As a part of our focus on Starbound’s progression systems, we’re working towards making certain gameplay elements deeper. One such element is farming, which presently is fairly simple in practice, and doesn’t have a whole lot of benefits beyond cooking. My job for today has been to completely reassess all the values of our crops, in preparation for the changes we’re going to be making.

Right now I’ve divided the crops into four tiers. Each tier reflects the amount of time they require to grow, the price of the seeds, and the selling value of the harvested materials. For example, the bottom-tier Kiwi fruit seeds will cost 100 pixels each, take 15 (real-time) minutes to grow, and the fruit you get will sell for 300 pixels. By comparison, the top-tier Pearlpea seeds will be bought for around 1450 pixels each, take just under an hour to grow, and sell for about 6150. As you can see, there’s quite a big difference.

Each race has a native crop type in each tier, and the seeds will be something you can purchase from the merchants at the various outposts. How soon precisely you gain access to each seed type is still in discussion, particularly since we intend to make higher value crops require a bit more effort, while the bottom-tier crops grow with little to no maintenance.

This all ties in to our plan to allow the player numerous possible means of progressing. For players who want a more relaxed experience without being left in the dust, farming may be the way to go.

We’ll hopefully have more to say on this aspect of the game soon!