Planets and Enviornmental Hazards

[Viridis00]

So right now, planets all feel exactly the same despite the occasional special structure and their different colors. I think hazards would go a long way to making them more interesting, and possibly open up roles for our helmets and hopefully other meta items like that. For each planet, three new components will need to be added. Heat/Cold, Atmosphere, and Weather Effects. Scanners would detect planets and list their attributes as well.

Heat/Cold itself are harmless at low levels. If either reach a certain threshold, your character slowly (or quickly if extreme enough) begins to lose HP determined by intensity. The temperature of a planet depends on the planet itself, along with the night/day cycle. Night lowering base temps, day increasing them. Possible new meta items could be heat shielding and cold gear.

Atmosphere is global among the entire planet. Among the planets we have, there would 3 different atmosphere types (hopefully more with more planet types). Null, Air, and Ammonia. Air and Ammonia atmospheres add a momentary effect similar to getting close to the sun when moving ships pass into the atmosphere to simulate entry. For Null and Ammonia, death is almost instant without a helmet. Ammonia atmospheres also turn blocks and ships into scrap after extended periods of time, depending on the block type. Stronger armors survive longer, etc. Atmosphere exponentially effects base temps. Hopefully we can get a nicer more accurate atmosphere for planets too that better reflect the type.

Weather Effects are mostly for show and to add immersion. Normal, Rain, Snow, Extreme Heat, and Ammonia Fog. All occur randomly, are dependent on night/day cycle, or are constant depending on the planet. If you want to go a step further, your HUD experiences the weather also. Weather effects also effect the base temp of the planet, but to a lesser degree than day/night.

Earth-Like Worlds: Temperate and very rarely harmful cold or heat, Air atmosphere, random rain and snow.
Mars-Like Worlds: Cold to freezing cold, Null atmosphere, no weather.
Snow Worlds: Cold to freezing cold, Air atmosphere, constant or random snowing tied to cold temps.
Desert Worlds: Blazing hot on day side to freezing cold on night side, air atmosphere, constant or random extreme heat tied to heat temp or slight random chance of normal or rarely rain.
Purple Alien Worlds: Hot but not lethal temp, ammonia atmosphere, constant or high chance of ammonia fog.

On one hand, this adds immersion, but on the other would this just make people stay away from planets even more? I think with this kind of system it could go either way. More uses for scanners and possible new meta items, and awesome immersion? Too complicated and serves too little of a purpose to justify? Your thoughts?

 

[ltmauve]

Well, here's the question: how easy is it to adapt? If surviving on an alien planet requires you to constantly be changing spacesuits because the atmosphere keeps corroding them, then it's just plain annoying, and planets only become useful for salvaging from space. I don't see the appeal in having to put on a spacesuit before exiting my base every single time.

 

[jorgekorke]

We should give a reason to somebody land on a planet, because currently, they are too small and the only use is for eating for shields.

 

[ltmauve]

Actually, building on planets is pretty fun. Yes they need more of a game purpose then "salvage from space," and also you can eat them from space for other resources besides sheilds.
Point is, making them harder to work on won't encourge people to do so, and will only encourge people to just eat them from space. I think I'm going to have say no to this.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

fascinating, this would actually go great with keptick 's idea for planet harvesting
some thoughts

• Atmospheres need to be fixed so they scale with planet size. these can't work if the atmospheres are still in their current state
• planets should have a uniform temperature rather than it switching between day and night. it sounds more annoying to make players constantly swop out equipment every day.
• i would either nerf the Ammonia atmospheres or drop it entirely. it sounds good on paper but it would be very tedious for players to take a planet with an ammonia atmosphere if their ships start to decay every time they visit it. either make it more minor like it slowly draining power/shielding or just not have it.

 

[jayman38]

Lakes added to planet generation algorithms would also add an environment hazard, because where you can make lakes of water, you can make lakes of lava or poison.

 

[Viridis00]

Well, here's the question: how easy is it to adapt? If surviving on an alien planet requires you to constantly be changing spacesuits because the atmosphere keeps corroding them, then it's just plain annoying,

I don't see suits eroding away, more the fact that you would just need to change gear to suit the planet on before you go down.

