Just noticed that I have 100 more hours in Starbound than in Terraria, and that’s with leaving the Terraria menu open overnight several times.
There was a big patch last week. Quest system redone. World wipe, I think. I had to start a new toon.
We no longer have to build a transmitter that attracts a boss that comes a wrecks or stuff. At least, not yet.
I have been playing the latest update for about a month now.
If you haven’t played in a while, there are now 3 options that you can change by selecting Starbound in your Steam library and selecting “properties”.
Stable (the default) - Once updates are working reasonably well with a minimum of bugs they go here.
Unstable - current updates they are working on. May contain bugs/crashes. Will be moved to Stable once they feel it’s tested enough.
Nightly - the most current, up-to-the-minute updates. Frequent bugs/crashes to be expected. Only select this if you really want to see the absolute latest things the devs are working on.
As of right now (2/4/15) Upbeat Giraffe (the current version) has been moved from Unstable to Stable. There has not yet been another Unstable update other than small bug fixes but hopefully will soon.
Upbeat Giraffe has bought a ton of changes:
- Tons of new items, weapons, armors, block types, social clothing, etc.
- There are no longer sectors that you open by beating bosses. Instead everything is in the same galaxy. Harder planets require tech to protect yourself from various elements. For instance, Breath Protection tech will allow you to explore airless planets, Cold, Heat, and Radiation Protection are required on some planets. As you progress you unlock new techs that allow you to go to new systems (Frozen Stars, Fiery Stars, etc).
- The Quests and Bosses have been completely revamped and have no relation to the previous systems.
- There is now an Outpost, which functions as a “hub” for you to go back to between quests/missions. There is a Gate in every system, all of which take you to the same Outpost. Talking to people in the Outpost will give you various quests, most of which are “bring me item X” or “kill this boss”.
- You can now upgrade your ship 4 times, each upgrade adding a bunch of space. This means MASSIVE amounts of space on your ship for tons of decorative items and storage space.
- The Matter Manipulator can now be upgraded a bunch of times, some letting you mine faster, others increasing your mining area. There is also an upgrade that allows you to collect liquids with your MM.
- Drills and pickaxes are still a little faster than the MM, but can no longer be repaired. OF course you can craft new ones, but I’ve taken to using the MM exclusively and haven’t bothered with pickaxes or drills.
- Some of the existing recipes have changed. Coal can no longer be used as Fuel, you must find a Moon and suck up fuel from there. You now need oil to make Steel. Various other changes.
- Traveling to a different planet in the same system does not use any fuel. Traveling to another system uses fuel, the farther away it is the more fuel it uses.
I have to say I like the update, there is now plenty to do. One issue I have is most of the quests are sort of generic “fetch quests”. Bring me Coffee! Bring me a Cake! Bring me 10 Gold Bars! I’m hoping there will be more and more interesting quests to come.
Another problem: Towards the end of the game, most of the Outpost quests require you to bring a specific item back from pre-built villages or dungeons. For example, bring back a stone sign from a USCM Penal Colony. Which is fine, except that these locations are completely random, so finding them can be a huuuge pain in the ass. For the Penal Colony sign quest, I visited over 25 random planets and walked completely around the planet. Eventually I gave up and just used coordinates that someone posted on Steam to get my sign. There’s one where you have to find a Pirate Ship, which apparently are very rare. I wish they’d at least narrow it down and say “This village/dungeon can be found on Snow Planets” or “Pirate Ships can be found on Ocean Planets”, or whatever.
Despite these issues, I do really like the update and the new content. I just hope that they’re still going to add a bunch more stuff as far as quests/missions go. There are a LOT of new quests but they still feel like generic fetch quests, and I’d like to see something more interesting before release.
Thanks for the information Apocalypso! I was actually going to post some Starbound questions for you in the “What are you playing” thread.
I have been following this game on Steam and it looks great but I am always cautiously optimistic when it comes to Early Access. Starbound looked fairly solid though and I was hoping to pick this one up soon.
You’re welcome!
BTW I think there are at least 6 ship upgrades. I’ve lost track of the exact number but there’s one where you need 10 plutonium bars (plutonium ore can be found by digging deep on moons, I got most of mine near the very bottom), then one where you need solarium stars, and the quest giver hinted that there may be another. I may take a few days to redesign my ship and fill my ship with all kinds of furniture that I picked up. Must remember to hold shift when taking stuff down from my current ship so I don’t remove things I don’t want to remove yet (like storage containers).
There is a lot of discussion on what small storage containers hold the most. The consensus is lunar lockers. I am going in another direction and only using containers that look functional (bookcases, refridgerators, etc) because it makes my ship look more functional.
Yeah, thanks Apocalypso!
I apologize for not giving any details in my “head’s up” post. I wasn’t sure if anyone was still playing this title, and I was too self conscious about resurrecting a zombie.
Ok I spent all morning and most of the afternoon redecorating my Glitches ship. I originally just threw whatever random furniture I picked up wherever it would fit. But that won’t do, will it? So I decided to go with the futuristic, high-tech look of the Apexes. I did use as many different doors as possible, so you’ll see doors made of stone, mushroom, bone, etc.
