Hi Guys,

We’ve been asked a lot recently about the plans for end game and colonisation. It’s been a while since we posted about future plans so I thought it’d be nice to share some basics on the colonisation feature coming to Starbound before 1.0. We’re working on this actively now, and whilst it won’t be in the next (combat) update. We do want to get the basics in in the not too distant future.

As always, everything mentioned here could change, see additions or subtractions.

We’ve been gearing up for colonisation for a while now; we’ve recently added a teleporter network feature to allow you to jump between locations quickly, even if they’re galaxies away. We’ve been giving objects new properties and ensuring they’re priced appropriately and we’ve been massively improving the NPC pathing and behaviour systems internally. All of these features are key to the colonisation system.

Object properties

To enable the colonisation system to function we’ve begun tagging objects with special properties. For example, an Apex mutant pod might have the following tags.

All of these tags, coupled with the size of the object allow us to figure out how a house is decorated and what kind of person might move in. Different NPCs will only move in if enough of a house is decorated with objects and blocks that match their interests.

Houses also have some basic requirements, like light, walls and doors. Here are a couple of examples of houses and who will move into them.

Whilst the type of NPC that moves in is based on the type of furniture used, the visual appearance of that NPC is based on the exact layout of the furniture within the house. So you’re able to put your feng shui skills to the test to attract someone in particular.

Once NPCs move in they’ll offer all sorts of different benefits. Some NPCs will sell unique items, some will defend the town, some will offer quests and others will place new unique objects in their home like new crafting tables or facilities. Sometimes you’ll only be able to attract an NPC using items a previous NPC has given you, allowing for colony progression. Sometimes you’ll need objects from a unique dungeon or sub biome to attract particularly rare NPCs. For example, obtaining all the blueprints for slime furniture from the slime biome, crafting it and using it to decorate a house will cause a slime creature to move into your colony and in turn sell you a unique weapon.

Later we plan to expand on this system with enemies attacking your colony, inter-NPC interactions and various other complexities. But this initial implementation will tie together much of the exploring, questing and adventuring in the game and serves as a key part of Starbound’s end game. We may even tie the system to planet and biome type, so setting up on certain planets is the only way to attract some of the rarer NPCs.

This won’t be the only end game feature, we’re looking into randomly generated repeatable missions, farming and procedurally generated quests. As well as the final stars enabling high level versions of all the existing biomes.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this system!

Hi guys,

We’d like to know on average what size party do you usually play in, assuming you’re playing in a party at all.

Your feedback will help us better design the party hud.

To vote click here

Hi guys,

Happy 2015! We’re back in the office now and we’re hard at work on moving the unstable update to stable and fixing a few issues.

In the mean time I wanted to address some of the current problems we’re aware of and explain how we’re going to deal with those problems for 1.0

Guns do too little damage

Currently guns do too little damage, particularly guns with a high rate of fire. This is a known problem and it’s largely down to the way protection works currently. Guns that shoot a small amount of damage rapidly for an overall high DPS are unfairly mitigated due to how protection functions. We’re looking at fixing the way protection handles small damage values for the stable release.

Mining is a little dull

Mining at the moment is a little uneventful and a bit of a grind. We plan to remedy this by vastly increasing the number of underground encounters, dungeons and microdungeons you’ll encounter whilst mining. Many of these dungeons will contain some of the loot you’re looking for whilst mining and save you from simply tinking away at blocks for hours on end. We’re also going to increase the range of monsters underground to mix up the experience and look into benefits for sustaining existing mines.

There’s no reason to build on a planet

Currently there’s very little reason to settle on a planet, given the utility of the ship and the amount of space it has available to it on upgrading. We plan to remedy this in a number of different ways. Firstly, we’re going to add a planet bookmark/teleportation system. This will allow you to get directly from your ship to a base you’ve set up on a planet instantly and without travelling to that planet first. Next there will be utilities and crafting resources that won’t function on your ship and will require an on planet base. Finally there will be alternative progression paths that directly require buildings of various kinds. The nomadic nature of settling in your ship is directly in support of the combat/adventure progression path.

Monster path finding is bad

We’ve made so many changes to monsters and their abilities that their path finding has suffered a lot. We’re going to be working on it and retooling it for the next stable release. Hopefully by then the monsters should be substantially smarter.

Hunger and/or temperature is gone

We made the decision to remove hunger and temperature as stats because we weren’t happy with their current implementation. They’ll be back in some form for harder difficulty levels

There’s only one path through the game

Right now adventuring and combat is more or less a requirement if you want to progress. We intend to change that with farming and building progression paths. We’d like you to be able to progress through the game with barely any combat or questing required. These paths will likely be distinct from one another so you’re able to progress through all of them individually over time.

Quests are too fetchy/there aren’t enough quests

The current quests are fetchy because we needed to create a quest line with the engine features we currently have available to us. We’re going to be expanding quests in a big way and many of the quests currently available are placeholder. With more quest triggers we can massively expand the kind of quests available to us and we’re going to be adding some form of procedurally generated quests too.