FALCmods4all

Just a few misc concepts for those who like doing custom projectiles, skins, etc. In particular, thinking about VR later on and weapons that could be interesting to reload or could make use of physically reaching around corners or using gestures, but could apply to pancake. Splitshot: a U shaped barrel gun that fires 2 disks with retracted, spring loaded blades so that when fired the curved barrel gives spin to the disks. Projectiles could have extreme ricochet and dismemberment but low linear velocity. Rather than gunpowder in the disks, disks are propelled from a central explosion ignited by flammable gas. So two sources of ammunition required, the gas catalyst, and the blade disks, which can be retrieved. Upgrades include going from dual U barrel to quad U to Octa U, adding electrified or super heated blades, laser projection and ricochet projection. Elemental Rifle: sniper rifle that fires bullets with various elements contained within for various effects. In VR offhand gestures drawing periodic symbol or custom pictogram change bullet element, basically like mage VR but for a weapon rather than just starborn powers, I guess an overcomplicated version of conduit. In pancake the change mechanism could be modifier plus scroll wheel. Upgrades include dual element, triple element, quadruple element, long range, and long range scope. Starsaber: Melee weapon that applies a starborn power effect. If we get weapon throw VR, could apply effect when thrown as well. Perhaps a bayonet version could also exist. Could be patched for starborn powers as tech rather than magic type mods. Upgrades include dual power. Reloading in VR could involve a meditation gesture, restoring starborn guage more rapidly the longer one meditates. Slowblade: In VR, the slower you swing it the more damage it does, so excels at stealth and one foe at a time, but useless otherwise. A bit dune inspired. Antimatter generator that dissipates as it is swung around and focuses as it remains still. I guess sort of like a heavily nerfed lightsaber, but something physical at the center as emitter, either creating an anti matter vortex around it, or dual sided sharp jets, or a short cone similar to a blowtorch. Heavy dismemberment potential. Reloading in VR could involve hand cranking. Homing grenades/remote grenades: an upgrade for grenades to slightly track targets and remote detonate, would be particularly satisfying in VR, especially in 0g. Watch and visor mounted weapons or tools: select tool from watch interface in VR, menu pancake. Would be particularly useful if new types of scanners get modded for VR wrist or visor mounted directional signal detection of lifesigns, architecture, resources, multidimensional ghosts, or who knows what. Laser Glove: Always fun in VR having A gun that feels like just pointing a finger. Tiny laser attached to index finger. Upgrades include constant beam vs rapid bulse (dmg vs range). In VR a wrist knob could control pulse interval, longer range the further between shots, but less dps. Reloading could involve pulling your finger, popping out a battery, popping a new one in, pushing finger back in. Thrower: flamethrower and chemical thrower. In VR the off hand could be used to insert combustible/corrosive orbs into the thrower extending the range by using pressure to lob them and do splash damage in addition to normal jets. Reloading in VR could consist of pouring liquid into a funnel on the thrower. Without a correct pump valve mod, in 0g it’ll just get everywhere making an acid or oil trap blob. Upgrades can include 0g reload valve pump, cluster orbs, larger tank. Any more wacky weapon ideas, particularly for after some sort of VR support, fingers crossed. You’d think being in like the top five or 10 Vr games Bethesda/Microsoft would be a little incentivized to at least get a small team working on it sooner rather than later. Even if it takes 5 more years for truly lightweight, cheap, nausea proof VR headsets to go mainstream, people will still be wanting open world VR experiences. May not be super profitable now, but could pay out quite a bit over a decade. Say just 10% of gamers have VR headsets in 5 years, that is not chump change if you get and hold the top VR title.

I’d be really interested in seeing something like this coupled with locking higher tier mod added parts until a ship including the part is captured and reverse engineered to allow the part to be stripped/hacked/jailbroken and available on the black market. I suppose this would require restricting purchase of these ship parts to shady engineers only, or maybe short quest/dialogue to convince or threaten an engineer to either sell restricted proprietary parts or stolen parts you have unlocked so far.

