These are not the planets you are looking for (makes hand motion)

[Tshara]

Oh no it’s another planet thread. So before anybody dives into the multiple paragraphs of text below I’ll summarise what I’m trying to accomplish here:

• A quick look at the current state of planets and there use.
• Analyse why people want planets and what the impact is.
• Possible scenarios for planet improvements.

What triggered this thread you might ask? It’s actually the viewer count on one of my YouTube vids. This one to be exact:


It has by far the most views of any of my vids on the channel. Why? Not entirely sure but I can speculate. It’s a survival video and those seem to do better that most vids. The thumbnail however also plays a role. It shows my starting base in this universe situated on the service of an alien planet. And that’s the aspect I want to focus on.


Current state of planets.

At the current time planets in StarMade are there for you to do with as you please. Building a base on it seems to be something that people want to do, or at least watch.

Because they are block based there are no real restrictions on whet you can do with them within the game mechanics. The only restrictions is the planet plate’s placement and the consistent gravity effect.

However current planets do suffer from a number of issue that in my opinion make them not the feature they could or should be.

• Planets are just too small. Even generating bigger ones don’t seem to fit the bill on the amount of space you as a player want to build something suitable as a base. Lag is of course an issue with this as well.

• People tend to treat planets as big asteroids. They get blown up and harvested on a regular basis. With recent asteroid improvements this has lessened but it still happens.

• Planet alignments. This seems to be a small thing but none of the plant plates are aligned to the galaxy centre plane. This means aligned ships or space stations do not match any of the plates.

• Variety. People want to have places to explore.

I could make the list longer but I want to keep it somewhat manageable and stick to these issues.


Why do people want planets?

This is a somewhat difficult question. There are probable as many opinions about this as there are people.
I will focus on my own experiences here.

• The most obvious one would be to build a base on it. And not just a base a true home where you can store your recourses, design you ships and survive in style.

You can do that on a station right? Sure you can. The difference is that with a station you will have to start with basically nothing. Space is empty. It requires a bit more from the player to create something from nothing than to build something on top of an existing backdrop.

This can mean the difference for a player to want to build something or nothing at all. Minecraft is of course a prime example of that.

• A sense of community. A planet can be a meeting point between players or a sprawling city consisting of multiple players.

Again something that could be accomplished with a station but the same reasons as stated before apply.

In my experience people do want some sort of community but most of the time only if they have a place of their own first. Ever opened up the galaxy map on a multiplayer server? See how all the territories are spread out? All players have their own sector because of the bonuses of having the protected Homebase and the mining bonus.

Again Minecraft is an example here. If you look at a Minecraft survival server map you see people strike out on their own and finding a spot to build or they group together to build ‘towns’. However eventually you will have player interaction. Unless you build extremely far out.

In Star Made this is a lot more difficult because of the size of the galaxy. Stumbling onto a player base is not something that happens unless you purposely go looking for it.

• Exploration. People want to experience new things. Because space is empty planets are one of the few actual highlights to explore. Except for stations of course.

An example I have to mention here is No man’s sky. A game based on exploration that for many people ended up more of a grind because every planet looked the same to them after a few hours of game play. Procedural generation can only get you so far.

So introducing the human element is one of that ways to add something new. As mentioned above stumbling unexpectedly into a player’s base can be very rewarding.


Possible scenarios.

I see a number of possible tracks planet development could take. I want to pose some suggestions here to see how we could on planets.

• Planets need to be a lot bigger to accommodate a more build and exploration playstyle.
• Transition between space and plants needs to be seamless.
• Lag should not be of such significant impact as to impair gameplay.

Taking the above into account I must conclude that current technology used to generate plants is not sufficient. The question I ask myself is this. Should plants even consist of blocks in the first place? Or at least all the time. If not than other technological options become available.

• Generate planets using LOD technology as seen in games like No mans sky or Space Engineers. Switching to actual blocks (if at all) should only happen at certain distances.

• Introduce a create a base function similar to creating a space station. This would allow a mix of a block building with non block terrain if that route is taken.

