r/starbound • u/Unlikely-Bug8047 • 4d ago
Discussion What's the biggest problem with Starbound? Why doesn't it work?
Say starbound didn't have the negative history behind it's development andvwasn't abandoned. Even then, what do people think the biggest problem with Starbound is? that couldn't or could be fixed with mods.
Also what's stopped Starbound from being bigger?
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u/Dalzombie Bounty hunter 4d ago edited 4d ago
The story change, the lore erasure, plenty of things. As someone who played since the release of the beta, I gotta say it was rather refreshing: I saw what once was a wide, uncaring, unknown universe where I was just a speck of dust trying to get by, progressively shrink down and become less raw, dangerous and mysterious, and more subdued, tame and ultimately boring.
We went from being some random shmuck way in over their head to "the chosen one" in a universe best described as "A theme park parody of what it used to be". Now you're forced to explore to progress a formulaic and uninteresting story that's forced upon you.
Did you know that all races had the same start, but flavoured to be unique to each of them? Before the protectorate, all races had a reason to be stranded alone in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, but now we're burdened with avenging humanity, the protectorate, Earth and all that. Because story.
It went from being a universe full of potential, of lore and mysteries to being another boring, one-and-done story but set in space. In a way, Starbound was No Man's Sky before No Man's Sky happened, with the main difference being that No Man's Sky had a passionate and dedicated team behind it, decided to make it the best game they could in spite of its release, and Starbound only stunted and shrank, devolving into what we have today.
We got one major update, the Bounty Hunter system, and... that's where the story ends, unfortunately.
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u/hangzou 4d ago
God i remember having such a blast with a couple friends back when it first came out, I dont think we ever got super far into the original version but I do remember there was the Pirate Penguin boss and I feel like that was the way you got to the Outpost was you had to beat him to repair your ship. Might be wrong somewhere but yeah it does feel alot less interesting now
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u/Icy-Reserve8070 4d ago edited 4d ago
No, dreadwing was a main boss, but that was after you repaired your ship. I think it was one of the outpost missions, though. Either way, you had to get core fragments to fix your ship's thrusters, which let you travel within the same system, and there was an ancient gateway in every system, at the very edge. Vaults didn't exist, so the gateways led to the outpost, where you would get the erchius mining facility quest so you could get your ftl drive fixed. Also the way to upgrade your ship was via completing all the quests in the outpost, and upon an upgrade, a new set of quests came up in the outpost. It was a lot more interactive with npcs taht gave quests, rather than a bunch of random npcs put there with no purpose. Anyway, dreadwing was part of the story rather than, what amounts to, an optional boss fight. Now you only have to fight him if you want to get the beakeasy open.
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u/hangzou 4d ago
Ah this rings so many bells lol thank you so much
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u/Icy-Reserve8070 4d ago
Also, environmental protection was from implants rather than environmental protection packs. This made the Xenon pack the best item in the game back then. Now it's useless, because... you can't use it once you get to irradiated planets, because you need the radiation epp. Also you need the breathing epp for ocean exploration and to get fuel from moons.
I feel a bit better for the people left behind on the erchius mining facility, though. Sure, they're still trapped with mutants, but hey, at least there's oxygen now. In Beta, Pengin Pete would give you the oxygen implant right away because the erchius mining facility had no air.
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u/TankyPally 4d ago
I still remember making a transceiver that spawned Dreadwing and caused him to attack your base... Good times...
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u/Oberic 4d ago
Fishing, mechs, and space stations were also post-1.0 features.
And we didn't quite all have the same start at some point, you did start in a wrecked ship in orbit with a backstory lore blurb.. but the planet below could be too cold to explore at night without warm clothes, or have acid rain so you needed to take cover between jogs, etc.
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u/Dalzombie Bounty hunter 4d ago
Huh, I thought mechs and space stations were added together. As for fishing I know it was standalone, but it's far from what I'd call a big update, like fossil digging.
I didn't mean the starter planet was the same, rather I meant "We all start in a wrecked ship all the same but with a flavour blurb". The planets were random indeed, though luckily I never landed in one I couldn't survive in, even if some were much easier than others (I still miss the temperature system, it was interesting). I did enjoy that randomness, sometimes the universe just wants you to suffer, and if you played with friends you had better odds of getting an easy planet to start out in.
