Good evening/afternoon/morning!

The first automatic nightly build is live! If anyone is interested, you can opt-in the same way you opted into the unstable branch.

Nightly builds are there for people who really wanna track our progress– not for people who just want to play the latest version of the game. Please back up any saves or worlds you care about. No, seriously. Back up your saves. It’s always best to assume they will be destroyed and the game will be at least somewhat broken.

Tonight, for instance, because we’re working on monster spawns, monsters aren’t spawning. This is the sort of thing you should expect from nightly builds.

(Tiy note: Also, because we’re currently working on progression, the very first thing you’ll probably notice is that your ship is damaged and the fuel system doesn’t work (sparks flying out of it). The only way to currently fix the ship is through admin commands so unless you know them you’ll be stranded. This is *really* for people that want to see progress + modders. You have been warned!)

I’ve updated the support page with a guide, but I’ll paste it here too:

What is the “nightly” branch and how do I switch to it (or back)?

The “nightly” branch of the beta receives updates automatically every single day. This means that using the nightly branch will frequently destroy your saves or contain other game-breaking issues depending on what we’ve been working on that day. Only use this branch if you really really want to follow our progress and don’t care about breaking the game. 

To switch between branches (click on images to enlarge them):

• Right-click on Starbound in your Steam client’s “Library” tab and select “Properties”:
  
• In the window that appears, select the “Betas” tab and then select the branch you want to use from the first drop-down.
• You should receive a confirmation message along the lines of “Successfully opted into the ‘nightly’ content beta.” below the textbox next to the “Check Code” button (note: no beta access code is required to opt into the nightly branch).
• Click close and let Steam download the update for the new branch. If you’ve switched to the nightly branch, Starbound should now be listed as “Starbound [nightly]” in your Steam library, otherwise it will be listed as just “Starbound”.

Roses are red
The dirt on Alpha Tau Aur 5472 IV is blue
This update is a bit late for Valentine’s Day
Oops

This update will allow us to add new biomes and make changes to worlds without the possibility of the player losing their world. There will likely be one more world wipe sometime in the future when we finalize the universe layout. This won’t include a character/ship wipe, though, and you can still back up your worlds.

A ton of work has gone into our patching system. After this update, we’ll be able to push content updates as and when they’re completed, rather than waiting for big engine updates to be completed. Updates after this patch will come at a near daily rate.
Additional goodies:

• Valentine’s Day items including swords, costumes, decorations, bow, etc
• Engine feature, tech can now be granted by armors
• Keybinding reconfiguration, minus the UI (you can reconfigure keys through a config file- check here for a tutorial)
• Server stability fixes for servers with many players
• New death animations
• Engine feature, all objects are now scriptable and interactive
• More Avian weaponry
• Projectile changes
• Dogs can now be captured (lots more pets coming soon)
• A bunch of new items and smaller pieces of content
• New (actually sounds good!) microphone instrument with sounds provided by Smooth McGroove!
• Bug where warping to magma/volcano biomes caused crashing was fixed.

Additional content has been created (new biomes, etc) but will come out just after this patch, as it needs to be adapted to the new content update system.

*Note: We did an oops and missed some of the content updates when we uploaded the patch, so we’ll be putting out another patch a bit later today that includes the missing stuff (the Valentine’s Day items, new microphone sounds, possibly some more).

Hi guys,

It’s been a while since we posted an update as we’ve been feverishly working away on the game. But we’ve had an increasing number of requests to detail what the finished game will be like. So I wanted to go into detail on what we consider the finished Starbound experience to be (subject to change! as always). As well as where Chucklefish is going in the future.

The future of Starbound

The following is a collection of some of the broad changes coming to Starbound in terms of progression. Not included are smaller self contained features like ship upgrades, vehicles and so on.

Progression

As it stands, almost the entirety of the progression in Starbound is temporary. Built quickly to enable some basic gameplay during beta.

The final game will be structured differently.

The current 10 tiers of gameplay will all play out on the same Starmap, with each tier introducing hazards that can only be overcome by progressing through the previous tier and completing a mission at the end of each tier.

To access a mission at the end of each tier you need to obtain a certain number of pixels.

An example of this progression would be:

Play through tier 1 and gain enough pixels too.. > access the tier 1 mission > fight tier 1 boss > gain oxygen tank tech > now able to access tier 2 planets with non breathable atmosphere

Obtaining Pixels

Obtaining pixels will be key to progressing through Starbound. To access the mission in each tier you must first gather a certain number of pixels.