• Atmosphere. This could be introduced a mechanic to for example damage ships that try to land because of atmospheric friction. A dreadnought would for example experience more damage than a simple shuttle. It would discourage large ships from landing but not prevent is.

• Possibilities for ground based vehicles. A bit of a pipe dream at the moment but it would open up a whole lot of options to build ships to deploy them.

I rambled long enough I think. It was in large part to get my thoughts on paper regarding this subject and hopefully start some meaningful discussions. So as my last question to you all:


What do you want planets for?

 

[Madman198237]

This is a very neat set of ideas.
Personally, I want to see planets swell in size, and gain much more level terrain in a lot of places. Complete ground-space interaction is always necessary, but we need larger planets and terrain suited to the size of materials we have (Cubic-meter blocks). Or, we need some way of shrinking things not meant to operate in vacuum (2 m^3-sized armored hallway-patrol droids, anyone?). As in, if they're exposed to space, they die, but otherwise they pack more firepower/more blocks into less space (To scale appropriately with planets)

 

[jayman38]

What I want will probably change as fauna and more NPCs are introduced, and will change further, when the dev team works in depth on improving planet efficiency, resulting in larger planets.

To answer the question, I suppose I am looking for something remotely familiar. Something that can host a city and a forest and an extensive underground. I'm looking for a very large place to explore that I have never seen (or built) before.

I love that planets sometimes have cities on them that can be explored, and would enjoy more variety.

 

[pesce rocks]

I

Oh no it’s another planet thread. So before anybody dives into the multiple paragraphs of text below I’ll summarise what I’m trying to accomplish here:

• A quick look at the current state of planets and there use.
• Analyse why people want planets and what the impact is.
• Possible scenarios for planet improvements.

What triggered this thread you might ask? It’s actually the viewer count on one of my YouTube vids. This one to be exact:


It has by far the most views of any of my vids on the channel. Why? Not entirely sure but I can speculate. It’s a survival video and those seem to do better that most vids. The thumbnail however also plays a role. It shows my starting base in this universe situated on the service of an alien planet. And that’s the aspect I want to focus on.


Current state of planets.

At the current time planets in StarMade are there for you to do with as you please. Building a base on it seems to be something that people want to do, or at least watch.

Because they are block based there are no real restrictions on whet you can do with them within the game mechanics. The only restrictions is the planet plate’s placement and the consistent gravity effect.

However current planets do suffer from a number of issue that in my opinion make them not the feature they could or should be.

• Planets are just too small. Even generating bigger ones don’t seem to fit the bill on the amount of space you as a player want to build something suitable as a base. Lag is of course an issue with this as well.

• People tend to treat planets as big asteroids. They get blown up and harvested on a regular basis. With recent asteroid improvements this has lessened but it still happens.

• Planet alignments. This seems to be a small thing but none of the plant plates are aligned to the galaxy centre plane. This means aligned ships or space stations do not match any of the plates.

• Variety. People want to have places to explore.

I could make the list longer but I want to keep it somewhat manageable and stick to these issues.


Why do people want planets?

This is a somewhat difficult question. There are probable as many opinions about this as there are people.
I will focus on my own experiences here.

• The most obvious one would be to build a base on it. And not just a base a true home where you can store your recourses, design you ships and survive in style.

You can do that on a station right? Sure you can. The difference is that with a station you will have to start with basically nothing. Space is empty. It requires a bit more from the player to create something from nothing than to build something on top of an existing backdrop.

This can mean the difference for a player to want to build something or nothing at all. Minecraft is of course a prime example of that.

• A sense of community. A planet can be a meeting point between players or a sprawling city consisting of multiple players.

Again something that could be accomplished with a station but the same reasons as stated before apply.

In my experience people do want some sort of community but most of the time only if they have a place of their own first. Ever opened up the galaxy map on a multiplayer server? See how all the territories are spread out? All players have their own sector because of the bonuses of having the protected Homebase and the mining bonus.

Again Minecraft is an example here. If you look at a Minecraft survival server map you see people strike out on their own and finding a spot to build or they group together to build ‘towns’. However eventually you will have player interaction. Unless you build extremely far out.

