Evilreaver posted:

I HAVE A DREAM

The tutorial planet teaches the basics- how to move, fight, mine, and recruit NPCs. Maybe there's a wounded guy-- why not a buddy who was in your escape pod, but didn't fare so well in the crash? He needs shelter ("NPCs need beds, doors, walls and lights!"), medicine herbs (which, along with food crops, are the base of Farming progression), protection from alien wolves, oh great now he's better and needs a gun so the two of you can hike up a mountain so your distress signal reaches space?

Alright, so a ship comes down and teleports you up, and kidnaps you and the captain is an rear end in a top hat. You break out and fight (you need control of the engine and bridge, do you dispatch your friend to one while you go to the other, or go together? Introducing the NPC Dispatch System tutorial!) So you blow up the ship, the captain gets to a shuttle, you beam aboard. And when you confront the pirate captain, you are given a choice, kill the captain or arrest him to give to the local Spacecops? Either way, now you have a Tier 1 ship. And the sandbox begins.

Your buddy doesn't have anything better to do, so he'll hang around until you dismiss him or something. He'll stay on the ship acting as a guide "Why not go [progress the story], [player]?" And you can ask him to come along on your self-guided missions. You're in a space-civ consellation, why not find an inhabited planet to get missions or a vacant world to claim?

Oh, some distress signals. Go or ignore? Story-important ones are clearly marked as important (and don't time out), others you can hunt down or ignore at your leisure. One teaches you about wormholes, another about Why The Big Bad Is A Jerk, another is a mining outpost and when you get there it's overrun with native wildlife. The boss of that last one is tired of dealing with the aliens you just made extinct, so he sells you the deed for cheap. Boom, Outpost Upgrade And Management tutorial.

Eventually your mining outpost either decays (if you don't man it) or is attacked (if you do), which then triggers a How To Defend Your poo poo tutorial.

You are taught how to make a Farming Outpost. They don't work well if there's industry on the same world, so there's a reason to colonize multiple worlds (or spend some resources on clean industry). This provides food and/or medicine you can use to feed NPCs you have under your 'rule' or you can trade to neutral/friendly civs. Medicine is worth more so it attracts more raiders. Different foods grow in different climates so you are encouraged to settle multiple worlds again. (Or build biodomes)

You are taught how to make Research Outposts. They're valuable and attract raiders, but you can hide them well underground so as long as there isn't something obvious (say, a mine or farm) on the surface to give them away, they're pretty safe. You can research all sorts of fun toys, techs, ships, weapons, armor, engines, mining and farming equipment, or just farm out your equipment to a civ for cash and favors. Larger labs and their reactors generate more heat and are thus harder to hide so you either need better defenses or, again, multiple planets.

So you're left to Skyrim the galaxy for a bit. If you focus on the main story, you can head off the Big Bad's plans and do good in the world, and it gives you juuuuust enough levels/gear/resources as quest rewards in order to get by. If you don't care, you get wealthy and/or powerful, but the BB starts conquering poo poo, and launches high-threat attacks both on NPC constellations as well as your own holdings. Powerful NPC Civs can resist for a while and start giving you "evac this planet", "hold the line", "attack this enemy base to take heat off us" missions, and food/medical supplies go way up in price so you can get by fighting or merchanting. If you interact closely with a civ, they do very well in resisting the BB and can hold forever as you and they level up.

As the game progresses, the Big Bad gets mad at you (either for directly opposing him or for indirectly supporting your allies) and Death Star's a planet you like and/or Ups The Stakes in some way. Maybe two or three times depending on how long you want the game to be. Responding appropriately in a timely way means there's no lasting harm, as long as the player knows (1) "I lost those assets because I hosed up", or (2) "I would have CERTAINLY lost those assets if I hadn't acted".

Its worth noting that while direct attacks will become commonplace as you gain power/influence, they are never so annoying that you can't sandbox around them. If you play passively or stealthily, you are free to build whatever without making enemies or fearing the story might progress without you. At tier 1 as a complete unknown, you could build a large pretty castle and decorate your ship for days and days without anything bad happening, and without (much) material restrictions.

At some point you say "alright I'm a walking juggernaut of doom and conquest, time to gently caress up the Big Bad" or, "I can hire these black-ops supersoldiers and provide them high-tech support, particularly by launching interplanetary smartbombs or drones to ensure their success" or even "I have recreated Mass Effect by supporting these several civilizations so now we're going to band together in an unstoppable fleet"

Any one of those plans will work okay.