Currently obtaining pixels in Starbound feels like a bit of a grind. Particularly given the pixel death penalty and the high cost of various pixel sinks. In large part however this is down to unimplemented features being missing.

In the finished game you’ll be able to earn pixels in a multitude of different ways, essentially allowing you to play through the game the way you want to play. If you’d like to become an intergalactic farmer, growing and selling crops, keeping livestock and so on. The farming feature will be fleshed out enough for that to be your means of pixel gathering. On the other hand, if you prefer to be an adventurer, taking quests and gaining pixels as rewards. That route is just as good. Perhaps you prefer to be a builder, charging npcs rent based on the quality of the homes they inhabit. A pirate, robbing towns and ransacking villages. A tomb raider, gathering rare artifacts.

There will be many different routes through the game, each just as deep and profitable as the last. Each will branch out and become more complex as the player advances through tiers, unlocks new technology and becomes more proficient in their chosen skills. Essentially we’re describing the gameplay equivalent of a tech/skill tree.

End game

So eventually you’re going to get through all of the missions, you’ll have the best gear and you’ll be looking for a new challenge. This is where sector X comes in. Sector X is a collection of planets in which PVP is enabled by default and players battle over controlling various planets. To take part in the battle you first have to form an organisation (in game), which gives you access to a space station shared by other members of your organisation. The space station doubles as a ship that any captain in the organisation can control and is constructed from blocks and objects for full customization.

The PVP in this sector is entirely optional, players choose whether or not to attack each other or work together. Monsters, quests and events will be strong enough to be challenging even with the best tools in the game. And in game events, invasions and so on will keep the experience fresh.

Director Mode

On top of sector X, one major part of the replayable content will be director mode. Director mode exists within a separate Starbound client that allows admins to connect to their servers with a range of new tools built to control the action for their players. Admins in director mode (there can be multiple), will be able to spawn blocks, items, monsters, npcs at will. Take direct control over them, have them speak and interact with players. Essentially director mode allows admins to take on a similar role to that of a dungeon master in D&D, creating scenarios and stories on the fly to ensure players never have the same experience twice.

User made mission sharing

Using in game wiring tools players will be able to create their own mission maps and challenges that can be shared with other players. Custom missions installed on a server will be available to all players at any point and will function as instances. Parties will be able to enter these instances together as many times as they like.

Mod support

We’ve taken steps towards better mod support recently with the implementation of a .pak file system. Essentially condensing an entire mod into a single file. We’re not far away from also implementing a system for servers to share these pak files with clients on connect. This will allow mod authors and server admins to entirely overhaul the vanilla starbound experience for the players on their server.

Server security

We’re implementing a range of security checks to minimize cheating on a broad scale. But for admins that desire absolute security we will also eventually be implementing server side characters, including server side accounts and the option to require a new character the first time a new player connects. We want to empower server admins to create a unique experience on their server.

Update Schedule

Currently our update schedule relies entirely on waiting for engine updates to be finished before we are able to push any content updates to steam. After the next update we’re actually changing the way we work and separating content updates and engine updates. What this means for the end user is that content updates will hit several times a week instead of once every week/two weeks. The game will constantly evolve and you may find new things every time you log in.

The future of Chucklefish

So that’s Starbound, how about Chucklefish as a company?

Opening offices

We’ve actually just signed for a new office that we’ll be opening in London in the next 2 or 3 weeks. It’s a very exciting time for us, we’ll finally be working in the same room right in front of each other and our productivity is going to improve massively as a result. We also intend to provide some temporary office space for the games we publish and assist on. We’ll be blogging about opening the office soon, complete with photos and whatnot.

Publishing

We’re going to continue helping out smaller indie companies publish their titles. Games on the horizon include Stardew Valley, Halfway, Treasure Adventure World, Wanderlust Adventures and more. We’d like to progress more in this space and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers.

A second game

We’re going to be producing a second game along side Starbound, with an entirely new development team. We’ll be looking into hiring UK developers for this project shortly (CVs to [email protected] if you’re interested!) This won’t slow down the production of Starbound at all, worry not,  I will be assisting in the design but we’ll be working with entirely new developers. At the moment we’re still in the stage where we’re kicking around ideas, one that keeps popping up is a top down, open world, multiplayer pirate game.