Vector Squared -- Starbound Community News, Issue #15

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Hello, and welcome to the fifteenth issue of Vector Squared. Despite it being a binary repdigit, there’s nothing to be scared of -- just some more community news. Last week, topics such as lava oceans, the announcement of a new monthly newsletter, and other interesting community topics were featured. Below, you may find news about lore for the “Robot” race, a drastic forum organization, and some clan news that would be most beneficial to smaller conglomerations of members. Warm up your transistors, polish your monitor, and get ready to delve into the world of Starbound.

Table of Contents

• The Glitch
• Armour Augmentation
• Forum Reorganisation
• Alliance of Small Clans
• Suggestion Spotlight
• Science Trivia
• Question of the Week
• Closing Comments

The Glitch
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Welcome the Glitch on this joyful week! Looks like our fellow Robots have finally earned a name of their own. And quite a curious background they have...

It would seem that these mechanical beings are actually the only survivors of a massive interplanetary program created by an unknown race. Such program was conceived as a means of simulating the progression of regular civilisations by placing several artificial societies in numerous regions across space. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work out very well in the end, as each civilisation eventually ended up destroyed itself as its technological progress surpassed the social one (just think of socially-inept toddlers running around with better shotguns every day) - With the exception of the Glitch. The thing is, due to some sort of glitch, the Glitch became stuck early in the simulation process. For that reason, they can’t seem to shrug off their Medieval values and beliefs, which seems to be the reason why they didn’t pull unintentional Seppuku out of their sleeves like their counterparts seem to have...

While it’s been stated that the Glitch are built to experience the feelings and desires other sentient organisms possess, I’m afraid that I’m the bearer of bad news and I’ll just say it here and now that it is not true. ‘Why, Keeper? Why say you this?’, I hear you ask. Well, the thing is, if you find a fancy toaster, would like to slap a ring on it, and start a family of little bucket-heads, you better bring a tool-box, because you’ll be spending the next hours getting dirty (and not in the good way). Indeed, the Glitch have to physically construct a new Glitch, should they want to reproduce. And hey, they don’t grow, so you’re already building an adult Glitch, maybe? No diaper-changing, at least.

Now here’s the fun part: this “reproduction” process is guilty of occasionally spawning a faulty Glitch... As you’re aware of, being faulty in robotic terms typically means behaving like holy Jesus himself or like the spawn of Cthulhu. In Starbound’s case, this faultiness allows the affected Glitch to be free of the limitations of his/her/its programming, granting upon the individual self-awareness and advanced knowledge. But being the party animals the elder Glitch are, the “glitched” Glitch are generally considered insane and usually hunted down...

Gladly, some Glitch free-thinkers have escaped their homeworlds and established settlements throughout the universe. Feel free to pay them a visit and take a look around. They oughta be an interesting people!

Ah, and if you live somewhere near the Earth’s core and haven’t seen the official Chucklefish article entitled Introducing the Glitch yet, it’s just one click away. Have fun!

~Keeper


Armour Augmentation
From a recent livestream, forum user Forever has managed to capture a few tidbits of information, namely a group of files with names such as “StarBerserkerAugment” along with small descriptions, such as “Speed boost - % speed up”. This is possibly giving hint to some kind of upgradeable armour system that would give a whole new tactical angle from which to approach combat.

So far, we can’t see too much of what it’s supposed to do, exactly, but it’s a tantalizing bit of information -- perhaps on par with that of procedural generation of weapons. And speaking of which, perhaps this system could involve some sort of randomization similar to that. Ah, well, we may be only allowed a certain number of Borderlands-like collections, but for now, we wait until the confirmation of that comes in from the devs.

~Nababoo


Forum Reorganization
A shy, yet potentially creepy, Blowfish peers at Starbounders from behind an “h”, ushering in a whole slew of new changes in regards to forum organization. Certain categories of content even got reworked as part of this change, a leading example being that “Clans” and “Corporations” now share the same subforum - but don’t fret, they still have dedicated sections, it’s just under a main directory now. Other changes include both “Roleplay” and “Roleplay - OOC” sharing the same roof, and all fan-created content being under a single main directory.

Why all the changes? Space was made to accommodate a few newcomers! Chucklefish has picked up publishing rights of a few other indie games such as Wanderlust: Rebirth, Treasure Adventure World, and Stardew Valley. These games will now share space in the Starbound forums.

Another important change is the slow transformation that the site will continue to undergo as it shifts from Starbound Forums to Chucklefish Forums, so expect a lot more to come in the future.