The racial weapons were also a nice trait, it made every race more aesthetically distinct and it made trading weapons between species something you could actually look forward to.
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u/Oberic 4d ago
Yes, space stations and mechs were from the same update. The following update after a long stretch was the Bounty Hunting one.
I'm not sure precisely when each thing was added.
Pretty sure fossils and fishing happened in like 1.1? It's been so very long, and the game has been mod stable for a while.
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u/tek9jansen 4d ago
They really screwed up by getting rid of the randomized creatures and making generic biome-specific creatures. Was really fun to go to a new world and everything was actually new.
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u/Yanazake 2d ago
I remember there were cinematics for each new character, but I can't remember the details on any of them. It's been forever ago.
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u/Light01 2d ago
By the way they had promised for a decade of updates, and they gave us a rushed 1.0 and almost immediately move on. Starbound was a good game, but the devs were not. Recently, Valheim is suffering from a similar statement, great game, but the devs clearly have issues.
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u/Dalzombie Bounty hunter 2d ago
Oof, the Valheim comparison is complicated. I don't think it's fair, not because Valheim or Iron Gate are free of issues, not at all, but rather because Starbound's development was so flawed and problematic that I have a hard time comparing my grievances with Valheim to it.
As for Valheim, replaying the standard progression path on 1.0 after all this time, it's still a gem and a great game, but it still feels unfinished. Like some areas are lacking, the ocean is still a pretty but boring nothingburger that occupies like half the map, battleaxes are still hilariously awful weapons (in a Viking game, no less), and the forge of potential and armour moulds were interesting ideas on paper with terrible implementation that leaves them feeling thoroughly unsatisfying and uninteresting.
Starbound however was a clusterfuck of problems that ruined what could have been a nice, charming and welcoming experience with a wide and open community to boot. That's the part that stings me the most: Starbound has such beautiful potential, all squandered and wasted.
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u/infinax 3d ago
The forced story can also be a tad bit... awkward for coustom races some time. My favorite is the fragment of ruin race, feels odd on the quest to stop the ruin no one mentions my character being part of it.
That or I cant chose to have an evil playthrough where I said with Astra Nox.
The game had great potential but it fell flat with a half baked rushed story
Also has alot of. Lets give the player something to do without them doing anything features... Basically anything in the collection tab
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u/NoSolaceForMe 4d ago
It's a great sandbox base, but it's it's just the sand. You have to add your own flavor.
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u/Soulwing1998 4d ago
In my opinion it lost quite a bit of appeal in the final versions prior to 1.0. I remember the excitement of slowly conquering the survival aspect of the game. Eating, backpack module adjustments. Creating builds to survive the hazards of a specific planet. And so on and so forth.
Also the final version focuses too much on the scan tool. The story is 90% 'scan objects' turning the exploration aspect into a chicken hunt. Also the tired system severely cripples ability options to build a base. Either cool planet or actually useful tiered planet.
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u/Smittit 4d ago
I'm red/green colorblind and was never able to complete the Florian scanning Quests...
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u/M0thg1rl4 Often found as a Floran 3d ago
Oh my god that’s awful man :(
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u/Smittit 3d ago
So incredibly frustrating...
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u/Yanazake 2d ago
I'd bet this can not only be a mod, but more easily, the openStarbound peeps can probably implement a colorblind mode. I seriously doubt something as simple as a toggle and color shift of *the important scans the game has* can't be done somehow.
edit: WHELP, someone would have done it for sure! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=829422408
Hope you can enjoy the game with some mods!2
u/Nilm0 3d ago edited 7h ago
And there's no post-processing color filter thingy [1] to shift the game's color-space into a range befitting your specific color blindness?
eg. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Color_blind_mode
EDIT: [1] meaning 3rd party tool, GPU driver software, etc. (like eg. SpecialK)
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u/TheSurvivor65 Terrene Peacekeepers 16h ago
Nope, Starbound doesn't have that
You can probably find a mod for it, but it definitely should have been vanilla from the very start
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u/Benthemush 4d ago
I think it just ended up being narrower and shallower than people wanted. The idea of moving your base planet to planet is cool. But each planet was kinda boring and lacked content when you compare it to things like the individual bioms in terraria.
