NPC Personal Shop Keepers & Adventurer's HUB

Sorry everyone but I made a poem.

http://playstarbound.com/suggestions/?p=view&id=8854

Step into this thread and take a look at the shelf.
Items and Armors to prepare yourself.

My idea is to have more than a shop keep in a store.
Indeed, it consists of quite a bit more.

Imagine your space base! So shiny and new.
But nobody's there. Nobody but you.

Then again it's safe. Protected. Secure.
It's bound to attract some adventurers for sure!

Open the warp gates and let in some sight seers
Who after their travels want to sit down for some beers.

You build a small tavern to lease to a store.
Spend your pixels, or sell treasures for more!

Space is a big place and it's wonders are plenty.
But if you look closer you'll see that it is not empty.

Player clans unite! For now you can actually be!
Although markets are a bit too complex if you ask me.

Round tables with chairs to make jurisdictions.
Or simply tell tall tales of grim ghostly fictions.

You don't need a HUB, but the option is there.
Flying solo is fine you don't really care.

I just think it sounds nice to come home to a crowd
Who marvel at your discoveries making you feel proud.

Have a system for security to keep guests from dying.
Their fates are in your hands so I suggest at least trying.

Develop an impenetrable fortress both impressive and tall
Or build lots of traps for dangerous creatures to fall.

It's like a Terrarian NPC hotel
Only much more dynamic. With activities as well!

That's my idea. Customizable Adventurer's HUB. Simple, no?
I hope you like my poem. I made it myself, yo~

Personal Shop Keeper

So basicly my idea involves a similar idea to classic RPGs that have shop keepers like this:



But at the same time make it much more unique. I kind of like the system Terraria has for building a room an NPC can live (1 light source, minimum size, table, chair, etc.) But personally I don't think he should move around. There's a bit of detail sprinkled into the poem but here's what I think would be an interesting system.

There doesn't need to be a room for the shop keep but you need to make him/her a desk, kiosk or even a store for them to sell from. The items don't need to be on display either. This way the NPC won't get in the way of things. Perhaps he will need a place to stay though as well, but only a small room.

Now when I say personal I don't mean he/she's restricted to buying and selling to you and you alone, I simply meant that you can pick where he/she goes in your home or building and stuff. Other players can use the store too. Another thing I don't mean by personal shop keeper is that you can set up your own junk to sell. That's a whole level of complexity we don't need. You simply just buy and sell to the shop for pixels.

The shopkeep should be a random gender and race (or perhaps you can influence it somehow with quests? eh? :catface2: )and couple of the shops wares could depend on the owners race too. The shops will sell basic supplies like med-kits and maybe flashlights if you lose yours or something. I kind of like the way Borderlands vendors work with the "Item of The Day" being a random item. Just like how stores in towns and villages can have unique things to sell, maybe these HUB shops also have something that only HUB shops have?

The only thing is I have no idea about how you could "invite" NPCs to become a shop keep. Perhaps galactic Help Wanted ads? Dunno~

Adventurer's HUB

This part might be a bit too complex for it's own good, but here goes.

After you've made your little (or big) base and it's nice and safe from monsters and it's decorated with all of your trophies I think it would be cool if you could turn it into a place for NPCs to go. You could also create a different building for this. It would need a bit of set up though.

• First, you would obviously need to make it safe. You could simply make impenetrable walls and ceilings to keep out monsters. Surround the place with pitfalls and guns if you want. It may not be as effective but we all know it would be cool. Perhaps you could even hire guards or build robot sentries for some extra security! (Just a thought)

• Second, an entrance. This one is simple. The game is already going to include craftable warp pads that you can home in to while teleporting to the surface. All you need to do is make a couple more and designate them for anybody to use. You could still make a personal pad locked to just yourself, or perhaps your friends as well if you want the VIP treatment, kno-wum-sayin'?

• Third, attraction/purpose. Why would anyone go somewhere for no reason? Simply have a store and bam. Results. Perhaps there could be more you can add to an Adventurers HUB like meeting rooms for make-believe businesses (clans?) or perhaps it's just an impressive sight to see?

There may be more requirements, I'm not sure. I haven't given it a whole lot of thought yet but I'll be back I swear!

