So, as we are seeing, there is a strong possibility for us to reach 500k on KS (Since we are already on almost 472k). How should alternate planes work? Would we be able to go into them? Obviously I’m thinking THINGS can come out of it, but what can we do about them, since its a interesting game mechanic?
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Planes should be totally different than your standard territory. Just making an alien landscape with exotic monsters and materials would be boring in my book.
Instead, each plane should present its own challenge. (tall order I know 
)
Like:
Void plane
There is almost NOTHING there, just the portal suspended in nothingness and some star-like objects in the distance. To survive there you need to build roads to them, bringing light and supplies with you. As you reveal more of the map (with lights you reveal patches of land suspended in mid air), territory comes into being around you, but this disturbs the beings that live in the void… conflict insues.
If you manage to reach and collect enough stars, your wizards can make a small sun, that allows you to start growing food etc.
Trickster plane
Nothing is as it seems in this plane. Grow a pumpkin - it can randomy turn into a pumpkin monster - you need lots of guards. Tools and weapons randomly turn into something else - you need a constant supply of new tools. Terrain has it own will and can change shape at random… and so on.
I could imagine that this planes are acting as a source of higher quality or scarce resources… which of course are well guarded.
I like also the idea that this resources are not only well guarded, but also harder to reach. So you need to construct bridges (e.g. from one flying island to another), or dig your way through a large mountain. The “entrance” to the plane will have to be well guarded as frequent attacks try to “close” it again. If you are successful the efforts should be worth it, i.e. you will get some rare resources.
Instead of resources, I could also imagine that you could find one or the other “special character” in this planes. E.g. there might be a “Magma Plane” where you find the Magma Smith. In case you can free him (let us assume he is kept in prison ^^), he will join your party. For sure other, more cosmetic characters could also be rescued… including pets.
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my take on the alternate planes is pretty straight forward: as we progress in the game, we might unearth relics or other items that enable travel between the various planes (each plane perhaps requiring its own means of “entry”)…
however, our opening a doorway to this new plane opens up the potential for residents to come through to our side as well… 
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I hate to go to the default “it can be modded in” but I think alternate planes will open up a whole other level of moddability. Being able to add the sorts of realms you’re mentioning would be awesome - time consuming, but awesome nonetheless.
As for what these planes should consist of, I just don’t even know!
I mean you could have one’s that are ‘basic’ in terms of the gameplay is already there and perhaps bring across.
Building on what @SteveAdamo and @voxel_pirate have said, these planes could house specific races, characters, and resources.
An always winter plane would be pretty cool. - constant blizzards and glaciers are the norm, you’ll need your best explorers and your warmest clothes to survive. @Pepe’s [urlhttp://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/pepe-s-little-voxel-corner/203] Ice Djinn [/url] could be one of the foes awaiting you in the Winter plane.
Are we exploring these planes or settling in them? As I can see multiple settlement management becoming difficult across planes.
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Maybe just maybe there could be something like in between worlds, where we could enter a multiplayer area from a singleplayer map? That would be a wicked thing
Here is an idea for the
Magma plane
This world exists as a series of islands suspended on an endless sea of magma. The islands rise and sink in the sea at a very slow, but steady pace (they rise to a max height, then start to sink to under the level of lava, then rise again). This effectevly means you better not get too attached to that base you built, because the moment your island starts to sink (it should be very evident), you have only a couple of seasons (or years) to look for a nearby island that is rising, move all your people and supplies there and build a new base. (magma ships?, building bridges?)
Of course each island is full of elementals you need to ‘convince’ to let you settle there first. As long you’re able to increase your population/supplies with each move, you’re doing fine.
Your final destination should be a safe island that doesn’t move, but is heavily guarded… and maybe have the Magma Smith on it…
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I like the idea that planes should have different ‘rules’ than the standard Material/Prime/etc plane. A lot of the ideas listed above would great for this; the void plane, the magma plane, planes locked into an endless winter/summer/etc would all work. I’d also like if some of these rules didn’t emerge until you’d been in the plane awhile; a plane that look perfectly hospitable at first, only to have some once-every-10 years environmental phenomenon or monster emerge would be interesting.
-Will
as this was a pretty neat idea, I’m posting this on behalf of Conrad over on the KS comments:
A good idea for one of the Alt. Planes would be a realm where all your
desceesed villagers and monsters go. And depending on how the
villagers died they will either help you in that plane or be aggroed.
And any villager from your realm that’s not dead is 50%-75% less
effective.
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Nice, a plane that is an (un)living testament to your triumphs and your failures!
Let us consider first and foremost this image. It clearly states Ethereal Plane, Terrestrial plane (our plane in the game) and lower celestial plane. Are they considering angels, demons and aparitions? Since we are having an elemental faction to fight against, we might consider the elemental planes (Inner planes in D&D) with alignment planes for demons (Evil) and angel (good), while the ethereal planes would be inhabitated by which kind of beings?
