Glad Giraffe [UNSTABLE] Feedback

Well, here it is, time again to delve into a massive Starbound update - perhaps one of the most important yet.
THE COMBAT UPDATE
Now, this is one many people have been waiting for for... Well, quite a while, as combat was previously quite repetetive and generally... well... "m'eh". However, not only has this update revamped the combat to extremes, it has also added a plethora of new content!
Join me, as I delve into the latest Unstable build...

Note: I may add more notes as I continue through the game on what I find.
28/11/2015 - 1:20 AM
Well, off to quite a start, I loaded up the game and popped in with a new character. I must admit I used admin commands to essentially skip the tutorial, I've done that so many times that I'm sick of it. Next major update is the Story Update if I'm correct, so hopefully they'll have a look at that and make it optional already!

I did still go down to have a look at the planet, and what do I see?
POPTOPS! 10/10 Best Update Yet. I swung my sword around gleefully, with its new spin attack... thing and massacred multiple new unique enemies. I have to give Chucklefish credit, they've added quite a lot of them, and they're already making me far more interested than [RANDOM ENEMY 246] and [RANDOM ENEMY 381] were. Also, unique drops, joy! Unfortunately I have yet to find a use for any of them, assuming they even have any coded in yet. Gonna need some more chests, perhaps.

Moving on to the outpost (laggy as ever, joy. May need to see if the delag mod works on the Unstable build...) I found not much seems to have changed there, asides from the fact that The Man Over By The Penguin Bay now sells things. Vehicle things. Expensive vehicle things. Guess I'll get back to that when I've made some Pixels by doing some incredibly dangerous tasks for very little gain. Teleporters still cost way too much to be bothering with at this point, too, so I'll be sticking with teleportation by wall-spikes for now. I've found that there are a lot more microdungeons underground, which is always a plus, and the new backdrops are wonderful and really add to the spelunking experience.

The few issues I have with the update so far are also one of my favorite additions; the enemies. While I love the variety that have been added, there now seem to almost be too many at once, and I don't think I've encountered a single docile creature yet, the hostiles, both unique and random, seem to be crowding the surface, and coupled with the quite frankly terrible return of on-touch-damage (why bother having enemies with melee attacks if they just need to walk into you to do damage, or, eldritch overlords forbid, accidentally bump into one while running by?) it makes combat actually somewhat more annoying. I hate to say this, but maybe tone down the spawn rate of the uniques in the Stable build? But I must reiterate that on-touch damage must go - it's a step backwards and makes combat less realistic and less fun all at once, including making avoiding damage in enclosed spaces actually impossible unless you happen to be using a shield. This also makes daggers or any dual-wielded weapon, short range gun, etc. incredibly dangerous to use for very little reward, since as far as I can tell daggers are still incredibly weak anyway. Starbound is going for a complicated system where almost every enemy has multiple attacks and everything has a pattern - leave touch damage to games where most enemies are only capable of ramming you. I have to also tack on the usual complaint about enemies, npcs, dropped items, etc. going into stop-motion after a while all the time, though that could just be my computer not liking Starbound. I fully understand that optimization is very low on the priority list and I can keep living with this for now.

The actual combat mechanic overhaul is quite nice, however. Most weapons I've tried seem much more balanced and nice to use - well, two handed anyways, the one handeds, due to their lack of a second click, are still pretty lame but hey you get a shield - on that note, is parrying still a thing with any weapons? The Elemental Rock Paper Scissors is a nice touch, and I like how they seem to add an edge while not being too powerful - though I must say having no indication of what enemies are weak against is a problem, perhaps something to consider for a UI update, maybe next to the enemy healthbar? The new abilities add a lot of variety and make using found weapons worthwhile, let me tell you, a cluster rocket launcher does wonders against the Erchius Zombies. Also the first time I haven't taken damage from the Horror's lazers! Yay? I have yet to see how these new mechanics fare against proper bosses with health and stuff. On a side-note, the addition (don't know how long it's been there) of an openable door checkpoint in the first mission is welcome. I hate trudging through the whole thing again if I die to the Horror.

Well, that was much more long-winded than I'd expected for my first notes. I may have covered everything so far. Huh.