Also, would be interested in ship or space station modules that mimic various biomes to function as zoo modules. Orbital terrariums. Maybe add to this a cargo container summon mechanic for weaponization or using unique skills of organisms. I guess just any domesticated creatures could be copied into respective biome zoo modules. Screwing up biome parameters or combining the wrong creatures could kill them. Forgetting to take care of or assign crew to care for them could kill them. I know it’d be easier to do creature teleportation rather than container, but seems more lore friendly if only starborn can teleport and starborn companions. Require resources etc to travel by ship. Since already one zoo in game, fitting for the player to be able to build one as well.

Always lots of great eat, drink, sleep mods, but what about other details, in particular challenges unique to space. Also, starting to see O2 mods but not yet use for vacuum tape. Thrilled to see how detailed survival mods are becoming already! I know it’ll be a while before official VR support, but also hoping as survival mods develop the future will allow VR survival interactions, such as physically attaching tape to a leak in one’s suit or doing physical weapon maintenance after the environment disables it. I’d love to see: Suit damage - duct tape repair Critical limb injury - amputations, cybernetics, bleed out if no ship doctor access in time, possible temporary cybernetics failure during electrical storms Hull leak - welding repair, ballistics or explosives may cause leaks, ship interior hostile npcs may avoid this or at low health may purposely target the hull as a kamikaze Suit urine capacity - empty at ship, cartridge emptied in field may lure some life forms/predators Ship waste recycling - botany module Constipation - reduced speed over time without sitting on potty Nausea hazard - puking due to illness etc in a space suit may cause asphyxiation without related helmet vacuum modification Blindness - substances from vents, creatures, or weapons can cover helmet until wiped off unless wipers or blowers installed Deafness - protect hearing from loud weaponfire by adjusting helmet mic volume or installing noise cancelling helmet modifications (like the fo4 mod) Sanity - crew may lose sanity from traumatic events and go postal if left unconsoled or isolated, player may hallucinate (like the fo4 mod) Parasites - infections may cause crew to have erratic behavior, player may randomly move or fire weapons, as mods get more advanced different types of parasites may try to puppeteer to meet different types of criteria for their own spread or lifecycle Boot or suit environmental mods: No heat resistance - standing still melts boots, heat damage No snow/ice traction - snow slows/ice slippery No corrosion resistance - suit decays over time, boots decay faster if acid is stepped in No radiation protection - scanner range reduced and chance of cancer increases over time Low weight - winds may send player flying, but increased speed High weight - wind resistance, but decreased top speed/endurance Weapon buffs/debuffs environmental: Cold - jams mechanical (ballistic) weapon, more likely the longer held without firing as firing generates heat, but cryo weapon damage increased Heat - overheats energy weapons reducing clip sizes, but increases melee weapon damage Radiation - Increases energy weapon damage, but high radiation evolved organisms take less melee damage due to thicker skin or increased mutation Corrosion - Reduces energy weapon durability (if weapon repair mods exist), but increases ballistic weapon damage Lightning - increases electrical damage and electrifies melee weapons, but increases chance to be struck by lightning if holding metallic weapons/objects High O2 - increases fire damage, but drains O2 meter if no helmet in interior cell High gravity - lower ballistic range, weaker melee Low gravity - higher ballistic range, stronger melee High pressure - explosive damage reduced Low pressure - explosive damage increased

I’m hoping we get a huge library of custom music stations, television stations, and retro style minigames eventually. Maybe even a quest location for each where you can actually interact with npc broadcasters on ships or at outposts. Oh, broadcasted space racing that one could watch, bet on, or participate in could also be interesting.

Been thinking about this a bit in particular for when starfield has proper vr support. I guess nail guns etc are basically crossbows already. Like what could the next iteration of spellsiphon or mage vr do? What absurd variations could there be between tech and starborn powers? Arrow/Bolt: elemental, homing, charging, explosive, rapid, multi, airstrike flare, creature lure, phasing, teleporting, etc. Weapons: bows, crossbows, slings, slingshots, throwables, mini catapults, mini trebuchets, etc. On the alien end of things, might be interesting to have a phasing projectile type that only hits in proper draw distance, but can phase through everything in between. Or one that teleports or swaps characters.

