What Do We Want From Planets?

[Edymnion]

Since the majority of people in How do you view planets? responded with "They're just a placeholder for something cool later on", thought it might be interesting to see exactly what "something cool" is that most people are expecting.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

#2 and #3 for me. I've been vocal about desiring a better planet experience which falls under #3, but I also like the idea of mining colonies which produce slow but renewable resources. Bonus points if mining colonies/factories/whatever require NPCs to run at full capacity (though it should also be operable by players, just in case NPCs are not available at the moment for whatever reason)

 

[arouq]

I voted for "Bigger, rounder, but otherwise pretty much the same as they are now." But... I also want to see planets be a renewable resource, for different types, at least differences between gas and rock planets.

The most important factor is performance, they can stay the same size and shape for all I care, as long as they are vastly more usable performance wise, I'm going to be very happy.

I would like to see planets be required to cultivate NPCs, mini cities/towns and what not housing people for uses in crew. It'd be really cool to have to recruit NPCs for your faction, especially for singleplayer. I could see ferry missions (planet to planet/station) and Dave level interactions with NPCs (more missions). Perhaps even farming, so NPCs on planets would farm and fuel a faction. Having a planet with a bunch of farms and other industries on it would give bonuses to that faction. They wouldn't have to be that big to achieve all of this.

And of course, normal ship mining operations. I do enjoy seeing a planet being dismantled by a craft. Having planets be essential to factions could make destroying them even better :D

 

[Edymnion]

Yup, I'd like to see planets as the primary generator of NPCs as well.

As in, you have a planet. Then you have to build space to house NPCs. And you need a food source for NPCs, and recreational spaces for NPCs.

Basically you have to build a fully functional city of things to attract and keep your NPCs, which then become accessible for use throughout your empire.

Resources like luxury items, entertainment, etc to make the planet more appealing to attract NPCs, enough living space to house the NPCs, and enough food generation to keep them alive.

Could do that on stations, but it would require importing flora and fauna, and building really large stations to house all of the various things required that a planet would provide naturally.

 

[Batavium]

Voted for no lag. As long as planets do not effect server health then i do not care how they end up.

They should not effect the game or the performance of the server in a negative way. Else anything you desire from them is never going to work.

 

[Nauvran]

I want planets to stop silly people from making so many fucking threads about planets

 

[Edymnion]

I want planets to stop silly people from making so many fucking threads about planets

What did you expect in the weeks following a "We're totally redoing planets" announcement? Riveting discussions on cupcakes?

Its not like there's anything else going on around here.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I could use a good cupcake or two right now...

Yeah the forums are more entertaining than the game right now. I'm waiting for the next big update before I get back into StarMade. (Actually I'm waiting on the next big update for a few different games...all you Alpha indie developers need to coordinate and stagger your releases so this doesn't happen )

 

[Nauvran]

What did you expect in the weeks following a "We're totally redoing planets" announcement? Riveting discussions on cupcakes?

Its not like there's anything else going on around here.

I expected you to think and not make two threads about the same damn problem

 

[Edymnion]

I expected you to think and not make two threads about the same damn problem

There aren't two threads on the same problem.

One is on the current state of planets, the other is on where we'd like to see planets go in the future.

I'm sorry if this offends you. Not really.

If you want more diverse and stimulating conversation topics, I suggest you go make some of your own.

 

[Drybreeze]

Has the idea ever been explored where planets are compartmentalized?

Like worlds (overworld, underworld, the end) in minecraft or instances in other games.

Positives:
Less lag in space instance.
Can make the world flat and really frikken big like a minecraft level.
Can introduce a bunch of stuff like fauna and flora.
Stops planet eating miners.

Negatives:
Stops planet eating miners.
Can't directly interact between space and surface like orbital bombing etc.
No direct visibility of what's going on in orbit from the surface since they're effectively two different games.

