Welcome to the very first edition of the Starbound Chronicle, our chance to give you a heads up on some of the things we've spent our time on in the month just gone.

For a good portion of this month, we've been working on armor mods.

We haven't said too much about the mechanics of the modification system up until now, so we felt now was a good time to talk about them.

Armor mods are found on armor of uncommon, rare and legendary status-- (those names will probably change). Each status has a pool of mods to choose from.

The effect of armor mods varies hugely. From armor that glows in the dark, to armor with a built in defib that activates if your energy bar is full when you die, shocking you back to life.

Armor with mods attached can also be crafted. At the start of the game, each race will be capable of crafting unique armor with mods no other race has access to. The Avian glide ability pictured above is one example of a race-specific mod.

Later in the game, players will have the ability to learn the secrets of alien tech, but early on, armor mods give each race a unique play style and ensure the importance of teamwork.

We'll be talking more about mods soon, including weapon mods that completely change the way each weapon is used.

- the Starbound Chronicle Team

Another area of the game we've been focusing on recently is fleshing out the history of each race in Starbound and building a deep and compelling lore.

Starbounds lore is presented to the player through books, logs, papers and other materials found in the game world, as well as conversations with NPCs who will change what they say based on your race.

Players keep a log of all the materials they find in their log book, allowing the curious to piece together a rich timeline of events that have come to define each race and their place in the universe.

To give you an idea of the depth here we've decided to share with you an excerpt of the internal Avian history document we're working from.

You can download a PDF filled with Avian history by clicking the button below!

This month we also decided to start revealing more of the Starbound soundtrack. We've made available a large selection of the tracks that play during exploration.

Go and have a listen at : www.playstarbound.com/soundtrack.

Also to readers of the Chronicle we've decided to put out an exclusive ("Oh my!" -Tiy) track download. Eridanus Supervoid by the wonderful Curtis Schweitzer.

-the Starbound Chronicle Team