Starbound - Space-Terraria in Space [Steam Early Access]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Starbound - Space-Terraria in Space [Steam Early Access]

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Hello and welcome at last to Starbound a terrarialike (2dblockmetroidvanialike?) where you hop between planets, dig, build, kill stuff, and adventure with friends that has finally been released for public testing!

:siren:

IMPORTANT poo poo :siren:

This is a BUGGY BETA meant for TESTING - You will lose your poo poo. There will be bugs.
You can buy the game from Their Site or through Steam for $15 - 4-packs are available for $45
READ THIS - I really mean it.
Chucklefish is the developer - They are quite active and answer many questions.
Go Here to make all your goonbound (and IRC) dreams come true - There's also a Steam Group and a modding IRC channel at #starboundmodding on SynIRC
Check out the Roadmap to see what cool features are coming up
This is not a finished game - THIS IS NOT A FINISHED GAME
This is a BUGGY BETA meant for TESTING - You will lose your poo poo. There will be bugs.

:siren:

IMPORTANT TIPS :siren:

Shift-click to quick-move items
Shift-click to shrink block placing and digging
Press E (Or Middle Mouse) to interact (THIS INCLUDES CRAFTING)
Left-Click to affect foreground, Right-Click to affect background
See that bar at the bottom that's going down? YOU ARE FREEZING TO DEATH FIND SOME HEAT
The coordinates of a planet are the seed, which you can share
You can't sell things as of yet
Use something like ShiftWindow to fix the window size
Here's a template AutoHotkey script to rebind keys

Additional Tippage
Some goons have taken to compiling cool coordinates here

Clocks posted:

All right, here's a post of random tips & tricks, since people keep asking very similar questions. Not really formatted well but might teach people something they were asking about.

Holding shift while using the matter manipulator or placing blocks results in a 1x1 block instead of a 2x2 block.

Right click when placing or destroying blocks to place or destroy the back wall.

The L/R buttons on your hotbar can be used as a hotkey as well! Anything placed there will be switched to when you use 'x,' and you can use 'x' again to switch back to what you were holding beforehand. Try putting something you use often there, like your weapon.

Hunting is done with the bow. Killing things with a bow makes it drop meat or leather, killing it with a sword or similar weapon makes it drop pixels. Meat does not always drop, so try killing multiple monsters with your bow until it does! [Soon there will be a hunting knife that allows for meat kills as well.] Alternatively, to grow things, make a stone hoe and till the soil at the top of the planet to make it viable for growing seeds in.

To collect plants, tap e while near them.

Things like campfires and crafting tables need to be 'used' (default button is e) to see what you can do with them. For things like crafting, be mindful of the buttons below which sort what recipes you know. If you need to find a recipe fast, search for it in the search bar.

That "light" indicator bar at the bottom of your screen is actually your warmth meter. Get yourself near a campfire to heat up. You will die if your screen starts becoming foggy and you start losing health. [This will soon be a more obvious temperature indicator.]

To regenerate health, you can sleep in something like a bed or a wagon. To do it faster, make bandages! First, build a spinning wheel from your crafting table, then collect plant fibres (by chopping down vines growing in caves) to create fabric, then make bandages (back at the crafting table).

You can fly to a different planet, even if you haven't built the beacon! Go to your ship and use the terminal near the pilot's seat. Coal and unrefined wood can be used to add fuel to your engine. To zoom out of your system, right click.

As an addendum, sometimes starting planets just seem barren of resources or fun things to explore. Don't be afraid to leave! However, mind cold & moon planets since they have harsher temperatures and may not be as easy to explore in.

The distress beacon is a one-time use item and summons a really hard boss. Don't put it down until you're ready and be aware that you might need to save up and make one again.

To repair your pickaxes, pick up ore from your inventory and right click on the pickaxe. I've actually had luck using copper to repair a gold pickaxe, but some people say you need to use same-or-higher quality ore to repair. Repairing brings it back to full durability which lets it go at its best speed.

I suggest putting things like your anvil and crafting table on your ship. You'll always need them and you won't need to replace or take them with you when you fly to new planets.

Starbound takes place in a procedurally-generated infinite universe, where the coordinates of each planet, moon, or other (inter)stellar body function as the seed for its terrain generation. Every planet can have unique (sub)biomes, flora and fauna, ground materials, villages and structures, and environmental threats such as extreme temperature or toxic liquid. You can explore to your heart's content right out of the gate with just a bit of combustible fuel. Each planet has a 'threat level' assigned to it, the higher this number, the more dangerous it will be to explore, but also the more treasure and resources you can find.

Combat in Starbound is interesting, with a huge variety of weapons with unique animations, effects, and stats, allowing you to fight however you like. Be warned, enemies have access to all of the same weaponry as you, along with surprising and deadly natural weapons and intelligent behaviors. You can easily dual-wield one-handed items, making it easy to mix it up with shields, swords, guns, and more. In addition to armor and weapons, you also have access to special techs which grant you additional abilities such as dashes or morphballing.

