Worldbuilding

I'm sure that many questions will be answered once we've entered our new environment, but there were several nagging questions I thought I would ask before we got this shindig on the road. As someone who plans on role playing one to several characters that have been with me some time now I would like them to be appraised of out of the gate.

First of all how big are the player ships in a classing sense?

To me they appear to be in the frigate range at the beginning expanding to sort of a cruiser in later upgrades. Are these ships specially designed for transport or do the many races have armadas of ships of varying classifications?


Another question entirely, are the races of the game multicultural?

And by that sense it is more of a question of are the races knowledgeable of other races art music or the like. For instance would you ever have an Avian cruising about the galaxy blasting Megadeth? Hylotls showing reruns of "Friends" on the human TV stations? Are there Floran pop stars?

And finally are these questions actually even answerable in the context of the established canon or will these ideas be under review by an RP by RP basis?

 

With regards to race cultures, I think that NPCs will rigidly conform to these traditions (Avians are religious, Glitch are medieval and so forth) barring a few encounters. Players will definitely be able to follow ther own path in terms of game lore and whether they conform to their races stereotypes as part of RP.

Love to see some Floran pop stars though

 

My Avian loves Floran cuisine. Cuisine with Florans in it that is.

 

It's not really known, but the starting ships look really small when compared to real-world oceangoing ships, so they're probably just personal ships (like the way someone might have an RV or yacht IRL). IIRC, the Apex intro says the starting ship was hijacked from the MiniKnog, but that doesn't really say anything about its class (although I suppose it implies that it's a smaller class).

It varies from race to race.
The Florans, Glitch, and NovaKids don't seem to have much knowledge of other races.
The Apex doubtless know a lot about other races (or at least their government does), but presumably shun their cultures in favor of the "superior" Apex practices.
I'm not sure the degree to which the Avians' theocracy impedes their learning about other cultures.
We don't really know anything about the Hyotyl, but their source material (feudal Japan) would seem to imply a closed society.
I expect the Humans to be pretty multicultural, although we don't know much about them either.

That said, the player characters might be a bit more multicultural than their societies' norms.

 

First of all how big are the player ships in a classing sense?

well i think the starter ship is equivalent to the spaceballs winnebago if you going to travel you may as well travel in style



Another question entirely, are the races of the game multicultural?.

hmm yes mabe?.

 

This.

It seems like the non human races in the game are fairly closed due to their cultural standards, and that apparently by and large the players are break offs from their parent culture. Which begs the questions exactly how many "Players" can a universe expect and is it a large enough population that they create a culture of their own.

Also this.

But it also seems like rudimentary weaponry is built into the design of the starter ships, which in no way would classify them as military, I mean they could always just be defense weaponry, but it does make me wonder. The space RV or a sort of freighter would seem to be in line. There have of course been parallels drawn to the Millennium Falcon, which is a modified Corellian Corvette which is roughly cruiser sized. In that scope of course.

 

I have no clue I well guess that their will be some unique characters of each race that do not meat the norm of the rest of their species.

 

<pedantic fanboy>

The Millennium Falcon is not a Corellian corvette, or more properly, a CR90 corvette - that's very first thing anyone saw in Star Wars, when the CR90 corvette Tantive IV sails into view at the beginning of the 1977 original film, pursued by the Star Destroyer Devastator (a scene that was really awesome back in the day because you first see the Tantive IV, which is a cool spaceship, which proceeds to be dwarfed by the Star Destroyer following it, which is an even cooler spaceship). Assigning a weight class (i.e., frigate, cruiser, battleship, etc.) to compare ships between two or more different sci fi series is useless anyway because what's a tiny, fast corvette like the CR90 in Star Wars is bigger than a fairly capable large frigate/light cruiser like a Romulan Bird of Prey.

The Millennium Falcon is an incredibly modified YT-1300 freighter, effectively the equivalent of a bootlegger hot rod from the 1920s in performance. It's about 35 meters long, so it's quite a bit bigger than a fighter like an X-Wing, but much smaller than even small corvettes like the CR90. The Millennium Falcon, because of its size and its purpose (hauling cargo), is basically a Space Eighteen-Wheeler. With extra firepower. Hauling illegal space drugs (seriously, look it up).

</pedantic fanboy>

All that said, yeah, I've thought of the ships in Starbound as much closer to a Millennium Falcon than either an X-Wing or a frigate or cruiser. Bigger than a fighter, smaller than a corvette, and oriented towards hauling all the crap you know you'll hoard as you travel space. Same for being our own Winnebagos from Spaceballs - similar purpose, even vaguely similar design (long, lots of interior space, a couple are a little boxy [humans!]...).

Oh yeah, and if it isn't there, I will totally be the Hylotl cruising space blasting Megadeth. PEACE SELLS!

 

Looks like the Magic Schoolbus for poor people.

 

Go watch Spaceballs, and come back. You're missing out. Mel Brooks is a comedy genius. He also made truly classic comedies including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and History of the World, Part 1.

 

Hah! Yeah sorry about that, my friend was the one with all the Star Wars compendiums back in the day. But that does sound like a fitting comparison for the starter ships. I could definitely see these ships comparable to the lighter Star Trek vessels.

By the way the Klingon Bird of Prey saw use from the mid 23rd century well into the 24th in a variety of classes, while the Romulans of comparable time period used the famous silhouette of the D'deridex-class warbird.

 

Now I want that to replace the human ship. Ludicrous speed!