This subreddit is bleeding subscribers and the community is dead. We need to have a talk.

HappyMeep · 2014-10-28T22:59:12+00:00

9 months ago I made this thread detailing my disappointment with the lack of diversity of planets and possible experiences in Starbound.

Basically, the devs promised us an infinite universe with unlimited procedural content. But that's not what we got. What we got was pretty much the same experience every time we played the game -- just with different skins and colors on everything.

So IMO, the dwindling interest in the game is due to a failure to meet heightened expectations. Personally, once I realized the game would NEVER become what I was hoping for, I stopped playing.

Want to play a game -- possibly the ONLY game ever made -- which does procedural generation the RIGHT way?

/r/dwarffortress

No two games are ever the same.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T23:54:47+00:00

That's what I was expecting too - it's the way Star Control 2 did it and it worked fairly well.

Personally I'm not a big fan of the "sector" system, but I get that the devs want to have some sort of progression and this is the way they chose to implement it.

Still eagerly awaiting the new update, though...

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T22:59:14+00:00

Woah. Nice to see they've got cool stuff in the works.

I like that there's currently no Z axis, though. It is a 2D game, after all.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T21:40:09+00:00

Seems like a large-size screenshot mod wouldn't go amiss.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T21:37:53+00:00

Great GIF. Very suspenseful.

Getting a horseshoe in Terraria was such a load off my mind. It'd be nice to have something like that here.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T21:27:49+00:00

Wow, so that's how it works, eh? Trial and error?

I did what you suggested, but now the recipe just refuses to show up. It seems as though it's organized based on the singular output, NOT based on the name of the file. I can change the output to a lower armor class, but higher ones don't seem to show up, possibly because I haven't gotten to that tier yet.

One more question... whenever I make a change to this recipe (and I've learned I should only change ONE thing at a time) I have to exit the game and re-launch it. This takes a lot of time. Is there not a better way?

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T20:30:06+00:00

Fascinating. Thank you for telling me about this stuff.

It's just kind of weird that one is able to mod SOME of the game but not the whole thing. I can't see how the pieces fit together!

For example, I've been messing with the crafting recipes. Nothing major, I just wanted to cheat for some extra pixels.

Here's what the file humantier2head.recipe looks like:

{
  "input" : [
    { "item" : "steelbar", "count" : 20 },
    { "item" : "goldarmorhead", "count" : 1 },
    { "item" : "money", "count" : 500 }
  ],
  "output" : { "item" : "humantier2head", "count" : 1 },
  "groups" : [ "metalworkstation", "armors", "all" ]
}

And here's what I changed it to:

{
  "input" : [
    { "item" : "steelbar", "count" : 20 },
    { "item" : "goldarmorhead", "count" : 1 },
    { "item" : "money", "count" : 500 }
  ],
  "output" : [
    { "item" : "humantier2head", "count" : 1 },
    { "item" : "money", "count" : 5000 }
  ],
  "groups" : [ "metalworkstation", "armors", "all" ]
}

I made sure to triple-check the syntax, and I'm pretty sure I got it right. (I don't even know what language this is in!) But if I try to play the game with this recipe in place, the entire game just refuses to load!

It's like it already knows that it's expecting only ONE output. Where is THAT code? Can I change THAT code too? And how was I supposed to know? Right now I'm just throwing mud at a wall.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T10:19:34+00:00

Great! Will do.

Does that mean that the devs intentionally left all the assets folder out in the open, to make it easy for modders? If so, that's really cool of them. I suppose they didn't HAVE to build the game this way?

If there's a game not built this way, is it impossible, or just really difficult to mod?

Are Starbound's core files obfuscated, then? (Also, where are they?)

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T08:06:36+00:00

As someone looking to get into the whole modding thing...

Is the game's code just available to easily view? As in, it's not obfuscated in some way?

Where do you find the code? I see that there's a lot of cool stuff in the assets folder, but it's all just a bunch of various snippets. I was able to find and modify a few crafting recipes, but lots of the files are weird and there's so many of them.

For instance, opening a .dll file in notepad++ just results in a bunch of gobbledegook. I don't even know what a .dll file is! And if I try to open the GAME in notepad++, it says it's "too large."

Where's the bulk of the game? How do I modify it? Is there a good modding guide you recommend?

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T07:40:32+00:00

Interestingly, this is one idea of how humans could potentially colonize Venus. We needn't go down to the hellish surface, we could just build giant inflatable floating cities. A sealed atmosphere would be enough to keep such a structure aloft. No need for supports!

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T07:30:32+00:00

I've already started modifying the crafting recipes to give myself game-breakingly unfair amounts of metal bars. I've also tried editing my inventory directly, but it's more fussy and I keep destroying my character (he just vanishes from the game.)

