Player Housing
From Unofficial Stars Reach Wiki
Player Housing
In Stars Reach, players have extensive freedom to build homes, settlements, and even full-fledged cities—whether on a planet’s surface or out in space. While many modern survival games let you construct bases with friends, the twist here is that your settlement exists in a vast, interconnected MMO environment, with real economic ties to other locations.
Housing Q&A from the /r/MMORPG AMA
Reddit user “newbloodtaste” asked several questions about player housing during a /r/MMORPG AMA featuring Raph Koster:
What Makes Cities Unique in Stars Reach?
- Question
- “If I can already build a village in a survival game, why do the same here?”
- Answer
- “Your village in your survival game isn't tied into a large-scale economy with all the other villages. It doesn't have unique goods and resources that other villages can’t provide. Your village probably has substantially the same environment, too.”
Settlement Differentiation
- Question
- “What will be unique about building settlements?”
- Answer
- “We aren't trying to reinvent everything. In fact, we make a point of not doing so. A LOT of this game is pulling in ‘greatest hits’ from lots of games and putting them in this MMO context.”
Placement Rules
- Question
- “Can we build a city anywhere?”
- Answer
- “Yes, you can build anywhere. That includes out in space.”
Planet Ownership
- Question
- “Do we need to own the planet? Can other people move in near us?”
- Answer
- “We'll talk more about how the rules around governing planets will work eventually, but not yet.”
City Size and Planet Scale
- Question
- “How big can they be?”
- Answer
- “Right now, planets are aimed at being a few kilometers on a side. The Servitors have placed a force field bubble around the area they are letting humans settle, in order to preserve the planetary ecologies. From a gameplay point of view, we feel that more but smaller areas let us:
- Provide greater variation
- Cluster players more
- Offer clean dividing lines between rulesets from player governments (taxes, PvP systems, etc.)”
Ties to the Broader Game
- Economy Integration: Building and maintaining a settlement means tapping into local and interplanetary markets for resources, trade goods, and workforce needs.
- Government & Governance: See Government for how planetary ownership, taxes, and rule sets can affect who builds where—and who can move in.
- Social Gameplay: Cities naturally cluster players, driving social interaction, cooperation, and possibly conflict if PvP is enabled on that planet.
