Random material improvements

[L5108313]

Guidelines

• [X] I checked for duplicate suggestions
• [X] My suggestion intends to add or improve something

Version

Development (Unstable)

Topic

A game mechanic (e.g. a part, a feature, etc)

Why are you making your suggestion?

Right now, random materials have very little practical use. They are a cool concept, but they are most useful as giant explosives that i havnt actually seen anyone use.

What do you propose? What should change, or what should be added?

Random materials should be useful as fuel sources. Fuel sources that, very rarely, are better then standard materials. Flammable ones can be used in furnaces, and radioactive ones can be used in reactors. This will encourage exploration, and add real points of interest to the universe map.

[Hexcede]

I want to improve random mats quite a bit in general. A lot of interesting properties, effects, etc could be added to random mats in unstable that would result in a lot of legitimately useful stuff.

[Pextri]

I had the idea of random mats being changed as well, as they could both be improved for the sake of your supporter material perks, and to fill the niche of random mats serving a legitimate role in the gameplay of the game. I'm sure you have a bunch of ideas of your own but here's some things I compiled together:

Special attributes- Various special features random materials can have, they can be upsides or downsides, along with some attributes being rarer than others. Note that not all materials are guaranteed a special attribute. # of attributes gets exponentially rarer; Brittle- Prone to being destroyed from explosions Lightweight- Minus % weight Heavyweight- Plus % weight Heat sensitive- Prone to being destroyed easily from temperatures Heatsink- Higher % heat capacity Energy absorbing- less energy weapon dmg Shock absorber- less aoe dmg Organic (water/light based)- self healing-> comes at the cost of lower % strength Crystal- higher strength-> lower malleability Fissile- can be used as reactor fuel (longer lasting and more steam generation, appears as blue instead of green in reactor)

Catalysts- Certain events can trigger a reaction in a part, but not all parts are guaranteed to have a catalyst (1 catalyst max for a part); High temperatures Powered (randomized power usage) Explosions Signaled (activates catalyst for a few seconds) Physical contact (terrain ignored) (activates catalyst for a few seconds) Combusted Low temperatures Exposed to water (rain, part, or ocean)

Effects- outcomes of encountering a catalyst (1 effect max for a part); Emits light Shatters(breaks) heats(increases part temperature) freezes(decreases part temperature) Ignites Hardens (becomes stronger) Softens (becomes weaker) Detonation

[L5108313]

@Pextri special attributes are cool but i think attributes like "heavyweight" and "heatsink" should just be factored into the generation of normal properties. Otherwise i agree yea

[Pextri]

@L5108313 those tack onto existing stats of the part, (ex a part that would have been normally lighter weight can be debuffed and become heavy during its generation phase)

[iiCove]

Along with special attributes,

RNG materials could serve as a substitute in crafting recipes for random raw materials

(hydrogen, titanium, etc) If you're willing to go as far as ExoticMatter (though extremely rare), the planets with them could become super heavily defended fortresses which i think is cool