Belter Dungeons
The Belter Dungeons mod adds the framework necessary to spawn major dungeons into asteroid belts. Care was taken to ensure that these asteroid belt dungeons work as similarly as possible to the major dungeons that spawn on terrestrial planets, including:
- multi-part dungeon generation;
- deterministic pseudo-random generation, allowing players with the same mod sets to share coordinates;
- difficulty that scales with the star system in which the asteroid belt resides;
- randomly generated space quests with quest locations in the new dungeons;
- quest location objects to allow players to enable quest generation in their own bases.
For the initial release of this mod, the dungeons included will be enhanced variations of most of the space encounters in the base game. I plan to extend this mod by adding packs of original asteroid belt dungeons over time, but also hope that other mod authors will be inspired to do likewise.
As always, making a backup of your game’s storage folder is strongly recommended before installing this (or any other) mod.
After this mod has been installed, the first time (and only the first time) that the first player deploys into each asteroid belt, a set of dungeons will spawn into that belt at pseudo-random locations. This means that any bases you’ve already built in asteroid belts could be overwritten the first time you visit them after installing this mod. If you have already built bases in one or more asteroid belts, it is strongly recommended that before you install this mod, first install the No Belter Dungeons mod and visit each of your asteroid belt bases briefly, which will protect those bases from the dungeon generation in this mod. After doing this, you must uninstall the No Belter Dungeons mod and install this mod.
After this mod has been installed, the first time (and only the first time) that the first player deploys into each asteroid belt, a set of dungeons will spawn into that belt at pseudo-random locations. The set of dungeons currently includes:
- Abandoned Peacekeeper station
- Abandoned USCM base (rare)
- Abandoned USCM flagship (rare)
- Abandoned USCM ship
- Ancient ruins
- Arcade
- Astrofae haven
- Bandit hideout
- Base ruins
- Destroyed ship wreckage (often including a pirate ship)
- Diner
- Escape pods
- Gang safe-houses (including a rare gang lair)
- Hotel
- Letheia branch office
- Merchant bases
- Miniknog base
- Mining asteroids (including refineries)
- Mining camp
- Novakid saloon
- Office tower
- Poptop farm
- Produce garden
- Space shelters and camps
- Storage depots
- Zoological ark
In addition, many of these dungeons have a chance to spawn with a friendly or hostile ship nearby, including astro and industrial merchants, penguins, researchers, pirates, and cultists.
Friendly NPCs that spawn within asteroid belt dungeons will offer some space-exclusive quests, further increasing the liveliness of the belts.
Veterans of Starbound will recognize that the list of asteroid belt dungeons consists of the NPC ships and most of the anomalous space encounters from the base game (including two that were in the base game but not enabled). These are not exact replicas, but have been edited and enhanced to work well in player-controlled environments. I was intrigued by the space encounters in the base game, but annoyed that they were all ephemeral and could not be colonized or expanded by players. This deficiency is now corrected by this mod.
Eagle-eyed players may also note that among the enhancements built into the Belter Dungeons versions of the space encounters are many objects and items that exist in the game assets but are not enabled in the game. These dungeons present players with the opportunity to scan and collect these objects without resorting to admin commands.
Note that although this mod provides dungeons that are enhanced variations of base game NPC ships and anomalies, it is not intended to replace them entirely. Not all anomalies have been replicated as asteroid belt dungeons, and certain items, such as space weapons and mech blueprints, are far more likely to spawn into space encounters than in asteroid belt dungeons, so players progressing through the game still have reason to explore those encounters.
Each asteroid belt randomly generates 0, 1, or 2 dungeons. Clever players will learn to pay attention to SAIL’s radio message upon first deploying to an asteroid belt to determine whether that belt is worth searching.
As to search strategies, asteroid belts are huge expanses of mostly empty space and rock, devoid of identifying features and notoriously difficult to search. The simplest strategy is to stay near the Y-axis midpoint of the belt (which is roughly where the mech initially deploys) and circumnavigate the belt. If an asteroid belt dungeon with an active mech beacon exists within 3000 blocks of the mech, a small amber arrow on the mech’s HUD will point in its direction. Exploring belts in this way will take a lot of time.
(Hint: Read about navigating asteroid belts on the wiki. Belts are 16000 blocks wide, and any landing beacons spawned by this mod should be not much more than 1500 blocks from the Y-axis midpoint of the asteroid belt. You can use geometry to figure out the smallest number of deployments you’ll need to make around a belt to find all possible landing beacons in it.)
Because asteroid belts are huge, it is strongly recommended that players bring certain supplies to help them return to any discovered dungeons. Among these supplies are flags or teleporters, which allow return directly to dungeons, and mech platforms, which allow a player to summon a mech to navigate the expanse outside the dungeon. Many asteroid belt dungeons are shielded, so the player may have to search a dungeon and find a shield switch before these objects can be placed.
All asteroid belts in the Starbound base game have a threat level of 1. To ensure a challenging and fair experience, asteroid belt dungeons (and the monsters, NPCs, treasure, and quest rewards within them) spawn using the threat level of the star system in which they exist, using the same mapping as space encounters. As such, asteroid belt dungeons in gentle or temperate star systems will have tier 3, those in radioactive star systems will have tier 4, in frozen star systems tier 5, and in fiery star systems tier 6. Some dungeons have a minimum threat level, and will only spawn in star systems that have a tier at least that high.
Mech Overhaul – This mod overhauls how mechs work, most importantly adding mech fuel and in-flight refueling, which allows for longer mech deployments. This makes exploring asteroid belts, which are much larger than planets or space encounters, easier.
Emergency Teleporter
Field Control Technology