Or if you're a completionist sperg, you beam down on the planet in your Gigapower Armor Mk VIII and frankly illegal/immorally powerful weapons, backed up by mercs that you've granted similar equipment, while your support team nukes poo poo from orbit (with orbital weapons you've researched, designed, built and deployed) WHILE friendly civ's fleets cut off reinforcements and keep you and your orbital weapons safe. The Big Bad just s at you and you flatten him. The main game is won, congrats!

Then the optional Superboss From Beyond shows up, and is a murderous, nightmare-inducing multi-stage fight even with maxed-out everything (so there's a good reason for megaspergs to megasperg, and there's a true sense of accomplishment for smashing him). The Superboss doesn't move aggressively like the Big Bad does so you're much more free to sandbox.

Now THAT'S a game, and starbound is capable of supporting probably 80% of that right now.

Evilreaver posted:

I HAVE A DREAM

The tutorial planet teaches the basics- how to move, fight, mine, and recruit NPCs. Maybe there's a wounded guy-- why not a buddy who was in your escape pod, but didn't fare so well in the crash? He needs shelter ("NPCs need beds, doors, walls and lights!"), medicine herbs (which, along with food crops, are the base of Farming progression), protection from alien wolves, oh great now he's better and needs a gun so the two of you can hike up a mountain so your distress signal reaches space?

Alright, so a ship comes down and teleports you up, and kidnaps you and the captain is an rear end in a top hat. You break out and fight (you need control of the engine and bridge, do you dispatch your friend to one while you go to the other, or go together? Introducing the NPC Dispatch System tutorial!) So you blow up the ship, the captain gets to a shuttle, you beam aboard. And when you confront the pirate captain, you are given a choice, kill the captain or arrest him to give to the local Spacecops? Either way, now you have a Tier 1 ship. And the sandbox begins.

Your buddy doesn't have anything better to do, so he'll hang around until you dismiss him or something. He'll stay on the ship acting as a guide "Why not go [progress the story], [player]?" And you can ask him to come along on your self-guided missions. You're in a space-civ consellation, why not find an inhabited planet to get missions or a vacant world to claim?

Oh, some distress signals. Go or ignore? Story-important ones are clearly marked as important (and don't time out), others you can hunt down or ignore at your leisure. One teaches you about wormholes, another about Why The Big Bad Is A Jerk, another is a mining outpost and when you get there it's overrun with native wildlife. The boss of that last one is tired of dealing with the aliens you just made extinct, so he sells you the deed for cheap. Boom, Outpost Upgrade And Management tutorial.

Eventually your mining outpost either decays (if you don't man it) or is attacked (if you do), which then triggers a How To Defend Your poo poo tutorial.

You are taught how to make a Farming Outpost. They don't work well if there's industry on the same world, so there's a reason to colonize multiple worlds (or spend some resources on clean industry). This provides food and/or medicine you can use to feed NPCs you have under your 'rule' or you can trade to neutral/friendly civs. Medicine is worth more so it attracts more raiders. Different foods grow in different climates so you are encouraged to settle multiple worlds again. (Or build biodomes)

You are taught how to make Research Outposts. They're valuable and attract raiders, but you can hide them well underground so as long as there isn't something obvious (say, a mine or farm) on the surface to give them away, they're pretty safe. You can research all sorts of fun toys, techs, ships, weapons, armor, engines, mining and farming equipment, or just farm out your equipment to a civ for cash and favors. Larger labs and their reactors generate more heat and are thus harder to hide so you either need better defenses or, again, multiple planets.

So you're left to Skyrim the galaxy for a bit. If you focus on the main story, you can head off the Big Bad's plans and do good in the world, and it gives you juuuuust enough levels/gear/resources as quest rewards in order to get by. If you don't care, you get wealthy and/or powerful, but the BB starts conquering poo poo, and launches high-threat attacks both on NPC constellations as well as your own holdings. Powerful NPC Civs can resist for a while and start giving you "evac this planet", "hold the line", "attack this enemy base to take heat off us" missions, and food/medical supplies go way up in price so you can get by fighting or merchanting. If you interact closely with a civ, they do very well in resisting the BB and can hold forever as you and they level up.

As the game progresses, the Big Bad gets mad at you (either for directly opposing him or for indirectly supporting your allies) and Death Star's a planet you like and/or Ups The Stakes in some way. Maybe two or three times depending on how long you want the game to be. Responding appropriately in a timely way means there's no lasting harm, as long as the player knows (1) "I lost those assets because I hosed up", or (2) "I would have CERTAINLY lost those assets if I hadn't acted".