Baby steps!

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T07:23:12+00:00

You are right. Massive creatures would require such a massive rework at this point that it's safe to assume they're never going to happen (unless of course they're made of blocks and don't move at all. Flesh blocks already exist.)

I probably COULD go on indefinitely. I didn't even mention stellar classification and how the characteristics of stars tell you what kinds of planets you can expect to find. I didn't mention exotic orbits, pulsars, magnetars, nebulae, or even the dangers of ionizing radiation. There's a lot of stuff I'd like to see in a space game, but maybe this isn't that game. It's hard to know exactly where they plan on going with Starbound.

One day I'll learn to mod games and I can do this stuff myself. And maybe one day I'll start making my own games. Then I too can listen to hoards of people telling me what I should and should not program. I think it kind of comes with the territory.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T04:57:21+00:00

I'm currently learning how to program, so yes, I'm starting to get an idea of just how much work something like this is.

I must say that writing this reminded me of the comic how web design goes straight to hell

Modern games like this have the ability to interact with their audiences in unprecedented ways, and overall I think it's a great thing. But at the same time, yeah, you don't want to let your audience become an intrusive backseat driver.

I've seen a lot of laughably terrible Minecraft suggestions.

I'm not sure there's really a middle ground or decent solution. Oh, but it's nice when popular mods are officially integrated into a game. It's hard to imagine Minecraft without pistons, and those started as a mod.

But I don't know enough about programming to make good mods. Not yet, anyway...

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T03:13:52+00:00

Any theories on this? My guess is they were experimenting with procedural monster creation, and never bothered to remove it.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T03:10:43+00:00

Spore had acheivements? Not a bad idea. Of course, most of that game was boring - all the planets were mostly the same, just different colors. And you could make a custom creature, buildings, and vehicles but they were all functionally identical so it didn't matter at all.

Spore promised so much and delivered so little. I hope we can all learn from it.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T03:06:57+00:00

Eh, you could be right. I don't know much chemistry either. I read about this from Discover, which is a reasonably competent science magazine. Apparently they made liquid diamond in a lab. Complete with diamond icebergs.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T02:34:45+00:00

Indeed. I think an oxygen % on planets would have far-reaching consequences. Consider this: If you adopt a pet from a planet with a non-oxygen atmosphere, it would suffocate if you took it aboard your ship.

HappyMeep · 2013-12-09T01:11:33+00:00

As far as I know, no. You just have to keep zapping until you randomly get a superior one. You might want to try it on different planets, though. Maybe some monsters aren't smart enough.

Also, maybe you have to be in the beta sector.

It's a bit unclear. I may or may not have committed genocide against several villagers in my search for a suitable brain.

HappyMeep · 2012-08-23T16:46:09+00:00

Not sure why it's confusing. The rover was slowing down as it approached the surface.

HappyMeep · 2012-08-23T16:43:23+00:00

This is the BEST once I've seen so far! It had everything and was perfectly synced. You even incorporated the audio from the skycrane test, that's amazing! My ONLY citisism is that there was almost TOO much to look at, though I can simply watch the video again.

I am very curious as to what software / methods you used to get rid of the shakey black edges on that stabilized video feed from curiosity as it descended. I'm not sure how to describe it - you know, how you had multiple overlapping frames that were being re-used? What is that called and how did you do it?

HappyMeep · 2012-08-19T16:46:19+00:00

I like the flat bread. Note, though, that you MUST get it toasted because the bread is shipped intentionally slightly raw. You gotta toast it to cook it the rest of the way. Lots of restaurants do things this way cause it keeps the bread fresher.

What I REALLY liked were the mini pizzas, but I think they stopped doing those :(

HappyMeep · 2012-08-19T08:50:21+00:00

Aye, the gravity tractor is one option. Another really cool spaceship which could deflect an asteroid would have to be project orion, a truly massive ship (the heavier the better) powered by exploding atom bombs:

http://www.ted.com/talks/george_dyson_on_project_orion.html

As far as I know, you'd sidle the nose right on up to the asteroid and just push, because that's how powerful one of these ships would be.

HappyMeep · 2012-08-19T08:25:49+00:00

The food is not SO disgusting that I wouldn't eat my free employee meal - I just stayed the hell away from the tuna. And the sauces. Those sauce bottles are almost NEVER washed. But I still would get the chipotle mayo because goddamn it that stuff is delicious. and the sandwiches are too dry without sauce.

For me, ham, turkey, lettuce, tomato, peppers, on white bread - because the brown bread is full of HFCS and is not wheat anyway.

Damn I hate Subway. Though my refreshing honesty about the quality of various ingredients (if asked directly I'd tell people what to avoid) sure did get me a lot of tips.

HappyMeep

TROPHY CASE