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Starbound now available for preorder [Up: Stretch Goals]
- Thread starter Killthee
- Start date
Weltall Zero
Member
My friends just gifted me Starbound. If I was eager for the beta before, now I'm positively brimming with anticipation! 
New Update!
Just a short update tonight because I cant really show you screenshots of the things were working on.
We added a new biome, but its a secret one that I dont want to spoil.
Were working hard on adding recipes for every item in the game, this is going to take a little while because there are just so many.
Bartwe has begun working on the tech GUI, this morning it looked like this:
Beautiful no?
Now it looks like this:
Ignore the regular crafting recipes in the tech window.
Heres an example of an access panel on your ship you might access the tech window with:
Heres a chocolate fountain:
That's clearly roughed in, and it only took them a day to finish it. I know they're not close to launch yet, but they're not that far.
Did you even read the rest of the post or just look at the pictures?
I get that, I just didn't expect the current state of the UI to be so rough at this stage for something as basic as the tech selection. I guess I assumed the state of the UI would be more in line with the Crafting WIP they showed off a few days ago:
Obviously still missing things, but usable in game at that stage unlike the before screenshot of the tech window which looks unusable in game.
I'm really glad they're doing these daily updates now so we can get an idea of their progress. I can't really criticize them for being so silent on beta release/holding back the beta when they're displaying how rough some of the core UI still is at this point.
Yeah, I read it : P I'm really liking how the final version turned out.
*Ahem* In the same update where they showed the "rough" Tech window above, they also showed what it looks like now, after bartwe took care of it (it took him a day indeed):
They have to get rid of the crafting recipes (which do not belong in this window), but otherwise bartwe works really fast, and the other members are no slouch either.
For example, Armagon just finished to take care of the Glitch dungeons, and is moving on to asian tombs (more info on his blog).
The pace is rather quick, really.
They have to get rid of the crafting recipes (which do not belong in this window), but otherwise bartwe works really fast, and the other members are no slouch either.
For example, Armagon just finished to take care of the Glitch dungeons, and is moving on to asian tombs (more info on his blog).
The pace is rather quick, really.
I like every day update but if they cannot share any picture or information, they became pretty useless
I think it's cool to know what they're working on even without pictures or details. They probably should have just done this instead of the Roadmap, even though the Roadmap is pretty and all.
Progress report:
- Tiy is still working on recipes. Hopes to have them done before next week.
- Name tags are working in multiplayer. Will not appear if the player is hiding in the dark.
- Work is being done on the 3D printer interface. The 3D printer will let you craft knock off copies of most in game objects.
- Mob spawns are still being worked on. Adding group/herds and making sure they spawn correctly.
Tiy said:17th May Progress
So the great recipe undertaking is still underway, I managed to do over 800 today but theres still a lot more to be done. Im hoping to have the recipes finished before next week. Fingers crossed. Weve also finally added nametags to multiplayer. A small thing but a little bit more work than youd expect.
When a player appears on your screen, their name tag is shown for around 5 seconds before fading out. Name tags wont be displayed for players who appear on screen in the dark. So you can still be sneaky.
Weve also added a status button (alt), holding down the status button displays everyones nametag regardless of how long theyve been on screen. It also causes all interactive objects in the world to flash. Heres an ugly gif of that. In game its a nice smooth pulse.
Were also working on the 3D printing interface, which is very similar to the crafting interface but youre also able to scan in items to reverse engineer them. Almost any object you find in the world can be scanned/reverse engineered to allow you to print it using pixels. However, anything you make with a 3D printer will be marked as printed and will have a much lower value. If you want authentic gear youll have to find it.
Were also revamping the way mobs spawn, giving them herds/groups and making sure they dont spawn in undesirable spots.
Agreed. Hymn to the Stars is my favorite. So good.
