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[Sappho]

I like where the changes are going, the missions, the newer boss fights (still need a lot of balance, only way I found to kill the UFO penguin was to shoot him on the edge of the screen without him noticing me).

I still think this game would be 100x better if they just moved away from "digging metric assloads of dirt". Starbound shouldn't focus too much on mining, I know it's some sort of "spiritual successor" to Terraria but the whole sci-fi vibe and low-tech ore finding by hand don't mesh too well.

"Making awesome bases" should be the focus. Make it easier to get materials, or something. Add sieges like Terraria.

I disagree that building should be the focus. I like building, but if I wanted to play Terraria, I'd just play Terraria. And I definitely don't want sieges. I don't really enjoy combat in this game. All those hours I spent on it were mainly focused on exploring. That's what I liked. Going from planet to planet, never knowing what kind of life you'll find on the surface, what color and shape the trees will be, what kind of ruins or bases or towns or rainbows you might find... It was fantastic. And they're removing all the exploration elements now, and making it harder to advance to the point where you *can* travel. Missions are a good idea, I think, but they just seem to be removing all the things I liked about the game and making the stuff that I was just putting up with more of the focus (and making it more tedious in the process).

I definitely agree that they should make it easier to get materials, and they absolutely need to give the mining a rest. Some mining? Great. Constant mining through dirt and cobblestone, desperately searching for a single scrap of copper? Irritating. At the very least, all that future tech should be able to detect where ore is at a distance. Save us the pointless hours of dirt-shoveling.

[Slayerhero90]

The winning ticket, by the way, Sappho, is for a quest you get after your third ship upgrade.

[Oneir]

Other than that, mining is a bit irksome, I agree. Chucklefish built the ore distribution on the assumption that players would dig straight down a-la Hellevator and just carve out whatever they could find from the caves or core. I found (I think) one single platinum ore on the surface of the first planet, rest was just coal, and getting the copper to upgrade the matter manipulator the first time was definitely tedious. What happened to surface deposits of iron and copper?

Wait, for real? I guess it's smart to take an emergent thing like Hellevators into account, but they're really just a different kind of tedium for when you've run out of cave/can't stand fighting the same slimes any more to get to new ore/really just want to go to hell already. If you want people to go straight to the center of the planet, what's even the point of generating caves and things? That seems like it's totally opposed to the exploration game genre.

[Neonivek]

They are really aggressive in trying to prevent it...

But honestly given the player differences they shouldn't be so antagonistic towards the players who want to mad dash towards the end.

That way the players who want to more slowly and organically play the game can get whatever they want... and the mad dashers can dash to their hearts content.

I mostly just ended up blitzing through the game because after a while I kind of realized how fruitless and joyless exploration was... as soon as I saw the pattern.

Which is a problem with me, as soon as I know HOW the game does it, it ceases to be interesting because well... it all seems the same to me.

"Well on the planet, ok... so there will be three ruins on a planet of this side, three chests, and below that will be a second set of ruins if I look for it... Ohh a town? Well I know where everything is this shouldn't be too long"

and because Starbound doesn't have a strong foundation in gameplay or emersion to support the exploration (like say... Spelunky does) it gets boring for me.

Basically it just becomes Spore.

What do I mean like that? I don't see a pattern and go "Ohh this looks fun!" because that isn't what Starbound generates it goes "Ohh, more... eye candy... I guess if I wanted to place these useless objects around my house I could mine them. But I already have 100 others". It is still getting a bit better though... but it will never REALLY try to be a game that randomly generates fun, just a game that randomly generates the chance to spawn something that catches your eye.

But that is just me and my suggestion isn't to make the game more fun for me (since frankly... making the game more fun in general, adding a bit more use in the random objects, making planets more interesting in general, making it easier to play with my friends with some strong multiplayer content... and stuff would alleviate that) but rather I do see it as being a general improvement in general.

Either that or gate off hellevators with a temperature system.

[Niveras]

Honestly, I'd love to see Chucklefish make mining an optional path to follow rather than a gate to better gear/missions. Maybe they could replace pickaxes with mining rigs/vehicles that requires occasional maintenance so they can scrap the idea of pickaxes altogether.

Hmm, maybe later on, a semi-random mission system (based on exploration, collection, or combat) that rewards pixels which you could then use to buy equipment and upgrades, rather than relying solely on crafting them? With the seeded nature of the universe, it should be possible for the quest system to point you to systems with what you're looking for, since the code can figure it out itself, rather than relying procedurally generated locations that exist in a vacuum and disappear when the mission ends. Could maybe also get rid of the extractor or whatever its called (the thing that turns ore into pixels), though on the other hand you'll probably still want to be able to something with old, otherwise useless ores.