Are there recommended tools for writing dialogue that import easily into creation kit, etc? Or do people just tend to write everything in ck from the start or manually copy and paste any lines written elsewhere?

I think to differentiate from fo4 I’d be more interested in seeing: A: exoskeletons/cybernetics - power armor functions applied to more exoskeleton or cybernetic limb type functionality, meaning space suit is still mostly visible, closer to power armor frame only than full armor. Particularly for extreme high grav planet exploration. B: oversized power armor - functional mechs since mechs are in the starfield gameworld. I know some people already testing out versions of mechs, but haven’t checked how successful the builds are so far.

I know. Optimistic I guess.

I’ve been referring to the settled systems as a star cluster, but it occurs to me that if dlc and mods add new groupings of stars we’ll want to have common terms to differentiate between the parts vs the whole. Terms smallest < largest systems < asterisms < constellations < sectors < < open clusters < regions < globular clusters < quadrants < galaxies < dimensions/universes < multiverse What is tricky is that sectors seem to lack official definition outside of media like star trek (about 50 systems avg in 20ly blocks). Also cluster vary between open 10s to 1000s of stars and globular 10,000s to 1,000,000s+ of stars. As sector has the most utility for political groupings rather than scientific groupings, it probably makes more sense to refer to new chunks of stars as new sectors and to refer to all stars in jumpable range as our local cluster with stars that are somehow in new star maps as other clusters (say in a new section of the galaxy reached by wormhole rather than grav drive). Furthermore, sectors could be used to create more legible star maps as system factions mods play a stronger role over time in system travel etc: The UC sector, the Freestar sector, the Crimson Fleet sector, the some new mod sector, etc. In turn, the vanilla settled systems may constitute a cluster, distinct from say a dlc cluster or an ambitious mod adding multiple sectors. Region and larger may not be needed, but region should refer to groupings of clusters around features, say nebulae or spurs of the milky way or the galactic core, and of course quadrants are just quarters of the galaxy. Not sure there’d be debate about terms like sector vs cluster, but I figure better to be sure everyone gets on the same page early to avoid confusion or clashing around naming conventions down the line. I know I was unfamiliar with asterism, a shape of stars more simple than a constellation, so perhaps that at least will be of use to people. A mod adding a polygon of systems would be adding the blank asterism. If people are working on similar mods (say dealing with spacer dominated space) they may wish to place adjacent asterisms to form a constellation that is part of the existing spacer, or whichever faction, sector.

