A concrete idea on possible implementation of planets (minimal effort needed)

[Sir Charles]

Hey there,

 

I know that planets are not a feature that was actually planned to be in the game. I also don't think Boxelware could ever deliver a mechanic where you actually land on planets and do stuff there.

Why should they? Avorion is a space game, such an introduction would bring loads of new problems and keep them from fixing much more important issues.

 

So why this thread you ask? Because planets in Avorion are beautifull. I really love the textures and I (and many other people) would love to actually interact with those things.

I thougt of a mechanic as in Space Rangers 2 if anyone recognizes that game. Where you somehow land on a planet and then interact in the form of a menu with a pretty picture of a city or a desert or mountains or whatever in the background and are allowed to do different things there.

When a player is in a sector with a planet, he should be allowed to land (this would require a transporter upgrade) and do things on the planet (this would even allow the actual use of some trading goods, like how about you 'invest' 100 mining robots in a planet and gain some stuff by that?

 

I do understand that this game has much more urgent issues and I want those to be adressed first. But this is something the devs should keep in mind in my opinion, because there is A LOT of players who want it and I don't imagine it to be very stressfull work to create a new interface with a sparkly picture in the background.

[Ganjavinchi]

Have the core of a planet take like 30 real time days to mine to with a fleet of 1000 avorion mining fighters and be trillions of 1 material

[Sir Charles]

That is exactly what I would not like to see in the game... planets should be unique and allow deep interactions, not just a big asteroid...

[SneakyTacts]

I'd also love to interact with planets, but that would mean that our heavy ships would be left behind in space. I don't know what we'd do on planets, in that case. Perhaps we could have separate planetary vehicles for doing all sorts of fun things in gravity. Or we could just have a simple yet pretty interface to order tasks to be accomplished, but that's not as fun. What exactly do you want to do, Sir Charles?

[TESL4]

What if there was an approach similar to EVE's planetary industry system, where you can build a planetary industry station which is tethered to the planet and it can produce either raw/refined ore, credits from trade, or even certain goods in mass quantity.  The station you build would basically be a space elevator top piece station where the owner can designate what ground based industry they want to have.  The types of industries and their effectiveness could be determined by the planet quality, planet type, and planet size. 

 

This could also be a way for the player to actually claim space, allowing that sector and surrounding sectors to be owned by the player/faction.  The game mechanics could change where you can only build trading stations in NPC territory, but all other stations would require the player/faction to actually own space.  Police or patrol vessels could be designed and automatically patrol systems with owned stations once a military outpost is built.  This could also open up a whole new mechanic to diplomacy towards NPCs and other players/factions based on trade and border friction. 

[Sir Charles]

Ok. I see that i totally did not make my point clear.

 

I do NOT think Boxelware could ever deliver statisfying planets in a sense of a real environment where you can play as in space. I also do not see any benefit for the game in that. In fact, take Space Engineers as an example, where the game was making great progress and then the introduction of planets (which were not planned from begin on) delayed the release by multiple YEARS and shiftet the core gameplay in a direction i did not even like.

 

 

BUT: the possibility to interact with planets would make a great addition to the game. Since i have not played EVE I will not really anwer to TESL4s post here, but i think he suggests something similar to what I want.

 

I would love to see a possibility to 'land' on planets, i dont care if its done via a station or just an additional interface you unlock once you got transporter upgrades installed (different rarities could allow landing on more difficult planets and make more sense on uninhabited planets tho).

But this does not need to be realized by an actual planetary environment, but can be archieved much easier by a fancy menu with nice little dialouges. To show you guys where i got the inspiration for this from, here is a randomly picked video of the game Space Rangers 2, that i have stated as a reference before. I would like something like that in the game to make planets feel like an actual part of the galaxy.

 

WATCH AT 11.16 minutes for the landing on earth in this case. Just skip around a little to get the idea of it:

 

A system that involves planets like this would not be too hard to implement as it just needs the addition of a new menu (mabye with a pretty picture like this one in the vid, different pictures depending on the type of planet) and some interaction options. Like that, planets could technically just be a new type of 'station'...

 

The game would only have to find out wheter the texture includes a planet and of which type that planet is and then provide the related menu.

It would be so cool and make the galaxy feel a lot more alive if planets where more than a shiny texture (the textures are looking really good tho).

 

If a fancy picture for the background is not possible, there could even just be a close up on the planet you see in the sector anyways, it should just be a little different from normal stations (or even better: stations should get there own background pictures).