Starbound anyone?

[pokute]

Anyone here playing Starbound?

The only problem I have with this game is I can't stop playing it :p

[Genghis Ares]

I've been thinking about getting it, but I'm worried about jumping into a game in beta and getting my fill of the content before it becomes a "full" game.

[Avistew]

I didn't like it the first time I played, but now I've been playing it a lot and enjoying it.

The only thing I really don't like is that you lose 30% of your money when you die, and there is no way to store it away like in Terraria, and you can't just pick it up where you died because you lose it, you don't drop it.

So far, there have been many times where I need to play 3+ hours to gather enough money to purchase the next thing I need, because every time I get anywhere near close to getting enough, I get killed either by an enemy, or because I fall or something.

That's very frustrating so I hope they changed it when it's out of beta. At least allow us to store pixels (and no, I don't mean that converter that costs 1500 pixels to build - good luck ever getting that much - AND requires you to lose 40% of them in conversion).

Still, I've played it over 12 hours so far so obviously I still think it has a lot of qualities. My favourite part is farming, but I wish I knew how to access more recipes (I recently managed to get the ingredients for a cooking table, finally )

Also had to gather the ingredients for the beacon twice and fight the penguins twice because I didn't have enough pixels so my husband (we've been playing multiplayer the whole time) built it, but that didn't complete the quest for me...

EDIT: Well... just tried playing it... lost everything that wasn't on my character, including my farm and all the different crops I had several hundreds of some of them, that's very frustrating. Also the whole house, all the storage, and even the storage and decorations that were on the ship. AND all my quests are now considered not completed anymore. Basically, it started me over, except I kept my equipment?

I guess it's better than just starting over, but... I'm frustrated right now. So yeah, wait until it's out of beta, people, this kind of things can happen otherwise.

Oh, other difference: the enemies on the planet are now different.

[RedNightmare]

Yup, that's a beta for you: character wipes. I think they are getting a patch out soon that would make character wipes less needed, but not sure what would change otherwise.

I've been doing a Let's Play series of the game with a friend on our channel btw, so if anyone is interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGTc_I8LViI

[pokute]

I didn't like it the first time I played, but now I've been playing it a lot and enjoying it...

I have to say I've never encountered the problems you had. My starting planet was very easy to survive. The only times I died were from carelessly falling to my doom. I've never had to farm hours for pixels either. In fact, I usually have more pixels than I know what to do with, so the 40% loss from compressor seems like nothing.

Did you happen to be playing on your husband's planet that was of a higher threat level? Starting on a non-starter planet could cause an ill-equipped character lots of problems.

But yah, it's a real beta, not a marketing gimmick, so wipes should be fully expected. My main focus is exploring different worlds and I'm having a blast. My leveling has been mostly incidental.

[empath]

I've been thinking about getting it, but I'm worried about jumping into a game in beta and getting my fill of the content before it becomes a "full" game.

[pokute]

I've been thinking about getting it, but I'm worried about jumping into a game in beta and getting my fill of the content before it becomes a "full" game.

The game was built with modding in mind. I don't think running out of content will be a problem unless you hate mods for some reason.

The modding community is already quite active in beta. My favorite at the moment is the ship customization mod which can create results like this:

[AdmiralMemo]

Never heard of it. Looking at the screenshot, is it Terraria in Space?

[Prospero101]

Yes, that's what it fucking is. It's goddamn Terraria in space. It's has the same artists working on it. What's the big deal with Starbound anyway?

[pokute]

Never heard of it. Looking at the screenshot, is it Terraria in Space?

If you want a comparison, I'd say Starbound is an improved and far more ambitious Terraria. Having played quite a bit of Terraria, it feels like a simple proof-of-concept for Starbound.

The main draw of Starbound for me is the variety. They procedurally generate not just the landscape, but the flora, fauna, weather, NPCs, and the devs are devoted to adding a lot more. In the latest patch, they added different gravity for planets and plant DNA. They also want to add vehicles (your spaceship is technically a zone) and systems that let you build up your home planet into a stronghold with animals and NPCs you collect from across the galaxy. I think the devs have the right vision by creating these systems and making them very mod friendly.

