Hey all, The in-game universe is pretty huge these days with a large number of planets the player can potentially visit. While certain of these are marked as "Starter" planets, with everything the player needs to start their journey, many other planets also offer this. I thought it'd be fun to be able to pick an entirely random planet (not Moon of course) as a starting location. Sure, this might mean instant death in extreme circumstances, but equally it has the potential to offer a decent challenge, if initial environmental hazards can be overcome. Most planets at least have the odd Iron, Copper and Silicon surface rocks so the player can get started, then materials can be refined from rocks at a push. So, in theory, many planets might prove to be viable places for a player to start. I currently play Reforged Eden and love the current balance it offers, and I'd like to try a fully random planet start and see what the game presents me with. Is this something that can be tweaked via Config settings perhaps? I did, in the distant past back when we had just one system, experiment with starting the game, then teleporting myself somewhere else, perhaps I could try that again...if I can recall how I did it lol. Anyway, thought I'd ask here in case the game offers a way to do this currently. Cheers, Scoob.
Planets need to have a starting zone setup on them. I have never actually made a starting planet from scratch, just heavily modified the swamp start to make it alot more hostile (change the assassins and hexpods to legacy and increase spawns alot). Additionally many planets do not have the all basic basic resources, so you might be forced in to converting vast quantities of rock mined with a survival tool which is something I would want to be paid vast sums of money to do rather than do in a game supposedly for 'fun' I guess there is project eden if you dont hate nuggets and you dont mind being forced to either play vanilla or reforged with its even more crippled CPU and didnt want to use some other config mod. They are both excellent mods - just for me they both come with annoying baggage.
You can turn any planet into a planet you can start on by just making sure it has the player start settings (escape pod, etc) and setting it in the sectors or solarsystemconfig. However, that doesn't mean you could actually survive or progress. I think a "random" option would be fun though.
I've not actually tinkered with modding stuff myself since we had a single solar system and editing any of the handful of planets was pretty straight-forward. I thought stuff was procedurally generated now, so there perhaps wasn't a base playfield entry for most planets. I'd need to start poking around again really. It would be nice to somehow automate random starting planets of course, perhaps with certain set criteria they have to hit - i.e. not a 500c volcanic wasteland with no resources would be a good start lol. I guess my point, as much as I had one, was to be surprised by where I started, rather than having to configure a specific planet or planets to be starters. Sure, this might go horribly wrong, but it may also lead to a great survival experience. Of course, I'd not expect such random planets to support any of the plots / missions - I generally ignore those anyway, primarily playing for the survival element. I also tend to lose interest once I have a warp-capable CV stuffed full of resource, and get the itch to start again. Which is exactly what's happened. Is there a way to teleport to a "random" (i.e. one picked by me at random) using console commands? Of course, I recall we can teleport readily enough to planets in our current solar system, but we cannot see what planets exist in distance soar systems can we? Part of me wants to get back to the experience I had in earlier game versions. No friendly POI's, no shops to buy my groceries from etc. Just me, alone, trying to survive. Scoob.
Not sure if you've checked it out recently but my scenario has several starting planets that have very few or no POIs. Certainly no friendly ones.
Yep, I'm playing the Reforged version now - I chose the Snow Dwarf start and tackled the Lost Outpost quite early-on, which was fun. Currently dragging my overly-heavy HV across very hilly terrain (argh!) attempting to find an Iron deposit... I have tried other starts too in the past which also have limited or no enemy presence - did the swamp one last time. Scoob.
Aside from having to create all of the starter worlds, it would be interesting to have the ability to just choose a difficulty, and then have the client randomly drop you on a random starter from a group of planets that meet that level of difficulty. This would likely require changed to the way the functionality works in the client though.
I dont think the game currently has mechanics in place that actually make it hard rather than just slow. Indirect or direct denial of resource seems to be their idea of difficulty. Even my modified swap start isnt hard, you just end up with lots to shoot at insteads and have to sometime run a bit until you have a shotgun. Even the PV doesnt matter unless the start area is actually under its patrol path.
You can come up with some creative ways of making a start more difficult, or at least difficult in a different way.