UPDATE 1:
28/11/2015 - 5:25 PM
So I've upgraded my ship and I'm immediately disappointed that Diamonds still seem to be used for a ton of stuff. Manipulator modules, ship liscences, etc. On early planets, they're hard to come by and can easily throttle your progress into tedium, since progression through sidequests is impossible without upgrading your ship, and mining on high-tier planets quickly becomes awful if your Manipulator isn't as up-to-spec as possible.

On a tech note, while I do like the idea of encouraging different tech usage than the very useful first three, I don't think nerfing Energy Dash to the ground (literally) is the way to go about it. Including the previous nerf of upping the cooldown time, it can also now only be used on the ground, making its use on any hilly planet aggravating at best, and it barely moves you forward at all, almost the the point of complete uselessness. It might help you dodge a sword swing, but turning around and moving away is almost as fast and there isn't a cooldown for that.

UPDATE 2:
28/11/2015 - 8:21 PM
Noticing multiple disappointments now.

The barrier ability on some spears appears to actually block nothing, which contradicts the point of a barrier. It might stop charging enemies (haven't tested that), but so does the "hold spear out" thing. It would be much nicer if this ability blocked projectiles, too. Would make it useful.
Guns are still as terrible as ever, it seems, as well. In the middle tiers, guns almost continuously have weaker damage than melee weapons and far too unbalanced energy-use-to-damage ratios. I would have hoped they had been fixed, but it appears not. Of course, the energy wouldn't be an issue if I picked the energy-giving final tiers of armor, but in the middle tiers you only have one set to work with at a time.

Dreadwing was annoying, and basically amounted to "spam bandages and smack things" because his minions appear to have gotten a lot more powerful while the player is left with good old boring Titanium armor. His swoop attack also appears to be almost completely unavoidable without a shield now, due to the energy dash nerf. All this aside, the battle actually felt shorter and less satisfying than before. I'm not sure exactly why, though. It almost seems like he skipped a phase.

UPDATE 3:
29/11/2015 - 7:50 PM
Clearly, the Mystery Party Boss was not designed with this patch in mind. In the highest avaliable tier (and required) Durasteel armor avaliable to you during it, the boss' minions, which now do on-contact damage - and let me remind you they are fast and there are often 4-5 of them at once on screen - do around 1/2 your health bar per touch. Due to the lack of good mobility tech at this tier as well, and perhaps due to the contact damage hitbox being bigger than the attack's, the boss' slam attack also is very, VERY difficult to dodge. Luckily it seems to also only 2hit you like everything else in that room. You should not have to spam medkits to survive at the expected armor tier.

On the note of quest issues, while this will likely be addressed in the Story Update, assuming they do stuff with the sidequests then, the reuquired-to-upgrade-ship side fetch-quests remain as completely aggravating as ever. I've spent most of today skimming the surface of Tropical and Alien planets looking for an Avian Moon Emblem and have still had no luck. On the plus side, I have already found and scanned almost every other fetch-quest item for those types of quests, so when those come time I can just print them off and hand them in... Assuming I ever find the Moon Emblem.

I'm becoming increasingly disappointed by many abilities. Lots of them will drain your energy completely instantly or in a second or two, while being extremely weak, like the Barrier, which still has little use, and Rocket Spear, which, while cool in theory, and could almost be useful for propulsion when using some of the slower hover techs if it didn't take all your energy in a second, does very little damage at all to anything, despite the fact that it's a freakin' flamethrower. The fire effect it gives after a light tap is actually more useful than the presumed intended purpose. This last one may just be because I've never used spears much before, but are they supposed to completely miss anything under 4 feet in front of you? Because that's annoying. Yes, they're intended for more medium range, but when enemies are trying to be one with you in the same space constantly, it becomes quickly tedious when many of your attacks miss for no apparent reason when in reality you could at least hit them with the shaft or slide your grip to the front and use it short range. Maybe that's just me nitpicking.

Oh, also, around 1/2 way to the pixel requirements for a hoverbike, but with how slow chunks load for me (usually have to wait inside the border for around 3-5 seconds per chunk on really bad days) it probably isn't worth it.
Oh, and my cat eats a lot of food. I mean a lot. And may have also eaten the ball I gave it. Do pets do anything yet? I still want to take my cat adventuring with me, but alas poor Random Hylotl Skull in my cabinet, that still isn't a thing and probably won't be for some time, if ever.