The gameplay also feels much more open. I always felt a bit trapped in Terraria even with generating new worlds. In Starbound, I can go planet hopping, staying on just the surfaces and sight-see while making good progress.

[Prospero101]

That...actually does sound like fun. I stand corrected. I might check it out.

[Avistew]

Yup, that's a beta for you: character wipes. I think they are getting a patch out soon that would make character wipes less needed, but not sure what would change otherwise.

Oh yes, I knew it was a possibility (as the game warned me when I started playing it... But had I already bought it at that point, so...) but that's still frustrating. Just trying to warn people BEFORE they buy it so it doesn't happen to them.

Also, the characters are the only thing that did not get wiped. Since we play multiplayer and keep all the items in chest so we can have them in common, though, that means we both got to keep our current weapon and outfit and that's it.

I have to say I've never encountered the problems you had. My starting planet was very easy to survive. The only times I died were from carelessly falling to my doom. I've never had to farm hours for pixels either. In fact, I usually have more pixels than I know what to do with, so the 40% loss from compressor seems like nothing.

Did you happen to be playing on your husband's planet that was of a higher threat level? Starting on a non-starter planet could cause an ill-equipped character lots of problems.

But yah, it's a real beta, not a marketing gimmick, so wipes should be fully expected. My main focus is exploring different worlds and I'm having a blast. My leveling has been mostly incidental.

We bought the game at the same time and started at the same time. The planet threat level is 1. He's been dying less than me but still having to farm for pixels (most recently to get the lantern on a stick back item). And yesterday, as per usual, he spent an hour or two farming for pixels, then an enemy killed him right as he was back next to the house, and he was back at pretty much exactly the number of pixels he started with before he went farming.

Another friend of mine had a different problem: the second quest requires you to obtain wood, and there were no trees anywhere near where he started. Then an update added trees but there were tons of enemies between him and the trees and since it's pretty much the first quest he had no weapons. He ended up just giving up, which is a shame.

As for exploring other planets, I had just realised how to do that (the tutorial doesn't explain anything about it) and that coal can be used as spaceship fuel for some reason (again, nothing tells you that, I had to go on tons of websites to figure it out) but I didn't want to leave the planet with everything we had built. We were about to prepare an exploring kit with basic items to be stored on our ships for explorations, but then the wipe happened (and the few things I did put on my ship vanished like the rest).

The latest update allows you to plant trees, though. The first time, we didn't understand that, because my husband had the saplings in his inventory and didn't realise how he got them, so we thought it was part of the Christmas update and planted them in our new house and they vanished. But later we realised that they're trees, and they vanish if they grow without enough room above them.

We've been planting trees like crazy. Since each one of them provides 3 seeds, we've been leveling the entire planet and covering it with trees, and getting tons of extra seeds. It will be useful for wood, and therefore coal (since it turns out you can smelt wood into coal), and also if we end up going to other planets that don't have trees. We can invasive species them like crazy!

As for farming, I managed to re-farm carrots and rice, but couldn't find wheat or bananas anymore, or that berry that tastes like a smoothie of everything. So no point in building the cooking table again quite yet, can't make bread or carrot bread. We had huge reserves of both, then again I never used them even once (you're full again when you die, so you rarely need to eat).
I wish there was a way to sell crops and make money that way. The pirate ship didn't reappear when the word was reset, and while there is a Glitch merchant in some kind of castle, it's on the other side of the world and it takes ages to get there.

As for Terraria in space, kind of. Same people are involved. You can play as different species, and instead of creating new worlds outside of the game itself, you travel to them in a spaceship in-game. It also looks like they tried to fix things they didn't like about Terraria. There are a lot of things I like better about Starbound, although there are some that I prefer with Terraria.

[pokute]

We bought the game at the same time and started at the same time. The planet threat level is 1...

It sounds like you guys are doing a lot of stockpiling and building for the long term. I would seriously recommend against this until the game is out of beta. I love hoarding and collecting in games, but I'm holding off regardless of what the devs say.

The in-game tutorial right now is little more than a placeholder (again, it's beta). I watched a bunch of let's plays before deciding to buy Starbound, so I guess I was better prepared.

