Starbound 1.0 is out, and I have a question about colony guards.

It appears that the only guard capable of spawning is a tier 4 guard. I plan to colonize inconceivable worlds for better rent/pixels. And just the feel of making something so callously inhospitable hospitable.

Will these guards automatically have their stats boosted depending on the planet difficulty regardless of the armor they appear to wear? Or are they locked in at tier 4 and destined to be useless on dangerous worlds?

Any knowledgeable input would be greatly appreciated.

 

From my understand, at least on the colony itself; the guards will have a tier or two above the tier of the planet in question you make colony on.

Almost like you are talking about crew members... If that is actually the case, then that is based on your character. However you will be more powerful than the guard no matter what in that case. You are the limelight afterall, not your crew.

Also certain items like the weapon chest I think ups the guard or causes it to be at least certain tier. Not made one with that item yet, as I use others to make guards with.

About all I can really say, as I am still learning the colony system in how it works. (without the use of the wiki)

 

I sincerely appreciate your response. But that snippet begs the question: if you didn't have related data in the wiki, how did you verify your guards were a tier above the world they are on? Assuming you colonized dangerous worlds.

 

I didn't say I would not listen to fellow players, just not going to use the wiki.

So some info comes from people that probably looked in the files as well the wiki. I work with the colonies to figuring out which items will spawn what type of person. What furniture used and the like. It is like a hands on project at class; better to learn first hand than to read the books. Even if the books help in that. Of course the important things in classroom would be to in very least learn safety things via book. However this is a game so safety only applies to use of the computer itself, and not the game.

I go on here say, and trust they are telling their experience or knowledge. Some thing I don't read from others, so I don't spoil my playthrough. Namely the story, even though I have already heard tid bits about it. It is a community after all.

Also it was one of the devs that pointed that out I think, as it was to ensure that the colonists will actually survive the planet threat feasibly; otherwise if they were same tier you would have them killed pretty easily and eventually have a desolate village. I am assuming that villages naturally generated are for the most part quite similar to ones we create ourself. Just makes sense if it was, at least in how well they stay alive to protect the colony/village. So it was scaled that way. What the dev was actually talking about though was the naturally generating ones though, hence me just making an educated guess that it would be to colonists as well.

 

Well, it's an honest answer, even if it still leaves me with questions. I appreciate that.

Have you colonized any inconceivable worlds yourself yet? If so, can your guards hold their own?

 

Not yet, since I have been having trouble finding an upgrade for my spear. I've only made colonies on I think the temparate and lowest star of planets. Roughly only 3 colonies... Although one of those does not count since it is only a few residences within a floran village that well gave me a bit of trouble on one side of it. So I decided to setup those deeds in a few of the empty houses; as there were only a few unoccupied, since the rest of the village is still there. The other was in a hylotl abandoned mansion.

Have plans for at least a snow colony and one that is in the radioactive planets. It is just the hunt for that spear is taking longer than I first would have thought. So I haven't unfortunately began work on my higher tier ones yet. Whom would of thought spears are a rare weapon to find; at least in my section of the galaxy... What can I do but continue the search.

In a way the hylotl mansion I am remodeling is my tester village to see what spawns. So that I would know what I should place for my later tier ones. Wish I could answer that specifically, but unfortunately I haven't yet, sadly. So probably not the best at the moment to answer that for obvious reasons.

 

Also one thing to keep in mind, I don't know if will matter or not is that technically the colonist will just respawn, unlike the natural generated villages. Do to the deed of course. So I personally don't have worries beyond finding a planet that doesn't have meteors or fire rain. As that latter bit would be the thing that determines what type of colony. So maybe one day I'll build on meteor-less world, even if it has fire rain.

 

Guards have a "level" parameter set in their tenant definition files. Lua still confuses the shit out of me so I can't track everything all the way to the end, but I would assume that the level eventually gets used as part of the npc weapon build script to create a level 4 (tier 4) weapon regardless of the planet they're on. I can't confirm that though since I haven't used all the different levels of guards.

 

I appreciate this insight all the same. In lay terms, does that mean guards do not get stronger with the difficulty of the planet? Colony made ones, I mean.

 

In theory they don't change level regardless of ~any~ planet. They would be level 4 guards on a level 1 planet too.

 

That sucks so bad. I expected more from chuckle fish on this front. It's just standard progression. And it should be patched. Should be on their radar if it wasn't already.

It's common sense. This is a sandbox. People will want to build things. Including competitive defenses and put worthy guards on their colonies. What gives CF?

 

Also, thank you for that answer.

 

You have to consider that the reason the highest guard is T4 is because the highest available craftable material furniture is T4. Granted, the only reason that's the case is because they fucked up the furniture. The Ferozium, Aegisalt, and Vioilium furnitures still exist in the game but aren't craftable and don't use those names anymore. They could have left them as craftable metallic furniture and made T5 NPCs. It's basically a copy/paste/rename job to do so.

In theory it would actually be possible to easily add those NPCs in as a mod and allow them to be attracted after you've collected enough of the rare drop furniture...that would be a good idea.

Also the T4 guards are still reasonably competitive. They're the same guards you find on the actual planets.

 

Perhaps I'm being too negative. Guards hit mobs for like 100 damage on inconceivable worlds. They can deal with the wildlife quite effectively. I just want my colony guards to be capable of the same as those created for NPCs.

But in the near future I hope CF will ensure we can get guards appropriate to the planet difficulty. By way of either passive stat boosts based on planet difficulty or furniture (I have no idea why they changed the furniture system without just renaming some stuff and letting us continue to produce bad ass guards). But I know I saw an NPC glitch guard smash a mob for 150 damage on a volcanic planet. I can't think of a good reason my colonial defenders shouldn't be capable of the same. Which would be true to the spirit of sci-fi colonialism. Advanced species able to pound hostile wildlife.

 

Personally I'm going to add T5 guards to a project I'm working on using that idea I just came up with, but it won't see the light of day for a while. RIP

Also one sucky thing about T5 and T6 is there is 3 times as much stuff to make even though it's basically changing 2 lines of text in the files.

 

Technically, the best place to build a colony for pure rent and whatnot is on a moon since they're considered lv. 10 planets for no reason.

 

For me it's really just about still being able to make a colony with guards who can successfully protect it on harsher worlds. : p

But now I wonder, having seen glitch guards eradicate mobs on volcanic worlds, will mine do the same? Or do NPCs run special code for their colony guards just to player shame Player Character colonies? : (

 

I made a tier 4 guard that dealt 184 damage to a high health monster on a tier 1 world. The tier 4 guard took 74 damage from the poptop.

I made a tier 5 guard that dealt 230 damage to a high health monster on a tier 1 world. The tier 5 guard took 66 damage from the poptop.

For most purposes tier 4 guards are probably okay since the monster I spawned was very strong. It's a shame tier 5 guards aren't in by default, though.

 

I like you. You're helpful and cool.

 

Oh and just a tip, build your guard huts in pairs so there are always two guards close together to cover each other. Sometimes they can have wonky aim with guns and it helps to have them firing at a target from different angles.


When I find information for myself I document it by teaching it others, lol.
It's how I contribute to the greater pool of information online.