@boogis Had a good point related to unique resources and different biomes. It will be important to place biomes on the map from economy point of view. Creating local micro economies is something what sandbox games really need. It will only encourage players to explore and create trade routes if different towns and areas lacks of different resources. That way some people can make their living as merchants buying and selling goods in diffrent locations.
Albion Online has 5 biomes and 5 resource system. They have mountain, forest, swamp, Steppes and Highlands. Every biome has three different resources, one primary, one secondary and one lesser. Albion had a lot of problems to find balance between biomes and resources, which is one reason why we saw lots of different map designs in Beta. Unfortunately they did not manage to get good enough map for launch either and there is still too easy access to all resources, and local economy differences are quite small because of that. Only dropping 3 resources / biome to 2 would have a huge impact to local economies and would encourage people to travel more. So why I am telling this? I hope DS will take count this and does not make the same mistake and make too easy access to all resouces.
I know different planets will have unique resources, but its also important make some local differencies inside planets and maybe even inside continents.