For those so inclined, Building is another major part of Starbound, you don't have to flit planet-to-planet smashing pots and looting bedrooms if you would rather settle down and construct a glorious castle. Blocks can be placed (and broken) either in a 2x2 chunk or singly (by holding shift) at range easily, with the first tool you get in the game. Dungeons and villages can be looted for their pretty furniture and decorations, and there are many things which can be crafted as well. Building resources such as dirt, wood, and stone have their own separate inventory in order to reduce clutter, which is for the best, as you'll have many different varieties to choose from depending on what you've explored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU56Kh731Q0

In addition to all the cool stuff above, there's also MORE cool stuff! Instruments which can play .abc files and endless cosmetic options are out there waiting for you to create the perfect space rock band. Or just look cool. Every race also has the ability to inspect the world around them, revealing their inner feelings about everything from beds to rocks to trees. To go along with this, you can find codex entries around the universe, which contain interesting stories and other bits of lore.

Song Stuff: ABC files are stored in SteamApps/common/Starbound/assets/song, to learn more about ABC files see here.
http://reissendewoelfe.de/abc/
http://www.lotro-abc.com/
http://www.thefatlute.eu/

Starbound is an extensively moddable game right out of the box by design. Nearly everything is defined in (more or less) easy-to-read JSON and can be added on to, modified, or removed as you see fit. You can force the game to reload the assets by using the '/reload' command - very handy.

Goon + Dev Streams (* = dev):

- Tiy*

- Bartwe*

- Chucklefish*

- BRAWW

- SCT

- Shukaro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0MBDzzW4b0

PM me if you want something added or changed.

Syenite fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jan 18, 2014

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 00:01

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 19:11

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Reserved

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 00:01

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Network Pesci posted:

Any word on when the game will be available off Steam? I bought it six months ago or so, and I'd kinda like to play it.

It's available right now!

A.C. posted:

FYI the other thread's OP is still actively posting and has an OP for post-beta:

Generally you should let the old OP repost the thread or ask them if it's okay for you to do it first

I was told to :justpost:

since there was yelling or something happening. :shobon:

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 00:08

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Network Pesci posted:

No, off Steam, as in you don't need Steam to play it.

The updates and all are done through steam so... I would guess either never or much later on.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 00:10

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Until keybinding gets added, here's a template AHK script you can customize to fit what you like. You'll need Autohotkey installed, and you can find out key/modifier names here and here. It works as [Key you Press]::[Key that gets sent]

code:

; Starbound keybinding template
#IfWinActive Starbound - Beta

; Movement
w::w
a::a
s::s
d::d
Space::Space

; Use
e::e
MButton::MButton

; Hotbar
`::`
1::1
2::2
3::3
4::4
5::5
6::6
7::7
8::8
9::9
0::0

; Hands
z::z
x::x
LButton::LButton
RButton::RButton

; Side Menu stuff
Escape::Escape
i::i
c::c
n::n
l::l
j::j

; Misc
q::q
Ctrl::Ctrl
Shift::Shift
Alt::Alt

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 01:47

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Here's a mod that makes the manipulator faster and one-handed, just extract into your Steam\SteamApps\common\Starbound\assets folder. https://www.dropbox.com/s/kc4g3np39n14uuj/beam.zip

Can't have upgradeable ones right now, but there's a crazy amount of options.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 06:39

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Here's another small mod: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4dszei7zepb95j/instruments.zip

It adds recipes for the various instruments to the crafting table, just pick up a pixel to learn the recipes. Extract it into \Steam\SteamApps\common\Starbound\assets of course.

Edit: fixed a small typo

Syenite fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Dec 6, 2013

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 07:45

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

bonermobile posted:

Is there an easier way to deal with coldness than dragging a campfire with me and dropping it every 30 feet?

Torches give some heat as well.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 08:15

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

It's just a placeholder item for when there's a typo or other invalidation of a recipe or whatever.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 20:28

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

If you guys build a free-standing structure following this style I'll turn it into a ship for you.

Or make it in photoshop or whatever doesn't matter

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 20:54

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Shukaro posted:

If you guys build a free-standing structure following this style I'll turn it into a ship for you.

Or make it in photoshop or whatever doesn't matter

New pages are my nemesis today.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 20:56

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

VDay posted:

I will give real world money to the first person that recreates the SpaceBalls Winnebago Eagle V in this game and lets me fly around in it while listening to sweet jams.

This is 1 paint.exe session away from happening. :colbert:

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 21:56

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 01:05

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Reiley posted:

I thought it would be #starbound on synirc but that channel is password locked so I dunno what's going on with what.

