- Joined
- Jul 1, 2013
- Messages
- 530
- Reaction score
- 348
In my opinions, one of the things open world, sandbox space sims do badly, often, is making otherwise interesting things far too abundant to continue to be interesting, and i sincerely hope this doesnt continue to be the case for Starmade in the future.
I say continue, because from day 1 i started playing, Starmade has been an offender of this rule; we have always had abandoned stations, yes the variety has increased, but there are still, in default configs, multiple abandoned stations in every system. We've always had shop stations, in every system. Usually multiple. Its never been an adventure to go shopping or find "civilization." Pirates have always been ubiquitous, with multiple stations in every solar system.
And life. From as far back as cookie planets, every single planet has had abundant plant life. Theres always been the same five archetypes of planetary life; green terrestrial, desert terrestrial, martian/red desert, purple tentacles, and ice crags. There has never been such a thing as a barren world.
And all this has combined to make the universe as it has been boring to explore. Once youve seen all there is to be seen, which youve usually gone through within two to three star systems, theres nothing left to see, because you know, from that point on, everything else is just more of what youve already seen.
And thats basically the problem.
So my suggestion is to seriously rethink how things are distributed on the most basic levels for future updates, and here are a few basic rules i think can slow down universe-exploration burnout in the future;
On the natural side we have;
I say continue, because from day 1 i started playing, Starmade has been an offender of this rule; we have always had abandoned stations, yes the variety has increased, but there are still, in default configs, multiple abandoned stations in every system. We've always had shop stations, in every system. Usually multiple. Its never been an adventure to go shopping or find "civilization." Pirates have always been ubiquitous, with multiple stations in every solar system.
And life. From as far back as cookie planets, every single planet has had abundant plant life. Theres always been the same five archetypes of planetary life; green terrestrial, desert terrestrial, martian/red desert, purple tentacles, and ice crags. There has never been such a thing as a barren world.
And all this has combined to make the universe as it has been boring to explore. Once youve seen all there is to be seen, which youve usually gone through within two to three star systems, theres nothing left to see, because you know, from that point on, everything else is just more of what youve already seen.
And thats basically the problem.
So my suggestion is to seriously rethink how things are distributed on the most basic levels for future updates, and here are a few basic rules i think can slow down universe-exploration burnout in the future;
On the natural side we have;
- Start with the entire galaxy as empty "wilderness." Generate no signs of intelligent life at this stage and mostly regular stars and barren rocky worlds/gas giants.
- Populate only a tiny fraction of the planets in the galaxy with life, less than 1% of rocky planets and less than 1% of systems get spaceborne life. Maybe these lifeforms can spread, but dont flood the universe with too many that are going to become ubiquitous. Never use familiar terrestrial life, things that belong on earth, in these worlds.
- Create some natural Points of Interest, like unique geological features, wormholes & black holes, broken planets, rogue planets between star systems, hollow asteroids, etc. Keep them rare, like only one in ten or so systems get something special.
- Create civilizations as factions. Mark one off as humans, because we play as humans. Select a homeworld for them, and a small region around them as territory their species has colonized.
- These civilized regions, combined, should never account for more than 60% of the galaxy. Leave some space for players to explore.
- For human civilization, we get terrestrial lifeforms. Planets terraformed by humans contain terrestrial lifeforms.
- Other species generate/select from a pool of lifeforms unique to their homeworld that can otherwise be found on worlds/stations terraformed/built by them.
- Simulate some "failed expeditions" out into "wild" space from these civilizations. A terraformed world or a colony station fit for their species, with a colony, that is abandoned/dead.
- Kill a few of these civilizations. Everything in their territory is abandoned now. Or taken up by pirates or "remnant" colonies that no longer form a government/faction.
- Create maybe 1-2, not 10-20, abandoned stations in most systems that are or have been occupied by civilizations.
- Generate pirate factions on the peripheries of civilizations. Put a few hidden pirate stations inside civilized systems too.
- Generate shops only within active civilized space.
- Link shops and colony stations/planets to the factions that own the space somehow. Even if its just traders guild reps reminding you whose territory youre in and their faction ships defending it if you attack them.
- Generate and abondon new shops and tag-along colonies as civilizations expand outwards or are destroyed, or in the territories of player factions that permit them.
