Making ruins in Starbound

So I'm planning my Next Big Build™, and I wanna make a giant planet filled with ruins and the like. So what I need is some ideas, tips, etc.

I plan to make a really big labyrinth-dungeon like set of ruins, as well as things like a ruined city. (But not like those found on extremely hot planets, these will be more like overgrown and run down)

So what I need is:

1. Blocks that can be used for a "overgrown, abandoned, and untouched" vibe, such as the Mossy Stone Bricks from Minecraft
2. Furniture that can be used in run-down and overgrown houses, though not necessarily completely destroyed.
3. A way to spawn monsters inside said areas
4. Traps, secret passages, etc. As well as ways to activate them that are more discrete. (So basically no giant "Push me!" buttons on the walls)

I'm 100% okay with getting blocks or furniture that can't be legitimately obtained in the game, because I plan to spawn everything I need as I need it anyways.

So far what I've seen that I can probably use:

• Plant matter
• Grassy rock
• Flower block
• Ruins platform
• Vine
• Geode Crystal
• Geode Stone
• Crystal Block

Any and all suggestions / ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

If you don't mind cheating just spawn in ruins.

 

I wanna make my own, tho.

 

Ok then,

 

Maybe try concrete. Concrete's pretty cheap (irl) and used in almost every building (since 6500 BC) and has a grey (which is associated with sadness or something) colour which can be used to create a negative or neutral feeling. Concrete's doesn't stand out too much and can be used for pretty much everything but floating things (since concrete is heavy). You can cover the concrete buildings with dirt and plant matter. For concrete ruins, think of Pripyat and how nature took over the lifeless ruins.

As for furniture, the Scorched Furniture actually complements a ruined kind of building as for some reason they're rusted, which is a result of moisture in contact with metal, thus meaning that Scorched Furniture belongs more to a moist kind of environment. Maybe some Floran furniture could complement an overgrown look.

For wiring and traps, try using the hidden switches and doors you can craft, sensors are pretty obvious though. If you want lethal traps, you can find the trap spawnnames on the wiki and use them. Unfortunately the Apex Camera and Turret no longer work (they used to target you via a laser, which meant players could make a kind of "pseudo-stealth" kind of defense). I think there's around 3 statues which have a hidden switch function (but they still highlight), can't remember their spawnnames but they're the Banana Statue, A Unicorn Statue and a Glitch Knight Statue (variants).

If you plan to use lighting to your advantage, there's a 1x1 block wide button, lever and a 2x1 ground button, which if hidden properly could evade detection by passersby.

Wiring and trying to make dungeons ingame may result in some accidental deaths when it comes to having a challenger die to a trap. I know it happened to me when I tried* to convert an abandoned Apex Lab into my own personal Test Lab (to make my friends go through hell).

As for ruins, I think they're just relaxing. Quote: "The death of a city is a beautiful thing".
I colonised the entirety of a barren planet, 1/4 was a city for mass-rent, the other 3/4 were either ruins, or ruined highways (for racing on the hoverbikes). Large piles of stone rubble and junk piles might add to the ruined theme.

 

I don't think concrete is that old. The world is NOT much older than 6000 years in all.

 

Self correction: 6000 BC oldest recorded usage of CONCRETE-LIKE materials, my bad.

The first proper "concrete" (latin for Concretus, which means compact) was used in 3000BC by Egyptians to build their pyramids. They used Mud and Straw to build bricks, gypsum and lime to create mortar. It's not really modern concrete as it was actually just brickwork.

The first modern concrete was used by the Romans in 300BC where their cement was similar to today's standards. It was made of quicklime, pozzolana and an aggregate of pumice. The Romans used concrete for building materials and they figured that by adding volcanic ash, could make it resist underwater, adding horse hair strengthened it overall and adding blood made it frost-resistant.

Source: Wikipedia - not as bad as people say
This other website:
https://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete-history/

C O N C R E T E

 

Let's stop now, we're going off topic, an admin's gonna swoop down and yell at us soo..

 

Agreed, lets just not talk history because that goes into weird places.

Well C O N C R E T E IS A VERY GOOD BUILDING MATERIAL BECAUSE IT'S REALISTICALLY STRONG AND CHEAP, UNLIKE UNREFINED STONE, WHICH IS WEAK. I dunno, I like concrete.

 

I'll make some builds later for your inspiration.

 

@Flannel
For furniture, there's the 'dusty' set (bed, chair, table), the overgrown table and chair, a scorched bench and the 'rusty' stuff (chair, bed, crate, door, chest. There are also rusty bushes and blocks, but they aren't in the official game anymore). Also there's a whole load of 'wrecked' stuff, but again not in the official game so has to be spawned in.

 

look at the blocks in the wasteland biome, they'd have plenty of wrecked furniture that you'd love.

 

Seriously guys, I already mentioned the Scorched Furniture set in my original reply. u wot m8.

Edit to save space and reply to below: K

 

Be patient bro.

 

Yeah but that would require me to have read your novella

 

Well, honestly I find this page of the wiki super-helpful when it comes to making block choices:
http://starbounder.org/Blocks
Especially since it gives you images of 3x3 grids of each block type. Your Paint function in the Matter Manipulator will be VERY helpful, since you can take some of those brick types and use the white or black color to turn them some shade of gray. (I kinda wish the wiki showed the paint results too on the individual pages. Just throw that on the "to do" list...) The right paint color can really change the look of a block type. The Ruins Platform, found in Floran caves, is a nice vine-entangled platform that, with the right paint, can blend in with other segmented platform styles decently to lead to a nice overgrown feel. Same goes for pipe blocks, especially the sewer kind with the "dirt" on them. Play with weaving stuff between the foreground and background. Rails can be used to simulate exposed wires or thin supports.



Sadly, the hanging Vine blocks do not overlay over every block type, so using them for overgrown parts is not always visually pleasing. That'll take some experimenting. (Images from an old build showing a change in block priority to illustrate my point)


I suggest studying the Hylotl ruined castles for inspiration and block placement or a ruined building, putting in holes, etc. Fill those holes in the "outer" walls with girder-type blocks to look like exposed... house skeletons. Foundation! Right, that's the word for a house skeleton.

Secret Doors and Secret Trapdoors will be extremely helpful in trapmaking, creating collapsing parts, etc. Place a bunch of the gravity-affected blocks like rubble or loose silt or ash behind the Secret Doors to really be a pain. There are also a number of small Pressure Plates that are barely visible that you can use to trigger traps. You're going to want to be very careful with your lighting choices to hide the wiring panels and relays for those; many lights can cut through foreground blocks and give away surprises (as the bio-light shown above does). And be aware that a player may be packing a light-enhanced EPP, so you're gonna wanna try and bury those panels well.

I think there are invisible triggers too that the game uses in the pre-built dungeons and whatnot, including monster spawners, but I've not dug much into those.

The Wrecked stuff is certainly fine for "modern" ruins, but don't ignore the plainer options. The non-fancy wood and metal furniture does a good job of conveying a sense of abandonment on its own without it needing to be "wrecked".

Sorry for the long post, but there's all sorts of little things that make a build look good that aren't immediately obvious.

 

You could try rock bricks in your build. They look like slightly worn stone bricks, which gives a subtle hint at the building's age.

 

I'd suggest Floran furniture. You could also use regular secret doors by themselves, you don't need switches for them.