[QUOTE=Skywatcher]
Starbound is getting a major update soon, including new quest system. Enable the public beta (aka “Unstable”, aka “Upbeat Giraffe”) to take a peek.
[/QUOTE]
I might check this out for a bit, but I think I will wait for the game to get out of Alpha before I invest a lot of time in it. Starbound is pretty much the game that turned me off of early access, and I wish I’d have waited for the game to be finished before buying it.
Ok have played a little more. It looks like a lot of the focus is not going to be on mining (although that is important), but in the airship to airship combat. The “land” is all floating islands separated by a good bit of space. The land areas house the cities (full of NPC’s, shops, etc) and temples (think dungeons from Terraria), and are pretty far apart. The spaces between them are filled with whales and enemy airships.
I think a good portion of the game is going to be flying your airships to each temple/city, run through them and complete quests/get loot, and use your airships to shoot down and then plunder other airships. There’s ore everywhere on land - different ores in different areas, and you’ll get some tools (hydrogen blaster) that allow you to mine much faster. I believe that at some point you can attach something to your ship that allows you to strip mine large areas, and I’ve read some things about using whales to assist with large scale mining.
Looting other ships or whales/krakens can be tricky, once you dismantle enough propellers/balloons/whatever keeps the animals afloat, it starts dropping like a stone and you can’t just teleport back to your ship. The land masses are pretty small, so there’s a good chance it won’t even crash to the ground, but keep falling until it disappears. There are different techniques you can use though, “nudging” their ship towards land with your own, jumping into enemy ships and taking control of them (kill everyone inside first), etc. Ship building and combat seems to be one of the main focuses of the game, and once you get used to it you realize there are a lot of different strategies and techniques, you just have to think creatively.
The towns have lots of NPCs to talk to and get quests from, shops where you can buy items and recipes, and skill trainers that will raise your stats for a price. Strength increases your mining speed, Agility lets you jump higher, wisdom affects your airship control, etc. You don’t have a “base” per se, but you can make different types of airships. One strategy is you can make a small, fast, airship for travelling, and a large floating fortress with all your crafting stuff to use as a “base”. I don’t think there’s too many limits on airships but if you make them too big you’ll have manueverability issues against more agile ships, and have problems docking with land.
You can make a few things like beds and sinks but there don’t seem to be that many cosmetic/deocrative items. Most of the crafting stuff seems to be weapons/armor, ship parts (engines, propellers, etc), and various types of blocks which you use for the body of the ships. Like other games, you progress through different ores/materials and are always upgrading for better gear/ship stuff.
There seems to be a good amount of randomness, and enemies will pop up at random and some of them can turn your ship into a burnt out husk in seconds especially in the beginning. So saving constantly is a must.
I am having a lot of fun with this game so far, although I am still getting used to it and am finding it a little difficult early on. The game isn’t as Terraria like as I thought at first, there isn’t as much emphasis on mining. It actually reminds me more of Starbound, although I haven’t played that lately. Windforge is actually released so it’s obviously more complete. I am digging the ship combat and building though, and can’t wait to get further into the game and see what awaits.