Hey everyone! I hope December’s treating you well.
The unstable release of Starbound 1.2 is here! This means a stable release is nearly here, but not quite – we may still make changes or find all kinds of exciting bugs that need fixing ahead of the official release. But if you’re a Steam user and you just can’t wait, you can check out the update ahead of time by running “Starbound – Unstable” from your Steam library!
For 1.2, we wanted to focus on giving you more to do after you’ve finished all that saving the universe business. To that end, we’ve added endgame procedural dungeons and bosses, the ability to terraform planets, weapon upgrades, and elemental damage! Take a look at the patch notes below for details, and click through if you’re interested in bug/performance fixes and changes to the modding API.
If you’d rather wait for the stable release, sit tight! We won’t keep you waiting too long. :)
Major Changes
- Ancient Vaults
- Players who have completed the main storyline can visit a mysterious trader on the Outpost who will send them on a quest to activate and enter the Ancient Gateways found floating in some systems
- These gateways provide access to Ancient Vaults: challenging procedural dungeons left by the ancients, filled with dangerous guardians (including procedural bosses!) and fantastic lost technologies
- Terraforming
- Using powerful devices acquired from the Ancient Vaults along with a new Essence currency, you can now transform regions or whole planets into entirely different biomes
- Terraformers can be used to expand a region across a planet’s surface, replacing natural blocks, objects and plant life, and eventually changing the type of the planet itself
- Microformers are consumable single-use terraformers which provide even more region types to add to your worlds
- Weapon Upgrades
- Use the ancient anvil available at the end of Ancient Vaults and spend Essence to upgrade your outdated legendary weapons, opening up many new options for endgame combat styles
- Elemental Damage
- Monsters now have resistance and weakness to elemental damage types, making your choice of weapons more important than ever
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