Starbound :: Beta set to start tomorrow

PanzersEast · December 03, 2013, 04:14:54 PM

Not sure if any of you have followed this one, but Starbound is set to open up Beta access tomorrow via Steam Early Access.

http://playstarbound.com

PE

son_of_montfort · December 03, 2013, 11:55:55 PM

I'm stoked about it. Although, the first beta round is supposed to be intentionally terrible, buggy, and feature poor. They said it would be "short" and the second round would be feature rich, but they tend to be slower and less scheduled than many other developers.

Jarhead0331 · December 04, 2013, 06:50:01 AM

How long has this thing been in development? I'd expect a fully featured release by now. If this thing comes out in a poor incomplete state, I'll be a little "WTF."

PanzersEast · December 04, 2013, 08:58:49 AM

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on December 04, 2013, 06:50:01 AM
How long has this thing been in development? I'd expect a fully featured release by now. If this thing comes out in a poor incomplete state, I'll be a little "WTF."

From all the LPs showing up from YouTube, it looks to be in very playable shape.

PE

Rayfer · December 04, 2013, 09:04:30 AM

Appreciate the trailer PE....not one I have any interest in but to each his own.

son_of_montfort · December 04, 2013, 05:07:45 PM

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on December 04, 2013, 06:50:01 AM
How long has this thing been in development? I'd expect a fully featured release by now. If this thing comes out in a poor incomplete state, I'll be a little "WTF."

The current "release" is just phase one of beta. They said that would be short and we would get a fully featured beta (round 2) soon, but with no main quest. Then they will release beta three, with the quest system online.

Huw the Poo · December 15, 2014, 07:18:35 PM

Starbound is finally getting its first major update in months! Check out the blog post and trailer. It looks amazing. Apparently the update will go into the testing branch imminently, with the hope that it hits the stable release in January. I will definitely go back for this. I enjoyed what I played of it last year but deliberately stopped playing until they add more content...looks like they've delivered!

BanzaiCat · December 15, 2014, 08:32:07 PM

Thanks for providing the update, Huw. I bought this months ago and have not played it in a while, knowing they intended to do some major updating to it. I figured I'd bury it and eventually it might turn into a gem. :)

My son loves this game and he was telling me about an update earlier. Hope it's a good one.

Huw the Poo · January 28, 2015, 05:59:50 PM

The update will be released today! Check the changelog!

I've been hoping to play it this evening (UK) but it looks unlikely now as they're having some last-minute problems getting the stable build on Steam, but as soon as I get home from work tomorrow I'll be downloading it and sending wife/kids straight to bed. :D

BanzaiCat · January 29, 2015, 07:16:30 AM

Looks good. I'm impressed the devs have continued to support this for so long. I tried the 'unstable' version a month or so ago and liked what they did with the content, so this update should make things even more impressive.

Yskonyn · January 29, 2015, 09:34:36 AM

What has changed for someone who played, say, 6 months ago?

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BanzaiCat · January 29, 2015, 09:42:09 AM

From my perspective, and I've not played that much/that often, there was a whole lot of nothing to do early in its development. There were a few quests initially but once you were done, it was pretty much an open world/universe for you to travel around in and endlessly mine/gather resources. There wasn't much point to that so it bored me quickly.

Check the changelog that Huw posted to get a good idea of what they've added to it.

Yskonyn · January 29, 2015, 11:12:24 AM

Ah I overlooked the link. Sorry! And thanks for pointing it out.
Sounds like it needs a look again. The log does sound promising!

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Huw the Poo · January 29, 2015, 01:33:33 PM

Ysk if you only played the stable version 6 months ago, you were actually playing the last stable build since it went beta in late 2013, thus a lot has changed. I haven't tried the new version yet (just got in from work) but there's a lot of nice-sounding stuff in that changelog. I particularly like that travel between planets in the same system is now free, i.e. no fuel use. And apparently there's a major hub where you can get quests etc. which should really help to flesh it out. I can't wait to play later!

Huw the Poo · February 01, 2015, 05:53:48 AM

OK I've logged probably 12 hours or so this weekend so far (don't go by my Steam profile; I usually bypass Steam when I play). Starbound is very much a game now! I'm happy to report that, a couple of issues aside - which I'll mention later - Starbound is in a very good state at last.

There have been some fundamental changes which make it much more of a game. For example, you no longer need fuel for intra-system travel. One of the first tutorial quests has you fix the thrusters on your ship which allows you to travel to any planet in your starting system freely, thus giving you plenty of worlds to explore without ever needing to repair the FTL drive.

The quests lead you up to this nicely. You'll learn how to craft, how to survive and you'll gather some essentials, then off you go. I don't want to spoil too much, but once you can start flying around in your ship the game really opens up. Every planet is unique and has different biomes. If you want to make coffee, for example, you need to find a forest planet and some cocoa beans then stick 'em in a machine. The navigation panel will give you the various statistics of each planet you select, making it pretty easy to locate (roughly) what you need.

When down on a planet, you use your matter manipulator to dig and mine. You can craft dedicated tools like pickaxes but I find they're best used for quickly digging deeply, because they wear out so often you're constantly using ore to make more. There's a definite progression in tools and tech; first you'll be using easily-obtainable copper ore to make tools, then you'll progress through the ores to make much better stuff. It won't be long before you make your first set of armour which really makes a difference in the early stages.

You start the game with a "flashlight" which is extremely useful, but it's easy to craft armloads of torches which you'll be placing regularly as you explore. Speaking of exploration, there's loads to discover...caves, abandoned outposts, mines, etc. You can find some useful stuff in the abandoned outposts, as well as much-needed shelter. Also, as long as you have an unobstructed view of the sky, you can beam back to your ship at any time. The ship has a storage locker and enough room for you to store a couple of chests and various other things.

I'll write more later - there's loads more I could tell you - but suffice to say Starbound is finally the game I want it to be. There's an enormous amount to do; after the 12 or so hours I've played this weekend I have just barely scratched the surface. I know from reading forums that there's so much more to discover yet, and I believe there's some kind of persistence to the universe too. It's only £12 and has tons of gaming; I strongly recommend it, and if you already have it, now is definitely the time to take another look.

Oh, I'll mention those issues quickly. It seems that some configurations of hardware will result in occasional framerate drops. It hit me hard the first couple of times I played but there have already been two sizeable updates to the game since the mega update, and it's much better than it was. Hopefully you won't be affected at all. Also, and this is specific to Linux, many of us are having problems launching the game from within Steam. We're using workarounds at the moment, which don't affect the game at all, luckily.