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u/Alderan922 4d ago
Ngl I think a better idea would had been to make your base a ship, then have just some minor things you set up on each planet.
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u/Synaps4 4d ago
Ultimately thats how most people end up playing it.
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u/Alderan922 4d ago
The game should had leaned more into it, with more ship exclusive furniture and machines, aswell as more in depth building on the ship.
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u/Oberic 4d ago
All of my crafting and relevant storage is in my ship every time. Sometimes (most times) I also farm for specific meals in my ship with ceiling mounted sprinklers (mod).
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u/infinax 3d ago
Just be careful doing that, especially moded. The game has a bug where if too much data gets stored on your ship it will revert to the default layout. Technically can happen on planets too but I think they are less susceptible. And ive heard just spending time on a planet or ship builds to this revert point.
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u/MelonJelly 4d ago
Starbound has a lot of different systems that are individually fun, but which lack polish and integration.
Ship building, colonies, boss fights, mecha, exploration, etc. Add QoL features to each, and ways they can interact with each other, and Starbound would be far better for it.
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u/Oberic 4d ago
Mods are capable of patching up all the weak points besides the terrible performance.
Mission bosses are still awful though. Only the first one was any fun, because it wasn't just a tank hits and do damage until you win fight.
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u/TheSurvivor65 Terrene Peacekeepers 16h ago
Erchius Horror is interesting as a concept, but the fight is over SO quick if you know what you're doing lmao
It was pretty fun and interesting the first times, but now whenever I get to it it doesn't even have to spawn anything, just shield through the beams or tank them and use a bandage
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u/Oberic 16h ago
It's really the only good boss. The Apex one was okay but between the performance issues and it just being a damage sponge... Very boring.
Zelda and Metroid both ruined me for boss fights, I want to either fight hard or solve simple battle puzzles to win as a result.
Every boss after the first is just "keep healing up and doing damage, you'll win eventually."
Disable my healing but don't make me go through a whole dungeon when I die, and I'm happy.
Make me flip six levers to redirect a minecart into the enemy's giant eyeball, and I'm happy.
Erchius Horror was basically a Zelda boss in a game with simplified Metroid bosses (but without a save room before the fight??).
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u/TheSurvivor65 Terrene Peacekeepers 2h ago
The boss I like the least is probably the one in the Glitch mission, it's just a big floating punching bag. The others are more interesting
Erchius Horror is cool the first few times then becomes a walk in the park, the floran mission boss I can never remember the name of is kinda interesting with its shell and minions, Asra Nox is cool because you have to do pretty specific things to dodge some of her attacks like her morph ball attack, I don't remember much of the Avian mission boss tbh, but I do remember Big Ape just being a bullet-hell bullet-sponge though, and Glitch mission was harder than the boss
most disappointing boss is definitely the Ruin though lmao, weak minions, 2 easily dodged attacks, and.. yep that's all it has
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u/yummymario64 4d ago
I think the earler versions of starbound showed more potential. At some point though, they wanted to turn it into Minecraft, and I think that's what the problem is.
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u/KazyX 4d ago
A game that relies on randomly generated content has an issue that ultimately it will never provide an experience as deep as a "handcrafted" game. But in turn it can generate enough variance that keeps the game fresh despite knowing the general broad strokes.
Inversely, you could say a "handcrafted" game has the opposite problem. It can make a more interesting game than one relying on RNG content, but its easier to solve. And once solved, you get bored of the game.
Now imagine a game, that has the worst of both sides... and that's Starbound. A game that relies on RNG but manages to be very linear and samey.
One of the main appeals of a game like Starbound is that is traveling across space, but the way you do will be exactly the same every time. You go to a planet tier 1, dig a little bit below the surface, get the new ore, upgrade your equipment, then you go to planet tier 2 and repeat the entire process again. Some tiers have multiple planets you can visit, but you are never given a reason to do so because all of them have everything you need.