In Star Made this is a lot more difficult because of the size of the galaxy. Stumbling onto a player base is not something that happens unless you purposely go looking for it.

• Exploration. People want to experience new things. Because space is empty planets are one of the few actual highlights to explore. Except for stations of course.

An example I have to mention here is No man’s sky. A game based on exploration that for many people ended up more of a grind because every planet looked the same to them after a few hours of game play. Procedural generation can only get you so far.

So introducing the human element is one of that ways to add something new. As mentioned above stumbling unexpectedly into a player’s base can be very rewarding.


Possible scenarios.

I see a number of possible tracks planet development could take. I want to pose some suggestions here to see how we could on planets.

• Planets need to be a lot bigger to accommodate a more build and exploration playstyle.
• Transition between space and plants needs to be seamless.
• Lag should not be of such significant impact as to impair gameplay.

Taking the above into account I must conclude that current technology used to generate plants is not sufficient. The question I ask myself is this. Should plants even consist of blocks in the first place? Or at least all the time. If not than other technological options become available.

• Generate planets using LOD technology as seen in games like No mans sky or Space Engineers. Switching to actual blocks (if at all) should only happen at certain distances.

• Introduce a create a base function similar to creating a space station. This would allow a mix of a block building with non block terrain if that route is taken.

• Atmosphere. This could be introduced a mechanic to for example damage ships that try to land because of atmospheric friction. A dreadnought would for example experience more damage than a simple shuttle. It would discourage large ships from landing but not prevent is.

• Possibilities for ground based vehicles. A bit of a pipe dream at the moment but it would open up a whole lot of options to build ships to deploy them.

I rambled long enough I think. It was in large part to get my thoughts on paper regarding this subject and hopefully start some meaningful discussions. So as my last question to you all:


What do you want planets for?

I want everything you do thank you for speaking up.

 

[splatthecat]

I love the idea of planets. After all, what is space without planets.

With FoW we now have, the notion of exploration is increased and this should include planets. However, currently, planets are just big old lag balls, too small and ultimately too uninteresting.

It would be nice to have more to planets than just being a mega asteroid. Obviously fauna would be a good addition as well as NPCs, maybe an abandoned base, crashed ship or other such artifact could be introduced.

Personally I loved the new asteroids. If planets became more "noisy" maybe they would be more aesthetically more interesting and that might be a start.

Finally, planets should be a mire viable option for building a base on, especially at first. At the beginning of the game, nobody has the money to build a station or buy a derelict. Yes, a derelict station often benefits from plenty of power reserves but knowing that every block you place will be wasted is a deterrent to building much on one. On a busy server, the search for somewhere to stay can be time consuming and with FoW now, hard. In my experience, players tend to grab a derelict and stay there. I've even explored claimed stations or more than one occasion where there are not even any basic refining or factory set ups!

A planet could accommodate several players simultaneously and could encourage interaction, trade, diplomacy, conflict, etc on a planetary scale as well as galactic.

 

[MossyStone48]

The NASS solution has been to decrease the price of user spawned stations from 1m to 20k (starting munny).

Planets do have things spawn on them like pyramids and cities but they are very rare. 100 radius planets feel just big enough.
Too be honest the best way to keep planets form lagging out the client is to turn down the amount of chunks rendered. I could even load a planet on a tablet in some of the older tester versions if I had it set ultra low. 10fps max but it still allowed me the chance to check a plate for the minerals I wanted before kicking on my laptop.

One change, just one mind you, I'd like to see is a Server side flag to disable planetary mining with Salvage Beams. The astronaut's tool would be A-OK but the planet would be un-mine-able until blown apart, killing all flora and fauna. Both of which might be more valuable harvested/cultivated or captured and bred while using some form of land vehicle to mine.

 

[jstenholt]

Just know that you are not alone in your suggestions, OP. Bigger, better planets are a dream of mine also. Hopefully Auburn is hard at work on a solution.

 

[Bogdan]

Introduce a create a base function similar to creating a space station. This would allow a mix of a block building with non block terrain if that route is taken.

What do you mean here? Most of your other points are clear, but for this point: you can already faction planets and work on them as bases....?

