One of the missing pieces to this discussion is the lander gameplay. The two are linked together, I'm not going to go into detail too much about it just yet. 

Just want to say seeing all your guy's feedback is great. 

I have to add my voice to those that feel that the planet design as far as we can see it at the moment is a bit too cartoonish.  I'm not saying to do away with the cartoon side.  But I would rather have something a bit more serious.

If we were approaching the solar system in a starship and we had advanced detection equipment (idea, there?), we would see planets like discs of color, distinguishible from one another but not cartoonishly different.  Mars would have a red tinge but would not be bright red.

I get it that the goal is to have the players visit the planets that have the most interest.  However, I'd like to mention that there was a way to know which planets were interesting, at least for story purposes: buy info from the Melnorme and speak to the different races.  They'd give you coordinates and names of systems.

Something that is missing from planet samples up to now: will we see indication of civilization on planets?

That would be great!

Industrial civilizations would emit quite a bit of radio/mind waves, and should be detectable from afar, in space, whereas preindustrial civilizations would be hardly noticeable, until orbit is attained.

When I first saw the artwork, I went hmmm...what does this remind me of (besides Spore)?  Bullfrog games had a bit of this element, particularly in the cover art (see Populous: The Beginning). I don't mind a cartoony or exaggerated style, as long as the game holds an adult's interest.

I like the idea of visual indicators - but not before you've explored the planet. Dialing up the visuals _after_ the planet has been explored would be interesting and it would provide variety in the game experience. My preference is for the 'before' visuals to be a bit bit more subdued or mysterious, unless you have some technology aids to assist in scanning. In the latter case, scaling the degree of feature exaggeration (dependent upon technology owned), giving an indication of what may or may not be present, might be something to consider.

I like the planets, they look like delicious candy gumdrops from a whimsical chocolate factory. Though they did instantly remind me of Spore, which probably isn't a good thing.

I don't know if this is the best comparison but IMO the cartoony style of Star Control 2 is closer to that of the first Starcraft, while the proposed style of the new planets reminds me Blizzard's take on cartoony in Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, and that was, and to some extent still is, a pretty controversial and not entirely well received shift.  

Ultimately, it's hard for me to form a definite impression at this point, so I'll reserve judgement until I see how the planets end up looking in action. That said, if the end result falls on the side of Spore, or Blizzard's "Warcrafty" style, that might not be a good thing.

Found in an IGN article about SCR:

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/11/19/fans-can-help-developer-stardock-determine-the-future-of-star-control

Oh my, I must say I'm liking the gas giants in that image.

Some serious gas going on right there.

The gas giants look great.

I have to also say that I feel the planets we've seen are, on average, a little more 'dialed up' than I'd like (I generally agree with Tilt in this thread). I'm curious to see what they look like actually rendered and also how they look when you 'back out' to the solar system view, if we're flying around. I'm just assuming that this is concept art and it's really hard to judge from concept art. 

I might feel completely different about them if I saw how they moved, for example. 

I'm still not liking the cartoony design.  

I understand if in the lander game you can fly down onto the planet, and the planet can't be to scale (~200 million square miles for Earth) so you need a smaller area to scout. I'm just not sure about the art design.

I guess I'll have to see it in action to make a better critique of it.

If I was talking about a photo I think I would just think that it was a tad too saturated. It's hard to find the right word here. 

A scanner readout, overlay, or similar mechanic could be fun to play with compared to just looking and instantly knowing there's a particular artifact or point of interest.  Perhaps the view of a planet could shift from a more uniform rendering, to the type of rendering proposed when scanned.

I have to say my feeling is torn at the moment.

On one hand I agree that I immediately thought Spore the moment I saw the planet designs as they now stand. On the other I agree that SC2 and SC3 both were rather weak in the planets looks themselves and it could get tedious. Essentially making everything the same sphere with different color schemes.

I think right now the problem for me is the scale. I look at these worlds and I think to myself that if a plant looked like this, the physical size of these objects jutting out of the worlds are huge. Easily the size of small countries. It makes it very hard for me to look at this and not laugh at the absurdity. As an example, on Earth due to gravity (and a series of math formulas from hell that I barely got right in college) the tallest mountain on Earth above sea level has to be less then 13km. Higher and it would collapse under it's own weight. When I look at these worlds, I am thinking they must be hundreds of kilometers high. Now granted, I am a nerd and am thinking way father into it then any sane person likely would, but just in general the image becomes hard to process for me.