Yes, I think larger clusters of larger settlements would generally feel more believable than so many evenly spaced isolated tiny industrial platforms. And in addition to having varied ratios of peaceful habitation, it would be cool to see some more dynamic politics than just stations of good guys vs stations of bad guys. I’d like to see stations divided about preferring protection from different factions with strong arguments for each. Farmers that might associate with Crimson Fleet because corporations have taken advantage, Crimson Fleet looking for a doctor due to xenodiseases unleashed in a lab they took over, or spacers looking redeem themselves and start a legitimate mining venture. If spacers or pirates are almost as common as homesteaders we need to see the reasons why. What makes living so awful that so many people just pull guns on each other instead? A major problem many noted with being friendly with CF is that there was nothing to do at CF run installations, no collection runs or ransoms or even just spats with authorities. We get decent interactions between factions in story missions, but procedural quests tend to be a bit thin to say the least with way too many identical locations. I too would like more mini biomes. I don’t think I ever saw a river during my playthrough. Cliffs by beaches were also rare, nevermind life that only appears near water. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of improvement over time, I just hope it doesn’t take too long. I’m thinking about the years between biome updates in minecraft or something. Hopefully it’ll be easy enough to make custom flora, fauna, and geological features that planets start to seem more dynamic and variable from place to place. I’m optimistic about POI improvement. Seems like that more than anything has been built with mods in mind. I look forward to insane modular labyrinths of dungeon and city size clusters of settlement objects. Also, larger scale and more interactive anomalies could be nice. Ones that actually have surprising outcomes, set ups and pay offs. I’m not sure how long it will take to see drastically different biomes, but as long as the survival system becomes complex enough it will hopefully feel at least like there are diverse challenges depending on environment. I’d enjoy struggling with very different ways to die and for the scariest thing about making a creature angry isn’t that it might kill me but that it might create a hole in my suit that might let the environment kill me if I lack duct tape and even once patched my O2 is so low I might still die. Also, consider the strange new diseases a given atmosphere could have. Not getting checked out by the ship doctor after exposure should seem foolish if things seem fine. May even need a decontamination module in addition to an airlock. I guess the last surface issue I keep trying to think of an answer for is the problem if waypoint based exploration. Would be nice if scanning was more vague. Like either one needs to be able to zoom in with a custom scanner to actually id a structure or maybe the scanner, or maybe some sort of tuning or chemical analysis is needed to get only the vaguest directions, and perhaps dormant or jammed sites can only be stumbled upon, or perhaps more places are hidden in surface caves and canyons/craters. There needs to be a sense of taking a rover endlessly and aimlessly then stumbling on something particularly unique or of taking time to analyze surroundings and deduce where there may be something of interest. More subtle clues could be cool too, like if some creatures eat metal seeking large herds to find a crash site. Or if creatures eat meat, perhaps encountering one eating a human limb and leaving a blood trail to follow either to a creature lair or from a facility. We need some semblance of environmental storytelling or at least more immersive/organic quest hooks. More of an investigating what became of such and such or aiding and defending researchers or prospectors as they discover this or that, and each quest should pay off with an actually interesting sight, organism, ethical dilemma, etc. Npcs with a bit more purpose so bothering with them doesn’t seem like a waste of time. I guess as long as procedural generation is involved, no quest feels as alive as when built around unique characters and locations. Definitely miss the aspect of Skyrim and Fo4 where any place has some narrative built in to it. I guess with POI getting that modded complexity is possible, then bland vanilla tasks become a contrast to make custom events stand out even more. Randomly encountering a lunar castle in the middle of nowhere some eccentric starborn lives in becomes particularly memorable because it wasn’t just a dude getting lost in the same cave again.

Great testing so far. Makes feel slightly less pessimistic about exotic planets, at least after ck maybe. The mismatched solar orbits is interesting. Seems like rotating the sky box 90• and/or freezing the sky box must be hidden somewhere. You’d think in planet data freezing the star in the sky would be as simple as turning day duration = to year duration. Hopefully someone leaks a bit more info about what planet customization ck2 will or will not let modders tweak, so people can plan accordingly. Someone make Todd do an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson or someone about potential future realism. To tide me over until ck2 I started playing Elite Dangerous. As barebones as it is in so many ways, the simple process of moving from one orbiting spec in a solar system to another monitoring acceleration and deceleration does so much to give a sense of scale and navigation. Starfield really has to make it feasible to step up either the travel mechanics or or the surface realistic complexity. Until things get there, too much just feels like backdrop rather than world building. If any Bethdevs are eyeing these threads, please make sure serious planet customization tools and some way of replacing loading screen travel make it into ck2/dlc. Even just a liminal space between destinations, exploring one’s ship for a minute or two during transit with a chance of interruption. Nothing makes a galaxy feel smaller than loading screen fast travel between planets. Thanks, Aurreth, for messing with planets in hopes divulging their secrets in the name science.

Planets can have icy poles, so shouldn’t it be possible to at least rotate a planet’s orientation and replace one pole with something else then increase the size of the far pole to cover half the planet? As long as planets can have 3 ‘biomes’ shouldn’t simulating tidal lock be possible? Doesn’t solve weather or temperature, though. Can weather and temperature be changed for the cell once entered via command? Say, using coordinates for half the planet to run a change weather & temperature script so that upon landing a ship at coordinates on the cold or hot side of a planet the weather/temperature reflects conditions like tidal lock, overriding the default planet uniformity? I guess ideally someone finds a way to disable planet weather/temp entirely and tie weather/temp to biomes exclusively instead. Super frustrating if everything is 100% locked into procedural generation.

