…which would be straight-up simulationism compared to Minecraft, in which you beat a section out of a tree with your fist, while the rest of the tree hovers in midair.
It’s the genre. Nonsensical (but fun) sandbox games, started by Minecraft and cloned by a dozen other games. This one in particular is a Terraria clone.
If you’re bugged by the pickaxes, just wait until you realize that half of the fights involve you traveling across cantilevered floating skybridges built out of antigravity stone and magically wrapping enemies in dirt cages from above as you poke them with your quantum matter-bypassing giant hunting knife, all so you can find enough leather to survive until you can refuel your faster than light starship with ordinary coal. And in the next system over is a race of sentient robots still stuck in medieval times, who’s fighting a horde of space apes lead by a 1984-style Big Ape.
I think it’s that the the bow gives the best chance of getting meat but I’ve seen a few meat drops with the starter sword. And cooking meat dropped via sword meets that quest requirement.
Okay, maybe I will try it out. But only after the beta. I don’t do betas.
Got the game. Played it for six hours. Completed the quest to build and deploy a distress beacon. Are there no quests after that?
The next one involves building a brain extractor, killing stuff with it to get a superior brain and then building a robot to kill. Um … actually I have no idea if that’s in the quest log, but that’s the next tier boss in any case.
Dammit! Character wipe! 
I played Terraria with a group of folks and had a great time on our shared server, at least until we managed to mine all the way down to the bottom of the game, max out our gear and stats, etc.
Unfortunately, most of them don’t seem interested in Starbound right now. If somebody sets up an SDMB server after the release I’d almost definitely buy in.
Did you ever enter hard mode (by tossing the guide voodoo doll into lava)? There’s still a LOT more content after reaching the bottom of the world… in fact I’d say that probably 70% of the content comes after that.
Bone blocks? Flesh Blocks? Fairy houses? What kinda crazy planet is this? (Alpha Alcyone Minoris II, -31053539, 76064491)
Those coordinates are worth visiting for the Apex labs on & under II and the Avian airship quartermaster above IIa.
I am interested in this game, but I am not in the beta - is there open sign-up?
All you need to do is buy it from Steam for $15.
I think so. I don’t really remember. All I remember is that we’d crafted the best gear, had all the NPCs hanging out in houses, had maxed out our stars and health, etc etc.
Does 3D printing not work currently? I can’t get anything to scan. Also, it seems like Wheat never matures.
I am totally in this game. I’m just about on the edge of Tier II; I’ve got full racial armor for that tier and several weapons. This is a lot of fun; it’s like Terraria but the different planets at least keep it fresh.
Okay, I have now gotten everything with this character. If somebody needs help, give me a buzz.
I have a Starbound server running. I am still learning the ropes of the server and it seems, I am guessing since it is still in Beta, that all Starbound servers are public. I have yet to find a way to lock it down. As a result, while I mean for this to be a SDMB only server, I am not sure I can guarantee it.
Anyway, while I work on that, it seems all you need is an IP address and nothing else to access the game on the server.
So, if anyone here is interested, enter the following IP address in the Multiplayer selection of the game (leave the other two fields blank):
62.232.182.147
I also have a Mumble server running. I prefer Mumble because it is open source, works well and has a minimal impact on your system and bandwidth compared to alternatives such as Teamspeak.
You can get the Mumble client here: Mumble download | SourceForge.net
Send me a PM for the Mumble server login. I’d rather not post it publicly to avoid just anyone being able to login. I know…Starbound is wide open but again, not sure I can lock it down yet and guessing that is a Beta thing (and again continuing to explore the details of the server).
Missed the edit window:
While anyone can play on the server at any time would be fun to organize some agreed upon times to get a group in and have fun.
No one is interested?
Really?
I will keep it alive till Wednesday and if no takers (or few) till then I will turn it off.
Not going to incur the cost of the server if no one uses it.