I know we are missing several mechanics involving the lander, mining etc. but honestly I don't think that is the biggest hold up for me and the crowd who see this as too far into the cartoon side. I think the problem is, we need to see what Earth looks like in comparison. If Earth is given the same kind of light as the rest of these drawings, it may be easier to visualize this universe in this style rather than as it stands where the bulk of us are either drawing comparison to Earth as we know it or other games as they portray it. Would it be possible for us to see that as a reference to the rest of these?

I remember watching a review of Spore when it came out (Believe it was Zero Punctuation) and the reviewer saying that it was a combination of several games combined to one. Star Control 2 was one of the games he referenced that Spore borrowed from. Borrowing back from it for this does feel somewhat full circle for me. I'm not against the current design, I just think that out of proper context, it's a touch jarring compared to most other sci-fi games.

I also believe that the planets are a tad too exaggerated in scale.

But I think it would be fine to be able to visually see the planets in such a way AFTER they have been scanned and explored and not before. 

All visible features should be removed and only the color pattern left. So Blue for water, Brown for earth, Grey for rocks, Green for vegetation, Yellow for desert, Red for lava and/or volcanoes, white for snow/ice. And cloud cover should be used a lot to shroud the planets in mystery. Unless it is a planet with no atmosphere like Mars where in that case it could be possible to see such features from space (but please no exaggeration). Planets with an atmosphere should be invisible due to the atmospheric layers and cloud cover.

But it would still be great after exploring and scanning the planet to then have the planets show with features. It would also serve as a way to show which planets you have visited.

Certainly I don't want to enter a new system and immediately know which planet to go to because I see a communications tower sticking out of it like Pinocchio's nose. You might as well implement quest markers, compasses and perhaps add a giant spacedog as a guide to show you around the galaxy. Oh and add autopiloting and autofighting and hey, what-the-heck what about autogamecompletion?

And believe it or not me and my brother based our planet exploration BASED on those stats and I was in highschool then. Seriously if that is the state of education nowadays that a game has to "get rid" of planet stats because it is too complicated for players to understand then I feel sorry for the direction humanity is going. Maybe it wasn't a smart idea to invite humans into quasi-space.

+1 this is a great idea 

Another good point, I'd like to base my decision to visit a planet/star system based on the stats I get from scanning it from afar, not from exaggerated visual cues. Interesting info like: general world type, element abundance breakdowns, temperatures/weather variance, geography variance, etc.

Part of the fun of SC2 was seeing anomalous dots of varying colors show up in the scans.  Seeing those rare energy readings were such 'OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD' moments for me.  

But to play devil's advocate, I can see that exaggerated visual, for better or for worse, would make the game go faster than having to scan all those worlds all the time.

I definitely like the idea of 'unwrapping a present' with regards to scanning new planets and having them look different after. not a bad way to tell which ones you've already investigated as well. 

Keep in mind the game will probably have dozens times more star systems than SC2. You wanna get in, scan, skin, get out. 

Another SCR concept image found here

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/interviews/15047-Star-Control-Reboot-To-Get-Founders-Program-Soon

I like the idea of planet features showing after you scan it. Good way of keeping track of where you have visited. Planets before scanning could just have a generalised look and designation. Like in Star Trek with M-class planets being Earth-like.

I saw that concept layout earlier too. It wasn't in the November update but I commented previously about the use of color in part because I had seen this on the other news sites reporting on the story.

I like how the bright rainbow color palette visually classifies resources and makes them easily identifiable, and at the same time it's also a callback to the classic rainbow worlds.

Probably too early to know how many resource categories there will be, but I think five levels is easier than eight. This may sound silly but I couldn't always remember how to tell valuable minerals apart from ones not worth picking up based on their colors. I think this simplified "value spectrum" is much easier to interpret at a glance. 

There is bound to be some disagreement over the issue of resource types, but I thought that resource collection was over-simplified in SC2 and I like the idea of there being multiple resource types rather than just assigning each resource type a higher value multiplier to convert to resource units.

Rather than just having things cost X amount of resource units, I think they should cost X+Y+Z units. Plus you can use unique items to "transmogrify" and imbue your upgrades with unique/randomized powers (e.g. Diablo). It's pretty common in games now to have to obtain several different types of resources to construct something and I feel it would be a great convention to adopt into Star Control because it adds tons of replay value and uniqueness to every playthrough.

Quoting GnarlyFurtardo, reply 45

Reduced 65%

Original 865 x 486

 

Another SCR concept image found here

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/interviews/15047-Star-Control-Reboot-To-Get-Founders-Program-Soon

Looks cute.

Aquatic....hmm...submersible landers???   Or just floating ones?

So gas giants will be more than just eye candy this time? Yes please.