There are themed rooms, Training Room complete with deadly traps and weapon racks, Male and Female Rest Rooms, Research area, Lounge, Kitchen, Armory, etc. It’s not 100% finished, I need to make an Ice Machine and an Ice Bed, plus replace the old toilets in the Mens and Womens restrooms with gold Royal Toilets.
But here it is! http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/nutrimat/library/
Let me know if you guys can view this okay, I have never used photobucket before (signed up to post this). I am not sure how much you can zoom in here but I made signs in the outpost to identify the different areas of my ship. The sign in the pilot room is 2 frame animated, which obviously you can’t see here, but the first frame says “Pilots” and the second frame says “Only!”. I am considering wiring my doors to open automatically, but I’m not sure if it works with the ones that swing open, like the bone and mushroom doors.
I am bumping this because, finally, today Starbound has been released, at 1.0, and they’ve promised no more character wipes - all further updates will be additions, not the complete changes we’ve been regularly seeing all along in the nightly builds.
I’ve been following along for a few years, but I haven’t actually played since the very first alpha release. It’s downloading now, so I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s actually like!
I’ve been playing the last couple days. The way weapons work seems to be a little differem
t than the last time I played. There is more story involved, but I found a few early quests kind of confusing as to exactly what I was supposed to do. There was a lot of crafting stations before, but theres more now, and it seems a little different (and confusing) as to what stations make what equipment. Probably just because I’m used to the old system.
Got to the outpost where you can fight the first boss (Armed Penguins on the ground and a huge UFO in the air). I only have the first set of iron armor, the second set (tungsteen I think) I coould not find any of even though I went the whole way to the bottom of the planet. I think I might have to go to another planet but not sure if I can fire up the ships thrusters. It’s a bit confusing.
So far it seems more polished but not hugely different. I am not past the first area and boss yet though, and I want to see how the rest of it is. The one thing is, in normal mode you have a hunger bar and need to eat once in a while, and if you die you drop a lot of stuff you’re carrying. Which is a huge pain if your deep underground. In casual mode you don’t drop anything if you die, which is nice, but you also don’t have a hunger bar at all, which makes food completely pointless. I wish I could have the food mode without the drop items upon death mode.
the penguin ufo isn’t quite the first boss, though you can get to him first. did you talk to the old lady “east” of the outpost? she gives the main plot missions.
I’m stuck on one of the “scan” missions - went where I was supposed to, scanned absolutely everything that wasn’t shooting at me, and it wasn’t enough to clear the mission. but at least I found a friendly settlement that gives missions too. those are seriously randomly unbalanced, though.
tungsten isn’t on the first planet.
you can go between planets, but not systems, after you get the ship repairs done by clearing the mining base.
that should let you go to a planet with tungsten, which will let you build the air tank upgrade, that will let you explore moons, where the ftl fuel is.
There’s a mod for enabling hunger in Casual mode in Steam Workshop. Haven’t tried it but I assume it does exactly what you want. Food isn’t completely pointless in Casual mode though, you only regen health if you have the full belly -buff and some of the more complicated to craft foods give you additional buffs.
Just downloaded the update and I have already passed my previous gameplay hours.
I’ve only worked solo with Apex, so I am not sure about the multi-player features with the recent update.
You are definitely on your own with some of the vague mission objectives but I think it may prove more challenging for folks with no background in the game. Like Unpronounceable I have found the scanning missions to be a bit of a pain.
I found some (about 6 units) tungsten ore when I was clearing the mining colony but that was about it during the first part of the game.
Now my plan is to figure out how to construct useful farms and mines. Originally, I thought I would spend most of my time on exploration but I like that we have a lot of options for constructing settlements and outposts too.
I keep forgetting which stations do what but I have gotten more comfortable over the past few hours of gameplay. Initially, I wasn’t even using the [C] menu but now that I use it regularly, it is starting to help me keep track.
Overhauled spacefaring incoming! Check it out!
Cool, I may have to revisit this one soon.
I recently picked this up again and the game is really interesting now! Especially with the Frackin’ Universe mod installed.
That mod makes starting out with a new character rather difficult, though. I had my existing character, which completed the main questline, drop off some stuff in my second character’s system to help out.
System maps are now animated, with planets orbiting the stars and moons orbiting the planets. Ships owned by NPCs also move around the map and can be visited; some of these ships will be hostile, friendly and hostile ships are identified before visiting. Space stations can also be visited and, with enough materials, one can build their own space stations.
Reading through the Workshop link, I see what happened. There was an update to make new characters easier but my second character was started before the alternate intro was implemented.
Cool! I thought about playing it again too now that it’s out of Early Access, but I couldn’t find a way to join any other games 
Is there a third-party matchmaking service available? I have no gamer friends.
Lovely. Didn’t realize that’s how it worked. Thanks!
New content landed yesterday! Bounty hunter missions, gather clues to track your quarry across the galaxy.