 

[splatthecat]

There does seem to be no negatives to blowing up a planet and mining the plates. All juice and little squeeze so to speak. Stopping mining from space on a planet plate would appear to be an answer and maybe some form of planetary mining system could be created instead?

 

[Nickizzy]

Although we might need a lot bigger planets for this, it would be really cool if pirate and trade guild stations(and maybe"crashed ships" and other shops) would spawn on planets. New designs, I'm sorta thinking of the SE easy start bases and pirate bases. Only one plate, only taking a max of a fourth of a plate, it would add a lot more expectation to a planet.

 

[Lukwan]

For exploration to be an activity we will need a wide range of things to explore.

1) Settlements of procedurally generated buildings and installations should be spawned to flesh out the 'ruins' on unexplored planets. Each 'compound' of buildings should be laid out with a specific function/backstory because just randomly generating and mixing buildings will leave each compound looking alike. (Science/residential colony/industrial/military)

2) Flora and fauna should be biome-specific and not just dumped together like a box of smarties. Fauna could be specific to a compound as well.

3) Landmarks. These should be unique and rare features. They don't need to have a specific function because they serve a purpose; navigational reference that differentiates one planet from another (a memory aid). EG: temples, spires, statues, monuments, battlefields & standing stones.

4) Vestigial travel networks. What a joy to discover a functional secret railway or a working jump-gate network.

5) Crashed vessels. Anything that is unexpected can elevate a tedious exploration mission to an awesome adventure.

6) Orbital platforms. Have satellites or a small station orbiting a planet (to be explored).

7) "This place crawls". To balance risk & reward there should be very rare planets that you just don't linger on. The initial landing should be very uneventful but then the 'Bugs' start coming up through the woodwork...time to flee for your life.

 

[Tshara]

I’ts good to see I was on the right track with this.

What do you mean here? Most of your other points are clear, but for this point: you can already faction planets and work on them as bases....?

I should clarify a bit here. Building a base on a planet the same way you would build a station would have some additional positive points.


- You could build faction based buildings of multiple factions on the same planet (plate)

- Nav markers. Never be lost again. Even with smaller planets I’m still looking on which plate I build my base.

- Possibilities to combine block based building with different non block generated terrain. Only if that’s what planets would be going for of course.


Of course you would also have to think of a way to be able to edit the terrain.

 

[Nickizzy]

Possibilities to combine block based building with different non block generated terrain. Only if that’s what planets would be going for of course.

I hope you aren't talking about some voxel system, because that would take a huge engine change.

 

[greatmatt]

I loved your planet ideas and here is what i want to see on planets, i also think that all those things (except the NPCs) (even the planet plates if given the proper instructions) can be built by players in several competitions:

1) Buildings. They can vary from small 9x9x9 huts to huge space elevator sized buildings based on wheter the planet's faction is advanced or not.

2) Flora. Flora can become much more interesting without a lot of work. Just rework current flora graphics (maybe convert into LoD models) and add a few more blocks like lime, lime rock, other rock types, other wood types, add more diversity to trees (small to huge trees), etc.

3) Fauna. Planets would become a lot more interesting if players had to fight strange creatures, tribes, soldiers, etc. They can be cute creatures that will ignore your presence, deadly ones that will attack you on sight, soldiers if the planet belongs to any faction, tribal hunters if planet is inhabitated by lesser civilizations, among other NPCs.

4) Cities. Cities can be a interesting thing to find when exploring planets, they can vary from small villages with no more than 10 NPCs, to huge cities full of technological stuff and NPCs. They can have shops, mercenaries, space elevators, abandoned buildings, among other stuff and act as populational centers that generate credits for the faction that owns them.

5) Crashed ships. Would be awesome to be exploring a planet and suddenly stumble upon a recently crashed ship with it's crew still alive, a ship that crashed several months ago (dead crew) or one that crashed many years ago and is full of monsters. These ships can be standard military faction ships, prisoner transports, cargo ships, mighty alien vessels several hundred blocks in size (extremely rare) or simple fighters with a dead pilot (most common).