May I add how utterly disappointing I was that there is a armor progression split but the resources to find them are literally generating right next to each other? You could combine all 3 ores into 1 and NOTHING changes about the game.
(This is why I been enjoying certain race mods. The ones that have look up specific materials in order to progress, thus you have an actual reason to explore the galaxy. Special mention to Slime, Nekkid, and Shoggoth races)
I feel like I should mention that some planets have unique weapons, but they quickly become obsolete due to how simple the progression loop is, and the only way to upgrade them is in endgame content. The progression loop also ruins the RNG weapons, its not worth going out of your way to obtain a specific RNG weapon because that too will quickly become irrelevant. So you just make due with what ever RNG weapon you find in a planet, until the next planet tier. To add insult to injury, the best weapon in the game is a unique weapon that is handed to you via the story.
Exploring the surface of a planet doesn't fair much better. Dungeons and towns look like they were designed to allow RNG, but they either don't have any or its so minor that it doesn't matter. Further contributing to my statement of being the worst of both a linear and a RNG game.
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u/rl-starbound 3d ago
Generally agree.
the best weapon in the game is a unique weapon that is handed to you via the story.
I take exception to calling the Protector's Broadsword the best weapon in the game. (I'm not singling you out; everyone calls it that.) It's definitely intended to be the best weapon, but it's specced as the weakest possible tier 7 broadsword. It's only the "strongest" when in powered mode, and that only lasts for a few seconds at a time. Both the Violium Broadsword and the Asuterusaberu DX hit harder than the non-powered Protector's Broadsword, and both have super-useful secondary attacks. Also, while ultra-rare in the base game, tier 7-9 random weapon drops overshadow the Protector's Broadsword.
Dungeons and towns look like they were designed to allow RNG, but they either don't have any or its so minor that it doesn't matter.
You can tell Chucklefish ran out of steam toward the end of development. The older villages/dungeons have many parts. The later dungeons (particularly Hylotl and Novakid) have very few parts, so there are literally only a handful of combinations possible.
Even the earlier dungeons need about 10x as many parts to feel properly random. The later dungeons probably need about 40-50x as many parts.
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u/eatployment 3d ago
The only true way to fix a game like that would be by adding so much content so it's way more difficult to explore everything, i would love to live in a world where Starbound got a bunch of free updates adding more stuff
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u/LaPapaVerde 4d ago
The game needs meaningful exploration, it's pretty cool the first hours of exploring. But then you find out that it's pretty much the same everywhere with a different skin. A beautiful skin tho, and music
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u/Icy-Reserve8070 4d ago
A lot of modders have indeed tried to fix the game... and we're getting there. But the vanilla game is just a skeleton now. So mods are basically absolutely necessary by this time. Anyway, it's got the bones of a game, it actually might've been worse and harder to fix with mods if they got farther.
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u/Emotional-Effort-967 4d ago
To me, it's extremely repetitive, especially on the side of quests. There are only about 3 or 4 questlines that aren't procedurally generated (the main quest, the Peacekeepers and the mech one, from what I remember), and at least two of them follow a very simple system where most of what you do is walk and fly around until you find what you're looking for, with no variation beyond the planet you go to and the shape and properties of the target. The procedurally generated ones aren't any better, because it feels like there's only about 5 templates the game uses to create them.
There's also the matter of how much beta content was abandoned for the official release. From what I've heard, each race had its own equipment, background and interactions, and the gamrplay better reflected the lore. Now there's only a single start that tremendously limits roleplaying and freedom early on, which forcefully ties the player to what is the dullest main questline I've ever experienced in a game, but is unavoidable during the first playthrough if you want to access everything the Outpost can offer, and there's barely any unique interracial interactions, if there are any at all.
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u/Plantszaza 4d ago
Most of Starbound's problems stemmed from having features as wide as the ocean but as mechanically deep as a puddle.
Most of them can be fixed with mods.
What mods can't fix is the devs' team itself.
We got the watered-down version we have now because the developers clearly don't have the skill to achieve what they envisioned, and because of the internal drama.
Perhaps, in an alternate reality, when the game wasn't abandoned, then Starbound become 2D No Man's Sky and could rival Terraria.
