The Latest Q & A from Reddit

What's with the speed of updates?

So lately updates have slowed down somewhat, it's no secret. The reason is two fold. First we're moving most of the team to the UK so we can work on the project more efficiently from here on out. Also we're working on bigger more substantial updates privately before putting them public. This gives us time to do things like overhaul the progression and the combat system.

But you said thick and fast!!

We did and we originally went into beta releasing updates far quicker, we even started doing updates every other day at one point. But the community appeared to be generally unhappy with the amount of meaningful content in these updates and many people voiced that they wanted something more substantial. So we took the people responsible for providing small content updates and assigned them to assist the developers working on the bigger progression updates to get them out faster. Of course even with extra hands these big updates take time. Essentially we just listened to community feedback and changed our minds on what we were doing here.

But only one of your programmers is moving! How can that slow things down so much?

Well first of all the programmer moving is our lead programmer, she designed the architecture for the entire game, programmed almost all of the engine, and she leads the other programmers. They essentially write the code she asks them to write. Like many Indie projects, code wise this is Kyren's brainchild. On top of that, you have to remember that Starbound was designed so that level designers, artists and so on are able to add content themselves without a programmer, content which is needed for the updates. All of uur level designers and artists (bar one) are moving.

So who is moving?

Kyren, our lead programmer Omni, temporarily moving at first, will move down permanently later. Molly, Community manager / implementation Armagon, level designer, sound engineer and implementation George, Artist, implementation Samuri, Artist, implementation Legris, Artist, implementation Tiy, Project lead, artist, implementation (although I'm not physically moving, I'm spending my time help the others move and by them moving to me.. I'm essentially getting the same benefit.)

But you made so much money, why don't you hire more programmers?

Adding additional programmers to a project doesn't speed up it's development. The more people you add the more of a communication overhead you get. Plus you need people to answer their questions, familiarize them with the code base and figure out how to work together - as often coding styles clash terribly. It's far better to decrease the existing communication overhead and make our current team as efficient as possible.

I'm worried about what happened with Towns, Could starbound go the same way?

What happened with Towns wasn't cool and is in part a symptom of developers learning how to work with the new early access model of development. We're learning too, and it's full of pitfalls. But we're in such a strong position that there's no chance of Starbound going the way of towns. In fact the only reason development has slowed a bit is because we're using our success to upgrade the efficiency of the team by moving them over to the UK. After which things will go even faster.

Why do I have to give Chucklefish the rights to my mod if it's included in Starbound?

So recently our mod agreement (old one, we have a new one now that will go public soon) was criticised for asking the mod developer to assign ownership of the mod to Chucklefish. Sadly this is more or less the only realistic way of us being able to distribute a mod, when we integrate a mod into our code base we build on top and around it and a couple of months down the line it becomes very difficult to remove. We need to be in a position where a mod author can't request removal later on and cost us months and months of work, break player saves and so on. We also need to be in a position where we don't have to ask mod authors for permission to distribute Starbound in new ways. However we don't restrict the mod author from continuing to work on their mod in any way, realistically the agreement is set out this way to protect Chucklefish, but in reality will have no tangible affect on the majority of authors. We're looking into joint ownership in our new agreement, but it's very tricky to get right.

Shouldn't a mod author be paid if you're going to use their work though?

In an ideal world it would be nice to compensate mod authors for the work they do. However paying people is not always as easy as you'd think, the complexity of paying authors is far from trivial. On top of that we feel having the mod scene become money driven would be bad for the community, who is to say how much a mod is worth in currency? What if two mods do similar things? What if one authors claims another copied his mod? The potential here for drama is off the charts.

We will however be putting mod authors names in the credits and may hold modding competitions in the future with all sorts of prizes.

How different is version 1.0 going to be from what we have available at the moment?

Honestly what you're playing right now feels like more of a tech demo compared to what's going on internally and our plans for 1.0. Whilst the current build contains all kinds of items that test the engine in unique and interesting ways, it doesn't yet feel tied together as a game, which is what we're working on right now.

So what does the timeline look like?

Right now we're working on combat changes and progression, we want to get the game to that 1.0 state where you can play through it and feel as if you've completed something. We're holding back on releasing anything progression related until it's all done because we want 1.0 to be a whole new game for everyone.

Once the progression is done, we're looking into director mode and end game content.

After the director mode and end game content updates, will you still be releasing more content to the game or just take it as a finished product?

We plan to support Starbound for a long time after it's "finished" and give the community all the tools they need to do the same. When the dev team is finally ready to move on, we'll likely hire a small team to keep updating the game, quite possibly made up of some of the most prominent and accomplished modders in the community.

Why are you publishing other games when Starbound isn't finished?