6) Orbital constructs. Players or factions that opt to make planets their only home should have the ability to launch things into orbit that could act as satellites (armed or not), research stations, military stations, prison stations, observation posts on planets inhabited by primitive factions or abandoned stations crawling with aliens.

7) Alien Nests. An incredible challenge to astronauts would be alien nests, these can be underground, on the surface or even on asteroids. Players would face lots of alien monsters and in the end a massive queen that once killed awards resources (credits or a rare material).

8) Abandoned cities. Cities are nice but who doesn't love some suspense? Some planets could house abandoned cities that were destroyed either in a war, zombie apocalypse or because planet couldn't house the city builders anymore, forcing them to abandon it.

9) Temples. Some advanced races, no matter how advanced they are, still hold on to religious values building many temples across the galaxy. These temples could house a powerful alien ships, an ancient threat, these races' survivors, artefacts that can be traded for credits, etc.

10) More planet types. One thing that i would love to see is more planet types. Some examples are: Barren planets (dead rock with a few minerals), moons (with living beings or earth-like ones), broken ones (destroyed planets with broken plates floating around them), planet rings (small rocks full of minerals floating around a planet), extremely rare computer planets (massive machine planets built by factions that no longer expand but instead protect their only planet), ocean planets (planets with very few land masses), multi-biome planets (planets with more than one biome), etc.

I have a lot more ideas for planets and exploration but i think most of them are impossible to be put into starmade by devs like ring worlds (like stellaris's), refugee planets, galactic alliance planets (a place where many races live in peace), weaponized planets (basically planets that move and destroy others), etc.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I think that with the game's current limitations, there's really no way to give a more realistic size for planets when people are building 500 meter long ships. Giantism, with regard to ship size, kills a lot of the need/use for planets and feeds the whole "planets are just big asteroids" mindset.

This is the planet Maximus; my last colony on the Light vs Dark server before its reset. I only 'colonized' about 15% of the planet's surface, and I found that there was plenty of room for visitors, customers, and tourists, and that's with only one of the twelve plates being fully utilized.

The ships in orbit are about 100 meters long; a little smaller than real life naval frigates; such as the Oliver Hazard Perry class. When you're in an environment like this, you do get a sense of immersion and scale without it being overwhelming. You get to urge to look around and it becomes a sort of 'mini-quest', just exploring the city. I think so many people are obsessed with owning a capital ship that this sort of thing is often overlooked.

I think it's important to recognize the limitations of the game and build accordingly until Schine optimizes further.

With that having been said, I'll give you a list of things (besides reduced lag) that I'd be interested in seeing with regard to planet development.

Spoiler

Additional planet types.
- Barren: predominantly rock-based with craters instead of mountains and minimal flora.

- Terran: Similar to the green forest planets but with water on it. I used lukrah asteroid material to simulate oceans but I think it would be cool to make the water block a resource found on planets or crafted from ice. Make the water intangible like pickup rails so that things can sink to the bottom but with a translucent blue texture like blue crystal armor.

- Oceanic: Same as terran but mostly water.

- Gas giants: Large planets that you cannot build on but will damage ships upon collision. They drain shields with a high DPS then proceed to erode hull. Astronauts are killed inside gas giants due to intense atmospheric pressure.
Blocks all weapons fire and missiles detonate on impact.

- Volcanic: similar to the red "Mars" type planets but with steep mountains and a LOT of lava. Lava should be intangible like the water mentioned above and damage anything submerged in it in a manner similar to gas giants.


Planet features
- Planetary rings: Intangible like lava/water but causes damage in a manner similar to gas giants due to sustained impacts from small rock fragments. Blocks cannon fire. Beams can pass through. Missiles detonate on impact.

- Automatically reorient ships that are within gravity as they pass from one plate to another. Make use of the "C"/"align to universe" key align to the current planet plate when in gravity. This will make ground vehicles easier to use.

- Atmospheric reentry effect: When a ship approaches a planet, use the engine glow effect on the part of the ship hitting the atmosphere for a short reentry animation sequence. Optional damage setting (server) to allow reentry to damage a ship in manner similar to gas giants, planetary rings, lava, etc.