The planes should focus a little on how minecraft did. Exotic materials to harvest and use in your terrestrial plane, or even special trainers (angels who would grant divine powers to a unit, such as a heal), all with a peculiar and beatiful voxelized scenery.
As for settlements on them, those would be much more difficult, needing resources from the terrestrial planes to sucessfully have a small outpost in those planes.
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Maybe we can have both.
What if planes worked like quest mods?
Once you find the portal (or develop the magic, or build the stargate… whatever works), you switch to a different world with different rules and a well defined challenge (in contrast to the main world sandbox mode). I don’t see playing both on the foreign plane and the main map working, as it would be difficult to divide your attention between two worlds, let alone several. Your main city is simply paused while you complete the world.
You start in the new world with a group of intrepid settlers (again) and some resources… maybe you can even choose what and who to bring with you before you head in. Want more weapons… you’ll have to leave some tools or food behind… and so on. It goes without saying that the planes should be a step or two above the normal difficulty of your main world.
Once the challenge is completed (which includes a variety of tasks, one of them building a sucessful colony), you return to the main world with whatever rewards you are able to win, and the portal becomes a rare resource generator, that gives a steady income of exotic materials in exchange for basic supplies (for your colony).
And nobody said the story should end there… from time to time you could be called to defend your colony with your army or have to supply some special resource or fight extra planar intruders that manage to slip trough.
As long that portal is active it can be a constant source of trouble (and rewards)
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This idea is so cool I don’t even have the words to describe it.
-Will
BTW, considering Kickstarter and Paypal, we already reached US$ 500.000. Huzzah!
I’d like the elemental planes. 
But I’d also like maybe a plane which is a giant maze or multi level maze.
Also maybe the Abyss which just keeps going down and down and down and down and down…
One thing we must also consider. This, without any mods, is going to support the idea of an adventuring party, where you’ll control one member of a 5 party group for instance? If so (I’m considering the game concepts and stuff), we could, at least safely assume a few adventuring realms in those planes.
What a great thread and great ideas! Got to throw in my lot!
Plane of the Beasts
A plane that is empty of life or creatures. There are resources everywhere and running water and sunlight and you can build your town peacefully without a single care in the world (minus hunting). However: there are 6 immensely powerful titans that live in it. None will attack you or your settlement but you can’t escape the plane until they’re defeated.
So rather than build a town (food is scarce, defences are unnecessary) you focus on building an army, planning your resources, finding the titans and taking them out one by one (taking time between battles to rebuild, re-equip and restock your troops). Inspiration: Shadow of the Colossus, of course
Wide World Plane
A plan where you and your folk are exceptionally tiny. Your entire world is inside a garden and a puddle looks like a lake. Insects are beasts, normal creatures become titans, branches and twigs supply your wood and resources are plentiful but so are the dangers! You could even venture with your little army into a full sized human house, climbing around furniture to get more resources before the humans discover you!
The Toxic World Plane
A plane where it rains forever, without delay or breaks and the rain is poisonous. Standing in it for 5 min is okay but it drains your stamina. Up to 10 minutes will cause HP damage. After that and you’re looking at status problems and disease. 15 min and you’re dead.
You need to build your town from the inside out, making sure everyone is warm and protected and roofed. Building into walls, tunnels to move between buildings, special equipment from head to toe for anyone venturing out far into the wilderness to hunt. Game and food is plentiful but the world is very dangerous. Kind of like inhabiting a new planet where you can’t trust the atmosphere but need to establish a colony from the inside out.
The Kingdom of Towers
A world that is so densely populated and flourishing with people and factions and buildings that to find a spot to build ANYTHING is next to impossible. You’re settlers must either steal a spot (without having the wrath of one of the many kingdoms come down and annihilate you), buy one, or stay in inns and travel until they can find one somewhere.
Once they do, space and resources are very limited (you will have to buy and trade for nearly everything) so if you can’t build OUT, then build UP. Hence, why the plane is covered in towers. Dedicate a different floor to a different task (bottom floor as a shop, second floor for Inn, third floor for blacksmithing, fourth for soldiers and guards to store things, fifth for beds and rooms for your inhabitants, etc etc).
Once you build enough of an economy, time to start branching out and slowly (surely) begin to take over and battle the kingdoms fro supremacy!
Goal Achieved it was a crazy day today. Some of you have great ideas btw.
If planes are treated as different realities, even small rule changes can throw off your “standard play”.
-
“Thick
atmosphere”,
leading to greatly reduced range for your ranged units. -
Low / High
Gravity.
Low gravity increases the range of ranged weapons and increases carrying capacity. (if there is such a feature) -
Plane of
Stone.
Consists of only “hard” materials. You can not find any dirt or mud. There are only granite, iron, and so on.
All non-blunt weapons are at 1/2 effectivity. (no such difference on the regular plane) -
Strong magic / weak
magic.
As it says on the tin. -
Plane of
Life.