Also, update:
Oh dear, apparently I’m doing the progress update today. This should be interesting
So, most of the mob spawning bugs are worked out, finally. NPCs spawn in clusters that are far apart, and don’t tend to spawn in undesirable spots anymore or on top of each other. Mobs are de-spawned properly if no players are nearby, and mobs are spawned only if there is enough room in a given region to place them all. There were some bugs left that caused NPCs to be de-spawned in certain cases while still on screen, and those have been fixed. So that’s good!
The next stage for NPCs at this point, which I’m working on at the moment, is fixing some of the behavioral problems they have. They tend to be a little too determined to try and reach their goal (to attack a player), and they need to have way better detection for when this is just not possible and they need to get bored and wander off a little faster. There are also plenty of general navigation bugs and limitations that remain, and hopefully a good chunk of these can be fixed by tomorrow. I’m hopeful!
Omni and Rho are working on a fun little UI animation for ship travel that will give UI feedback for when the ship is currently flying and can’t be controlled, but more importantly looks really cool! Hopefully we can post a video of it tomorrow, but for now here’s a pretty terrible screenshot of it:
Bart has finished some lighting changes for nametags and object highlighting that makes them a bit smarter about the surrounding light level, and it looks really nice now!
Another change we’re working on right now is putting the actual mod loading mechanics in! This is the part of the code that will scan additional asset directories and handle the load order for them, and load assets from them instead of the base assets directory. This also includes the addition of “packed” asset files, which should make startup times on real distributed versions of the game much much faster than the in-dev versions, because packing the assets folder means a whole lot less filesystem access, and we can add indexes that make everything much easier to load. Also it’s a lot simpler for people to manage.
In non-starbound related news, I have just recently recovered from what I can only assume to be the flu, and I do not recommend it. However, good news is that I finally have new glasses to replace my broken ones! I can see the text on my monitor again! BEHOLD:
Now that I can see again, coding should be slightly less challenging!
That looks amazing,love the warp sounds and how the engine will start for hyper drive.
New Update!
Speech bubbles look MUCH better. Upgraded ships look... eh... weird.
Will Starbound ever get it's own OT over in Community?
Time flies so fast.
So yesterday I said wed make speech bubbles prettier. We worked on it and now they look more or less like this:
still needs a little bit of tweaking positioning/pixel ratio wise. But I think theyre far more bearable now.
Weve also been working on NPCs, giving them new behaviors and making them all around much smarter and more interesting.
NPCs spawn really nicely now too. They spawn in packs that looks very natural. More importantly they know where they shouldnt spawn.
Weve also been working on getting the ship upgrades to work nice and seamlessly so you dont need to reorder any of your decoration when upgrading.
Until tomorrow!
Speech bubbles look MUCH better. Upgraded ships look... eh... weird.
Will Starbound ever get it's own OT over in Community?
OTs can't be posted until the game is a week or less away from launch, per GAF rules. I've already posted in the OT OT and will be creating it when we have a release date and it draws near.
That said, there's no rules against new news threads, and I am sure the game going into Beta deserves a new thread.
Sure thing dude. I was just wondering, as I've been posting the daily updates here for the past few days
Sure thing dude. I was just wondering, as I've been posting the daily updates here for the past few days
Probably because you're beating most of us to it.
Sure thing dude. I was just wondering, as I've been posting the daily updates here for the past few days
Their updates come at or around midnight. If I'm even up at that time, chances are good you've already posted it anyways.
Grimm Fandango
Member
I'd say only make a new thread if there's big news, perhaps like a beta release date or something. 'Til then, this thread is fine. It's our own "JAPAN TIME" thread for the time being.
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
agreed save new thread for beta date
May 21st Progress report:
A small one tonight guys,
We’re working on a bunch of things I can’t really post too many screenshots of because they’d be outright spoilers.
But just to keep you in the loop.
The tricky final polishing on the Speech bubbles is being finished up.
Work on flying NPC behavior is ongoing, as well as additional work on various behavior scripts.
A ton of unique ore based weapons have been created and more are coming. A full set of weaponry for each race at each tier is being produced. That’s 60 ore based weapons per race. Not including other uniques.