Bleak! Really hope they surprise us with fixes for this stuff with DLC sooner rather than later. Would hate to wait years for a major Planet update. I feel like there mist be some work around. Like making most of a planet inaccessible then just doing total manual creation of cell features for the relevant locations? Lacks elegance and immersion, but allows for more unique locations, maybe, hopefully. I hope at least freezing sun location in specific cells can be done. Worst case scenario I guess would be being forced to build custom planet sets in interior cells just escape trappings or limitations of procedural generation.

I’m curious about how organized of a framework we might be able to set up for new outfits in Starfield. It would be ideal if outfit types could be sorted by tags and if npcs could pull random outfits when passing through changing locations such as airlocks, home locations, or bathing areas. Likewise, if modded locations add outfit filters tags by default that will make for more immersive worlds. Follower frameworks or outfit managers in the past have managed this for companions via script, but it would be great to just have more immersive npc behavior across the board by default and established categories for newly made outfit mods to filter into. I guess this would also require an injection script to give x number of random from suitable categories to npcs upon first encounter based on faction categories etc. I guess being able to toggle individual outfit distribution per faction might be useful, too. What Crimson Fleet considers formal attire could be different from corporate formal. Not a feature with much apparent use at first, but maybe once there is a mod where CF possesses a luxury space liner it would be useful for them to seamlessly change into punk formalwear while onboard. Imagine the immersion of a world where people don’t wear the exact same outfit every day? For bathing areas, it might be useful by default to include control mechanisms where player can decide between swimsuits only, swimsuits and bodies, or bodies only. I know some player home mod authors already do versions of this. In any case, hope a good outfit sorting system gets set up early on. I look forward to being surprised at how npcs choose to dress. Okay, I guess the pinnacle of random npc outfits would be the ability to compliment an outfit (combination) to increase the chances of that outfit being rolled more often. Some useful default categories for outfits and/or locations [subcategories]: Spacesuit [environment type] [faction(s)] Work [manual and/or mental] [faction(s)] Formal [faction(s)] Home [faction(s)] Casual [faction(s)] Combat [atk and/or def] [faction(s)] Bathing [swimsuits and/or bodies] [faction(s)] Nightwear [pajamas and/or underwear] [faction(s)]

I know many of us would like to see more Star Trek TNG adjacent political, economic, and exploratory structures in Starfield. I think the best faction for this would be the poverty concerned and atheist minded Enlightened faction. To this affect I’ve started a detailed outline of ideas for expanding on this faction with a fully automated luxury communism pursuant quest mod concept with a unique location, indigenous sentient life forms for TNG style cultural misunderstandings, and diplomacy missions to explore corporate sabotage of utopian idealism. Still early stages and interested in input from others, and also to avoid spoilers I’ll try not to share too much of what I have so far here. ———— Very interested in finding collaborators. My strengths are in writing, video/animation, with some comfort better learning modeling once ck2 comes out. I have no meaningful coding or scripting skill. I’d love to see this project grow into something highly cooperative. ———— Here is a bit of the vision so far: In hopes of creating a new society free from the heavy corporate influence over the rest of the local cluster where the poor can find fulfillment, the Enlightened have started to build a city on a world previously considered far too inhospitable to sustain long term settlement. The planet is tidally locked & 4/5 earth gravity. A strong magnetic field deflects most solar radiation. Wind patterns are calm and consistent flows. One side burns under heavy heat and magnetic storms where towers of lichtenburg glass have formed from lightning striking silica and surrounding sand shifting over time. One side freezes in perpetual darkness with a vast subsurface ocean full of life, some organism magnitudes larger than largest of those over discovered on earth. Between the two sides spans a twilight belt, a jungle watered by mist carried on winds from night side vents of all shades except red since the red glow is food for photosynthesis never to be reflected. The Twin Cities of Twilight: At the edges of twilight there are two cities in their infancy, Dawn at the edge of the day side where the sun is always half risen, and Dusk at the edge of the night side where the sun is always just below the horizon. Dawn relies on water from Dusk and Dusk relies on solar from dawn. The planet is low O2 so people use inhalers or wear mouth masks outside. Dawn is designed like a waterpark and has an extroverted culture with gliding as sport of choice. Dusk is designed like a labyrinth of bath houses and arcades and has an introverted culture with skiing/snowboarding as sport of choice. I envision many quests and branching city development. I also would like to see many more ways to fail than to succeed, with narratives from failure being as captivating as success so that the mod retains replay value across ng+ runs. I’ve outlined unique faction liaisons for missions to attempt to keep peace between various other factions in hopes of creating dynamics reminiscent of classic Picard/Sisko/Janeway style diplomatic confrontations. This includes options to try and maintain relations or even integrations with Spacers and Crimson Fleet. Can the potential to eliminate scarcity tame even the most impulsive among us, or will it only encourage them to seek control over scarcity for their own power? There are some sentient life forms present that I’ve tried to make unique and non hominid to capture the awe and tension of first contact and ongoing cultural navigation. There should be opportunity for things to blossom into unexpected kinship or crumble into complete disaster. My hope is for each decision to feel like it carries weight and requires careful consideration or learning from mistakes. There will definitely be clashes centered around resource extraction methods and consequences. I have several companion characters in mind as well that could either serve as part of this mod or as stand alone. And of course, what I really want is for the player to get the experience of helping to design an entire sociopolitical structure. Navigating utility with the desires of the people, balancing executive or emergency decision making with collective integrity, figuring out what fair labor distribution looks like until the dream of full automation has been completed, and of course attempting to compete with established capital power for necessary resources or even convert corporate labor to the cause. So shall we combine our power and revolutionize a corner of the starfield universe? Likely, the work begins in earnest once ck2 comes out, but assembling, plotting, conceptualizing could be refined earlier so that it can be among the first large scale post ck2 mods. Interested in making this utopia building prospect a virtual reality? Not settled on a planet name, but leaning toward Heraclitus: ‘One can never step into the same river twice.’ and ‘Dogs also bark at what they do not know.’ and ‘If there was no sun, it would be night.’ In the spirit of socialism/communism, if this project ends up using a funding method to get made and maintained, I’d be curious to experiment with a model where anything not spent directly on equipment or assets gets evenly split amongst everyone who contributes meaningfully regardless of time or skill.

