Planets are extraterrestrial, spherical, huge "rocks" which have a variety of features and inhabitants. In Starbound, these are worlds you can travel between in a Spaceship. Planets in Starbound are entirely procedurally generated and filled to the brim with unique content. Not only is the terrain of the planet procedurally generated, but also the weather, the gravity, the difficulty level, the plant life, the behavior and appearance of alien creatures, and much more. Some planets may house fossils.
Planet Location
Every planet has unique Coordinates in the navigation console. The procedural generation engine using a pseudorandom number generator with a static, common seed so the coordinates can be shared among others.
Planet Threat Level
The difficulty of a planet is displayed in the navigation menu as a Threat Level, which is influenced by the planet's environmental factors. The various threat levels are as follows:
- Low
- Moderate
- Risky
- Dangerous
- Extreme
- Inconceivable
- Unreal
- ??? (Unknown)
Planet Environment
- To see a list of planetary biomes, visit the Biomes page.
Each planet has an environment made up of a number of elements. The background, terrain type, plant type, weather, and temperature are called the biome of the planet. While biomes on different planets of the same type will have certain features in common, they will be unique in their combination of smaller elements through procedural generation.
Planets will have different ambient light depending the type of star they orbit and how close they are to said star. For example, if a planet is orbiting very close to a Red star, the planet will have a deep red ambient light.
Some planets require special equipment or tech to navigate, such as planets with lack of atmosphere or a radioactive surface.
Trivia
- The phrase 'mostly harmless' when looking at a planets threat level could be a reference to the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a Novel by Douglas Adams, in which the earth is described as being 'mostly harmless'.