Vector Squared -- Community News! -- Issue #38

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Content:

• Daily Update Summary
• Random Encounters
• New Mainpage Background
• Art Feature
• Suggestion Spotlight
• Gameplay Feature
• Science Trivia
• Weekly Comic
• Question of the Week
• Closing Comments

Ermagerd! Derly Erpderts

• 8th / 9th October - More improvements to guards have been made. They will issue warnings (and eventually attack) if the player draws a weapon in town, and will also attack rogue mobs that wander into town. Underground mini-biomes are also being worked on, as well as tweaks to above-ground terrain. The Avian airship is being populated by unique NPCs, notably pirates. A new item has been added, that will result in a surprise when activated.

"...I hate taking my pill…"
(On a side note, props to DrLicori for fixing the original gif.)

• 10th October - The devs are trying to ensure that the progression through and transition between tiers is as smooth as possible, and are also implementing more tiered items. More work has also been made on NPC shops, dungeons and minibiomes.

"Got any crack?"

• 11th / 12th October - An addition was made to allow players to unlock crafting recipes as a result of certain game events, such as finding new materials. An example is being able to make snowballs when you find snow. The Avian airship is almost finished, and a frog merchant has been added.

"Is that you, Slippy? You look...different…"

• 13th / 14th October - Terrain generation has been improved to add more features, such as caves and crevices. Random merchants and trade caravans have also been added, as well as bandits (and their clothes). Merchants and their UI have also been given an overhaul, improving their behaviour and basing their goods upon their race. Also made various additions to tiers and bugfixes, such as anvils acting as chairs.

"Da-da-da da daaa, da-da-da da daaa…"

• 15th / 16th October - Work has been made on a wide range of features, such as terrain generation, tech, security cameras, guard NPCs, minibiomes, dungeons and item descriptions. Butterflies have also been added, along with some sort of horse-mech.

"Always, I wanna be with you, and make believe with you, and live in harmony, harmony, oh love..."

By Jonesy


Random Encounters
In addition, a new tweet from Tiy has mentioned random encounters between bandits and travellers. An image was also released of one of the aforementioned bandits fighting the player. The bandit chased the player into town, and got killed by the town guards.


"Never bring an assault rifle to a swordfight. Then again..."

So, what other random encounters will we see? Only time will tell...

By Jonesy (Comic by Shardival)


New Background
It’s been a while since our last “monthly” wallpaper (“Monthly” being a word accidentally ripped out of the Chucklefish dictionary), but today we got a very nice equivalent. The main page of Starbound has received a new background made up of a large screenshot from the game.


"Cemeteries are no place for the living to be treading about at night.”

The background, featuring an Avian village, gives us quite a nice view of a market with booths for weapons, clothes and food, an eerie graveyard, decorations, weapons and armors. All in all, a well suited background to pimp out the main page.

- WackyWocky


Art Feature
“Oh boy, what epic backgrounds, what amazing character sprites, what astonishing weapons will we see today!?” -you might ask.

None.

Instead, we’ll be showing you a forum post from artists both famous and not so famous. One gigantic archive of all emotes ever made, organised by Breather. How can this possibly be our Art Feature of the week? Because with this topic, you can answer posts with this:


Because one facepalm isn’t always enough.


Or this...for when you have a craving for ice cream!


Or these...

This is something everyone should have bookmarked at all times. There is literally an emote for every possible occasion. And if there is anything missing, suggest it, and wait 5 min. Crowd sourcing at it’s finest.

So to answer the question why this is our Art Feature: We lost count around 300 emotes. Case closed.

- WackyWocky



A few weeks ago Tiy opened up a thread asking for some community suggestions for bosses. We gave a plug to the thread two issues ago, but since then there have been a number of great suggestions, and a few have stood out with some great artwork. Here’s just a sample of some original art from the thread…

Mollygos - Mollybot (art by BettyHime)


Walross - Armabullo


Namiwakiru - The Failure


Darthkitten - Mecha Beetle


Bietol - Blowcorn


Veran - The Glob


MrDragco - Bug Queen (one of many)


Stedms - Novakid Hunter


Dragonith - Slithanos (Only one of MANY suggestions)


MRGOOGLES - Lava monster


Zomgmeister - 3D Beast


For A LOT more boss suggestions, and more great art (sorry if we missed featuring you!) head on over to the thread here. Of course if you’ve got a great idea for a boss that’s the place to share as well!!

