Great game, but a few things suggested changes. Mineral Scanner, mining, and larger world.

from StarControl Forums

The game is fun as far as the space exploration, aliens, and the over all adventure goes.  But two things I wish was different and could be changed if at all possible.

1.  Make the planets twice or thrice as big.  It just feels too small, maybe double or triple the size.  Traveling around a small ball seems off.

2.  Bring back mining using mineral scanning.  It was part of the charm of Star Control 2 and Starflight.  Running around a small ball looking for minerals that just sits there waiting to be collected feels like playing Mario World.  Maybe have the mineral scanner show us where minerals are, then go over it with a lander and collect it.  I spent hours having fun trying to collect every single ounce of minerals in the old game.  And that feeling when you first upgrade that mineral scanner...

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Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

I disagree with the planets being too small.  I find mineral collecting already on the cusp of fun and annoying as it is.  If it takes me longer to explore each planet, I think it will distract me from the main story.

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Have you played SC2?  Just curious.  I guess some might find it annoying, I can see how.  I'm more of an exploration type of guy.  I spend hours on Mass Effect 2 mining planets and don't find it boring.  But that's just me and I'm probably weird like that.

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Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

If you played SC2, you're aware that SCO's resource collection is very similar.  They're just visualized differently due to it being 25 years later and it being a 3D interface.  

SCO already has an auto-scan and you pick up the materials much like you do in SC2 (There are only so many ways to implement the idea).

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Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

Yes, I played SC2.  Relax, no need to get angry.  I'm not some young whippersnapper, I played games from the 386 days.  Including the original Starflight, Star Control and Tie Fighter.

I'm just saying that I, personally, prefer the scanning and mining within the rover.  Not the Mario world style gameplay with minerals waiting to be picked up.  But if you think SC2/Starflight mineral collection is similar to Super Mario world, that's cool.  That's your opinion and entitled to it.  To me, in my opinion, they are vastly different.

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

Well more with world exploitation can be done.  I'd like to have all resources spawn on nodes, naturally very slowly so your initial amount has been accumulated over millennia (like the way they are now plus 1 / year after game starts).  And to get em to spawn faster you can build/deploy mine, which would make them pop out like 1 a week or something.

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Achillus, reply 4

Yes, I played SC2.  Relax, no need to get angry.  I'm not some young whippersnapper, I played games from the 386 days.  Including the original Starflight, Star Control and Tie Fighter.

I'm just saying that I, personally, prefer the scanning and mining within the rover.  Not the Mario world style gameplay with minerals waiting to be picked up.  But if you think SC2/Starflight mineral collection is similar to Super Mario world, that's cool.  That's your opinion and entitled to it.  To me, in my opinion, they are vastly different.

...they were waiting to be picked up in SC2.  With the main difference now being that the gasses are "floating" to be picked up.

 

And scanning was done via the ship in orbit in both games.

 

Basically, I'm just really confused where your complaint here is.  You want it to be more like SC2. and the only way it can get closer to SC2 is to be 2 dimensional.

Reply #7 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Achillus, reply 4

Yes, I played SC2.  Relax, no need to get angry.  I'm not some young whippersnapper, I played games from the 386 days.  Including the original Starflight, Star Control and Tie Fighter.

I'm just saying that I, personally, prefer the scanning and mining within the rover.  Not the Mario world style gameplay with minerals waiting to be picked up.  But if you think SC2/Starflight mineral collection is similar to Super Mario world, that's cool.  That's your opinion and entitled to it.  To me, in my opinion, they are vastly different.

 

I actually really like how faithful the SCO implementation of the SC2 experience is:

  1. Enter orbit, planet types observable by color of world.
  2. Check Tectonics/Weather to see how bad it might be to go down.  SCO actually one-ups this by actively displaying the world's surface to you.
  3. Conduct Scans from orbit, this is done automatically in SCO, saving you the navigation to Autoscan.
  4. Land and pickup mineral "orbs" in SCO these are shown as different symbols for the element, in SC2 they were just multi-colored orbs.

 

YouTube link directly to some scanning for memory jogging, scanning is is in the first 30 seconds, landing not long after: