First look at new planets (Patreon)

To the left is a Water planet. It’s a pretty nice place to crash-land. There are abundant basic resources in a convenient balance to make a first base. Mining the core brings up a lot of water which isn't especially useful, but it has a lot of other resources mixed in with it, more than you’d expect to find on other planets. If you can secure the huge continent you land on then you’ll be safe from the natives. If you want to explore further, a boat or a large amount of landfill is recommended. A few mountains have a bit of snow or volcanic terrain. If you head a long way north or south then there’s a lot more frozen terrain near the poles.

To the right is a Cryonite planet. The surface is split between snowy plains, ice sheets, icebergs, open seas, and a few mountains (not implemented yet). Cryonite is mainly found near the coasts, but other resources are mainly near the mountains. The planet is very cold, so you’ll need to deal with that challenge too (not implemented yet). Cryonite planets are only found on the outer edges of solar systems. 

General progress with planets

I’ve been working on planets for quite a few months now. A lot of the early work was just experimenting with new systems for cliff, tiles & decoratives that glow in the night (like lava), new ways of generating terrain, and developing new terrain generation visualization tools.

None of the planets are close to finished and right now that’s not really the goal. The first draft is basically about blocking out the terrain, and most of that is just the elevation. 

I’m going to try to get all of the new planets to this first draft state so that I can get an overview of what other terrain systems and tilesets I need. I’ll need a new version of Alien Biomes and that’s no small task. It needs to be planned ‘really’ well to not be redone multiple times.  Additionally, it’s becoming clear that I’ll need much better tile assignment tools so I can do more with elevation without sacrificing natural variation.

The other benefit of having all the first-draft planets done is that they can act as a backdrop for testing the new production chains and planet-specific mechanics.

So far I have basic versions of: Water, Stone, Vulcanite, Cryonite, Iridium, and Vitamelange. There’s also half of a Uranium planet but it didn’t go well so I’m not including it in the list. I’ll be posting more images as I make progress.