April Update Clarification Request on Planetary Exploration

I didn't find any ambiguity in Brad's statement; it was my interpretation that he meant planetary exploration is going to play a much bigger role as an action gameplay element than it did in SC2. Whereas melee was the primary action element back then, planet exploration was by comparison a mini-game. All of the elements of using the lander on a planet's surface were like a very simplified version of melee.

I believe Stardock wants planetary exploration to be just as engaging and action-oriented as starship combat. Which I think is great. Several posts have gone back and forth recently discussing how many stars and planets should be in the galaxy, and it was suggested in several cases that there comes a point where players eventually tire of exploring and grinding just for grinding's sake. Well, if Stardock can add value to the planetary exploration dynamic and make it just as fun as melee, they are on the right track. Having a wide variety of life forms to encounter will go a long way towards that. One of SC2's few drawbacks was a serious lack of different lifeforms on planets.

I think this is a big part of the reason why so much of the early concept art focused on having such a diverse variety of planets and environments; they want planet exploration to be interesting and replayable as an action mini-game in and of itself. The planets in SC2 were completely featureless and well, I'm sorry to say, boring to traverse. If they can execute on really bringing a variety of worlds to life and having combat with life forms be just as interesting as combat in space, I think people would not mind going from one planet to the next over and over again because it will seem less like a chore and more like a game.

We might even be able to traverse the interiors of the hollow planets, however little of them there will be. 

Sure, find the magic cadbury "easter egg" planet and break through the delicious candy coated chocolate shell to uncover amazing stuffs!

I dunno about hollow though since most planets are solid, but I'm all for spelunking in underground caverns and diving down into bodies of water (or other liquids and liquified gases!) to explore the depths as a submersible.

I'd love to see all kinds of things bringing the lander experience to life in a way SC2 was never able to. How about in addition to damage caused by hostile creatures, tectonic activity, scorching fires and harsh lightning, let's see new environmental dangers and weather effects like:

• severe cold conditions slowing down the lander
• incredible wind storms that blow the lander around to the point where you can't maneuver
• getting stuck in mud or quicksand which immobilize the lander and force you to use extra fuel to get out
• exposure to high radioactivity levels that will slowly drain the shields or armor
• caustic compounds like acid rain or lethal gases that eat away at the armor
• impact damage due to falling from tall vertical heights or crashing into something too hard

Good points. I would like to see some of the same things. SC2 did have the issue of environmental effect on the landers unfortunately all of them where deadly to the crew and not just a hindrance. My only issue is how much environmental impact do you really want, based on the overall game play? If you spend a hour on a planet getting your can kicked around just trying to dig up minerals, people are going to get bored or frustrated quickly. Then you have the issue is what is more important lander upgrades or ship upgrades? SC2 had a good balance as you could still get minerals and artifacts without upgrading the lander. It took a little longer because some of the more volatile planets had the best minerals. Upgrading landers has been a convenience aspect for both the SC2 and StarFlight series of games, so I think it should still be there. I just think that it needs to be balanced out against the entire game for necessity vs convenience on the overall story.   

I always felt like losing a lander was just more encouragement to more closely study the hazards. They all had patterns to them, and even if they randomized the speeds, it became a matter of calculating the combinations and keeping one eye on where you wanted to go and one where you were. It's not hard, just takes practice.

Hmmmm... So I asked for clarification and I get armchair speculation. :/

The short answer is yes it is one of the areas we are focusing on.

From a Game Design perspective when you look at what the areas of the game that player is going to be doing most often, you want to make sure that those areas are fun and enjoyable.  One of the very repetitious parts that everyone did (and then stopped as soon as they didn't need to anymore because it was tedious) was search the galaxy for planets that had resources and mine them from the surface. This was something that was very much a grind that everyone had to go through. It had more negative events going to it than positive. Just driving around on a planet wasn't very fun. When you got the chance to go around the planet and shoot things it started to become fun. Then depending on the planet it just got harder which provided a risk/reward challenge but those negative elements that created the risks didn't necessarily make it more fun. One of the primary goals for us was to make just gathering resources with very little to no risk fun, create challenges that are fun to overcome, and have a path for the player to reduce risk but not at the cost of making a gameplay mechanic obsolete.

That all sounds great, Vaelzad, I would just point out that the number of landers you could carry was the primary thing creating a need to return to base.  Once you had more than 3 only fuel and crew required you to return to base.  The game feels more dynamic at the strategic level if there are at least 3 things that might require you to return to base.  So you must juggle multiple resources to maintain "loiter time", in other words stay operational in space without the need to return to base.  Losing this aspect in SCII once you had more than 3 landers was one of the things that made the game start to feel monotonous or like a grind towards the end.  That juggling act went away with the essentially unlimited landers you had available and then only fuel and crew would force you back to base.

You should try to always maintain at least 3 things, 5 would be even better (I like the number 5 in game design, it works well for so many things), during each phsae of the game.  What those things are might change over the course of the game, but always maintaining at least 3 different things that might force you back to base makes the strategic/exploration side of the game feel much more dynamic to the player.

Bingo. Glad to hear you recognized this issue with SC2. In my last SC2 playthrough all I did was exploring all the systems and gathering only Orange and Purple minerals that give 8 and 25 RU respectively (2 most expensive ones) ignoring hazardous planets completely and after I've gotten enough to fully upgrade my flagship I went onto the story. 

Thank you. That was a better summary of the direction than what was in the update. I guess we'll have to see how it comes out.

In SC2, I loved every second of it!  I explored and collected resources all the time.  I used to dream about planet landings.  Guess I shoulda been a space miner, and not a banker.