To add to the need for useful monitors, would be nice to get all the fo4 arcade games on any monitor, preferably playable while still in 1st person perspective to retain immersion once a proper VR is released. For shows, would be delightful if people made as many tv programs as there were mod radio stations in fo4. Maybe ship and outpost wide sound systems, radios, etc, too.

Yes, the somehow nobody can repair a broken turret except the player is tedious. Maybe rather just needing to train people and keep components stocked. Also, being able to set other ships in the player fleet to check on a declining outpost and offer whatever aid. So unless supply lines have a weak bottleneck they shouldn’t fail completely, just slow down. But, maybe just to mix things up, if on very bad terms with spacers, CF, etc maybe some rare takeovers, hostage situations. Might be interesting to have to build bases with secret entrances and stealth in mind in order to minimize hostage deaths, or otherwise just be prepared to negotiate. I guess the main things with outpost defense are either playing up the tower defense mechanics or having surprising interactions with attackers. I think kenshi does a good job with this. Faction jurisdictions and odd characters to deal with. Why people want to get in your house and what might get them to leave is just as interesting as making them leave. One really great kenshi mechanic is the ability to show mercy, giving defeated enemies medical attention, and with mods, gradually converting enemies into allies. I do like having to decide whether to just save hassle and work with spacers or over engineer outposts for security. A bit more variety of creature attack causes would be good, too. Some reacting to noise, others to smells, some to movement. If a creature likes scrap metal maybe launching scrap could lower the need to repair structures. Or perhaps fully scanned creatures allow pheromone production that can lower aggression. Domestication as a defense strategy. I guess last little outpost tweak I keep thinking about are diseases or parasites. If one isn’t cautious crew might go nuts or explode with spores or other gruesome hazards, giving incentives to do proper survey scans and build proper precautions.

Definitely a missing link in the outpost system. There could also be more variation and fluctuation in both buy and sell prices between systems. Perhaps even prices influenced by local quest events similar to bounty missions but for trade route disruption. Requiring either some sort of escort/increased freighter defenses or player intervention against offending fleet or outpost. Similarly, outposts with larger stashes of goods to be shipped out could be more likely targets for pirate attacks.