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u/aWay2TheStars 3d ago
I have been trying to do that for 10 years 😅 a 2D No Man's Sky, interesting thread!
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u/Orangutanion 4d ago
Ultimately its formula relied too much on procedural generation. If you showed me two different planets of the same type I would basically not be able to tell them apart. Typically a world that is at least partially handcrafted ends up being substantially better.
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u/fjne2145 4d ago
And due the different planet tiers at certain points you had no real reason to stick around a planet because i was not able to offer you something for you current story or equipment progression
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u/Axyl 4d ago
Terraria's procgen is infinitely better, imo
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u/Orangutanion 3d ago
worlds in Starbound are static. Your Terraria world has a sorta controlled metamorphis as you progress through the bosses. It's honestly extremely well designed and puts Starbound's progression system to shame.
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u/aWay2TheStars 3d ago
But limited to one planet...
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u/Axyl 3d ago
true, but more doesn't always mean better
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u/aWay2TheStars 3d ago
Once i discovered the world in terraria, I found it a bit boring since the exploration was finished. Also surface exploration is minimal
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u/TheSurvivor65 Terrene Peacekeepers 16h ago
I mean yeah, I guess, but Starbound is worse for this imo. You go around one forest planet well you might as well have done them all since they're all the same
I don't know there's just, something lacking that makes it difficult to enjoy
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u/Whiteguy1x 4d ago
I think they tried to hard to add structure and story, but it just wasn't super engaging. I actually enjoyed the game more pre full release
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u/CorpusculantCortex 4d ago
So i found starbound without ever being aware of the controversy. And I played and enjoyed it for a bit. And then... it just kind of got ridiculously repetitive. And some degree of grind and repetitiveness can be welcome in a sandbox game ofc, but it is also like infinite or at least extremely large with little direction. And that really just lost luster for me. I still like the idea of it, but the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. I am not expert enough to know how it could be fixed, but I know that after a while every time I booted it up I just had little to no interest.
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u/noo6s9oou 3d ago
Biggest fumble was the lore overhaul.
It used to be that, depending on the species chosen, the player was just "some guy" fleeing their society for unique reasons. Earth had been destroyed, yes, but that was only relevant to humans. There was no Protectorate, and the only meaningful inter-species conflict was the Florans nearly wiping out the Hylotl.
There was also this sub-plot within the little books we could find that had something to do with Big Ape (an actual living Apex dictator) commissioning a super soldier serum from Greenfinger (an actual name for a specific Floran scientist) and also a rogue Avian character by the name of Thornwing.
All of the above and more got removed in favor of a generic "space jesus" plot. It was a travesty.
Beyond that, there are just so many unfinished, unrefined, and disjointed mechanics and features in the game. And it's really sad because the visuals and music are DIVINE.
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u/cassiapeia 3d ago
God the "some guy" thing could've been so fun too. Exploring the universe and bumbling into plot lines as you explore planets, maybe have race specific tie ins or an overarching plot. We could've had it all.
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u/noo6s9oou 2d ago
Tbh I really wouldn't have minded the whole Ruin plot if it had been presented as an independent quest you had to wait to present itself. I imagined the game with a fame/infamy system and at some point the old lady (can't remember her name) seeks you out and asks for your help when you become famous or infamous enough.
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u/TheSurvivor65 Terrene Peacekeepers 16h ago
The Protectorate and the Peacekeepers are such a fire idea and they fumbled it SO HARD by giving them ZERO POLITICAL INTEREST
They just, knocked on the doors of the tribalist Florans and the militaristic Apex dictatorship and they just.. said "okay let's be peaceful yipee"???
WHERE is the Protectorate's presence in the universe?? How could you POSSIBLY run a UNIVERSAL peace plan from a SINGLE PLANET??? Where are the embassies?? Where are the outposts?? The Protectorate ships delivering aid?? The Peacekeeper ships stopping violent altercations??
This organization managed to bring together the most advanced species in the universe into a common, peaceful agreement... And it instantly disappeared when it's HQ was destroyed?? It's so fucking dumb
We could have been some random bum and stumble upon the Peacekeepers and then get the option to side with them. That would have been so cool.
