Ringed planets in NEXT?

I believe someone pointed this out in a waking titan discussion (I think in this one, but I can’t seem to find it anymore), but I figured I would post it here because I’m interested to see what other people think of this.

I noticed something in the ARG that (to me at least) points to ringed planets. If you put Arnaud’s ID in waking titan then you get the text:

“The asteroid field was thick, denser than any I’d seen before. The ice, the dirt, the metal fragments… My ship never stood a chance.”

As far as I know, ice, dirt and metal is the composition of most planetary rings.
Arnaud’s ID also converts from hex to “Cassini” which is a satellite who’s main mission was to study Saturn and it’s rings and moons. In it’s final phase it even took a dive between Saturn and it’s rings (and took really cool pictures).

This all seems to point to a possibility of planetary rings in the NEXT update, which would be pretty cool.
What do you think?

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I think it was me that mentioned that lol. When I seen that text on WT about the asteroid field, ringed planets was the first thing that came to my mind.

Sure we have asteroids in NMS but its clusters. Asteroid fields are a bit different. Usually they are a ring around a planet or even a circular belt in the gravitational pull of a solar system. And the composition sounded to me like a planetary ring.

I don’t like to speculate to much but the thought of ringed planets with a purpose like asteroid mining sounds like it would be an epic addition to NMS :smiley:

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It would be nice to transfer the “given asteroids around every planet” to “rings around some planets.” I would rather that the players have to hunt out ringed planets to gather space-resources than every planet have those resources. It makes planning/plotting more logical. It also creates situations where the rings will be a lot denser, contain moon-lets, spaces between to dodge enemy ships, etc. More variety = more fun.

TQQdles™

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Problem is they can’t take the risk to have players stuck in space with no resources.
Long distance flight resources have to be available everywhere less than 5 real time minutes away or the game would quickly become a nightmare.
What you suggest would work well for non-flight-needed resources though :slight_smile:

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Launching from certain locations already has places where the plutonium Launch Thrusters don’t use fuel; ie Trading Posts, some beacon points & freighters. Perhaps interactive asteroids would be the same.
Also, they introduced the ‘regeneration on a space station’ death, to ensure a player always has a secure restart point. (Even if penniless, a regenerated traveller can launch and go forage the basic isotopic requirements)
Is there even a need to exit the spacecraft if mining in asteroids or rings. Not really but it would be fun.
I hope they bring in a value or use for some of the mostly unused materials like Rubium and Amadium. Single quest use of a mineral type is somewhat under utilised.
I do hope they introduce rings for planets even if purely aesthetic.

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Wow, this is awesome! I’ve always dreamed and hoped gas giants would come to the game!

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Ringed worlds would be awesome but it’s mostly just something neat to look at rather than do anything with so not too fussed with whether they do it or not…whatever works, it’s fine. As for gas giants, no…just no. That would be a terrible idea…all it would essentially do would be replace a ton of perfectly fine planets to land on and explore with useless visual props you can’t do anything with…so gas giants have no reason or purpose to exist…rather than add anything to the game or simply not harm anything they would in fact detract a great deal from the game.

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But what if gas giants were rare and would have 3-5 moons? That way, it would be an interesting discovery and visual feature, but would also have playable area, by way of the moons.

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Ringed planets seemed to have been hinted in waking titan, so who knows. Not all ringed planets are gas giants, but let’s hope we get ringed planets, I’m sure they’d be unique in a way!

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Dude! I would love that. I’ve actually been wanting some dense asteroid belts with the hopes that mining rocks in space will have some added depth and have me spend some lovely hours just mining space rock. A dream come true:)

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I guess if we want to give rings to planets we really need to be married to the idea. :rofl:

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I hope we get ringed planets… & I’m also hoping we get a few more planet types like: swamp planets, abandonded civilisation planets, phosphor-luminous planets, passing comets & or other planetoids. Be great if there are some extra rare finds on those planets too.
The gas giants idea would be cool if it was littered with floating citadels (aka Cloud City in Star Wars).

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SM has repeatedly suggested that his initial inspiration for the look of the game came from the covers of old sci-fi novels; ringed planets are a staple of the old Asimov, Heinlein, Bova, Clarke, etc books. I am betting that SM wanted them in from day one but they couldn’t get them to work properly for game launch.

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It would be interesting to see how they’d work the rings since IRL the rings are asteroid belts but in NMS there are asteroids everywhere and their purpose is so we can mine Thamium9 to power our pulse engine without which we’re dead in space. Now if they clean up space and make asteroids mainly be found in the belts of ringed planets then how do they compensate if the players are dummies and run out of pulse engine fuel hours away from the nearest landing spot? They could eliminate the need of pulse engines to have fuel or maybe they could introduce a sort of SOS signal we could emit that would attract traders to buy from or pirates and if we trade or survive the fight we get Thamium9. They could also have the game prompt us with the question of whether we want to load our last save. On top of one or more of the above they could also greatly increase how long a full tank lasts for the Pulse Engine to make it less of a concern.

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Floating citadels would definitely be amazing and would make gas giants worth it…but before that I feel like they could expand on the space stations a bit since they feel too identical and too small right now.

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Agreed.
Space Stations and Freighters both need a bit of revamping. Perhaps we will be fortunate and all the large space structures will get an overhaul with some new stuff thrown in.

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Ringed planets work great on NMS… There have been mods that add them since a long time ago. Last version I installed, even has them made out of asteroids as you get near them. I use that, together with rotating atmosphere effects, and while maybe just eye-candy… It’s sweet to look at.

He doesn’t go into the rings to see their actual contents and asteroids are everywhere in space which makes the rings feel fake and artificial since what you’d likely see is not rings but spheres of asteroids encircling most planets.

Me, there? Well real ringed planets don’t actually have a ring around them… You can only see them from a distance. Contrary to popular belief, most of the time you would not be able to see the next asteroid when over one.

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I like the idea of rings that actually contain space debris like rocks and ice. I hope they do include more things in space to discover and explore like rings. heavy asteroid fields (like Empire) and gas giants with moon systems.

Derelict space stations, starship graveyards, space fauna and space weather/ anomalies would also be great things to flush out variety in space.

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