I'm still not sure how you're dying so much though. When I'm in trouble, I usually just throw up a dirt fort or beam back to the ship if I'm out of bandages. I guess I play pretty cowardly?

[Avistew]

At first we didn't really know about bandages being so easy to make and come by. Now we grab a bunch of them. Beaming to the ship can work but then you end up at the spawning point again, so not so great if you're exploring. You can also only do it if you're above ground, and we do a lot of underground exploring. And enemies can actually kill you while you're beaming up, it has happened a few times that we end up on the ship, and die there from a wound taken while beaming.

I'm dying way less now, because I'm being more careful. But when I started if I saw an enemy I would rush to it. Now I run away from them, but there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many enemies can spawn so sometimes there are a lot.

I don't really build forts around me because it takes a while to change items... Which is also a reason why the bandages don't always help. It takes long enough to switch from my melee weapon to my bandage that if I'm in a fight, I'll die before I use it. Enemies also do more damage than the bandages heal, so really they're for between battles as far as I'm concerned. If you take 1 hit due to using the bandage, you're at less health that you would have without using it at all.

Stockpiling and building really is what we do in these kinds of games... In Terraria we've only even played one world as a result, because starting over is too daunting. I guess we could change our gameplay but I don't think either of us would be having any fun then! Maybe we should just wait until it's out of beta before we play more.

[pokute]

...we do a lot of underground exploring...

Maybe that's the difference. I typically stay on the surface of planets, or at least near the surface if I'm exploring caves. I usually knock out back-walls for light instead of using torches, so I don't go much deeper than where the background gets dark. After visiting 100'ish planets, I've dug down to magma on only 2-3 planets.

BTW, is it always magma at the bottom? It'd be amazing to find a planet with a diamond core or something equally ridiculous.

[Avistew]

BTW, is it always magma at the bottom? It'd be amazing to find a planet with a diamond core or something equally ridiculous.

No clue. I've reached magmarock but never magma. Of course I've only explored one planet. I don't go straight down, when I find a cave I explore it and follow it and try to reach another one, so a lot of my underground digging is horizontal.

I hope they'll add maps like with Terraria. I want to be able to know how much of the planet I've explored. Until this message of yours I didn't even know if you could dig your way to the other side of the planet, since they're round now.

[pokute]

...I've only explored one planet...

Oh my gosh. I don't want to tell you how to play, but I can't imagine staying on just one planet in Starbound. There're so many amazing planets out there. There are frozen planets like Hoth and volcanic planets like Char. There are planets that are entirely covered by oceans and spiky rocky planets with no atmosphere. Now you can even land on asteroid belts.

I'm tempted to settle on some of the nicer planets I've come across, like the pink and purple planet I found yesterday (it matches my Floran's color scheme).

I agree they need to add maps to Starbound. I also hope they take it a step further than Terraria and give us some sort of scanning mechanic. Would be nice to upgrade ship sensors at high levels to scan planets. Maybe the results can even be more or less effective due to geology and shielding so there're still plenty of surprises.

[Avistew]

I totally want to explore planets at some point, but it took a huge amount of time before I figured out how to (I kept looking for oil or similar fuel, not charcoal), and now I'm just waiting for it to be out of beta as I don't want to keep losing everything. Plus I'm not done with that one planet anyways so I don't really have a reason to move on quite yet.

[pokute]

I totally want to explore planets at some point, but it took a huge amount of time before I figured out how to (I kept looking for oil or similar fuel, not charcoal), and now I'm just waiting for it to be out of beta as I don't want to keep losing everything. Plus I'm not done with that one planet anyways so I don't really have a reason to move on quite yet.

Hehe, the current fuel system seems like a placeholder to me. The coal for starship fuel thing is pretty silly, especially considering you get much fancier fuels later on that really aren't much better. The fuel costs of star travel don't make much sense either.

I hope you're not like me though. I find it harder to move on the more invested I am in something, so I figured beta is a great time to explore and see what's out there.

[Genghis Ares]

Humble Bundle X had it for the first 1000 people who paid over $9.99 and I was lucky enough to grab it so I'll be playing it tonight.