For the most part we publish other titles as a means of helping out smaller indie studios who need some assistance. We don't however develop those titles, so they don't take time away from Starbound. The titles we're publishing outside of Starbound have their own dev teams working on them.

But what about that pirate game?

The pirate game IS a Chucklefish developed game, but an entirely new team was hired to develop it. The mechanics of the pirate game are something I personally dreamed up a long time ago, before Starbound was even a thing, so I decided to hire a team to make it and passed them the idea. None of the Starbound development team is working on the pirate game so it won't slow down development.

We also have a responsibility as a company to ensure we have multiple revenue streams available to us.

Where in the general development timeline do server tools, optimization and other platforms (vita especially) fit in?

Server tools and optimizations will come with the 1.0 release in all likelihood. Porting to other platforms will either be post 1.0 if we choose to do it ourselves, or we might hire some console experts to port it along side us developing the PC version to ensure it doesn't suffer from crappy port syndrome.

My official question is what's the status of Kyren, have you guys been given the green light yet?

Kyren is waiting on her visa, nothing has gone wrong there, it's just that she's coming over with her partner so it's a bit more of a complex visa that everyone elses. So it's taking longer. Which is annoying for us because we paid to have it fast tracked!

Post v1.0, is there a significant chance of ship battles, space stations, fleets, trading, etc... being implemented?

Part of the progression update is the ability to buy a space station for you + your party. You'll be able to construct the space station from blocks to make it any shape you like and it will be able to fly from planet to planet. Ship battles we have designed conceptually, so I'd definitely like to see them in post 1.0, but we'll see what happens.

It might be a kinda personal question but here goes: How does the team deal with the drama that has flared up from time to time on this subreddit and the forums

We're all human and we all have different ways of coping with the stress. I'm quite thick skinned personally, it tends not to get to me. Some members of the team find it quite upsetting or extremely stressful whilst others take it in their stride.

When you talk about a possible console release, apart from the Vita, are you talking about next-gen consoles (well, they should be called current-gen now) or last-gen?

Likely Xbox one, PS4, etc

I have more questions!

Leave them in the comments and I'll add them to the OP with answers. I'd like this post to be more about the Starbound project as a whole rather than very specific questions about Starbound. So I'll be picking those posts out. I'll do an AMA or similar later on to deal with specific Starbound questions.

 

Thanks Darklight! I have 2 questions if they are fielding any still:

-Is Starbound going to have "events" that occur to keep things on an already explored planet interesting?

-have they any forthcoming plans on multiplayer development, or how to make Starbound have tools for a more social experience?

 

I forwarded your questions Though I don't think they'll get answered. He wants questions about the project as a whole rather than specific parts of SB

 

Tiy should post this here as a sticky or something

 

Ok then, on the whole, does he feel that Starbound can deliver on its features in a reasonable amount of time once the move is complete? Are they any roadblocks to development he is expecting in the future?

 

Posted your new questions

 

I suspect he might once the Q & A is complete

 

Thanks as always for posting updates here! If the Q&A is still going on, I could see Molly/whoever not wanting to post unfinished stuff here, but it would be really nice if they could make a news post highlighting their answers (and the question they're replying to), the way TvK and...Jonesy?...did in the past.

 

Where can I read this mod agreement Tiy mentions?

Looking good otherwise

 

THe new one is still in the works.

 

I meant the old one

 

Ah that one. I don't think it was posted anywhere. At least I haven't seen it.

This thread goes into the most detail about it http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/c...o_sign_away_their_rights_in/chdjwj5?context=3

 

Ooh! From the twitter feed, Tiy posted that asking for a refund when you've played 500 hours is not cool.

Question: What if I've only played 450?

 

" Shouldn't a mod author be paid if you're going to use their work though?

In an ideal world it would be nice to compensate mod authors for the work they do. However paying people is not always as easy as you'd think, the complexity of paying authors is far from trivial. On top of that we feel having the mod scene become money driven would be bad for the community, who is to say how much a mod is worth in currency? What if two mods do similar things? What if one authors claims another copied his mod? The potential here for drama is off the charts. "


...doesn't Valve pay modders/content creators..?

 

Valve is anything but an indie company >_>

Also updated the first post with new answers

 

Are you talking about TF2, Dota2 and CSGO? In those games, the content creators are making cosmetics rather than actual mods

 

So shouldn't someone who makes an "actual mod" be paid, at least something?

 

Again you are putting Valve on the same footing as a fledgling indie developer/publisher. Do you seriously not see how it's not feasible?

 

As Tiy mentioned, what is two persons both work on a similar mod and one gets approved but the other doesn't
Cosmetics are a bit easier to distinguish from each other
And as Darklight mentioned, Valve is not Chucklefish

 

I like this answer! We may not have fully customizable ships, but eventually it seems like they'll be replaced with space stations that are fully customizable (seemingly).