Features of the Adventurer's HUB (work in progress)

1.) As people start to visit or work in the HUB they can provide you with optional quests to earn Pixels, unique or rare items, reputation or additions/improvements to the HUB itself!

An Example of this could be a quest titled "Jukebox!" The shop keep asks you to go find 20 wood planks, 3 Iron bars, a copper bar and 100 pixels. As a reward he/she will give you a 10% discount on his/her wares as well as the shop keep's stall when very close to it can play some adorable shop music! Too much?


2.) Bounty and/or Job Board. Same as the first but stationary and rather generic. Mostly for grabbing pixels or quick rewards.

3.) Mini-games? Perhaps it's possible to make an arcade machine! (obtain blueprints through quests maybe?) It will increase popularity and who wouldn't want to play space invaders or somethething in Starbound, I mean really! o o o o o Carnival games? Maybe.

4.) OOH! Here's an idea that probably won't work but... Subway Station! (Not the sandwich joint) Perhaps you could expand to more than just one hot-spot and board the tram to another awesome place on the planet? It could be as simple (and as complex) as this.

2 kinds of rails:
Standard electric rail
Station platform rail

All you really need to do is build the rails but you can Jazz it up as much as you want to make it look like an actual train tunnel. People could walk in front of the rail as if it was furniture but not on it because reasons. About train collision... I'd recommend nothing happens to players or NPCs when they touch it, but then again train + monster =

5.) There could be a shady guy leaning against a wall in a trench coat and hat who could sell you super rare stuff for ridiculous prices until you bring him what he wants: Incredibly rare treasures A, B and C from the dungeon in these coordinates X###.### Y###.###.

6.) Maybe you need a mechanic of some sort to maintain your vehicles? Sounds like this is the perfect place for businesses like theirs to start out.

7.) The same could be said for scientists? Maybe you can build yourself a lab and they can make you some interesting blueprints, assuming you pay them and give them the ingredients they need for their research!

8.) You can't put a price on ideas so here's a real special one: Ice cream stall. You can't possibly say no to this one and still feel good about yourself. (unless you're lactose intolerant then you get snow cones.)

9.) Clan hall. You know what this is for! You can have BBSs with info on the latest clan stuff on your clan servers. You can join parties here or simply hang out. There can be a clan vault either for sharing or for fundraising in pixels/materials. And more~

I should give some credit to SKARM64 for sparking this idea! http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/the-crew.29286/

MOAR INFO!!

If there was no crazy HUB I still think the little shop keep would be a nice addition maybe even outside the base somewhere. (thanks Clockwork!) What if there was just a store seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It could be anything from a small hole in the wall of a cave with a mysterious person selling "fine goods for those who can afford them" to an adorable shack containing a small family who "are selling some items to get by in these hard times" or even a lovely saloon or general store containing "the finest wares on this side of the galaxy! With a good price to match!"?

Sure there's markets in the towns and villages (Space stations?) but the odd rarities that could be sold in a more private location or even under the table would be worth it and perhaps unique. You could bookmark the planet if there's a cool shop there.

There could also be caravans that are camped somewhere for only a short time. Perhaps they're only there for the time you're on the planet but if you stay on the planet for a long time they will simply disappear when you're far enough away perhaps leaving behind a few remnants like a doused camp fire. Things like this would make the game feel quite alive!

Some more ideas by Pseudoboss. Personally I wouldn't go for a mining expedition team or archaeologist group at a mine because not only would that be tough to make without being either too much of a hassle or making the game too easy.

On the other hand I love the idea of a research team or laboratory. Like that one screenshot (I'll find it eventually) with all the Apex in that little lab where there was falling blue blocks on the bottom but with a lot more purpose. Maybe you can get a DNA sampler from one of the scientists and every time you kill an enemy it takes a sample of the DNA for the scientists to examine. It could either be an on-going low-income semi-passive side-quest that you can do as you explore.
A.) The DNA could do nothing
B.) Tagged and analysed creatures could be catalogued in the lab's computer or in a hand PDA of sorts so you can see what creatures drop what and where to find them for later.

Buildable Space Stations

Another addition from the makers of Laboratories, Pseudoboss brings this interesting thought to mind:
HUBS IN SPACE! (space space space... I love colors.)
Either the HUB itself or just simply buildable space stations. Probably the latter. The Devs have made an attempt to be able to "build" off of your space ship and unfortunately it looked... not so good. With creatable space stations you wouldn't have to worry about if the ship fits the blocks or vice versa because you can just beam in and out. But of course building in space in general is not an easy task let alone creating a place where you can live or work so it would obviously be very high up the technology tree.

