What’s gleambow?
Gleambows are special meteors consisting of varying block types in all kinds of colors. They always contain gleam blocks and to finish them off you need to mine all contained gleam blocks within a certain time. (hence the name gleambow)
Not finishing a gleambow meteor in time results in having it turned into plain stone if I remember correctly.
Mobs spawned from gleambow meteors levitate you into the air and drop you down trying to kill you with the fall damage and to keep you away from the gleambow meteor.
If Gleambows spawn during the gleambow event their mobs will drop gleambow sacs. Those allow you to craft a consumable totem item to manually spawn gleambows.
Mobs of gleambows which got spawned manually don’t drop gleambow sacs tho so you need to stock up on them during the event.
a bit hard to tell about color rarity in general, why? becouse for every player - rarity lack of his fav colors, i love azures - scouting every new sov looking for azures 
to get my fav night azure gleam i asked for sov color change also azure trunks, foliage and rocks
i think for most - rarity mean colors never appeared ion exos, still there are bunch od colors locked for particullar blocks - where is white ancient? where is white mud? white tangle? white thorns? white roosetta nox? white sand? white ash? white lustrous? white igne? do they be locked forever? do 1 of them will be unlocked after releasing 1 000 000 th sov?
Personally as a builder, I hate color rarity. The lack of certain colors (whites in particular) has a direct impact on my ability to build what I want. Forget waiting for exo’s or spraying blocks. Waiting for an exo means what? I hold plots and wait for maybe years for the color to show, that just leads players to do something else in a game that does not restrict creativity through an artificial game mechanic (planet color algorithms). As far as spraying blocks, for one project a guild mate was planning we determined it would take over two years to create the blocks, and enough sprays to paint them. Instead of waiting the project was reclaimed and the player has not played the game after that. In all fairness this was not the only reason, but it was a major factor.
If building is going to be a major part of this game then color rarity needs to be removed. It is not a necessary mechanic for the economy to function. In fact, by discouraging some builders it probably costs the economy players that might be willing to buy tools and blocks if they could get the colors they wanted in the volume they require.
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I can’t help but think that had there been active development we may have seen things to make the rarity less…painful…more gleambow events…more this or that…but since we are on hold and likely will be for 6-12 months, it may be wise to just…unlock it all and find another mechanic they can torture us with 
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Gleambow does not solve the problem if you need thousands and thousands of a particular color or colors that are never going to spawn on a sovereign due to planet color algorithms put in place by the old development team to make planets look a certain way and as a result exclude colors from ever happening. If we were talking about a single shade of red outside of the 20 other possible reds it might be one thing, but we are talking about a basic color when it is white. That is a problem in my opinion, created by an unnecessary algorithm used for both permanent and sovereign planets.
The intent of the algorithm was to prevent “ugly” color palettes on planets and create some similarities between planets of similar type. While I can understand this to a certain degree with public planets, sovereign planet owners have the ability to change the colors on a planet anyway so why restrict the colors that might spawn? Make it equally likely that any color can spawn or just allow sovereign planets the option to pick any color. You increase the range of colors stores can stock by doing this.
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Here in lies the same issue we always go back to. Is Boundless just a building sim? Is it an MMORPG? Is it an RPG? Is it a survival game?
If it was ONLY a building sim … then sure remove color rarity, remove the economy, remove crafting timers… sadly the game is NOT just a building sim.
An argument can be made that color rarity while not a necessary mechanic for the economy to function, it is however a good money maker and benefits the economy. Do you want white rock? White Gravel? White Sand? let me know I have a ton I can sell you. Point with that being I have the supply and there is demand for it. Same can be said for sprays. The only caveat for me are the items you cannot paint.
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According to the website it is a sandbox MMO and has never been an RPG. As a sandbox, I would argue color rarity works against this concept. As a game with an economy, I can agree that you can make an argument for color rarity, but I still think if building is the basic concept of the game and the driver for most items sold in the economy, I think that would win the argument. As we have discussed in the past, it is probably part of the “what is this game trying to be issue”.