Putting aside some of your interesting and fun slow scenario starts (a scenario or problem to solve is a good thing)... Indirect or direct denial of resource seems to be the usual means of 'difficulty' - which isnt hard and is just slow. Environmental concerns make things a little more interesting, but in vanilla, barely noticeable apart from the first hour or so maybe with cold, heat, rads, hazardous rain etc. But they tend to also be resource crippled so they end up just slow. With acid rain, fore rain etc the idea that you cant shelter under something (cave) is lame (I understand due to poorly implemented mechanics that dont understand overhangs). I guess those horrible nuggets were supposed to be another form of slow to cripple mechanised mining in the otherwise excellent PE. Slow is just slow. Not hard, just slow. I have even tried going for a darwin award and building my starter base under the turrets of 3 zirax POIs (it was where I landed and I rolled with it). That wasnt hard either because basically the mechanics of this seem to be so badly done or just plain broken or more often non existent.
Caves provide shelter from things like acid rain (well, tested with hail but they should all be the same). However, bugs will be bugs. You're right though that environmental hazards stop being much of a hazard once you have your first HV, and the game is lacking things that could make a particular start challenging in more ways. But in the end it really will often come down to either a lack of resources, or combat. I have some starts in mind that will hopefully be challenging in other ways. Such as a trading start where you have to manage money to buy what you need, or a start that forces you to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles that defy common sense and will need some out of the box thinking to overcome. But in the end it still comes down to either a resource scarcity, or combat. But the same could be said for anything really.
It is a shame that a lot of the difficulty level in the base game is around Resource availability / bullet sponge enemies. What the game would benefit from is more behavioural changes to critters (for example) to make them more of a challenge. I.e. Critters will follow the player back to their base (some of them are Predators after all, with one assumes ways to track prey other than visually) and try to break in. There was a bug a while back, where those spitting butt bugs spawned in MASSIVE numbers and would respawn within a minute after being killed. This was a bit nuts of course, but presented me with a "Starship Troopers" moment as I tried to defend my starting base. I'd been able to initially build a very basic base before the spawns started, but the moment I popped my head outside I was targetted by the bugs that spawned right next to my base. I had to build, with the Drone (which got shot down often) a perimeter wall, so the bugs couldn't see me . I then had to dash past them to gather resources, before returning and building up numerous turrets to keep the Bugs at bay. Eventually my base was able to suppress the bug spawns - basically, it could kill them as fast as they spawned - so the area around the base was mostly safe. That was a fun challenge, if a little silly lol. Many a time since I've built a base near where I know spiders and other hostile critter spawn. However, the act of popping a base down seems to suppress spawns in a wide area for the most part, eliminating the danger. Not always - the higher spawn amounts of Reforged Eden seem to help - but the threat is much lessened. I'd love to have critters massing to assault my base, while I fight shooting them from "battlements" or let my turrets do the work. The AI wouldn't have to be especially bright for this. The critters shouldn't be bullet sponges for "Difficulty", their numbers should be the threat. They could just pick a wall and start attacking it, no need to path to a doorway - though that'd be cool if they'd "follow your scent" to identify the entrance. If the AI were smarter, it could identify blind spots in turret coverage and target the walls there, or fake attacks at other points to distract the player. Hell, perhaps even give us a critter than can burrow under the base and burst up inside. Damn, that'd be harsh! Lol. I want to believe I'm on a hostile planet long before I encounter my first Zirax. Reforged Eden has increased the difficulty of Zirax Troops and the like through improved behaviour. I'd love to see something similar applied to critters in the wilds. Having local critters respond to a player's presence, increasing their attacks the larger the player's base got would be dead cool. Critter waves rather than Zirax waves in effect lol. Though there would need to be nests (which are in game now) that the player can destroyed (if they can find them) to reduce the attacks. That's my thoughts on what I'd like from a difficulty perspective. Scoob. P.S. Steam is down in my area currently (UK) which is a pain, so no Empyrion for me sadly.
This might actually be possible now, in some way. Now that you can add custom factions to scenarios, I'd just add a custom predator faction, give them a base attack, make some base attack NPCs for them, and give them command POIs (nests). I haven't tested this so it might not work.