I’m also hoping that people will mod full text or audiobooks from all the classic titles listed in game. I’d love to make a nice space home with a view in VR and read VR books or listen to audiobooks, perhaps while playing old atari games on an in game screen or just while exploring. Similarly, in addition to just being able to type or draw on tablets, would be interesting to link that into certain mini quests or minigames. Doing some exo entomology consisting of taking behavior notes, drawing sketches, or taking photos. Turning in cookie cutter survey data is boring, but specific immersive documentation may have some charm. I also like the idea of handing in a terrible doodle of what a planet surface looks like and having the npc randomly trash or compliment my artwork.

Ah, interesting, frustrating. But hopefully the broken custom systems means they are at least considering better flexibility by the time full ck2 comes out. They like to brag about making sims, so it’ll be a pretty big let down if we can’t even create solar systems based on actual discovered exoplanets and their stars. I commend your experimentation thus far and look forward to future success!

Seconded. I’d be stoked about some subnauticafield. I guess hard part there is eventually bound to be aquatic DLC so a lot of mod effort beyond basic swimming may become undone in a couple years or so. I hope someone makes a ship turned submarine as soon as ck2 comes out anyway. Lots of interesting lists of extreme planet types like this one: https://www.space.com/10-super-extreme-exoplanets I’ve always been particularly interested in rogue planets and the challenge of a civilization attempting to remain alive or create an archive after being displaced from a star. I hadn’t really thought about it, but an eccentric orbit planet would be easy to mod. Mostly just changing the size of the star in the sky over time and drastically changing the temperature over time. Minor spoiler alert, I think the new lost in space show explored the biology of such a planet a bit with plants and animals evolved for extreme forms of hibernation as the planet became extremely hot or cold due to orbit (I forget if orbit was eccentric due to a black hole as well).

Seconded. I’d be stoked about some subnauticafield. I guess hard part there is eventually bound to be aquatic DLC so a lot of mod effort beyond basic swimming may become undone in a couple years or so.

The balance between quest enhancement and quest nuisance is tricky. Also a new challenge with so much space where stumbling upon things tends toward being spread too thin or requiring too much guidance. Just played animal well and it really shows how confined space is conducive to clue detection tools. So it seems like creating certain kinds of confines within which the likelihood of stumbling across certain types of interesting experiences increases is key. Really expanding on planetary stats in conjunction with scan tweaks, like visor requirements based on certain storm conditions, extreme darkness, etc. As another example, with the way temple detection creates noise. Consider adding a tuning layer to something like this where different things create subtle differences in noise at different frequencies. Detecting a particularly odd signal would give that sense of maybe really being on to something unique this time. Thus coupled with explosions of simple POI mods could be nice. Or perhaps quest start components that would only ever be found if using x ray or metal detection near certain types of areas. Encouragement of exploration and data gathering. Also critter collection. I also really hope to see a standard of POI grouping. So more empty space then a lot of similar POI in closer proximity, organic towns or facilities. And of course what would give each planet the strongest sense of unique personality is if we mod a major hub of some kind for each planet that stuff sort of grows or splinters out from and makes it feel like a living world and not random cookie cutter points of isolation. Factions up to specific goals, creatures herding around specific features, etc. Weather etc conditions that feel radically different from place to place is what will really make things feel different. I want to traverse a planet so hot my boots can melt or so close to absolute zero superfluids exist. Places so irradiated or corrosive every item of equipment must be engineered for it. Then I want navigating to quest locations to be a vague detective task that encourages me to stop and explore on my way to what I hope is my destination because survival necessitates seeking shelter underground or in a structure. Then maybe it turns out that signature I was tracking was wring and I have to backtrack to check another. Who wants just lists of markers with fast travel screens? Not I.

A biome that so far is missing is one that consists only of very large organisms. Like navigating landscape full of tunnels/ valleys, etc clearly belonging to large creatures and having to figure out what objects or surfaces are dangerous or useful. Really giving the experience of being an insect in a place full of carnivorous plants or giant insect eating predators. Lots of scientists and poachers getting into trouble.