As I have said in the past. I am not against the developers introducing trophies or other items that are rare and can be sold. If you want meteors to have chance on dropping a rare item in order to have rare items to sell or posses then this offers a way without artificially stifling creativity through the use of color.
As far as your offer on selling me white items, I appreciate the offer, but I made a decision to just not build in the public universe for the time being. I will wait and see what Monumental does with the game before building or engaging in the economy again in the public universe.
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I think rarity is a good thing - as it’s a feature in most games. It helps make it a “game”. I don’t think basic building blocks should be rare. Things that should be rare are trophies that you earn or find that you can collect in your base and maybe fun cosmetic brews that allow you temporary flight or something like that (I just read your last paragraph after typing this lol).
Boundless isn’t an RPG, but it does have a lot of mechanics that are fundamental to them. Since it has rare/locked colors, materials that can only be obtained if your character has certain skills and go to certain planets, building abilities that are locked behind skills that have to be obtained, MMO economy, etc…that takes away from the sandbox and lends more towards an MMORPG imo.
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This is exactly my issue with Boundless. It does say Sandbox MMO. Of course “Sandbox” and “MMO” are open for interpretation.
Sandbox Game from Wikipedia:
A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides the player a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or alternatively with a goal that the player sets for themselves. Such games may lack any objective and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys.
MMO Also from Wikipedia:
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server.
Both of these definitions are great, but also the base of many of the complaints. Take this: “usually without any predetermined goal, or alternatively with a goal that the player sets for themselves”.
Consider how many people say they wish the game had more to do. Well as many have stated it is up to the players to create goals for themselves. So we have a game by definition that is a lot of people playing a game with no end goal, except goals the players set for themselves.
Back to the OP, color rarity doesn’t fit in at all in a sandbox building game in my eyes where I fully agree it hurts builders and even myself whom isn’t a great builder but I love the color Red which is one of the rarest colors of gleam, at least for me to get.
All in all, I love the color rarity but at some point after two years I was hoping to have a lot more than one smart stack of red gleam.
An argument can once again be had though that Boundless while touted as a Sandbox MMO is also a SandBox MMO with a good number of RPG elements.
I remember the glyph blocks we had in early access. They were rare and I had two I think that were given to me by other players. I was looking for a picture of one, but could not find it on my pc.
That was, in my opinion a perfect example of a rare block, you could use it to build. but it was not limiting to what you could build. I had mine as a display in a build.
EDIT: found a picture
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We should be able to paint gleam …sigh
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Increase spray output 10 times with same input then sprays can cost like 5c. That way they are much more available and affordable and there is still an incentive to collect the raw blocks.
Also allow the spray tinter to paint everything except gleam. It is special as it glows and the base for color production.
This would remove most color restrictions as a 1 hour mining trip yields enough to buy 10k+ paints then.
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@Tiggs @monty1 How about an awesome Gleambow event for the holidays? Some players haven’t experienced one - and/or a color-cycling Exo 
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Quoting myself here. Allowing painting of gleam would still allow sprays to sell well and the value of exos are still there as I seldom go to an Exo specifically for gleam, but I do go there for goo for sprays.
It’s an option I suppose.
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We should be able to paint everything. I also think the numbers on goo sustain farming might need tweaking. Either that, or goo should spawn everywhere instead of just on exos.
Wasn’t there something in the update that was supposed to change the sprays to last longer? That might help as well.
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I believe the amount of sprays from pigment was increased in the update IIRC
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Wasn’t painting natural resources part of the big update? I know the paint amount was suppose to be increased.
I want those melee weapons and shields (and the expanded skill page) 
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Exos are still the only source of other materials also like blink and resin. So I do not think painting gleam would have a detrimental affect on Exos or on the economy.
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YES PLEASE
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