with. People are already giving away seed numbers to Airships near landing points for quick gun access. And that's sort of the purpose of having a seed system in the first place! Casual players will probably look up a seed # when they need something specific and can't find it. Explorers are still going to explore, because they want to find planets no one else has and maybe the next popular seed! And Munchkins will always try to find seeds near quick advancement...you can't beat munchkins. No seriously, don't try - a game coded to try and prevent munchkinizm (highly scientific term) will be totally not fun and feel hostile to a casual player. Just keep merchant stock and loot randomly seeded, to lower the power of munchkinizm, and at the end of the day remember - if a player's idea of "Fun" is rushing to grab a good item early in the game, then just let them--Because a game is about having fun.

"These ideas are awesome and you are awesome and I love this post because it's awesome and I love you and can I build a shrine to you."
Thanks! It's all very true and yes you can, but please only use silver because gold is tacky.
In seriousness, the idea is hardly 'mine' and the fact that I have to reply to people in an edit like this tells me it's taken a life of its own, and some of the replies suggest I succeeded in articulating what most people already wanted (and maybe my obsession with the subject helped create workable examples.) But all the same I'm glad I'm not the only one along this line of thinking!

"These ideas are good and the dev's ideas aren't good and they should make you their dev king."
As good as I would look in a crown and glasses, it's not my intention to come off as complaining or create a bandwagon of bashing against the game or the Devs. I am having fun playing the Beta, both alone and with friends! It's the fact that this Dev team cares so much about the opinions of their community and listens to feedback to perfect their game, which is hard to find in todays gaming market, that inspired me to write this up in the hopes of creating an even better game. And there is a good chance that they have similar, or even better, ideas, that they haven't revealed yet (they have, after all, spent a bit more than 8 hours developing their game - unlike my post.) I have no doubt the Dev team wants to create the best game possible more than anyone else, and am hopeful that the feedback this post inspires is positive and helpful towards that goal. We're all on the same team, dawgs, so keep blows above the belt...... I'd still take a shiny hat though.

"These are all amazing ideas but it would take a bajillion years/trazillion moneys and by then I'd be a skeleton and couldn't play it because my hands would be too arthritic to use a keyboard."
First of all, I'm sure optical-reflection mice will exist by then, so you could still play the game using your eyeballs.

Second: It is our (self proclaimed) job as a community and the purpose of Beta to give an idea of what we as players want. It is the devs who then take these ideas and determine the feasibility and worth of implementing them. We shouldn't let the notion that "This is probably too difficult" prevent the idea from being brought up, because that's for the dev team to determine. If there is a clear and strong 'demand' for an aspect of gameplay that they might have overlooked or thought there'd be no demand for, then the Devs will take that into consideration and it might suddenly become 'worth' it to invest more time and code into an aspect of gameplay.

I also expect that a system as detailed as the example I gave would certainly not be happening at the V1.0 release, unless they already had most of it secretly coded. BUT, it's possible that if this was the long term goal, they could gear code now to add more code later to eventually lead up to this through expansions and updates.

Or they might make a 'meet in the middle' system, using the general ideas presented here. For example: Giving planets four qualities that it can draw from when being generated: Hazards (bad), Boons (good), Quirks (neutral things, like having a Tidal-Locked orbit or a planet-sized crater), and Anomalies/Alerts (One time hooks.) Then all the previously mentioned 'Planet Stats' would be listed in one of the above, only if it deviated from a 'normal' state.

All I'm sayin is... The fat lady doesn't even know her lines yet, so editing the script isn't out of the question.

...... please don't make the end-boss of the game a giant lady. That's not at all what I was saying.
Click to expand...

Please refrain from acting as if what you want is what everyone wants. Thank you.

Tigerr13 · Dec 15, 2013

Verranicus said: ↑

Please refrain from acting as if what you want is what everyone wants. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Please refrain from making useless comments on fantastic ideas, feasible ones or not. Ideas are great and one so thought out such as this is a good thing.

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Insignus Void-Bound Voyager

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