- Katzeus



Enemy spawning is a rather controversial topic lately, being discussed, amongst other places, here, here, here, here and oh, here. You see, many people support the option of having mobs spawn off-screen at a constant interval, which may vary between planets or events. Others prefer a more natural way of spawning. Instead of a constant zerg-rushing of your base, various spawnpoints pre-generated with the map exist, which spew monsters. Some also argue that mobs should emerge from caves and other suitable places for a more realistic experience. Whatever your preference, one thing is certain, they way you encounter enemies is a large part of how enjoyable said encounters are, and how immersed you’ll stay in the game.

The method of enemy spawning which will be in the Beta is currently unknown, therefore all the theories and discussions. Although, we can list some of the things we do know for a fact. (Remember, anything is subject to change by Chucklefish, please to not torch our base or stab us with pitchforks if anything is later deemed incorrect.).

Each planet in Starbound has a set list of mobs that exist on the planet. Think of it as a ecosystem. This list is split up into smaller lists, one for the surface day, one for night. The underground is it’s own area, possibly split into more sections with different lists for each, as well as the time of day. Also, mini biomes have their own ecosystems, and on top of this, mini-bosses have various spawn rates, although not much is known about them.


"As seen above, this is a mini-biome, which has it’s own set of monsters.”

That pretty much sums up our knowledge of spawning, maybe the DEVs will see this and post a Daily Update with some info, we’ll see. Until next time!

- WackyWocky


Science Trivia
Evolution of Flowering plant’s relationship to Bees

Have you ever wondered how flowers and bees evolved to have such a mutually beneficial bond? It seems almost perfect, the way the flowers get pollinated by the bees and the bees get sweet nectar from their flowers. How exactly this relationship was first created is not known for sure, but there are some very likely scientific explanations for it.


Much earlier in earth’s history than dinosaurs and the like, there was probably life in the oceans. Fish, algae, coral, and other aquatic life were already thriving. But the major areas of land were largely uninhabited. The plants came first, evolving from algae, forming a plant based ecosystem. Then came the animals, evolving from fish and crustaceans. There was plenty of plant life for them to feed on and land based organisms soon spread across the land. Some insects/animals spread the seeds of/pollinated plants that they fed on. This led to plants who were more obvious to be spread by insects, and thrive. Thus, plants that evolved to become more vibrant and appealing to animals were more likely to be spread and prosper.


Flowers have vibrant colors, and terrific smells. They also contain nectar with high sugar content. These attributes cause animals to be attracted to them. As insects evolved, the insects that could collect the most nectar were the ones that could have the most offspring. Causing insects that evolved to be able to collect large amount of nectar to become the more dominant species.

As the insects evolved to be able to collect more nectar, the ones that helped the flowers thrive caused more flowers to spread, which caused more nectar to be available. This was beneficial to the insects, so insects evolved to aid the propagation of the flowers.

- harnackam




Alluvian_Est-Endrati has agreed to let us post his comics here on a weekly basis, so we finally have a comic section up and running again! (If anyone else wants to offer their comics up, feel free to PM WackyWocky!)

We’ll be posting 5 of his comics weekly (He has many we need to catch up too), but you can find all of them here in his forum post.















"What kind of mount are you hoping will be added to the game?”


Closing Comments

• Thanks for reading!

Contributors
WackyWocky - Space Banana
Jonesy - Master of the Obscure Pop-Culture Reference
harnackam - The Puzzled Mind
nababoo - The Homeland
Shardival - Ink Mage
Strife - The Scriptor
MahBucket - The Unidentified Object
Katzeus - Sirius Business
LazerEagle1 - "Vote Lazer for moderator 2014" ...Nothing to see here folks.


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Blue’s Fanmade Newspaper Archive

 

That tongue emoticon is so smooth and amazing.

 

Man, I should really browse through the suggestion threads more often. Some of those ideas are really awesome.

 

Love the comics they hilarious.

 

Comics are definitely the highlight. Ta

 

All hail the Frog Merchant.

Great artwork in this issue.

 

Yeah the frog merchant is very cool. Looking forward to seeing how/when that one shows up in game.

 

Brilliant. I am both an avid fan of Starbound and webcomics. Looks like I have some reading to catch up on. I also like the Adventure Time reference in it.

 

I think one of my favorite things about Starbound is seeing the sheer variety of landscapes and cool pictures people can come up with.

When the game comes out, I'm going to find a peaceful village, turn out all the lights in my room, and just chill out.

 

We should really start figuring out some sort of advanced formatting doodad...

Great issue, as always.

 

Just this.

 

You know what would make this thread a hundred times better?

Consolidating comics and reducing page length impact of large images with the use of spoilers.

 

We've had an internal discussion about this just a few hours back, and have decided to do exactly that. We're sorry for the cluttered appearance of this issue, and will make sure to have a nice, clear and sorted out issue next time! Thanks for the input!

 

Woot! Another issue! Love it!
LOVE the art. Some really talented people on here.