So here is a non exhaustive list of additions coming to the game. We have a lot more than this in store (not yet discussed), but Xealaz over at reddit compiled such a nice list of the stuff we HAVE discussed that I wanted to share it with you. As always, things are not set in stone.

On with the list!

• NPC Spawners & Building Logic: NPCs will scan the structures you build around them and the contents of chests; they will have improved inventories/behaviors depending on how valuable their surroundings are.
• Macro Terrain Changes: Affect an entire planet’s terrain and weather
• More Planet Scanner Data: See details in the planet scanner like planet occupants/dungeons
• Underground: More secrets will spawn below the surface
• Space Combat: Way in the future, expect space combat and the ability to board other ships.
• Spaceship Dungeons: Very large, size of a planet.
• Biome Hazards: Sandstorms, icestorms, meteor showers, toxic planets, airless planets.
• Ore & Difficulty: Higher difficulty planets will have improved ore distribution
• Story Missions: Eventually each tier will end with a story mission that ends with the bosses you see now.
• Ship Navigator Changes: Still not set in stone; but the new idea is to give a local map with fog of war. Instead of sector buttons you have to fly out of a sector and into the next one by uncovering more of the star map. The final sector would be infinite.
• Smoother Difficulty Curve: Better indication of the difficulty of an area. Difficulty will change within tiers as well as between tiers. There will be fractional difficulty (for example, Difficulty 1.12 in tier 1 would be easier than Difficulty 1.52, while still in T1)
• Monster Generation: Right now, monster parts just have stat boosts, but eventually rolled monster parts will affect their behavior and abilities. For example, monsters with spider legs can climb walls; fiery monsters inflict burning. You might get a burning spider dropping on you from the ceiling. Projectiles may be tied to specifically generated heads. Biome may influence monster part generation.
• Mini-Map: Rotating circular map showing highlights only such as the location of friendly players, spawn points–but no major details. For the details you’d use a mapping item to create a map as you travel.
• Teleporters: Stargates between planets and eventually between servers.
• Dramatic Planet Modification: Not going to be implemented any time soon. Ability for players to modify huge chunks of planets through things like orbital bombardment; removing the entire first layer of a planet and leave behind a lifeless surface.
• Tech Priority: Eventually all techs can be active at once, but a categorization system is in the works to assign priority to conflicting techs, preventing issues. A hotkey to switch the active tech will be added as a temporary workaround until the priority system is completed.
• Server Commands: More server commands and control for chat and port listening.
• Villager AI: Villagers will aggro when you steal from them and follow you more aggressively.
• World Storage: Improve world storage and organize *.pak files to improve modding. Add launcher integration.
• Spawn Points: Change spawn points on individual planets.
• Controls: Reconfigure controls; keybinding.
• Ship Size: Upgrade ship/increase size.
• Racial Armor: Racial abilities will not be inherent but will be tied to racial armor. For example, Avian armor can glide downward.
• Capture Pods & Mercenaries: May be able to capture NPCs with pods. Summon NPC Mercenaries by using the pod as a beacon.
• Reduced Wipes: Working on a system to patch without requiring as many character wipes in the future. This will require one more wipe and that’s it.
• Other Changes: Colorblind Mode & Engine Optimization. FTL animation being revamped to reduce memory strain.

So the big balance update is coming really soon,

But we’ve managed to squeeze some other things in too.

The XP bug is hopefully fixed.

A new baby monster variant is added, we’ll be using this in the future to do some nifty growth/evolution things..

And a bunch of new weapons and items will be making it in too, maybe even a new boss.. we’ll see if we manage that one in time.

Ok guys so we decided to make this update a lot bigger. It’s going to take a day or two to complete and I wanted to explain exactly what we’re doing with the balance of the game to open it up for discussion.

Currently the damage system in Starbound is built around an armor penetration system. This system was put in place to account for the 100 planet levels, 100 monster levels and so on.  Whilst the system works it leads to a difficulty curve that can be confusing to navigate as well as stats that are a little more difficult to understand. (A weapon that does 40 damage, only does 40 damage to a monster of the same level as the weapon. Otherwise as the distance between armor penetration/armor level grows the damage increases/decreases.)

It’s hard to know exactly how much damage your weapon will do to any given monster and it’s difficult to know which of two weapons is the most effective.

Another problem with this system is items that do a static amount of damage. For example in the current alpha sector it’s possible to find throwing daggers with 5 armor penetration. These daggers are extremely powerful in the lower half of the tier but near useless in the upper half.

When working with 100 levels, without the armor penetration system you end up with absurd damage/health values that are far too big to be manageable and that’s the reason this system was originally in place.

So over this weekend we’re going to work on the solution to this problem. We’re going to reduce the number of planet levels from 100, to 10. *This is not a decrease in the amount of content, it’s simply a change to how leveling functions*.  The smaller number of levels means that we can remove armor penetration entirely and simplify weapon damage. You’ll be able to directly compare weapon DPS which will now appear on the weapons tooltip. Armor will become easier to understand and will gain additional buffs, such as increasing player max health.  We’re also now able to remove armor from monsters and simply give more powerful monsters more health, this way you always know how much damage your weapon will do.

Monsters will no longer have a level, instead monsters will be given an easy/medium/hard marker, that shows you how difficult a monster is in the context of the sector it’s in. For example, a hard monster in sector 1 will be roughly the same strength as an easy monster in sector 2. The difficulty of monsters will increase the lower you dig, but so will the rewards.

Items with a static amount of damage will be manually balanced and useful for the entire sector you find them on. Given that the range of health difference will be lower now, we can ensure that items such as throwing daggers will be useful for the entire sector. We’re also able to make sure that when you craft the best armor in a sector, you’ll be in good shape for the next sector. By ensuring that the hardest monsters in sector 1 match the easiest monsters in sector 2, you’ll be able to progress without having to face instakills on either side.

I suspect this game will drastically improve the balance of the game and make the extra wait worth it.

Coming along with this update will be a bunch of bug fixes and some new content.

Shortly after this update we’ll be adding a complete sector 4, delta sector.

This update will probably require a character reset (I’m sorry! Beta :( )

Give us your thoughts guys