Vector Squared -- Starbound Community News, Issue #25

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Greetings, and welcome to the twenty fifth issue of Vector Squared. Again it has proven to be quite an... interesting week, following the nature of our preceding issue -- the fossil release, the starter pet controversy, and the server in the making. This issue, we have five screenshots, four of which demonstrate the different architectural styles of the races, a login screen, a roleplay server, bug-people, and an interesting comic.

Take out your blueprints, open up a mass of tabs, and prepare for this week’s issue of Vector Squared.

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The Random Monster was pretty interesting too.​

Table of Contents

• Corporation Revitalization
• The Day of the Florans... (Spaceships)
• A Steampunk Spaceship. Do I even need to say anything else?
• Fishies in Space
• Avians... Air... Airships? Nope
• Tiy’s Livestream
• Login Screen Released
• ARES Roleplaying Server
• Suggestion Spotlight
• Science Trivia
• Weekly Comic
• Question of the Week
• Closing Comments

Corporation Revitalization
As I’m sure all of you old forum-goers have noticed, the Corporation subforum has been long abandoned. Whereas before, it was a problem for the potential “like-spam” it caused, the subforum barely gets a couple of posts in a day. Many of the more popular forum members found their home in the area, and it was quite the buzz of fun. But now it’s not.

So I come forward to you all, Vector Squared readers, with a proposition. I’ve managed to put together a theoretical framework that could possibly hold the place together, and give it the spark of life it needs to survive in these new times.

So please go to our topic here, and give your thoughts. Critiques, examples, support, perhaps even make a corporation of your own. Anything to make it return to the way it was.

Thank you for reading this.



~Nababoo


The Day of the Florans... (Spaceships)
The Chuckling Fish has shared a good amount of Starbound in-game imagery throughout this last week and we couldn’t be happier.

One of the items shared was... *drumroll*... the Floran starter spacecraft!



As you may observe, the spaceship appears to have been “infested”, if you’ll allow the term, by numerous green/brown vines. It sure keeps up the good Floran vibe, with the Nature influence. Could it also be a nod to these guys actually snatching ships from other races and making them their own? Or are they able to produce such technology? The most important question among us, though, is why isn’t edli wearing pants?!

If you’d like to discuss the Floran spaceship, go ahead and join this discussion right here, brought to us by forum user Meuterion. Have fun!

By: Keeper


A Steampunk Spaceship. Do I even need to say anything else?
The Florans and Avians weren’t the only race to show off their pimp wagon. The Glitch starter ship has also been unveiled.



The immediate observation is the steampunk aesthetic, specifically with the colour scheme, piping and portholes. There is also a rounded cockpit canopy, almost like a bubble helicopter (the Bell 47 as an example). In addition, the little steam train-like details on the top hint at a similar aesthetic.

In a brief comparison between the different ships, I noticed a couple of minor similarities. Aside from the same overall layout, all are of a similar size. This means that all starter ships will be of the same size, which may extend to other tiers of ships as well. Each ship also had a console or panel of some kind, located towards the back. This is presumably a teleporter used to travel to a planet’s surface.

By Jonesy


Fishies in Space
The dev team released the third of what appears to be a series of their ships not too long ago. This particular theme belonged to the Hylotl -- the aquatic, asian-themed creatures that have yet to have released lore.




The ship itself has all the fine nuances that is involved with architecture. The make, atmosphere, and structural components of the ship is vastly differing from that of the other race ships. This one sports a green-bamboo background, complemented by hanging chinese lanterns. To top it all off, the ship itself has the structure of some aquatic creature, adding further fuel to the fire of speculation.

Poised above a barren planet, it stands as a beacon of Hylotl independence in these hard times. -salutes-

~Nababoo


Avians... Air... Airships? Nope
The last of the ship concepts to come out of the Chucklefish pixel engine was that of the Avians. Their ship differs drastically from the other races’, most obvious first in the materials used in construction -- wood synthetics, strange-looking window structure, and brown wires. The general atmosphere of “tribal”ness is finished off with a nice red-orange look going.



Interestingly enough, the cockpit appears to remain mostly the same, and there are a few patches where the science fiction really shows through the look.

Let’s stay tuned for any further developments regarding these kind of structures and ships, and give the devs another shout for so much stuff in a small time period, although, sadly, it has yet to produce any inflatables.

~Nababoo


Tiy’s Livestream
This week we were lucky enough to have Tiy unveil two, not one, but two livestreams for us.