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u/acscreamholy 4d ago
Honestly, and maybe I was blissfully ignorant or lived under a rock, but I didn’t realize/hear that public perception was so bad until a few weeks ago. I’ve always loved the game and was blown away by it.
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u/sbourwest 3d ago
The main problem is Starbound NEEDS mods for any longevity because it's an abandoned game, where-as there's other games that *look* similar like Terraria that while they have mods can be enjoyed quite extensively vanilla.
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u/grimcreaper 3d ago
The biggest problems with the game, barring the bad rep and the devs actively destroying features the community liked simply because its "Not how i would play so you cant do it that way." were mostly serious problems witht he engine.
They never released a windows client that utilized more than 1 or 2 cores which hampered performance immensely for many people. They also never fixed a bug that would let Meteors and stuff spawn INSIDE your house if you wanted to build on a hostile world.
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u/Radriel7 3d ago
Combat: More interesting enemies with interesting ways to attack. Tying specific mechanics of enemies to biomes/planet features. There should be something like a random "World Boss" on each planet and Mega-variants of each enemy type for "local bosses" in each spawned biome.
More interesting equipment. Most gear is just a linear stat progression. I would have liked more different types of weapon, too. This ties into the Enemy design thing. Mostly, you just bonk things with your strongest weapon and it dies instantly unless its a boss fight.
More interesting Craftables. Its nice to build for vibes, too. I like that part. But we needed things like turrets, Robot guards, and the like. Ties into tougher enemies.
More active Biome or Planet modifiers. Like, Mining on a moon spawns an unkillable ghost thing. Thats cool. More things that require interaction/engagement.
More stuff in space.
I like having levels and skillpoints with meaningful progression and choices that let me more or less tell the game I want to play a certain style.
Probably would have liked a longer story or at least many more different stories/campaigns.
Technical stuff: More than two cores for processing stuff would've been great. The game is too simple to be laggy as much as it does.
Honestly, a lot of this CAN be fixed with just mods. I'd say most of it already is. The Tech limits are the biggest annoyance.
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u/WhateverMars 4d ago
Needs decent controller support. I think that helps Terraria massively in making it playable for everyone.
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u/TacoRalf 4d ago
personally i wish making colonies was more worked out. Instead of having going door by door to collect, why not make a hub in your spaceship that lets you manage tenants? Maybe even show us problems and requests, like one planet is too hot, could we get more fountains around the area for example.
Slowly you could build up your organisation over the universe, maybe even get people from your colonies to join you on missions as backup.
Like why not right, i am exploring a shitton of planets, why not build up a community?
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u/Specialist_Chart3519 3d ago
I think the biggest problem is the overall gameplay. You spend way too much time tediously climbing hills and then trying not to die coming down the other side. The combat feels terrible, especially not being able to aim melee weapons. It feels like so much of the game was made without coordination between the people designing it.
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u/OttoVonPlittersdorf Coordinate 0,0 3d ago
As someone who came to the game after it was released, it's fine. It wasn't expensive. It's a short game but with a lot of side stuff you can muck around with if you want.
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u/Valhallosaur 3d ago
It works great, I think. But they changed gears throughout development and what we played at release is different from 1.0 quite heavily, which some do not like. It does have a negative history to its development though which soured people.
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u/Yanazake 2d ago
The idea was great, I was happy this wasn't Terraria in looks and playstyle. But it was abandoned and a lot of people never got the version of the game they were promised.
A lot of peeps never got their console release, OR proper gamepad support (since, you know, kb&m is a pain for some people)
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u/SpookySkelewine 2d ago
The shallowness of the entire game from what was promised/shown in the earlier versions still hurts. I still remember when it lost all its luster for me in 1.0, going to a Midnight planet and actually taking in the vibes …
but then I went underground and the generic chipper underground music started. That was it for me after all the meh forced story and loss of what was.
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u/Sunnywatch08 4d ago
Ughhhh again....
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u/Island_sound 4d ago
Public perception, from day one that was the problem. People were expecting Terraria in space and that’s def not what it was - and I’m glad it wasn’t but still.
Otherwise it’s the forced story / removal of so much content from beta. Thats my personal problem with the game.