Armors have gotten some updates as well. Starting with 5th tier armors, all armors are divided into three different progression paths with varying stats:
- Separator Armors have high armor but low energy. They are best for users of melee weapons.
- Accelerator Armors have a good balance of armor and energy. They are best for users of ranged weapons.
- Manipulator Armors have low armor but high energy. They are best for users of staffs.
There are, of course, lots of new weapons in the game now too. They include many new biome weapons, more bows and throwing weapons, and the new Staves weapon type. Hold the fire button to charge it (you should probably aim during this time too), and then release it to unleash a powerful attack. Staves unleash their projectiles right at your targeting reticule, making them more precise than guns.
Players can craft a variety of staves at the new Manipulator Table crafting station. One more big change in the weapons category is that Defense Turrets have seen massive improvement. They can now be equipped with a range of different weapons for different effects (as seen in the image above).
In terms of survival, the temperature system has been replaced by a new hazard system. The player will need to unlock new technologies to be able to resist new planetary hazards they will encounter. An expanded version of the cooking system replaces hunger and adds many buffs too. The game also has a new difficulty option that will cause valuable items such as ores to be dropped when you die. As mentioned above, there are new large, flying monsters and large, aquatic monsters. They have also nerfed the birds a bit to make them a bit less annoying for players.
Survival in Starbound also involves many new crops to plant and tons of new cooking recipes (as seen in the picture above). Your cooked foods will now give you a plethora of different buffs. More complex recipes will yield stronger buffs.
The universe of Starbound now has bugs unique to each type of planet. These bugs spawn throughout the Starbound cosmos. Using a bug net, you can capture these bugs. If you are like Agitha from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you can put your collection of bugs on display too.
Starbound‘s huge new update has added some modding features as well. Both items and status effects are now scriptable, allowing for the creation of custom ones. The game has a new Scripting Console for creating your own GUIs, games, or anything you can imagine.
For those who like playing with wiring, like Minecraft‘s Redstone, the wiring system in Starbound has gotten updated a good bit as well. Most lights can now be wired. The Winter Update also adds many new switches, sensors, and logic gates. It also adds a bunch of bug fixes for the wiring system too.
That’s about it for the major parts of Starbound‘s Winter Update. It also adds a ton of new stuff, such as new costumes, status effects, block types, furniture, toys and novelty items. There are more than 150 new micro dungeons. Beyond that, the update adds a number of performance enhancements for things like tile rendering, liquids processing, and plenty of other stuff.
For multiplayer, the Starbound server got some new features as well. These include the ability to set the spawn point of the world, a tile protection system so you can prevent modification of certain areas of the world, some new admin commands, and RCON support.
This looks to be a very good update. I’d be playing it now that I’m about done writing this article, but for some reason my Steam has not updated the game yet (even though it is set to always keep this game up-to-date). Thank you for that Steam… Anyway, if you enjoyed Starbound but were worried that maybe it was dying (or was already dead), your worries are alleviated. The game’s new Winter Update should keep you busy for quite a while with all of this new content, and there will probably be more updates to come as well.
So this is a great time to jump back into Starbound for another adventure amongst the stars. It should be noted that starting a new character is recommended since there have been so many changes in this update. You can check out the official update page here, or the abbreviated change list here.
