There's this idea that's come up a few times about an on-planet map. Instead of being stationed on Space Station 13, it'd be on a normal planet terrain. To keep players from wandering off, ideally there'd be harsh alien life and dangerous terrain on the outskirts of the main base area.
I figure it would look a lot like this:
It would ideally look in-game more like that one snowy away mission, where the different "outposts" (which would serve as different departments) are all separated. Most of the outdoors would effectively be the like station's hallways, only larger and less populated.
Functionally, actual station equipment would work pretty much the same as on-station. You'd still have all the departments and all their gear. Blowing up tiles would reveal craters instead of space, which wouldn't suck you in but are highly hazardous (we could make them instakill you like on lavaland, but that might be too strong). Wiring would be mostly laid out outside, and each department might have to get their own SMES to prevent sabotage from being too simple. The mining shuttle, the emergency shuttle, and escape pods would all work basically the same way: The mining shuttle would take you to a nearby moon/asteroid, and the pods and emergency shuttle would just take you off the planet to a nearby Centcomm outpost.
The outskirts would be very difficult to inhabit and their lethality would be much like space is to the space station, in that going out there is practically a death sentence (and is very good for hiding corpses). It would be a wilderness setting, although since it's an alien planet we'd be able to take some artistic license with it. Deeper parts of the forest could have chasms that instakill you if you accidentally fall into them (like on lavaland). I imagine we could try to employ Remie's random generator system so they're not always the same. We could also employ hostile mobs that attack people who go too deep into the trees (again, like lavaland). Inhabiting the wilderness isn't impossible, but it is difficult (just like making space autism forts in space). Trees can be cut down and wildlife can be killed. We could also have bridges for crossing chasms (and they could be made of wood, to give it more use).
Since we're on a planet, we can also have new systems and random events. Weather would be a big one, with a night/day cycle that makes the outdoors difficult to traverse at night (and enrages the wildlife in the outskirts...). Hard rain that freezes people (and cleans off bloody clothes), hail that injures people and damages wires. More severe random events like earthquakes could also be implemented (for example, earthquakes could make the screen shake (like meteors), occasionally damage wiring, and cause people to trip and take damage if they're not near a wall). Wildlife attacks could also be another theme. A roofing system could be useful, but that can be a discussion for another time (perhaps we could use the system that making bases with the blueprints uses, in that if the base is atmospherically safe and sealed on all sides, it automatically gets a roof).
Ideally we could throw this into map rotation. Space z-levels might have to be overridden and replaced with generated forest levels. The jarring change in scenery could be very interesting for the game, and could allow for lots of new features (such as the colonization aspect that is practically absent on the Space Station).
Is it feasible? Can it be done? Should it be done? What are your thoughts?