We should give a reason to somebody land on a planet, because currently, they are too small and the only use is for eating for shields.

Totally agreed, but that itself is a whole other topic. I think the suggested features could enhance the immersion factor when we have more reasons to go down, but alone not at all.

Atmospheres need to be fixed so they scale with planet size. these can't work if the atmospheres are still in their current state

I cranked up planet sizes once to do a stress test and I've encountered that problem myself. What we have now needs to be totally replaced or refined, fancy effects or not.

planets should have a uniform temperature rather than it switching between day and night. it sounds more annoying to make players constantly swop out equipment every day.

I can't really agree with that. Day night transition isn't exactly fast, and not all planets would have dangerous temps. I don't think it would be that inconvenient. I can agree with you to a certain degree though, that maybe each planet should only have one extreme type of temperature (eg: desert planets are dangerously hot in the day, but cool down to a safe cold at night. I'm sure our basic space suits give us a certain degree of protection in that regard without specialized gear) That would make it so you only need one type of special gear going to a planet. Would that make more sense in terms of game design?

i would either nerf the Ammonia atmospheres or drop it entirely. it sounds good on paper but it would be very tedious for players to take a planet with an ammonia atmosphere if their ships start to decay every time they visit it. either make it more minor like it slowly draining power/shielding or just not have it.

I was thinking it would be a longer term process, especially for advanced armors. I can see your point though. I think my whole suggestion in general comes down to what I said to jorgekorke in that in hindsight the ideas themselves aren't too useful alone. Maybe if Alien worlds had exclusive minerals/materials or good rewards, then the atmosphere would be a hazard to reflect the yield.

 

[ltmauve]

That would make it so you only need one type of special gear going to a planet. Would that make more sense in terms of game design?

Yes. Since suits will most likely be constructed items that can have various types of properties (heating, cooling, filtering, pressurization) that would be needed, then having one property that is needed for each planet seems likely. This means that mars- and earth-type planets would be the most valuable to beginners, as they would probably start with a pressurized suit for mars-type and earth-type wouldn't require a suit.
Though I wonder what the special benefits of the planets would be to motivate people to build bases on them?

 

[Jegan Reavus]

I like the idea of adding some immersion element to planets, because right now, as has been pointed out already, the only thing I find planets useful for at this stage is one of two things:

1. Eating from space for raw materials
2. Testing weapon power by how deep they bore/how big of a hole they make in the ground

So for the overall idea, +1. The way I see it, there should be equal motivation for visiting a planet, as for staying in space. At this stage I greatly prefer just to stay in space because there's no penalty to do so, and it's easier to save my work/creations.

As for specifics, I'm not so sure. I like the idea of adding temperature, weather effects, and substantial atmosphere to planets, but I think it could be done more simply:

• Planets have a global temperature, as was already suggested.
• Planet atmosphere, rather than just being based on a substance, like air or ammonia, etc, could be based on a percentage (approximation of air density/atmosphere thickness) as well as a material, or an even more abstract "atmosphere type" to control things like breathability and caustic effects. The raw percentage determines how rapidly the effects take place, and everything else defines the effects
• NPC creatures, which are on their way, would help a lot... There just needs to be a big advantage to either keeping them alive, or hunting them in person, as opposed to nuking them from orbit.

My ideas are not well formed I know, but hopefully you get my drift.

 

[ltmauve]

NPC creatures, which are on their way, would help a lot... There just needs to be a big advantage to either keeping them alive, or hunting them in person, as opposed to nuking them from orbit.

Simple - nuking from leaves nothing. If they needed to drop something for a mission, you'll need to keep looking. No XP for your crew, nothing at all.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I can't really agree with that. Day night transition isn't exactly fast, and not all planets would have dangerous temps. I don't think it would be that inconvenient. I can agree with you to a certain degree though, that maybe each planet should only have one extreme type of temperature (eg: desert planets are dangerously hot in the day, but cool down to a safe cold at night. I'm sure our basic space suits give us a certain degree of protection in that regard without specialized gear) That would make it so you only need one type of special gear going to a planet. Would that make more sense in terms of game design?

its what i had in mind. it would be better that we only have worry about 1 temperature extreme rather than 2

I was thinking it would be a longer term process, especially for advanced armors. I can see your point though. I think my whole suggestion in general comes down to what I said to jorgekorke in that in hindsight the ideas themselves aren't too useful alone. Maybe if Alien worlds had exclusive minerals/materials or good rewards, then the atmosphere would be a hazard to reflect the yield.

thats why said that this idea would work extremely well with Keptick's idea. if ores/crystals were planet specific then there would be a reason to brave the ammonia atmospheres. I'm just saying that anything that damages/injures the player should be handled with care else it damage the playing experience[/QUOTE]

 

[SgtFlexxx]

Planets definitely need work as a whole. They're mostly restricted from servers, and have very little reason to go to them. The thing I don't like about these new shapes is it limits the build size a whole lot compared to what it was before, and overall, they seem disinteresting.

No atmosphere, not really visually pleasing, no life, no reason to go there, etc.

 

[Tajin]

Atmosphere could also affect range and effectiveness of beams which would make "eating from space" rather inefficient. (also adds some extend of natural protection to planetary bases)


To make em more interesting, the ore-distribution algorythm for them could be changed, so the ore isn't evenly distributed in tiny clusters as it is now. Having bigger veins of ore could make planets into an interesting alternative to asteroids as precise mining would then be more efficient than just eating the whole place.



Result:

Smaller mining vessels would become more feasible. They're good for planetary mining and the bigger ore-veins can get you a decent yield if you mine precisely. (ore-detectors would be awesome btw.)

Huge miningships however would be more suited for swallowing whole asteroids as they're to bulky for planetary operations. (gravity/mass ratio could also be increased to further limit the use of large ships in planetary range)


Small ships in general would become more useful with that.

 

[jayman38]

Yeah, larger, more-concentrated ore deposits would be a good, realistic thing for planets.

From a technical perspective, I'm imagining it as a new biome, where the ore is the primary block, and other blocks get added in around it and through it, depending on how the algorithm places different elements in the biome.

Water-style biomes could work the same way, with an additional step of "dropping" all non-water/non-lava blocks to the bottom, stacking on each other.

 

[ltmauve]

Plus, having ore veins encourges hand-mining.

 

[kiddan]

Ever tried the Minecraft mod Enviromine? Temperature gets a little annoying when it comes to environments of varying temperature. Maybe players could buy a spacesuit upgrade that needs fuel (ice crystals for cooling mechanic and lava for heating?) and could keep your temperature moderate?

 

[Viridis00]

Atmosphere could also affect range and effectiveness of beams which would make "eating from space" rather inefficient. (also adds some extend of natural protection to planetary bases)

I really like that idea actually. That would make only the most powerful of ships with doomsday weapons able to even penetrate a planet and even then the damage should be dampened as it passes through the atmosphere. Blowing up a planet is cool and all, but it's not hard by any means at the moment. The natural shielding from an atmosphere would also be a nice place to put down a base if you can't afford shield modules for a station.

 

[kiddan]

I really like that idea actually. That would make only the most powerful of ships with doomsday weapons able to even penetrate a planet and even then the damage should be dampened as it passes through the atmosphere. Blowing up a planet is cool and all, but it's not hard by any means at the moment. The natural shielding from an atmosphere would also be a nice place to put down a base if you can't afford shield modules for a station.

Yea, then you would have to maybe be ON the planet to blow it up easier. Making it more dangerous. Maybe hull (below standard) could get burned up in the atmosphere.

 

[ltmauve]

Maybe hull (below standard) could get burned up in the atmosphere.

No, since you want players to colonize planets. Natural shielding sounds like a great idea to encourge players to set up bases on them.

 

[kiddan]

No, since you want players to colonize planets. Natural shielding sounds like a great idea to encourge players to set up bases on them.

I mean, like, when entering and exiting the outer layer of atmosphere. Like space shuttles irl. Not weak blocks on planets melting away.