I have not played Starbound in months, almost a full year due to the fact of constant wipes.I just wanted to keep playing although wipes in progress is a real turn off. Also I have not read up much, but is Starbound out of beta?
Yes, next stable update will wipe characters and Universe. From talking with the developers some hours ago on IRC, they say the focus of keep the save compatibility between updates that bring considerable features will be more after 1.0, on this beta stage, make compatibility updates every time would make little sense because some of the changes, take quite some time from develop the game just to make it happen, and on this case the new update features are big to a point you would be losing a lot just by not start from scratch (the new way you start the game and the progression system). Right now expect it to never wipe is not realistic, because even full released games (even AAA Titles) corrupt/wipe saves on updates.