All living units heal rapidly. The AI would have to be smarter than your average RTS kamikaze units or this would be 100% player-only bonus because it favours skirmishing. -
Plane of
Death.
Ouch. Every living creature constantly loses hit points. Every thing that dies here rises as an undead - under AI control.
Losing “only a few” units in a battle can quickly snowball into a zombie apocalypse.
Necromancers who control undead might like this place. Everyone else is likely to rely on an above-average complement of healers.
Also, you cannot grow food or animals here. Gotta import.
So why would you want to go to this hellish place?
It’s a “rich” plane in every other regard because there is no one alive to exploit it. -
Plane of
Dust.
All buildings and mechanical units degrade rapidly.
I would expect nomadic units and more than your usual amount of wild beasts - because there is no advanced civilisation to take them out. -
Meteor
Showers.
Random spots on this plane are hit with meteor impacts. Build with redundancy. Build with redundancy. =) -
Plane of
Growth.
All plants grow quickly and spread… but they change a bit.
Some become poisonous to eat or emit poisonous pollen. Trees constantly damage nearby buildings.
You will constantly be “beating back the jungle”.
Farming would soar - if you can uhh… garrison your fields. -
High surface
tension.
Everything can walk on water - you just can’t build there. -
Plane of
Storms.
Wind direction slowly and randomly changes over time. Movement with the wind is +50%, in any other direction it’s halved.
Sailing ships take random hits of damage.
Ranged weapons are useless. -
Plane of
Change. (aka Plane of Driving The Player Mad)
Things have a disturbing tendency of… changing at regular intervals. Maybe at midnight.
A cow turns into a deer, a hammer into a mining pick, a house into a ship, a river into a lava river.
Sometimes it’s little things, sometimes… not so. -
Moving
Gates.
On this world, all the “gates”, that connect to another plane, slowly move around. Makes it harder to connect to a certain spot on this plane. -
Plane of
Darkness. (Pitch Black)
At night Creepy Crawlies come out of the ground and attack everything… edible.
Light keeps them at bay. -
Plane of Titans.
Every unit slowly grows.
If you can survive for a while (and manage to hold the gate =) you get your own mini-titan units.
Entering this place with normal (small) units is probably nor survivable but hey - eat or get eaten… by a titanic cockroach. =) -
Plane of
Sloth.
Unlike in your regular RPG / RTS, your units don’t just learn-by-doing.
The learning parts hits diminishing returns but there’s a constant decay of efficiency at any job. People grow bored of their job and once the job skill improvement slows down, they eventually fall into lethargy.
You have to shuffle them to new jobs, training them all over again. -
Plane of
Rain / Mud.
Regular (but local) rains turn areas into mud. That’s great for your farming projects but all units move through mud at half speed.
Large buildings can be damaged by having their foundations suddenly rest on mud. -
Plane of
Deserts - the opposite.
Rivers dry up more quickly and irrigation is less effective than normal.
Regular sand storms reduce visibility to about nothing and reduce the stamina (if there is such a feature) of all units that are outside. -
Water
world.
There is zero land here. If you send a unit there that cannot swim, it drowns. Simple.
You would need a geomancer or something like that to create any land.
The prolific sea-dwellers (like the tentacle (that is all you ever see of it)) would not take kindly to that. Neither would Kevin Costner. -
Burning
Equator.
There is an “equator” region where the sun is strangely amplified. As the season changes, this region moves north-south on the plane, leaving out only the relatively barren “polar” regions.
The player might be happy about finding such an unsettled and fertile plane (hey, ashes can make good fertiliser!) and start building a settlement. For a while. -
Gateway
Plane.
When contact is made to this plane, nothing special happens. Once more than one plane is connected to it, units and buildings from one plane are rarely transported to any other connected plane. -
Hollow
Plane.
The surface of this plane is only 1 “block” thick. A unit that digs through it… falls through.
Blocks that have no connection to the map borders also fall into this void. -
Underground
Plane.
There is no surface. Digging is the only way to “move” anywhere. You can find caves or cave systems where other beings live.
If it’s only the rules that change, world generation can remain as-is and still produce greatly differing gameplay.
Creating all-new assets for every kind of plane costs a lot of money… (that’s reality for yas =)
A specific rule change is coded once and works with all future asset additions.
Setting foot into a new plane should be scary. Sometimes maddening. You just can’t know what’s going to happen.
Why shouldn’t the denizens of other planes try to take over yours?
Of course, they might find your plane just as disconcerting as you would find theirs…
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I like the idea of different rules for planes. I think that its important that these rules shouldn’t necessarily make the game harder, but should change the play style. An example would be a “Life” plane (totally stealing this from D&D), where your minions have more health and are stronger, but animals are bigger, plants grow fast/encroach/are sentient, and the elements are more powerful. Alternatively, a fire/volcanic elemental plane could be rich in materials and require no fuel for forging equipment, but kill characters who don’t have proper protection or spells.
That said, yeah, we don’t want to make these places too complicated. I don’t think the devs have time to write an entire new game for every plane 