Maybe some compromise where you can build orbital facilities and they can interact with the surface. Defense platforms, space elevators or such.

It's not ideal but I think it's worth considering if it hasn't already been. ..?

 

[Equilibrium21]

I would prefer if planets where more than just objects that players can strip mine. As you said, they should be rare and important to all players in some way. For example, making them have special resources or having them give you more faction points if they belong to your faction.

 

[nightrune]

Has the idea ever been explored where planets are compartmentalized?

Like worlds (overworld, underworld, the end) in minecraft or instances in other games.

Positives:
Less lag in space instance.
Can make the world flat and really frikken big like a minecraft level.
Can introduce a bunch of stuff like fauna and flora.
Stops planet eating miners.

Negatives:
Stops planet eating miners.
Can't directly interact between space and surface like orbital bombing etc.
No direct visibility of what's going on in orbit from the surface since they're effectively two different games.

Maybe some compromise where you can build orbital facilities and they can interact with the surface. Defense platforms, space elevators or such.

It's not ideal but I think it's worth considering if it hasn't already been. ..?

Schema has said no to instanced planets. Its not the way starmade will be.

 

[Edymnion]

It's not ideal but I think it's worth considering if it hasn't already been. ..?

For some reason, the underlying First Commandment of Starmade appears to be "Thy shalt load all of the things".

If you can't interact with 100% of the planet/station/etc from a space ship half a sector away, we can't have it.

 

[Ghent96]

Cookies.

Like I've said elsewhere... the only useful and productive fix for planets at this point is to go back to cookie planets instead of dodecahedrons. The experiment didn't work out, as predicted.

 

[johno1928]

What's the point of mini-minecraft in starmade? Easy access to thrusters and mining beams makes any surface level mining and exploring redundantnt. If everything was in caves or dungeons underground where i couldnt fly exploration would be possible, but otherwise i would rather planets did something different in starmade

 

[Ghent96]

True, now planets are,just really large, laggy asteroids

 

[Amadeus]

I agree with most of the above. I think planers should primarily be focused on NPC communities, homebases of operation, flora and fauna, and passive resource generation.

 

[Napther]

and passive resource generation.

Ive always toyed with this idea but I dont think I ever officially commented about it.

But I always liked the idea of instead of strip mining, build a small station in orbit that has "Some System" (EG a salvage computer and modules) that will slowly generate materials from the planet core that can be collected (Or plundered). For those playing Minecraft at some point, like a MFR's Laser Drill that generates trickle resources from the void and consuming a lot of power.

 

[StarWars1981]

I'd vote for cookie planets again, though I never saw them it sounds like they're less laggy and the concept seems less clunky and awkward than the dodecagahedronies we've got now.
Perhaps change planets up, so that some of them are considered "habitable" and 99+% are considered "uninhabitable"? Uninhabitable planets require a full spacesuit (for players, just the helmet of course) to survive on without taking massive and rapid damage from radiation, asphyxiation, poisonous chemicals, or the lack of breathable chemicals, that may be in the environment surrounding you. NPCs cannot inhabit uninhabitable planets: do missions there if there's ever a ssytem for something like that, sure; visit, sure; but never "live" there (aka generate/be stationed there).
Also NPCs only spawn on planets, btw, unless they are already affiliated with a faction and can spawn on stations so long as said station already has an NPC population. This makes planets a valuable resource, as the only generators of what should be fragile and easily-lost NPCs... i.e. hull plate blown off exposing corridor = free-floating NPC you'll never see again. And they can be made necessary for operations: for instance, having one attached to each computer onboard (i.e. cannon cpu). But that's almost off-topic lol. That does, however, make NPCs and through them planets a valuable resource that you probably don't want to blow to pieces, because you're gonna have to explore a hundred more systems to find another inhabitable planet. Or something like that, until you build a station housing your NPC population and hide it in the galactic rim where nobody can stumble on it by accident, unless they're looking for additional NPCs themselves lol.