Vector Squared -- Starbound Community News, Issue #7

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Say hello, Starbounders, to the seventh issue of Vector Squared! That’s right, you still can’t get rid of us. We’re back with more information on the community and everything you could ever need for a Starbounder’s guide to the galaxy. Last week we covered hot topics, such as several new screenshots of the game, a wrap-up of the Hat Contest, and several features of community threads. Well, this time, we’re back with more news. A new holiday contest, interviews, the long-needed clan feature, and more. We’re back.​

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Brace yourselves for the next issue of Vector Squared!​

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Holidays Contest
Possible Pre-Order Beta
Community Interview
Community Age Poll
Suggestion Spotlight
Clans (Genesis, BBTS, Infinity, Space Pirates)
Image Speculation
Fanfic Review
Science Trivia
Question of the Week

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Holidays Contest!​

The forum’s staff has set up a new contest to celebrate the holidays, lasting from the 22nd of December until the 3rd of January!​

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This competition, all in a jolly good mood, is holiday/winter and Starbound related. Moreover, there are five categories, namely Short Story, Poem, Song Parody, Digital/Traditional Fanart and Pixel Fanart. You may enter all categories, but only one entry per section. This means that there should be five winners - however, people are capable of emerging victorious in more than one category. The winners will receive a winter themed avatar overlay and the victorious entries will be moved to a proper section and stickied for the month of January!​

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Pay the topic a visit and let the holidays’ power flow through you!​

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~Keeper (22nd of December, 2012)​

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To Beta, or Not to Beta?​

In a recent Tweet from Tiyuri, that really is the question. Historically, the developers have been quite insistent that they are uncomfortable with accepting money without giving something in return, despite the community’s growing hunger to help financially for Starbound. A possible compromise seems to be in the works, as Tiyuri has suggested the possibility of pre-ordering Starbound with beta access - once that part is ready.​

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Despite what many would agree to be good news, it hasn’t been met with all jolly faces, but instead sparked a controversy. A majority of naysayers insist that such a beta released to the public could only harm the game in the long run by tarnishing the game’s image. Citing the possibility of a popular reviewer or commentator rating Starbound poorly while it’s in beta could drive down sales.​

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Others are simply worried about an incomplete product being made open to the public and how it could spoil the game or ruin first impressions the developers worked hard to build.​

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As a balance to all the negativity, there are just as many people that look forward to such an event. Strong evidence to support the idea comes from a variety of points, for example: being able to reserve your money for Starbound, lest you fall prey to temptation. For the impatient types, it would grant instant access to the game upon it’s release.​

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Possibly the best, and mutually accepted, side of a pre-order would be that of the money. Or more specifically, how it would go the developers and assist in speeding up the process of getting us a finished product faster. Many have insisted that a pre-order should be made available in the current Holiday season, so that money gained from gifts could be used to drive sales.​

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When asked if such a pre-order would be handled via Steam or directly through Chucklefish, Tiyuri replied that they are “still working that out”. This leads us to speculation that a pre-order, if one was to exist, could still be weeks in the future, with the game itself taking longer than many have hoped for a final release.​

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Controversy abound, the community seems to be unanimous in one thing: they want a pre-order, reward or not.​

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Community Interview​

Vector Squared got an opportunity to speak with forum user Zailiner, founder of the Bronies Beyond the Stars clan. The interview includes Zailiner’s thoughts about the beta and what Zailiner finds exciting about the upcoming release of Starbound.​

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Zailiner: Hello.​

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Nababoo: Greetings.​

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Zailiner: How’re you doing?​

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Nababoo: Wonderful. Thank you for asking. Now, onto the interview.​

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Zailiner: Mk​

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Nababoo: Are you excited to do this interview with Vector Squared?​

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Zailiner: Well, sure.​

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Nababoo: Fantastic! First question -- do you hope for a release by New Year’s, or would you prefer the devs take a long time?​

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Zailiner: Personally, I'd really rather the devs take their time. I've got a gigantic pile of games in my steam library right now, still waiting to be played. So I don’t really mind.​

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Nababoo: Really? What about a beta? Would you like a beta to offer limited publicity?​

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Zailiner: I'd rather play a fully finished game, I don't really have the time and patience to perform a beta test seriously.​

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Nababoo: That's certainly true, for most people. It's good to see that you're seeing the greater good. Well, anyways, what do you feel beta testers should look for in particular? What mechanic, or function, do you think most needs tweaking?​

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Zailiner: Well, after seeing the livestreams, everything still seems quite clunky. There's nothing in particular that really needs shining up imo.​

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Nababoo: Everything in general, then.​

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Zailiner: Yessir.​

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Nababoo: THat’s certailny an interesting way of looking at it.​

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Zailiner: If they made the game public now to play, I would probably ignore it until the full release.​