Its worth noting that while direct attacks will become commonplace as you gain power/influence, they are never so annoying that you can't sandbox around them. If you play passively or stealthily, you are free to build whatever without making enemies or fearing the story might progress without you. At tier 1 as a complete unknown, you could build a large pretty castle and decorate your ship for days and days without anything bad happening, and without (much) material restrictions.

At some point you say "alright I'm a walking juggernaut of doom and conquest, time to gently caress up the Big Bad" or, "I can hire these black-ops supersoldiers and provide them high-tech support, particularly by launching interplanetary smartbombs or drones to ensure their success" or even "I have recreated Mass Effect by supporting these several civilizations so now we're going to band together in an unstoppable fleet"

Any one of those plans will work okay.

Or if you're a completionist sperg, you beam down on the planet in your Gigapower Armor Mk VIII and frankly illegal/immorally powerful weapons, backed up by mercs that you've granted similar equipment, while your support team nukes poo poo from orbit (with orbital weapons you've researched, designed, built and deployed) WHILE friendly civ's fleets cut off reinforcements and keep you and your orbital weapons safe. The Big Bad just s at you and you flatten him. The main game is won, congrats!

Then the optional Superboss From Beyond shows up, and is a murderous, nightmare-inducing multi-stage fight even with maxed-out everything (so there's a good reason for megaspergs to megasperg, and there's a true sense of accomplishment for smashing him). The Superboss doesn't move aggressively like the Big Bad does so you're much more free to sandbox.

Now THAT'S a game, and starbound is capable of supporting probably 80% of that right now.

grimcreaper posted:

If they still checked in they might have actually seen some of these good ideas and tried to implement them.

grimcreaper posted:

It's toobad you neckbeards scared the Chucklefish people away. If they still checked in they might have actually seen some of these good ideas and tried to implement them.

It's a good thing nobody wants starbound to actually be good.

Section Z posted:

Or they could tell us they would be improving obtuse mechanics, and instead doubling down on energy regen penalties in the next dev post two days later.

That and say they thought the legitimate questions where "Rhetorical".

Evil's post makes me wish for something better, but I don't know why I keep thinking it's even possible at this rate

Cicadas! posted:

I just noticed, on their main page they now have a big button on the right side of the page, advertising "EARLY ACCESS! BUY NOW!"
Seems a bit tasteless to have something like that up after 2 years.

grimcreaper posted:

It's toobad you neckbeards scared the Chucklefish people away. If they still checked in they might have actually seen some of these good ideas and tried to implement them.

It's a good thing nobody wants starbound to actually be good.

Jackard posted:

Why not read it? Better than the rest of the thread

Vib Rib posted:

You can do that in Terraria and Minecraft, too. There's only so much freeform building games can do to keep you from walling in your enemies and biting their ankles.

Mzbundifund posted:

The combat in this game is so good

Vib Rib posted:

You can do that in Terraria and Minecraft, too. There's only so much freeform building games can do to keep you from walling in your enemies and biting their ankles.

Mzbundifund posted:

Yeah they could do like what Terraria does and actually have more than one enemy on the screen at once.

ScorpioMajesty posted:

Or give enimies the ability to dig if there is no path avaliable.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

BUT THEN WHAT ABOUT MY ENORMOUS PENIS-SHAPED HOUSE? IT MIGHT GET DAMAGED AND THAT drat CLOWN WILL RUIN DAYS' WORTH OF EFFORT!!!!!

Mzbundifund posted:

The combat in this game is so good

Section Z posted:

Gotta admit, I watched this way too long expecting it to result in the enemy dying after the 12th stab-

Oh. My God. This isn't a gif at all! It is a tiny link to a livesteam!

Volt Catfish posted:

is there any reason at all for me to reinstall this game


I mean surely there's fun to be had in the past 1.5 years since I've last played it, right!?

Volt Catfish posted:

is there any reason at all for me to reinstall this game


I mean surely there's fun to be had in the past 1.5 years since I've last played it, right!?

Volt Catfish posted:

is there any reason at all for me to reinstall this game


I mean surely there's fun to be had in the past 1.5 years since I've last played it, right!?

stuntwaffle posted:

Ahundredbux posted:

i installed starbound in my butt

Shoehead posted:

Can it run Doom?

grimcreaper posted:

It runs buttdoom: hole decimator

Ahundredbux posted:

Just play Out there Omega edition it has mining, exploration and all that poo poo, a good game.
Realtalk, it's actually good