Farming Concept

Imagine delving into a dark dungeon. After destroying many many enemies, you find a chest full of loot! Nothing out of the extraordinary though.
500 credits, some charges for your rifle, but wait, what's that? An Ancient Seed?

FARMING!

Imagine having to tend your crops in an early survival game. Having to water them in the hopes of you not starving!

"This rare seed came from a system where the host star is a blue giant. I probably need a blue light for it!"
"This rare seed requires certain soil conditions, I'd better grab some of that purple turf from Zeta Reticuli III!"

or maybe if we get pressurization in our ships and stations..

"This plant won't survive in this atmosphere. I need to create a special one for it" and then have to actually build a habitat for it!

I actually like many aspects of this. First, you have to collect the seeds you need. Maybe there could be standard grain you can buy from stations but the more exotic plants, you'll have to discover on various planets. Either way, i like the aspect of having to discover some of the seeds, and in a multiplayer economy, those seeds become a rare commodity.

Also, farming in general is a nice layer to the game, people can build ships and stations specifically for this purpose.

Actually, this brings to mind some ideas for procedural generation. there could be a system that generates a new set of plants for each planet, Some eatable, some not, some shrubs, some trees. They could be pulled from a few dozen modular sprites or models, and the color picked according to properties of the planet. then stats like, the nutritional value, the seed drop rate, the fruit drop rate, growth rate, required sun/water, etc. can be calculated based on the rarity. Maybe you can break down the plants to get carbon or silicone depending on the chemistry of the planet.

This idea is an amazing concept but unless their is some sort of hydroponics farm incorporated into the game it wouldnt work the player would starve so often that this idea would not work unless the player spawned in an envirment where food is plentiful or can craft food from very basic resources and just not have it give them much increase on their hunger level

Also hydroponics farms could have things like pressure sunlight and soil type controlled easier