Gas Giants, Asteroids and Player Flight...

where to start?

asteroid fields are an enormous source of basic metals (copper, silver and gold). but outside of that they dont have any interesting feature outside of being "floating islands" with a single type of monsters and a non breathable atmosphere.

even compared to moons which are only visited for the fuel (and exploited for the T10 stuff)

if they didnt have ores they would be basically the floating island equivalente of a Barren Planet.

so. my first suggestion is to add more content to Asteroid Fields and perhaps planetary Asteroids in the form of:

1. Iridium: iridium is a rare metal on planets IRL, but plenty in Asteroids. it is said that they can enhance the durability of other metals when combining them into an alloy. this meteoric metal could be part of one of the many tiers of armor in the game. if not part of a unique set of armor or component for new craftables.

2. Tiered Metals: one easy change that could be done is to change the ores that appear on the Asteroids depending on the system. Copper, Silver and Gold seem to be a common occurence on gentle stars. temperate stars could have traces of iron and maybe tungsten, radioactive could have traces of up to titanium on them. and so one for the remaining systems.

3. Unique Mobs: Skimbus is supposedly a cold based mob, its supposed to appear on artic planets and the like. and its found by the thousands on Asteroid Fields. up to the point of being a nuissance. this could be changed for unique mobs that live in space only. and they could drop interesting materials for future craftables

4. Dungeons and Settlements?: Asteroid Fields as a whole work like a Planet in some ways. they are a warpable point and you can build colonies on them without much issues. it should be logical that there could be NPC starbases or dungeons on them. kinda like the Outpost or the Erchius Mining Facility for example.

6. Ice and Fire Asteroids: Asteroids arent composed only of dead rocks and powder. the asteroids at the outskirts of solar systems tend to have large concentrations of ice and snow which is the origin of the comets. so it has sense to say that there could be molten and frozen asteroids on their respective systems. Molten Asteroids could be composed of hot rock that burns to the touch, while frozen asteroids would have an ice effect on touch, which would make the player character slower.

7. Junkyard Asteroids: following on the variation of Ice and Fire. there could be Junkyard fields on Radioactive Stars that could contain asteroid-like bodies composed of scrapmetal and toxic materials. which could cause posion damage to the player on touch

8. Asteroid Flora?: it could existe, its a videogame, there could be some kind of "moss" or "wort" that grows on Asteroids and can be used for crafting or as food.

9. Asteroid based blocks: because we have to give a use to all that magma rock and dust.

now, aside from the lack of content. one of my main issues with asteroids is the seemingle "artificial gravity" situation that happens on them. we're supposed to be in space. not on a planet. so gravity for the most part should be disabled on them.

my solution to the movement problem would be to take it as moving throught a liquid (since i dont know how is gravity done in Starbound but liquids seem to allow you to move up).

by using a special equipment or an upgrade to the EPP the player could be able to propel itself on space like if he/she was on water (or any other liquid).

so yeah, you're basically swimming on air. in order to limit it to a degree on planets, the flying EPP or vehicle that could be done for it would consume erchius as fuel, or maybe oil, if it could be refined into an special fuel.

now the final part

Gas Giants are the only planet type that cant be visited in the game. but there's a solution. seeing as the points i suggested for Asteroid Fields. we could extrapolate that for Gas Giants.

1. Terrain: Gas Giants dont have a walkable surface. but they could have several floating island on which the player would spawn. my main inspiration for this is another 2d Sandbox game called Windforge. in which the planet is composed of a series of floating islands at different levels.

the upper atmosphere of a gas giant would be more barren with a few water and vegetation to settle.

the middle atmospehre would be more dense and humid, allowing for the growth of your typical woodland or jungle floating island.

the lower atmosphere would be the most dense and warm. making life harsh. but would be the one with the best clusters of ores.

2. unique mechanics: Moons have the Erchius Horror and the Meteor Showers. Asteroids allow you to build in space and have gigantic clusters of ores. Gas Giants are supposedly planets, so it make sense they have different types with different weather conditions.

due to how terrain is proposed. there should be a point in which the player cannot fall further into the planet. the solution to this is to add different weather zones to the Gas Giant.

the Upper layer is short on oxygen for the most part. so it would make sense that the player needs the EPP for breathing there. it would also be far more colder and dry. so ice formation could be feasible

the middle atmosphere is more forgiving. it could either be temperate or savannah like with maybe a jungle.

the lower atmosphere contain high temperatures due to being closer to the core and having a dense atmospheric composition. so the air would be pretty hot and toxic to the player. which means a protection agains radiation at its minimum.

at the lowest base the player would reach a warning saying that further falling would cause death by extreme pressure and heat. the player would be crushed to death.

3. unique mobs and flora: because they are planets after all

4. different flavors depending on system: much like the rocky planets work right now. Oceanic Gas Giants sounds really stupid, but they could have something similar by having huge bowl-like islands containing water and fish.

5. NPC settlements and Dungeons: it would require more coding in order to make them work. but it would give interesting twists to well known locations that can be found on planets. for example. there could be an Avian Town that is build between 2 islands connected by a long bridge. or a hidden Apex Lab built under an island so you can only get to it by grappling hooks.

6. unique ores or elements: ores would traduce easily here. nothing too fancy. but given the case, there could be unique elements that can only be found on these planets. maybe you could extract the gases of the atmosphere and distill them into common crafting stuff like water, poison, and the like.

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i hope this thread didnt get too big to read, thanks for watching....

 

Gas Giants could be also able to be explored with some sort of pre-made vehicle in order to make them at least somewhat easier to explore.

 

yeah that's another possibility. maybe add a flight mode to the hoverbike...in order to give it more functionality

 

Like some sort of submarine

However, due to the enormous thunderstorms there's in thos gas giants, I wonder if it would worth it

 

I get kind of annoyed by the color of the stars, and the Frozen Star has a blue star and blue is the hottest color and oranges are the cooler colors in the emitted frequencies.