- Ecosystems... I know Schine has a plan so I'm not going to post mine here. To be continued in a different thread.

[doublepost=1476728607,1476727962][/doublepost]

There does seem to be no negatives to blowing up a planet and mining the plates. All juice and little squeeze so to speak. Stopping mining from space on a planet plate would appear to be an answer and maybe some form of planetary mining system could be created instead?

I agree that mining from space should be eliminated. That's what asteroids are for and that's also why Schine made them bigger.

As far as planet mining goes; to challenge myself and to add roleplay value, I tend to build small-medium docked 'terraforming stations" to gather resources and flatten terrain for my base. This allows me to reshape a planet to my liking and pick up some resources without being a Galactus/Unicron/Omnipotus; Devourer of Worlds monstrosity.

Spoiler

 

[Bench]

Neat read well, I got through the OP then had to leave for work, but I'll read through the rest. A lot of what OP touched on is stuff we also agree would be ways to make planets better. To do planets well you really need to be strategic in every part of their generation and distribution, from the ground up. That's the approach we have taken, so while you won't see new planets for a while, it's only because we want to do them right for what we want the experience of them to be.

 

[EricBlank]

As far as personal inspiration, I see planets as a base for civilized life in the galaxy including players, and uncivilized wildernesses to explore and profit from. The economic value of planets I've always thought could be expounded upon more. For instance, fauna are planned in the future, and I sincerely hope plant life gets the same treatment. With plants and animals you have the basis for an NPC population to influence your faction, and possibly pull mineral resources from the planet's crust as well.

I would love to see planets average size increase, if that's even feasible without killing servers and harddrives. I also want to see the way planetary geology is generated changed. Currently we have the five planet types, of course, the terrain is generated procedurally but the content of the planetary crust and details is generic fantastical stuff like ice and earth-like and mars-like and TENTACLES.
In the future, I hope that planets might be generated based on the conditions they form in. For instance;
The surface temperature being a factor of the distance to the parent star, and atmosphere (a very dense atmosphere can trap more heat.)
The presence or lack of an atmosphere depending on the size of the body and a random variable offset.
A tectonic activity variable determining if the planet will have complex geology, like cooled volcanic necks, active volcanoes (I dont expect them to erupt, that's asking a bit much), lava, large mountains and valleys and a lack of meteor craters, sedimentary and metamorphic layering (a little, we're working with voxels here), or simple geology, where the crust is largely all of the same makeup, little or no evidence of volcanic or mountain-building activity, and abundant meteor craters.
Presence of life as a variable, not every star system supporting any endemic life, and maybe the conditions that endemic life is living in having some effect on it.
Presence of gas giants and moons. Admittedly a tough nut to consider in game terms. Gas giants are 1) huge gas bags and 2) by the time you hit something solid, you're already dead. It's unfeasible to build deep within their atmosphere. Moons of any planet might have to be in a neighboring sector, probably something incredibly small, like the minimum diameter planets we have now.

Two things that No Man's Sky did poorly are; 1) life, especially intelligent life, is too abundant, practically omnipresent, you never feel like you're a real pioneer, there's always somebody around to bug you, and 2) all of the planets ended up being pretty much the same, in terms of both the terrain being fairly predictable and not having much variation on a single planet (if it has water, its all a soggy mess all over, no continents, there aren't mountain ranges, etc) and resources present. Oh, and the sentinels. Those things just don't belong.

 

[Madman198237]

Well, I like a lot of your ideas, Dr. Whammy, but planetary rings should not be intangible, and should block missiles (Contact detonation) and beams (Dust scatters focused energy), but not cannons, which would punch through. Rings should give minimal amounts of resources when mined and processed.