The first video is purely Tiy slaughtering every single animal he can come across, whether or not they’re hostile had nothing to say. He uses a wide variety of weapons, showing off guns that are not only bullet-based. We see grenade launchers, guns that place mines, some that place poisonous spikes, flamethrowers, missile launchers, bouncing bullets, exploding bullets, and a lot more.
Guns in Starbound are obviously not only about precision and aim, but many also require a great deal of technique and preemptive practicing and thinking. Bouncing bullets need you to pre-calculate the trajectory before you fire, mines need to be placed strategically and status effects such as poisoned or burned need to be taken into consideration for maximum damage.
Sound effects are also spot on, with no two guns sounding alike. Even the particle effects from when the bullets hit the ground are highly customized and unique!

For those of you who have a weak heart, and also were sent into a drooling spaz from the previous video, you may want to skip the next one. I mean it. Just walk away, pretend you didn’t read about it. No one will judge you.
No? Still here? Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

In the second video from Tiy we see aspects of the game we’ve never seen before, only heard of. This video is the holy grail of sneak peeks. It shows the astral map WITH SPACE TRAVELING CUTSCENES *hyperventilation*
Other subjects shown are spaceship interior and decorating, landscape generation on various planets, multiple enemies, armours, melee weapons and underground cave systems as well as item and water mechanics when it comes to gravity.

So yes, it’s quite the information overload with almost 40 minutes of collective video and such a large quantity of previously unseen content. These videos really show just how much work has been put into making this game absolutely perfect. Every particle effect, armor, sound effect, movement, weapon, enemy, landscape feature and cutscene is a handcrafted work of art proving that Chucklefish is not taking any shortcuts or cutting corners. To put it all into one word:
“Dedicated.”

- WackyWocky


Login Screen Released
Following the exciting level of developer interaction this week, the devs released yet another screenshot -- this time of the Starbound login screen.



It’s “very straightforward like a menu should be”, according to commenter kesvalk. It certainly seems so, with a variety of options that are simple enough to be interpreted just as you open the game for the first time. A penguin is flying above the planet in the background, and several familiar constellations float above in the sky.

This is all a good sign -- they’re getting all of their required materials done. Perhaps it’s pointing to a beta release sometime soon? Even if it’s not so, this is all encouraging to show Chuckelfish is still lording over us. Drop by darethen’s discussion thread and show those bureaucrat masters what we think of them.

~Nababoo


ARES Roleplaying Server
As release draws ever nearer, forum users have been preparing their own personal projects. An underwater city, a star-spanning gateway, gigantic space structures, we’ve all got our ideas in our head for what lies ahead.

For voyager Profound Madness. however, that lies more in the realm of playing with others to create a meaningful experience. In tandem with partner ZephyrSpark, the duo have created the framework for what they hope to be a successful roleplaying experience. The two have created a set of lore for all the potential factions, and the myriad colors serve to enliven the experience and bold certain items -- most importantly, names of factions for easy viewing.

Give them a cheer for their efforts in their discussion thread, and offer help and/or criticism. Here’s to a successful future for them.

~Nababoo



Meet the Zaahir. A simple statement, but one that’s dangerous -- one wrong step in their hive cities, and your life is ended as if you’re an insect.

These guys are probably the best engineers out there, making stuff like this

With middle age technology. Woot.

So, *ahem*, onto the actual article. The Zaahir are a race of insect-humanoids that have survived in an arid desert planet. They’re traders, allowing them the acquisition of much knowledge and technology, which helped to spur them into the galactic community.

They’re mostly a close-knit group, with only minor enslavement and exclusionary tactics going about, so I’m sure you’d enjoy their company. The suggestion comes with plenty of pictures to help the imagination process. Drop by and give Lucid_Dakou some encouragement and/or ideas.

~Nababoo


Science Trivia
Electromagnetic Radiation

Electromagnetic Radiation, colloquially called light, is a form of energy that is carried by charged particles, and travels in waves. In a vacuum it travels at 299,792,458 meters per second. This is exact because the meter is based on the speed of light. The frequency of the waves is determined by how energetic the particles are. The spectrum is measured as a whole in powers of ten hertz. The wavelengths are measured in powers of ten meters, or using the different prefixes of the metric system to navigate between the powers of ten. The waves are classified by their frequencies and wavelengths. The different frequencies have different characteristics. There are no specific borders between kinds of radiation, they just fade into each other with the spectrum areas in between types sharing properties with both the higher and lower frequency types of electromagnetic radiation.

