Expand Yavin 4 into a full-sized planet!

I'm sure there are plenty of ways to incorporate the story to include Yavin 4 as a full planet in the future.

Every time I go there, the look and atmosphere is fantastic and I can't believe it is only a daily area.

Surely it also helps that general art assets are done already, in terms of making a "new" planet. I'm assuming that cuts down on the costs and effort quite a bit compared to a completely new planet like, say, Onderon.

There's so much potential for making some cool areas/a full map for Yavin 4. We know it can't be like a large vanilla planet (though that would be incredible), but a new zone/part of the planet that is possible to explore surely is doable, right? Jungle, temples, tombs, all kinds of lore - I would think it would be a great area to expand.

We have been asking for more developed /expanded worlds since beta (especially with the micro-zone that is Quesh). 9 Years later, still doing the same old "its a planet, but you only get to see this one specific patch of dirt"...

TLDR: Most of us would like expanded worlds in general, but I would not hold my breath expecting any results. So, head off to Alderaan or Corellia, and just enjoy what once might have been.

I think it's difficult. On one hand, expanded planets would be nice, but I think there's a drive to see "more" that motivates the idea behind giving us more snapshots of planets, than expanded planets.

I get your perspective, but it's not as if we are getting regularly scheduled installments of content, and expanded planets also touch on long documented ideas for conquest, pvp, etc that they also flatly ignore, so.. yeah. Many hurdles /obstacles that they do not even bother to share to keep suggestions feasible by letting us know what the restrictions are...

"I See, I See" said the blind man to the deaf man
"It's all coming back to me now" he said as he relieved himself into the wind

Yeah, I mean so much is just... "if only," I guess? I love the game and I love what we have, but damn if I don't wish we had a whole lot more of it.

One thing that bigger planets would definitely highlight is the absurdly slow speed of SWTOR mounts.

When I was tooling around different planets finishing the cartography achievements, I found myself wishing (not for the first time) that I could smuggle in some of GW2's mounts. For the Dune Sea on Tatooine, of course, it would have to be Petey the Roller Beetle, capable of sprints up to the equivalent of +700%.

That, and the notable lack of flying mounts... instant quick travel makes up for a small portion of that lack, but nothing can replace proper flight.

On the counter swing though, this game (engine) has enough troubles with rendering, especially with the hard coded imposed render distance limits that we can not exceed /over ride, so the limitations do serve a purpose... even if that purpose is a cover up for the game engines short comings.

Realistically, even the largest 'planet' in SWTOR is nowhere near the surface area of even the Moon, let alone a full earth-size planet. The entire gameplay area of Coruscant, for example, could be lost within just the confines New York City alone.
Not to mention the fact that Yavin 4 is a moon, not a full planet.

You can’t really say that fairly...

You can’t compare a video game area to a real life location (in terms of size).

You’re supposed to be playing near the temple and it’s surrounding area on Yavin IV, because we’re dealing with the Revanite threat in that area. It’s been like this in KOTOR 1 & 2 also.

I’m all for new content on planets but don’t just add it for it just to be there.

Being a moon doesn't mean that it's small. The largest moon in our solar system (Ganymede, 5,268 km diameter) is larger than the smallest terrestrial planet in our solar system (Mercury, 4,878 km diameter). If Ganymede orbited the Sun it would be a planet. Yavin IV has a diameter of 10,200 km (according to lore). Earth has a diameter of 12,756 km. Yavin IV is a bit smaller than both Earth and Venus (12,104 km), but a fair bit larger than Mars (6,794 km), which is the second smallest terrestrial planet in our solar system. A more direct, in universe, comparison would be to Coruscant with a diameter of 12,240 km. So, just like Ganymede, if Yavin IV orbited a central star it would be a planet.

Yavin IV orbits Yavin Prime, a gas giant with a diameter of almost 200,000 km (according to lore). Jupiter has a diameter of 139,820 km. Jovian planets really should be measured in terms of mass, but we don't know the mass for Yavin Prime. For comparison, the smallest known star is EBLM J0555-57Ab with a diameter of ~117,500 km (or about 84% the size of Jupiter), but has about 85x the mass of Jupiter. Continuing down this interstellar rabbit wormhole, if Jupiter's mass increased by ~13x (the theoretical upper bounds for a gas giant), either through an infusion of interstellar gas or alien monoliths, it could become a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf is a state that is between a planet and a star where deuterium fusion can occur in the core. Jupiter's mass would have to increase a lot more than 13x for it to become an actual star, but if it did it would become a red dwarf, which are the smallest known stars.

All that to say that just because it's a moon doesn't tell you that it's small. Being classified as a moon just means that it orbits a body that itself obits a star. Larger moons, on wide orbits, could theoretically even have their own submoons.

Okay, I'll stop with the astronomy lesson now.