I know we can take over and control (Terraform, weather, populate) a world as a home base of sorts, but I was thinking that there should be the option to make mini-bases (a limited number of them) on other planets. They'd provide safe havens, but lack a lot of the features of the main colony. Like it would essentially be a small secure building with some storage and a teleporter or something (connecting to the main base). These outposts would be ideal for worlds you don't want to colonize, but intend to frequent a lot (say you found a lot of useful things on it, and want to farm enemies or some such). Worlds that are dangerous could also make use of outposts as a place to resupply, or use the base to hide out if the going gets too tough. It would still be dangerous, as you're only safe in the building itself, and once you venture out if you find yourself in a tight squeeze you'll have to make your own way back (or die). I'm not sure how respawning will work in this game, but it would be nice if one re-spawned on a worlds outpost if there is one. The strategic element of course, would be choosing the right planets to place these bases on, since you'd only have a limited number (say a handful) to go around. Putting down roots would not be cheap, and pulling them back up again would take a fair amount of time to accomplish (say an in-game week?), so one can't just continually place and remove bases at your leisure.
Actually, I imagined these outposts to be Avatar-style, where you can just hook them up to a dropship and go. From what I heard, outposts ARE a planned feature of Starbound. Which is nice.
This would be a very nifty feature to have in multiplayer where players could have all out war against each other. However, I'm not sure how well "wars" on multiple planets would fit into the game as it is now.
Taking into consideration the frequent comment by the Devs (Tiy in particular?) that they want to include a way of having planets that have been colonised or at least visited and developed to some degree become prone to falling into an economical state of disaster, or similar catastrophes, things like outposts could have a very practical use of slowing the process of decline down enough for you to keep everything in order. Without having to fly all around the galaxy every 10 minutes.
Nice idea! So, what about adding 1 or 2 guns on top of it? So, if Enemys try to wreck it, it isn't totally exposed. Also, how 'bout letting NPCs stay there. It has been confirmed by Tiy, that on a mission, you sometimes have to carry NPCs with your hands to save them. I think it would be really helpful, if you could let them rest in your outpost!
Sounds good. Maybe you should be able to have like Madmarlon said a few NPCs, like 2-3, or maybe more, inside/living on it. Or like someone else said they could be mobile like in avatar. Maybe, like my last sentence approves you could have a pilot NPC fly a small outpost to you and the carried NPC and pick you up.
Little refuel stations/hideaways on planets you plan to frequent. I think that's a very nice concept.
I think that outposts are what you make of it, like in Terraria, if you want another base you go somewhere else and build it based off your previous base. Once you build a bed you can set that to your new spawn and you have an outpost. I am not really sure if there is going to be some sort of regulation of this as you will probably have to make plenty of beds and outposts can be defined more generally as a place where you build good and tools using proper equipment.
As mentioned in OP you could set-up teleporters. So the purpose just remains as a point you would return when you die.
I don't see why you'd want to place a limit on the number of outposts you can place. If you're talking about pre-fabricated buildings that you can just drop and go (maybe like a Capsule from Dragonball), then my understanding is that the limiting factor is how expensive they are or how hard they are to manufacture. Realistically, the only advantage to having a pre-fabricated outpost versus building one yourself is time. You save a lot of time fighting the elements while trying to build your own outpost on a hostile planet. On less hostile planets, you're just saving yourself the time of building and placing all the structures yourself. I do like the idea of having outposts, but I see no reason to place a limit. If anything, open up the research trees some more and allow players to manufacture bigger and better outposts more suited to survival on harsh planets. The idea of placing optional turrets on top could be useful.
Other advantage is about how the game is going to deal with floating terrain created through construction(make a tower, build things above the tower, destroy the tower). If this won't be possible, then floating outposts are nice. Also, good idea about different kinds of outposts!
Prefab outpost kits would be nice. On each kit have slots for different things. Say have 2 building slots available (armory, lab, refinery) and 4 sentry slots (missile launcher, auto-cannon, mini-gun, grenade launcher) so you could choose what you want this outpost to do and what you want to protect it from. Latch it to the bottom of the dropship like seen in photos of Starbound, drop it off and let the crate automatically unpack itself. Also, you have to research the modules available for the outpost. Make this something that is not easy to get and need to focus to get one going, but don't make it such a hassle that it's only for 'uber' players either.
If they have outposts like you suggest they need to have pre-constructed buildings to make it official. What I mean is they need to create a pre-constructed building that serves for an outpost. The building would have a respawner, a way to transport items to the main base and maybe a scanner on the top to watch out for incoming enemies! I'm so excited for this game! Especially if these are put in!
Maybe I wasn't too clear, the outpost is a general unfolding metal box that folds out into a flat metal floor with fence around it is what I see in my head. Then there are two slots on each side of the fence for turrets making four, and inside the metal pad you have 2 generic slots for modular buildings. Each type of building is the same size to fit in these slots hence the word modular, and you get to choose which ones you put in each slot. This way you could have say a lab with an armory so you can be armed for field research. Or a refinery and an armory, so you could process large amounts of minerals on a dangerous world if it is good for mining. Maybe a refinery and a lab, in case you want to research new technologies and need the resources on hand. There could be many more modular building types and many other combinations. Again, this is how I am envisioning it in my head, and if I get a scanner I could post drawings if needed.
That gives me an idea. We haven't thought about the weather or conditions of a planet, an outpost can be a haven from acid rain too haha
Extreme cold, acid rain, harsh atmosphere that eats away at a suit, even if the planet is mostly water then the outpost would have a hydro-dome shield that stops only water and you can refill on Oxygen at said outpost. There are plenty of uses for the generic outpost the developers can implement, I was just focusing on the customization and deployment of an outpost.