(Any upgrades that could be purchased as a result of such missions should also be craftable, but care has to be taken that one path is not supremely easier than the other. Additionally, if any missions offers a specialized tool for whatever purpose, those tools need to make sense as to why they're not player-craftable or accessible outside of missions. No ore-sensing tools that only work when you're on a collect-ore mission, for example.)

In terms of multiplayer, if your target (e.g. a [race] facility on [random] planet) has already been looted by another player who found that place by random chance, you could go back to wherever you got the mission to so they can tell give you another place to try. Or, have AI/ship upgrades that let you ping planets/systems/the galaxy map (possibly with varying degrees of accuracy) for the kind of location you're looking for (e.g. a specific race facility, pirate airship, etc). In the worse case, you could perhaps overlay standard blocks with the quest-related items you're looking for, such that they're only visible while you're on the specific mission.

.

As an aside, I also like the idea of scrapping pickaxes altogether and instead having those be suits/mechs/machines/vehicles that require upkeep/maintenance. Just to help explain why the matter manipulator is inferior, even at 0 upgrades, to a blunt instrument. (Though I guess that's never really going to make sense anyway. Why not just have a mech with dual/quad/n matter manipulators?)

[Levi]

As an aside, I also like the idea of scrapping pickaxes altogether and instead having those be suits/mechs/machines/vehicles that require upkeep/maintenance. Just to help explain why the matter manipulator is inferior, even at 0 upgrades, to a blunt instrument. (Though I guess that's never really going to make sense anyway. Why not just have a mech with dual/quad/n matter manipulators?)

I agree.  At least make it a laser pickaxe or something. 

[Ibid Straydrink]

I crave some sort of siege refined mechanic. It doesn't need to be ubiquitous- allow the player to flag a certain planet as their HQ, at which point, the big bads of the main plot (Miniknog and their allied humans, Kleux Priesthood, Glitch Lords, Floran barbarians, Nova bandits) start beaming down to bust things up. Later, certain quests require a hold out for reinforcements!

If combat isn't your thing, don't fret! There's always seppuku! Or, alternatively, a whole set of automated defenses (the mechanics for which are already in place- guards, turrets, mines) that just require the resources.

[Chiefwaffles]

They are adding a building aspect. The way Chucklefish planned starbound is that it's going to have three paths - Adventurer, Builder, and Farmer. Adventurer is basically what the game is now, builder will most likely be Terraria-style but with rent, and farming is really just selling your crops to someone on the outpost.

I do wish there was a mining alternative, though.

[Flying Dice]

Honestly I'd like to see, using that paradigm, an 'Explorer' path akin to Elite: Dangerous where you can visit systems, land on planets, &c. and then go to NPC settlements and sell them the data you've gathered, with greater return for greater degrees of exploration (i.e. being in orbit < landing and walking around < spelunking into a bunch of caves and going through all the settlements).

[Slayerhero90]

I do like the constant rain of fire and meteors on lava planets.
Makes me feel really welcome.

[Levi]

Now I want to see a "Intergalactic Postman" path... 

[PrimusRibbus]

Honestly I'd like to see, using that paradigm, an 'Explorer' path akin to Elite: Dangerous where you can visit systems, land on planets, &c. and then go to NPC settlements and sell them the data you've gathered, with greater return for greater degrees of exploration (i.e. being in orbit < landing and walking around < spelunking into a bunch of caves and going through all the settlements).

A million times this. I really thought this was where SB was going back in the day, but they've done their damnedest to incentivize playing linearly and make sure exploration is a side-note.

[Slayerhero90]

So is there anything valuable at the bottom of magma oceans? I don't want to go through the heartache of digging my way down and be disappointed.

[Neonivek]

They are adding a building aspect. The way Chucklefish planned starbound is that it's going to have three paths - Adventurer, Builder, and Farmer. Adventurer is basically what the game is now, builder will most likely be Terraria-style but with rent, and farming is really just selling your crops to someone on the outpost.

I do wish there was a mining alternative, though.

My theory is that they are going to eliminate some of that aspect. Especially the farmer aspect as cooking has a much smaller prominence.

[Sergius]

I disagree that building should be the focus. I like building, but if I wanted to play Terraria, I'd just play Terraria. And I definitely don't want sieges. I don't really enjoy combat in this game.

I meant sieges that you can summon somehow, not just show up randomly and mess up your base.

I do agree about the exploration part. But there needs to be more interesting stuff to explore, not just run 360 degrees around each identical planet for a 20% chance that there will be a lab or town.