Gleam colour rarity seems to be a problem for a lot of people. And I think it’s also combined with the idea of having to wait and unknown amount of time until their desired colour of gleam becomes available. And I personally don’t think sovereign worlds should be the answer to that.
How about combining gleam? Example: combine 1 Red gleam and 1 Blue gleam in a machine to get 1 Purple gleam? Combine that 1 Purple gleam with 1 White gleam to get 1 Light Purple gleam.
Why I think this will be a good idea:
it will open up new colours of gleam in the know universe instantly
when a new colour of gleam shows itself on a planet, multiple colours will be “unlocked” because you could combine that new gleam with old gleam to make some different new gleam
could add to economy, people opening shops specialising in the gleam you can only get from combining. Prices will be higher for gleam that requires more combinations
let’s not beat around the bush, black gleam is the one we want, just make it so if you combine a bunch of colours you end up getting black gleam after “x” amount of combines?
This will maintain black gleams value (as it will be the most expensive to get hold of) but it won’t be blown out of proportion and require the community to charge 5k+ per block
(If you wanted to add some RNG to it because this is Boundless after all, there could be a small % when combining gleam that you get a random colour. Also depending of how ‘light’ the gleam is your combining, it could take more combinations to end up with black gleam)
I think the premise here is flawed. Most people don’t actually want black gleam. They want the best version of transparent glass that they can access, which happens to be accessible through black gleam. If that wasn’t an ingredient, very few people would care. A better solution to that desire would be a solution to peoples transparent block requirement.
That being said (and so taking points 4 & 5 off the table, because they become irrelevant), I think it’s a great idea. In fact, I don’t think it needs to be limited to Gleam either. It could just be a machine that you put two stacks of different colours of the same material in, and get two stacks of that material of their combined colour value.
You could even extend it to allow adding of sprays as an additional item to further alter the colour produced (or even just use it as a way to mass colour blocks in one go). There’s a lot of potential, especially if it applies to all blocks equally and not just a small subset like spraying currently does.
I really like the idea, it’s the first solution I’ve seen that isn’t just ‘make it available to everyone’
And as you say it would open up new opportunities for shops like when they introduced sprays.
Making it so that combining the gleam yields less than you use to craft means it won’t just be abused and the market flooded with cheap new colours, but it would allow a trickle of the sought after colours into the market for higher prices
this is absolutely true. . the players that want to put their black gleam on a stand so they can look at it and feel some sense of accomplishment can do that and the players that want a decent chiselable glass can have what they want. Non-colored glass should not be rare.
Sprays would probably need to get increased durability to remain viable (which I advocate for anyway) - 50 or 100 sprays per can IMO. And I agree, this machine should be able to apply sprays too
Ability to put in as many blocks as you want in the fusion machine. That way there could be complex guides online as to which 17 block colors are needed to get your desired color etc.
Yeah, I did wonder about suggesting that. So if you were to add 1 red block and 2 blue ones, you’d end up with 3 blocks who’s colour was a shade made from 2:1mix (I guess it would be a blue-purple colour).
My only concern would be that sometimes, more complicated isn’t always better, and even the best ideas get mired in logical bloat. I think it’d be safer to start small (so requiring a 1:1 input ratio), and then if it’s popular work on an update to the machine (or an upgraded version of it) that can handle non-equal quantities.
Well with my idea you’d get 1 gleam block which was a mixture of 2 blue and 1 red. As I think if you just combine colours and don’t get a reduced output, I think that would make colour rarity completely non existent (and just turn getting gleam colours into ‘x amount of clicks’, which is something the devs obviously want, and it makes sense to a certain degree. Just not what its at atm
Quintessential Item Refinement
Using the refinery and a new Exo material, available on all Exo types, it is now possible to acquire a Quintessential version of any block. This new block type cannot be placed, but can be used in the Recombinator.
Chromatic Recombination
Using up to three blocks of gleam, their colors can be recombined and cast onto any quintessential block. This process consumes the gleam and the quintessential block in exchange for a single colored version of that quintessential block.
Since it is possible to acquire quintessential gleam, it is possible to combine colors multiple times to work toward more specific goals.
Though… it occurs to me that this is just a machine-based version of what goo farming should be (based on what I’ve read; I’m too new to have tried it myself). Maybe just expanding goo farming to be a) sustainable, and b) apply to all block types would be the answer to this problem.
Not at all. At the very least, exotic (a term I’m going to use for colours not found naturally in the universe) colours of materials will require specific pairings of two other colours to exist naturally, and for you to traverse the world to multiple locations (instead of regen farming a single spot) to acquire the raw materials, as well as a processing step in between to convert those to the exotic colour you’re intent on collecting (and while I personally detest crafting timers, nobody said this process would happen without a timer, or wouldn’t cost spark to achieve). That instantly makes exotic colours harder to acquire and so respects the notion of colour rarity, just not to the severity that it exists today.
As likely as not though (given the current live universe colour options) the specific pairing isn’t going to exist, so you’re then be using a process of knowledge and in-game experience to work out what colours you’ll need from the colours that are available in order to merge your way to the colour that you do want.
I see allowing cost-free combining of material colours to be something that opens more doors for colour economy than it closes. People could actually run a material store that has all the colours available in decent quantities, and if they don’t have enough… they can work to have make it for you using their experience and back stock of other colours to mix with.
I respectfully disagree. The more these conversations have gone on, the more I get the impression that colour rarity exists ‘because some other feature would lose value’, not because it is intrinsically a good thing for the game. A lot of the reason that it exists seems to be because their is no other mechanic to hand out medals and rewards so that the people who need raw hours-invested, luck or serendipitous timing to validate their gameplay preferences have something to show off.