Look at the top of the OP to see what's up with that.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 00:22

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Reiley posted:

Okay thank you! I was dumb and thought that was just a PGS private server thread and did not click

No worries, it is kind of easy to miss so I edited it.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 00:36

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Jackard posted:

Blame yourself or the OP for not understanding what you were getting into. Their press releases have had plenty of warnings.

http://playstarbound.com/how-the-beta-is-going-to-work/

Yet another ALL CAPS notice appended to the top of the OP. Please read the things in ALL CAPS people.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 23:18

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Zlodo posted:

well he better take his time to avoid repeating the snow trooper armor kind of mistake. a wrong number in the wrong place can potentially ruin the patch

i wonder if they have gotten around to make better tools to edit all that crap than notepad++, it seems like tools could make it easier to make sweeping balance changes and check for common mistakes etc.

They're just using your average text-editing tools :shobon:

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 23:24

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Let's stop being annoying here, people.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 00:11

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

We don't have this cheat argument in the Minecraft threads anymore for good reason, let's not have it here unless you have something genuinely interesting and well-thought out to say about it.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 04:14

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Gemakk posted:

I've put a few dozen hours into Terraria, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I'm thinking of picking up this game. Is there a comprehensive article detailing the similarities and differences between Terraria and this game, or was there a response somewhere in this thread that already explains it?

I haven't seen one so I'll probably write something up today.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 19:58

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

I'm just gonna go ahead and say no more bitching about your poo poo getting wiped because those posts are worthless.

Read this: http://playstarbound.com/how-the-beta-is-going-to-work/

Syenite fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Dec 11, 2013

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 04:20

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

quote:

[23:24] <+Tiy_> andddd
[23:24] <+Tiy_> birds are balanced

They didn't have the right values.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 05:25

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Nelson Mandingo posted:

The thing with this argument that keeps popping up is it's A=A. It was too much of a binary system because that was a result of inbalance and lack of finished content, not the system itself.

Like I said, I think the biggest loss out losing the 1-100 system isn't really the weapon system but merely the fact you could look at a planet at a glance on the starmap, and know exactly how difficult it was going to be and what you could expect by going there. I think that was really cool.

Planets are going to be segregated into easy/medium/hard designations per sector, that's just not in and/or displayed yet.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 05:29

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

People. Re: Numbers.

Open up your assets folder and look at all the weapon and armor and damage numbers. Now think of whether or not more time needs to be spent making the system work right than making sure all the numbers which might mean nothing next revision are exactly right.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 05:42

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Whoever's buying misspelled/dumb red titles for people in this thread is as bad at it as they have :10bux:

to throw away.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 01:18

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Tulip posted:

Is Shukaro still maintaining this? We have the lovely second post reserved for content, and putting in a basic guide to mods would be lovely, or at least links to.

More specific question: when you install mods, can you install them to be server-wide (like, say, drop rate modification) and would this be different from regular mod installation (and how so)?

Go to a threat 1 planet and just murder everything.

Yeah now that things have largely settled I'll be adding more stuff to the OP especially wrt mods tomorrow.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2013 02:42

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Wow when did this thread swap places with /r/fedoras

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 00:39

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Yo, talk about the game people.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 23:03

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

I'll start a new Starbound thread on the condition that nobody posts in it because all of you are poo poo.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 00:24

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

lmao haskell for a video game in tyool 2014

# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 19:51

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Ugh how dare those PEOPLE type WORDS at ME I'm so ANGRY at the INTERNET!

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 19:30

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Devour or Fire posted:

It's high priority and they're "cleaning up the code" for it right now. Basically they don't like where their economic interests are going so they trying to cash out by hoping somebody with more output in their free time than their team has in the office they all moved to in London makes a total conversion mod that sells the game for them without having to lift a finger.

These posts are the only interesting ones in the thread at this point, shine on you crazy diamond.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 23:35

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Talk about Chucklefish's office puppy for a few pages that's way more interesting than whatever was posted before this that I didn't read.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 19:46

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

I'm not sure what exactly chuckles did in between the week after beta was released and now because I haven't booted up or cared about starbound in the slightest since then.

edit: starclowned

Syenite fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 17, 2014

# ¿ Oct 17, 2014 22:35

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

starboned

# ¿ Oct 18, 2014 02:02

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

oddium posted:

Good question, friend. By the way, check out the official Oddium Plays Starbound kitten:

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 18:28

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

woah something actually happened

congrats chucklefish on doing things

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 05:27

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

To be honest I really don't see why all these progression/tutorial/gating quests are needed, let alone what they accomplish other than annoying you.

Babe Magnet posted:

It's different, I wouldn't say it's better. Most of the new stuff is good, but it's not good enough to make up for how bad some of the other new stuff is.

e: shukaro I'm stealing some elements from your OP, not many though. I don't want to waste my time making the exact same thing that already exists

no worries

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 22:20

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 19:11

Syenite: Jun 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

literally all the quests serve to accomplish is making me mad about not being allowed to do anything

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 22:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Starbound - Space-Terraria in Space [Steam Early Access]