I want to start off by saying that I really like the game until now, but I do have a few issues I think should be addressed, particularly about the mobs. I love the feeling of space exploration you get when playing Starbound, seeing all these different landscapes and species, but there are some gameplay elements that kind of ruin this experience. One of them, which is a topic that has already been addressed by people on this forum, is the pixel system. When I started playing, I would observe mobs to see if they were hostile or not, I wouldn't kill mobs that I didn't have to kill, and it felt a lot like being an explorer. But after a while, upon realizing that you need pixels for everything, I was forced to start simply murdering everything I crossed. While it may sound like a silly complaint, I think that it's actually quite pertinent. When you start being desensitized to the environment in a game, and all the creatures that inhabit that environment are reduced to the mere number of pixels they drop, you stop caring about discovering new ones. The fact that all mobs drop pixels also make them less unique, and I can of course see how the thousands and thousands of randomly generated mobs can't all have unique drops; but they should have drops that are somewhat defined by their characteristics. If it flies, it drops feathers, if it's a reptile, it drops scales, if it's plant-like, it drops plant fiber, etc... This would make discovering new creatures a lot more fun, as right now, it almost feels like there are only 4 main creatures: Hostile, Passive, Flying Hostile and Flying Passive. If they all dropped different things, and the species had randomly generated names displayed above them, it would truly feel like the planets were inhabited by a diverse alien wildlife. Another thing that would make the mobs a lot more unique, and also feel a lot more real, would be the addition of more behaviors. Right now, when some purple half fish half tiger type thing tries to attack me and it gets stuck because there is a ledge that's just a bit too high, so I end up shooting it to death with my bow, while it stupidly tries to get to me, it feels a lot like killing a malfunctioning robot. One of the things that is unique about Starbound in comparison to other open world sandbox games with these types of mechanics, is that the others are roamed by dumb defenseless creatures and antagonized bloodthirsty monsters. I feel that Starbound, on the other hand, has worlds filled with species, with animals. And an animal wouldn't simply march towards you, taking blow after blow, like the mindless zombies from Minecraft or Terraria. Its goal is to eat you before it gets eaten. That's why I think there should be different tiers of hostility, and different personalities in the creatures. This means that some, for example, will run as soon as you hit them, others will maybe stop attacking when they have 25% health and slowly retreat, or they might take one hit at you, then cowardly flee. Again, I think that this would really add to the depth of the mobs, and thus make the whole Starbound universe feel a lot more vibrant, alive; and not just a world inhabited by moneybags who were put on this planet by the developers just to murder you.
I fully support this! Especially the part about more AI behaviors! Currently there's "Aggro" and "Aggro if attacked". There isn't even a "never Aggro" behavior! Just one thing, I'd put the bits about AI behaviors into a separate paragraph, easier to read that way.
I really hope they implement more behaviors in the future. If you think of Earth, for example. The majority of animals run away if you get too close. Flying creatures are generally perching the majority of the time also, not flying. And some flying creatures dart around with abrupt movement patterns, like a hummingbird for example. Though there are many different species in Starbound, the AI (I would hardly call it "behavior" in its current state) makes it to where they all seem the same, with different looks.