No change being immune to alternative speculation, this shift in focus has been met with resistance, causing some disagreement to spread through the forums. The staff have assured us forumers that changes will in no way detract from the content we’re used to seeing for Starbound and that the game will still be the “flagship” of the company.

It will be interesting to see what transpires in the future for the site, but no matter what cyberspace-shift the forums encounter, remember to keep calm and carry on!

-Strife


Alliance of Small Clans
A few days ago, forum user Yaxlat created a thread that should be a godsend for all the small clans out there.

As many of our readers may know, the Clans subforum is usually dominated by the larger clans, and the activity is usually restricted to them as a result. So what happens to the smaller, but equally important clans that want attention as well? That’s where this thread would come in handy. Looking at the thread itself, it’ll probably be a “hub” for each of the small clans, giving them publicity that they could want or need. Some speculation has been put forth as to putting banners and other decorative items as well.

Feel free to thank Yaxlat and possibly provide some assistance towards this nice community effort.

~Nababoo



The Suggestion Spotlight for this week is given to plaYer2k’sMobility Slot suggestion. The idea itself is simple -- there would be mobility slots, similar to the Accessories Slots from Terraria, which would allow the user to put in a device that enhances (or enables) a certain ability. While this looks simple at first, it can lead to a huge number of options, as is seen with the massive OP.

It describes the capabilities and limits of the item quite in-depth, even going so far as to give statistical numbers and percents. The advantages themselves are very interesting, with things such as teleportation, vertical speed, charging, knockback, and gliding, to name a few. This is certainly a gem, and it contains a huge amount of potential. Check it out, perhaps add a few things to it.

~Nababoo


Science Trivia
Active Link is out for another week, so allow me to write something of my own for this.

Neutron Stars
Neutron stars are a lot like black holes. They both share many traits, such as having a monstrously strong gravitational well, and being generally irritating to the many denizens of the universe (don’t you hate it when your parked starship gets swallowed up by one of these things?).

Well, in my opinion, neutron stars are pretty awesome, despite them being constantly shadowed by their counterpart. For example, you can actually make comparisons with them. Did you know that one Brooklyn-sized neutron star weighs 500,000 times more than the Earth? They’re incredibly intriguing, even possibly giving sight into the way matter is built. It’s hypothesized that quark-gluon plasma may lay at the center of these things, due to their incredible density. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s basically a stew of particles (for simplicities sake, let’s leave quantum physics out of this ). But, the particles are free-floating quarks and gluons. It’s so dense that not even neutron degeneracy may be able to hold against their massive gravity.


Pretty interesting stuff.

~Nababoo


Question of the Week
Q: What is Starbound’s most iconic character?
A: Post in the thread -- be it pirates, bandits, or researchers, throw ‘em out.

Closing Comments

• Thanks, everyone for these shiny new badges! It sure is a pleasure to receive them.

Staff
Nababoo -- Manager/Writer
Keeper -- Wordsmith
Strife -- ???
Active Link -- Scientific Consultant
Slaticus -- Author from the Shadows
WackyWocky -- Space Artist
Mercenary Lord -- Editor

Credits
blind sniper -- Banner

Previous Issues:
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I think you messed up the tag on the picture at the end. My life will hopefully have returned to the somewhat order of what passes for normalcy around me by next week.

And the most iconic character is either space hobos or the Poptop.

 

I also think that Space Hobo is most iconic character

 

Hah! I made a thread similar to this question.

Poptop or penguin.

 

Now I feel like listening to Muse's songs. Time to collide them neutron stars.

I agree with Leokins, I'd say the Penguin is an iconic character. That or the mech-piloting kitties.

 

Binary decoded:

"The Glitch are here!"

 

The most iconic character is the space penguin.

And neutron stars are awesome!

 

The most iconic things are the penguins.

 

Put this thread on top page already.

 

Another Edition well done! Good work team!

 

Very Nice! A nice read, and a lot to learn. Thank you for featuring the alliance, I hope we will prevail!
But quark-gluon Plasma? That's pretty awesome!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter

'Nuff said.

 

Sweet more optimism-fattening content from a ceramic piggy bank.


As for the question about the iconic character:
Poptops. I mean, they are so....original...

 

Most iconic character? It's either the penguins, or Tiy.

 

What about a Penguin Tiy?

 

Say what?

 

I love quarks so much I wrote a song about them! Thanks for the issue as always!

 

Now try putting all the devs. into one penguin.