Planet types:
Barren, as stated before. Different colorations and materials, but always craters and no/limited atmosphere (For when such things matter).
Gas giant: Obviously, large, possibly with a solid core of either ice or metallic hydrogen (Liquid). Ships with AHP or SHP over a certain value should be capable of safely entering the atmosphere, simulating the durability required to survive extreme pressures.
Consumed: Planets turned, 2001-style, into machinery or something otherwise obviously unnatural.
Earthlike: Obvious, duh. Possibility of life on these worlds much higher.
Ice world: Think Europa/ice moon, but larger.
Greenhouse: Venus-like, dangerously hot and with a thick atmosphere.
Coruscant: But not. City-planet, climate controlled (Or not, as if the ancient climate-controls have broken down. In the broken city-planets, there should be minor meteorological annoyances, like massive storms and huge amounts of wreckage. Also, maybe a runaway greenhouse effect would be in order). 'Nuff said.

Moons:
Ice: Europa-esque, a thick layer of surface, a possibly-life-containing ocean below.
Weird: Like Titan, a moon of Saturn, extremely cold (Or hot!) with atmospheres of not-normal gases (Methane, or gaseous rock, which is in fact probably a thing on certain extrasolar planets)

There's more I'll list later, but I've got other things to do right now.

 

[Tshara]

I’ve seen a lot of ideas about what type of planets people want and the environment they could consist of. All very interesting ideas. What I am most interested in though is how would it affect your play style? What would you use such a planet for?



The same with flora and fauna. We could have a hundred species in Star Made but if ally they do is wander around it would not affect me much as a player. Do they provide a specific resource if I Bread them. Or kill them? Is there something on a planet inhabited with a hostile species that I want bad enough to face them?



The same with a planets environment. It could be very hospitable and rich in soil to grow crops. Or perhaps the opposite. Toxic or high pressure environments that would need considerable amounts of effort and building to get to rich resources.



These are all interesting game play decisions that would make the game more interactive.

What risks are you willing to take for what rewards?
[doublepost=1476821673,1476820307][/doublepost]A small exercise

Picture this:


1. Imagine a planet. Keep it neutral for now.

2. Add a risk to the planet. (Or multiple. Could be environmental, species etc.)

3. Add a benefit to the planet. (Or multiple. Could be resources or beneficial climates etc.)

4. Optional. Add a special encounter. (should not be present on all planets of this type)

Ask yourself this.
How would the planet you just imagined affect me (the player).

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I’ve seen a lot of ideas about what type of planets people want and the environment they could consist of. All very interesting ideas. What I am most interested in though is how would it affect your play style? What would you use such a planet for?

Multi-player immersion. I want to create environments where players can visit and interact in a neutral setting while enjoying sight-seeing and local activities.

The same with flora and fauna. We could have a hundred species in Star Made but if ally they do is wander around it would not affect me much as a player. Do they provide a specific resource if I Bread them. Or kill them? Is there something on a planet inhabited with a hostile species that I want bad enough to face them?

To be honest my desire for fauna isn't all that complex. I just want some "LV426" type scenario to go down so I can have an excuse to send in my "clean up crew"...

Maybe rescue some colonists or something.

The same with a planets environment. It could be very hospitable and rich in soil to grow crops. Or perhaps the opposite. Toxic or high pressure environments that would need considerable amounts of effort and building to get to rich resources.

I built civilian utility armor to conduct small mining operations in gravity without crashing my mining ships. It gives me more mobility and durability that just a space suit. I'd jump t the chance to navigate environmental hazards on a planet. It would put some of my best skills to the test.

These are all interesting game play decisions that would make the game more interactive.

What risks are you willing to take for what rewards?

Space is, by nature, extremely dangerous to humans. It doesn't take much to screw up in real space and when you do, it's all over. That's sort of its charm; the danger and the need to think rather than carelessly act. As a kid, I used to build ships out of Legos and pretend I was maneuvering close to a neutron star/black hole to gather gravimetric data or gathering ionized gas samples from the atmosphere of a gas giant or brown dwarf.

In a game like this, I'd enjoy the challenge of not only dealing with pirates and wild creatures but the natural hazards inherent of space as well.

I've got a brain in my skull and time on my hands. Whatever challenge the universe wants to throw my way, I say bring it on.
[doublepost=1476822183,1476822013][/doublepost]I guess what I'm saying is the reasons for the danger are not important to me in a game like this. I enjoy the adventure itself.