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Nababoo: Ah, well, that leads us to our next question: what do you feel that the beta will be lacking the most? Story components? The general atmosphere of things?​

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Zailiner: I honestly can't determine my answer depending on all the information we have been provided up to today. However, I'm sure that the building mechanics will be fine, as seen mechanics will be fine, as seen in the building preview.​

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Nababoo: Well, we'll wrap up our interview with this final question: What do you most anticipate in the upcoming release of Starbound?​

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Zailiner: Randomly generated weapons and monsters. That's the most attractive point for me; where as in Terraria you were eventually limited to Hollow armor and hollow equipment, and quite a limited amount of monsters. Also, hats.​

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Nababoo: A virtually infinite number of items. That's certainly something to look forward to!​

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Zailiner: Just like the Borderlands series, which I enjoyed a lot. It's sort of a mix of Borderlands and Terraria, two of my favourite games of all time.​

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Nababoo: Wonderful. Thanks you for your time, we'll be posting this in the seventh issue of Vector Squared. Farewell.​

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Zailiner: Cya.​

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~Interview by Nababoo​

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Community Age Poll​

Forum member Johan has set up a topic where people may vote in a poll in order to indicate their age, thus giving us a fair idea of the age range that most Starbounders have. So far, nearly 355 votes have been accounted for. Moreover, age 17-20 is taking the lead, with around 33% of the votes and age 13-16 is currently second place, with about 26% of the vote count.​

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It’s worth noting that developer OmnipotentEntity has stated in that thread that he will have no choice but to ban people who seem to be under 13 years of age, as it is against the rules. This is mostly put to practice as a means to protect children against the several threats abound in the Internet.​

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Anyways, feel free to check out the Community Age Poll topic, contribute to the poll and see how the results have progressed.​

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~Keeper (23rd of December, 2012)​

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Suggestion Spotlight​

The Suggestion Spotlight for this week is the concept of Luddites. Luddites are people who generally shy away from technology, or have a mistrust of it. That means going back to the olden ways, with pitchforks and shovels and all sorts of primitive tools. While this is all fine and dandy, it certainly isn’t when you’re stranded on the planet, with no possible way of escaping back to your adventures.​

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That’s the starting kernel of this idea; you’re stranded on a low-tech planet, what to do? Find out in the suggestion. It’s well thought-out, and it possesses and an immense amount of creativity. Show your appreciation to Killer Snowman for contributing this fine and intriguing idea to the community.​

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~Nababoo​

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Clans of Starbound Online​

Clans have been present in the community since, well... the beginning of the forum. They exist to serve as social places where you can hang out with your friends, not caring about staff going on about Lack of Content posts. They serve as a place where you can relax in the comfort of your Starbound friends, free to do whatever you want -- roleplaying, chatting, image-sharing...​

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It’s rather strange to think that they haven’t been featured in Vector Squared yet, seeing how influential the clans are. But this issue, we seek to remedy this. The major clans, reviewed, along with some other tidbits of information that may be helpful for those trying to start up a new clan.​

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Clan Genesis was, as its name suggests, the first clan to form in the Starbound community. It’s currently the third largest clan in this community. The most notable feature of this clan is that it is organized into several “Teams.” These teams are specially targeted towards certain activities: from discovery to research to taxonomy. It seems rather well-organized, and the members are quite active. If you’d enjoy the prestige of being in the “first clan,” this would potentially be a nice place for you to be.​

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Referred in shorthand as BBTS, This is a clan designed specifically for pony-enjoying people. It enjoys the largest amount of activity among the clan threads (and even any thread at all on the site), with around 100,000 replies to the thread, along with a large amount of members. Overall, the main introductory post is very inviting: many graphics and colorful banners are present in the thread. One noteworthy thing about this clan is that it has a very interesting system of organization; earth ponies, pegasi, all that kind of thing. It’s a MLP-themed way of organizing preferred specialties, similar to the teams in Clan Genesis.​

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Note: Please don’t post any sort of anti or pro pony messages. Don’t want this to turn into a battleground ​

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This clan is quite a large one. It’s also lead by a sheep, for those of you with anti-cotton tendencies. Anyways, all jokes aside, Clan Infinity is a group of individuals who are settled on reaching infinity (and beyond). They talk and converse with each other, enjoying the good times, and all the while, cajoling new members into joining their circle of friends. It’s a simple clan with simple rules. There are currently around fifty members in the clan. Perhaps you could add to that number... perhaps not.​

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The Space Pirates are a group of vandals and buccaneers, determined to steal the souls of all those who oppose them. This group is themed around that of the traditional space pirate that is always present in science fiction media. It’s a nice place, with a huge amount of other resources: their own forums, a Terraria server, banners and graphics everywhere, along with a large pool of members. Their original post is chock-full of interesting information. All in all, it makes for a nice, friendly environment where you can hang out with all of your fellow space corsairs.​