Radio waves are the electromagnetic radiation with frequencies from 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz, and corresponding wavelengths ranging from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. What that means is that they carry very little energy compared to the other kinds of electromagnetic radiation. They are used to transmit messages very quickly and easily across the world. They are easily blocked and distorted at lower frequencies/longer wavelengths though so may not be very reliable. There is constant background radiation which is the reason that radios and televisions have white noise when no transmission signal is being received.

Microwaves are radio waves with wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, with frequencies between 300 MHz (0.3 GHz) and 300 GHz. Microwaves have higher frequencies/shorter wavelengths than typical radio broadcasting. Microwaves are the main medium by which data, TV, and telephone communications are sent to and from satellites. They are also used in microwave ovens and radar technology.

Visible light are the electromagnetic radiation that have a wavelength in the range of about 380 nanometers to about 740 nanometers, with frequencies between 400 terahertz and 789 terahertz. This is the kind of electromagnetic radiation that people can see. The different colors of light have different frequencies. From lowest to highest frequency these colors are: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet. Plants use red and blue light for photosynthesis.

X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz (3×1016 Hz to 3×1019 Hz) and energies in the range 100 eV to 100 keV. They are used for their properties in penetrating different types of matter to take images from the insides of objects. The higher the frequency the more penetrating they are. They are also slightly damaging to most organic matter, because they can collide with and change DNA. Extended exposure to X-rays may cause cancer.

Gamma rays generally have frequencies greater than 10 exahertz (or >1019 Hz), and therefore have energies above 100 keV and wavelengths less than 10 picometers (less than the diameter of an atom). However, this is not a definition, but rather only a rule-of-thumb description for natural processes. Gamma rays from radioactive decay are defined as gamma rays no matter what their energy, so that there is no lower limit to gamma energy derived from radioactive decay. They are the highest frequency electromagnetic radiation type. Gamma rays with frequencies 1030 hertz have been documented and research to find the upper frequency limit is underway.

Fun fact: White light contains all the colors of the visible spectrum. When white light is refracted the different colors can be separated, creating a rainbow.

~harnackam




~ReverseShadow



Q: What is your favorite fictitious spacetime anomaly?
A: Geeks? Never heard of them. It’s called knowledge.


Closing Comments

• Yet more updates. Thanks for all the support, guys
• Stay tuned for some... interesting things

Staff
Nababoo -- Lord Bacon McHam Meatstein
Keeper -- Wordsmith
WackyWocky -- Space Banana
ReverseShadow -- Comic L0lcats
shardival -- Legend of the Brush
Jonesy -- He Never Asked For This.
harnackam -- Science Consultant
Strife-- ???

Credits


Previous Issues:
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Blue’s Fanmade Newspaper Archive

 

Gotta love the comic.

M'aiq Independant should be alive soon hopefully.

 

Good read!

 

Great issue as always !

This struck me as a little far fetched though : "Every particle effect, armor, sound effect, movement, weapon, enemy, landscape feature and cutscene is a handcrafted work of art proving that Chucklefish is not taking any shortcuts or cutting corners". Not to undermine the exceptionnal work of the developpers, I, for one, believe the game needs more polish before it hits beta and eventually gets released ! I have no doupt however that chucklefish will deliver

 

The game itself IS polish, compared to some AAA games.

 

Some facets of the game are really polished, some not that much. I was pretty much just stating the obvious in that the game is on an ongoing developpement and that I understand the developpers taking more time to make it as good as it needs to be.

 

Interesting article made for a good read. I somehow completely missed seeing the Hylotl starter ship before, cheers

 

Good issue, Its full of Ship!

 

You know, I hear that you can upgrade your ship, imagine when it's fully upgraded you could call in an orbital strike? :O

 

Moar comics!

 

great job guys very great job

 

No the "your"!! I forgot to fix the "your"! Blarrrghh

 

Another good read.
Keep up the good work!

 

That second video showing off space travel and a few different worlds had me geeking out pretty bad. It looks so awesome and I just wanted him to continue and explore more!

 

Would Vector Squared consider publishing in white text? I feel like it would be an easier read that way since the inline images are much brighter than the default text color. Thanks!

 

I had missed the Hylotl ship as well. I'm curious to see if it's "Fins" will stay consistent over the other external ship parts as your ship grows.

 

Good job. It's nice to read this when you weren't on the forums for a week.
Keep up the awsome work.

 

Perhaps, although I feel as if it's too bright for the readers -- therefore the grey text that's in place.

 

That's fine, just thought I'd ask. Besides, now that I'm home from work and reading it on a decent monitor, it's a lot easier to read! I should get my work to buy nicer rigs...