Biome work is constantly on going.
The avian tomb generator is being fleshed out a bit more.
The transition between ship upgrades is being worked on.
A whole bunch of cooking recipes are being designed.
We’re beginning work on the in game option menu.
and a bunch more stuff
Here’s a random screenshot:
perfect free
Member
And I wish I had a beta, but we can't always get what we want.
(Not really bitching. I like these daily updates; they're keeping my hype on a slow simmer.)
platypotamus
Member
What kind of crazy space age hammock could he hang with only one tree?
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
tie one end with a very long rope onto your space ship
Tie one end to the tree, and then the other end to the other side of the tree with portals! Sort of like this except with a tree:
How interesting would a portal gun make mining in a game like this? Drop a portal near your home, go mining for a while, full inventory? Portal home! It'd have to break between planets though.
How interesting would a portal gun make mining in a game like this? Drop a portal near your home, go mining for a while, full inventory? Portal home! It'd have to break between planets though.
Enjoying the daily news. Gives a sense of things progressing along.
Thinking if the game has progression similar to Terraria, a portal gun would be cool, but I don't think it'd be very practical. Assuming there's a way to just warp back to your base or to your ship, much like the magic mirror, the only other use would be for spelunking and such, and I'd imagine your mobility would soon get to a point where you have double jumping, flight, grappling hooks, or other things that would make a portal gun a bit pointless. Would still be fun to mess around with.
The only thing I can think of is players making fun portal-based puzzles for fellow players, or to just build rooms to mess around with it in. But even for spelunking when you have better mobility it could make life easier, and give options. Options are always handy. Missed that jump? Quick fire a portal above the ledge and below where you're falling!
Still, I do see your point. I would honestly rather a beta date than adding in somewhat redundant (but fun) systems.
May 22nd update:
Hello guys,
Today we finally got the speech bubbles nicely finished up. They’ve taken a little while because they’re much more complex than they look.
Now they’re automatically arranged nicely so you can easily follow a conversation, even between a lot of different people.
We’ve also been working a bunch on the games intro sequences. These are comic sequences with narration that set the scene for each race.
An example of some of the art:
Legris is amazing!
We continue to work on NPC stuff that I can’t really show off yet.
A lot of work is going on with cooking and various recipes and meals you can make.
Biome and terrain work is ongoing, I think I’m going to show off a bit more about how the terrain works tomorrow.
Also a thank you to everyone sending us narration auditions. It’s going to take a little while for us to go through them all.
Guessing it's just making it larger until we see anything more.
But you can decorate it in any way you'd like, can't you?
Sure. I just think of weapons and better warp drives when someone says "ship upgrades".
Is there going to be ship to ship combat in the game?
It was on a list of "things we'd like to do".
It was soon followed by "if we do decide to implement, probably AFTER we release the game".
May 23th Update:
Hi guys,
So today we put the finishing touches on in game chat with character expressions.
When you type now your characters lips will move. Typing in various different ways or using emotes like
Here’s a terribad video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLFO2Zq1X2A&feature=player_embedded
You probably want to watch it in 720p full screen, to actually see the animations.
Work has been going on with the art for mechs / other vehicles.
They’re starting to look really nice:
We’ve also been working on adding more ‘Terrain features’. These are small portions of terrain that make use of our dungeon system code to place very interesting set pieces on the terrain. They blend in nicely with existing terrain and there are hundreds of them.
Here’s an example of a terrain feature, a natural bridge:
Terrain features look different depending on the planet they appear on. We wanted a way to create natural structures the terrain gen would struggle to create naturally.
I'm so glad today is my last day of school, should give me plenty of time to play the beta whenever it comes out
Likely you will be going back to school by the time the beta hits.
dont say this...
So today we put the finishing touches on in game chat with character expressions.
When you type now your characters lips will move. Typing in various different ways or using emotes like
Little touches like these make me think this game is going to be so good. Agh, can't wait.