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There are many, many more clans out there, not listed here. The ones here are considered the major clans, and generally to be used as an example for any new clans that may spring up sooner or later. Speaking of which, here’s a guide to creating your own clan. It’s full of useful tips and information, all of which you’ll probably use to conquer the world.​

~Nababoo​

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New Image Speculation​

Earlier this week we were given a new image to speculate over and wonder about. (Always a good thing I guess) Anyway, the image was posted by forum user A.N.T.I. in the thread We Need to go Deeper. Now, onward to the rampant speculation.​

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1. Some things that I noticed right off the bat were the tents. Are the tents for respawn purposes? Can they be entered?​

2. The lighting sources are again different from what we have seen before. There are a few classic mining lanterns scattered about as well as a camp fire. The lights appear to be able to light up the area of the screen quite comfortably, with only a few lights, something that I rather prefer, so I do not have tons of light sources cluttering up my inventory.​

3. There is a strange pinkish/purple light. Is that from a mineral or (perhaps) an alien light source?!!?!?​

4. Finally, why is the character dressed only in his underwear?​

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~Slaticus​

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I’m getting my review out of the way early, this time around. Welcome back to another edition of the Fanfic Review. That’s right- I’m here again to read a Story of my choosing, and then either praise it to high heaven, or rip it to shreds. (Actually, I’m usually more moderate than that, so I’ll admit I’m exaggerating a little to throw in my own little ‘cynical’ sense of humor.) My picked fic is Malum Space, written by the dangerous Shark. Oh, he’s not a real shark, and therefore isn’t really all that dangerous? Shut up. He’s a shark if I want him to be.​

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The story so far is simple, but complex. Our…hero (he’s actually a villain) is an undisclosed race as of now, working for either a collective group or a single person as a mid-ranking soldier, who starts the story living among humans. This is all mainly speculation on my part, really. Shark does a nice job of revealing only what is needed, and not a bit more. I’m impressed.​

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The grammar is sturdy and attractive. I saw a wordings I didn’t quite agree with, here and there, but for the most part, everything worked well for me, and I didn’t have trouble reading. Well done. This is definitely a key point for me, and it’s easy and fun to read.​

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Punctuation and spelling- fantastic. There were maybe two or three spots where a comma was missing, but nothing so drastic that I blinded me. In fact, there was one or two, if any, problems that confused me. The only reason I didn’t rate this section perfect is because even miniscule mistakes tend to make rating perfect difficult for me.​

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The intrigue was also very good, although the lack of knowledge really bothered me more than it would bother most people. I also felt that I could easily stop reading and walk away, if I wanted to. Some plot twists were fairly predictable, and the whole screwing around with the roles of the protagonist was also something that would only work for a few writers on this site. Luckily, Shark seems to be one of them.​

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The characters were quite interesting. The villainous main character is quite memorable, at least for the first chapters. The last one kind of killed my perception of him, and while this isn’t a bad thing, it just made things less enjoyable for me. The only other supporting character I remember had a very unique way of saying things, which I quite liked. The interaction was great, too.​

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The lasting effect is always the breaker for me: I’m jaded. I’ve seen a lot of things. This story reminds me of others I’ve seen before; one coming to mind is ‘Artemis Fowl’. It isn’t exactly the same, but the general structure of the protagonist’s mindset just reminded me. To that end, I have trouble keeping things IN my head for a while. I definitely can remember the plot, though, so I consider that a success. It’s all very stylish.​

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This Fanfic is good- great, even. I highly recommend it. Things might be a little confusing, at first, and throughout the whole thing, really, but it’s just…good. That’s all I can really say. It reads like a novel: maybe an author’s first novel, with those kind of uncertain imperfections, but a good novel, nonetheless. I am highly impressed.​

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PARTS
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1: 8.7
2: 8.8
3: 9.2
4: 9
5: 8.6
AVERAGE: 8.9

CATEGORIES
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GRAMMAR: 9
PAS: 9.9
INTRIGUE: 8.5
CHARACTERS: 9.5
LASTING EFFECT: 8.5
AVERAGE: 9.1

FINAL AVERAGE: 9/10
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~Mercenary Lord, written at 1 A.M. on a SUNDAY. It’s an improvement.​

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The Miracles of Snow​

If you’re in the colder parts of the northern hemisphere, I’m sure you’ve already had your share of snowfall by now. But, snow isn’t just some fluffy frozen water you can play around in during the winter or a nuisance you have to deal with when it piles up in your yard or on your car. It has some very unique properties to it that you probably wouldn’t expect, and some of them are pretty useful while others are quite dangerous.​