Some things you would need for something like this would be the technology to create airtight structures, (You can't make a space station made of plain old wood obviously.) renewable energy like solar panels or fancy reactors, a LOT of materials, a space suit for construction in space, and an unexplainable way to place blocks on nothing. Don't look at me I'm not a game designer!

Something cool you could do with a space station is perhaps have it linked to other ones with a FTL inter-planetary transport system. Why? No idea, but it would be cool to watch space pods warp in and out of the stations orbit.

I really do love pirates. All pirates. Even butt-

Anyways, Space Pirates! They could warp in like a mini boss or instance to try and take over your station so you got to beat them off! They'll be coming from all sides so it could be a group thing you can do with friends. After finishing off the smaller guys their big boss will beam down. He's obviously the boss and can drop something rare.

Contacting NPCs via U-Mail

Perhaps a good way to "Invite" an NPC to your home could be sort of a mail system. (Thanks Percival & Pseudoboss!) Maybe the distress beacon could be upgraded to something that can send and receive intergalactic mail. It could be called U-Mail! (You know, Universal Mail? ) To start a HUB you need one of these. Here you can send out a public predetermined message that acts as a trigger to allow NPCs to sent you mail. They will mostly send applications to work in the HUB or home and could occasionally be a quest U-mail.

The U-Mails about applications will give a simple randomly generated introduction like "Hello my name is Xentharr and I am a Glitch merchant from planet Im-s0-C00L. May I sell wares at your public location?"

This can lead to a few things. You can apply with no and obviously nothing will happen. You can accept and the NPC will send you a conformation U-Mail with details of what they need to set up shop. (Example: Counter, Shelves, a chest and a light.) Either there can be a predetermined time that the NPC will arrive or he/she will simply arrive when the room is prepared.

Not all is hunky-dorey in the hood, however, because you just sent a broadcast including your location to the universe. Pirates may intercept the message and pose as someone who wants to set up shop! Maybe they can be bad at spelling and easy to point out or something so you can see it coming?

I've been getting so many ideas and lots of love. Thanks everyone!

 

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I have no idea why you were afraid, this is amazing!​

The poem was great too, it had a few laughs and explained exactly what you were talking about!​

10/10 would read again!​

 

well designed and has just the perfect amount of details. it's refreshing to see posts like this on the section.

 

Thanks! I do my best~

 

just a suggestion for the adventure hub but maybe once it's built it starts to attract Npc's the give out low leverl/repeatable quests and market Npc's? kinda give it incentive to build it? you could easy kick them to another building outside of the safe haven and keep all your super cool NPC buddies there as well.

 

And eventually you're micromanaging a town or city! (I think that would be fun, but y'know.. I don't think everyone would)

With all the crazy cool stuff they're adding I actually might want to do a RP server, the possibilities are endless.

 

I like this idea... but I'm afraid of the Happy Mask Salesman moving into the hub... oh god... no...

 

eh, it's sort of the feature that doesn't fully force players to do something. you could still find shop keepers in the wild for nomad type players, but for people, like me, who like to really make a thriving place to live in would enjoy it.

 

This definitely should be put up in the suggestions section, Jennshii, I'm sure tons of people would like it!

 

That's goin' in! Thanks~

Is it not?

That would indeed be a terrible fate.

But you don't have to do any of it so it's ok!

 

Oh, nevermind, I didn't see the suggestion bot! silly me

 

Updated. Gimmie some more ideas, boys! & girls

 

Hm, maybe a very rare NPC that gives you coordinates to a planet and a quest to kill a boss? (or something similar)
And for fun: an npc that sits around and spouts random crazy/intelligent/useful/useless info

 

Like this?

 

Similar to that, but all the npcs in that game spout random gibberish. I meant more like a drunkard advice giver.

 

You mean the "Don't fight em, feed em! Something spicy. *NOMPH NOM NOM* Know what I mean?" guy?

 

YES! Something like that, just a touch of insanity, sprinkled with information!

 

Another update. Fixed some of the poem so it's easier to read. (and it's a bit less ugleh~) Then there's item 9.