How do you view planets?

[Edymnion]

Since its the topic du jour at the moment, how about some informal polling.

What do you think about planets as they are currently implemented in the game?
[doublepost=1492007647,1492007218][/doublepost]I voted "Hate 'em" because I find them to be a waste of space.

Ever since the asteroid update I can mine nearly as much from one sector of the new larger asteroids as I could from a planet plate, and the asteroids respawn. Planets might be good for that one time bonus, but then there's nothing left to do but blow them up just to get rid of them. An asteroid ring overall has much higher levels of raw materials, and they regenerate. It makes planets not only less valuable, but actively detrimental to a system by lowering its overall resource content because that could have been an asteroid belt instead.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I voted "They're good for one-time mining" but I could have just as easily voted "I don't really care about them one way or the other."

My first base is typically on a planet, but once I have a space station started I use planets for mining and that's it. Asteroids are better to gather resources, but you can get quite a few scenery blocks from mining planets and I like building stuff with rock lol. Also I sell the millions of blocks of rock and dirt and grass to shops for some decent cash.

 

[Amadeus]

Voted for placeholders because while they are a neat concept right now, they have issues that make them viable only as a resource cache or a scenic home base. I think once we get the new planets [fingers crossed for round ones!] we will be able to do much much more with them, and the implementation of assets like flora and fauna become much more feasible. I can't even imagine a hoppy trying to cross planet plates!!

 

[jayman38]

Placeholders. They are not yet optimized to be larger, which would inevitably make them more fun on a number of fronts.

 

[nightrune]

Other:

Planets could be used for all sorts of purposes to add to game design. Currently I love building on them. They do need some intrinsic game-play value though.

 

[Valiant70]

They're a placeholder for cool things! This is the only logical answer.
Also read my deranged and potentially over-hyped ramblings: New Planet Speculation Thread

 

[arouq]

I don't want to see another planet space game simulator. I think large amounts of time spent on planets, is large amounts of time wasted. If I wanted to play Minecraft, I'd be playing it. If I wanted to play planet exploration 2016, I'd be playing No Man's Sky. If I wanted to fool myself into thinking planets are ultra cool in a block world and that's where gameplay should be, I'd be following Seeds of Andromeda (oh wait).

I think a few performance upgrades and a size increase is all that's needed.

I like planets for a base setting and "defensive positions", I could see gas giants and ring based planets having a lot of advantages. It'd be cool if there was some sort of resource you mined from the core continually, as long as it required that the planet wasn't strip mined. I could see a lot of cool things happening on small planets, I'm not worried.

 

[EricBlank]

Right now i think their implementation is pretty fair in terms of a video game. These things are physical objects you interact with seamlessly from orbit or on the ground. Most games wont even poke a stick at the problem, but in this case my compjter only crashes very rarely when messing with our current horrible, unoptemized laggy messes of junk. My biggest gripe has always been that they come in five flavors that have no context regarding what theyre actually made of and their environment. Ive been praying we see planets generated not by type but based on some aspects of their size, proximity to a star, atmosphere and maybe geologic activity and material composition, and the life present there.

its just that they seem like disjointed stereotypes of common scifi tropes. Even asteroid composition depends on distance to a star now.

 

[Nauvran]

I tend to view planets from their orbit, it's a nice view.

 

[Winterhome]

Planets to me are a blank slate. In the past I used them for base building and such. They're great for "terrestrial" type builds - offices, landmarks, etc. that would look out-of-place just floating in space. Can't build the Reichstag just freely floating and expect it to look right, for instance.

I'd like to continue using them for that sort of thing in the future, but at the moment, anything above an r50 is a laggy mess that my computer refuses to have anything to do with. Physics problems come with trying to set up an 'orbital dock' on an elevator, too, since the gravity boundary of a plate gets pushed up when you extend the plate.

I'd love to see planets become a long-term source of resources. Indefinitely operating planetary mining bases that NPC fleets can transfer materials to and from for a faction, for instance. Farms for crew sustenance. Sources of wildlife (I mean, who wouldn't want to make biological warfare canisters full of exploding spidergoats or headcrabs?). Gas giants, etc. for fuel. I dunno. There's a lot that can be done with them in the future.

For now, though, they're just a laggy mess that I can chew on with a mining rig if a system doesn't have enough fertikeen for my armoring needs.

 

[Mortiferum]

Planets are just placeholders to me. The better planets will come soon.

Though right now, settle on a planet and I will go out of my way to "convince" you to move.

 

[Mango888]

How many ships will it take to convince you I'm staying on said planet?

Since the current worlds are such trouble there should be options to make them easier on the server. Planets should be stationary if the host wants them to be so. It helps asteroids a ton.

 

[KaRe]

Other. I love equipping them with massive armaments on each plate or carefully destroying and rebuilding them to "hide" a ship.

 

[KiloZulu]

I voted other - It's hard not to like them given that they started out as disks, so I've been content with the new size and shape. I've only had the following three expectations since then:
1.) They will optimize planets so that they are accessible to players.
2.) They will fix the terrain generation so that elevation changes seem more natural (and it's possible to find landing space.)
3.) They will add AI inhabitants.

They follow through with those changes/fixes, and anything else is an unexpected bonus, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[MacThule]

From as far away as possible.

 

[kiddan]

Other:

The gravity planets provide is useful for activities like skid racing. However, the performance cost is too much if all you want is that gravity. Fixes and changes are necessary, but only once it's time for planets to get more attention.

 

[Mariux]

Other.

Preferable from as far away as possible because they are laggy AF

 

[kurosawa]

Other!

i view planets from far away

 

[Ghent96]

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