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Since snow forms in flakes, tiny pockets of air start forming in the snow cover when it reaches around 2 cm thick. These pockets of air actually turn snow into a natural dampener, since sound is trapped in the pockets and dissipates before being able to travel further through the snow or be reflected back. Naturally, this is only true for freshly fallen snow, since the air pockets escape when it melts or is moved around by the wind.​

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Snow blindness is a real thing, and something anyone who’s scaled a snowy mountain knows about. Even though most other people tend to play it off, it is something very serious and dangerous. Snow reflects at least 90% of the UV light that hits it. “Why is this dangerous?” You might ask. Well, have you ever stared at the sun? Because that’s pretty much what it’s like once the clouds recede after a heavy snowfall. Looking at the reflection of the sun in snow is almost as bad as staring directly at the sun. Snow blindness has been the bane of many mountain climbers, so wear some sunglasses when scaling a snowy mountain. Also, if you’re the hardcore type that doesn’t completely cover up you may want to use some sunscreen (assuming there are people like that).​

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An early snowfall can actually protect crops from the lower temperatures that come later in the season. When snow falls on crops, starts to melt, and then refreezes into ice, it actually becomes an insulator against the colder temperatures of winter. During the day it will absorb some energy from what little sunlight it gets (it’s actually very good at that), and during the night (and other times when sunlight is lacking) it releases that energy to the surroundings in place of the vegetation underneath. So, contrary to popular belief, snow isn’t always a bad sign to farmers.​

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Questions, comments, concerns? I’ll gladly answer them all. And if you’ve got any suggestions or ideas for future topics post those as well.​

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Q: If Starbound were truly a conspiracy, what would it entail...?​

A: Post in the thread!​

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Closing Comments​

• With winter break coming up, Mercenary Lord MAY no longer be able to do the weekly fanfic review during that time, due to business in real life. If so, Nababoo will take over the reviewing.
• Oh, and with the coming of winter break, team members may be busy, possibly leading to reduced issues’ length.
• Sadly, the Corporation news has been somewhat quiet, lately...

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Staff​

Nababoo -- Manager/Writer​

Keeper -- Wordsmith​

Mercenary Lord -- Lector Ficta​

Strife -- Prince of Some Trades​

Slaticus -- Author from the Shadows​

That Guy -- Scientific Consultant​

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Credits​

blind sniper -- Banner​

Ysbry -- Space Pirates Banner​

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Previous Issues:​

Issue #1 [] Issue #2[] Issue #3 [] Issue #4 [] Issue #5 [] Issue #6

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Since nababoo has been busy as of late, I posted this issue for him.

 

Quite a big issue this time!

 

They've steadily gotten larger as it's progressed. Also, more tidbits of information have been available to us, so hooray!

 

Also, sorry for the double post, but I feel the title should be changed to have that "Vector Squared" thing in it, for the people who watch exclusively for that.

 

Gah, I knew I forgot something. Please do change that.

 

I got ya covered.
(How ironic, I was in the middle of changing it when you reported a request TO have it changed. Heh.)

 

Q: If Starbound were truly a conspiracy, what would it entail...?

A: The true creator of the big bang theory was let alone actually Tiy, who traveled through time and space releasing Starbound BU. Thus creating the universe flux of sequential events that had caused the big bang through a butterfly effect in the first place. But in aftermath, the existence of Starbound was null. Therefor giving birth to the all mighty lord of time and space... Tiy, who in the end result had to kill the Doctor five years from our present. Robbing him of the Tardis to travel back in time, releasing Starbound on 12/25/2012.

But in the end, Tiy failed to truly kill the doctor and everything went back to normal as is... Or did he?
Murderous Cupcake...

 

Where'd that conspiracy thread go...

 

Another great issue! I enjoy everything, but as a science nut must say I really enjoy the trivia. I learn something new every week, and I approve.

Also, as I have mentioned before, Starbound is obviously just a fictitious game development cover for drumming up Wanderlust: Rebirth. All screen shots and live-streams are simply tricks of the light designed to subtly nudge you to buy more copies.

 

Thank That Guy for all the science! He's written the articles, too.

 

I did, and I am sure I will do so again. I look forward to the next issue.

 

I really liked what you did with the clans.
I'm hoping that in the next few articles, you could give smaller clans some spotlight, and promote them a bit.

I think you could've also cut off a bit of fat with the interview, only including important dialouge relevant.

Also for this:

I'm getting "the image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available".

Good issue overall, hoping to see more.

 

This is the first of these I have read.
I do have to say this is quite enjoyable and will be reading the next one

 

I do enjoy reading the Starbound Community News.
Keep up the good work!

 

If Starbound was a conspiracy? Hmmmmmm...
http://community.playstarbound.com/...ease-january-2012-behind-the-conspiracy.1099/

 

That's what I was thinking as well

 

The Corporation news may have died down a bit but that's only because we're all planning evil things.