Oh, there’s also permadeath and drop-everything-on-death being added. Then there are revolvers, pulse rifles, hand grenades, shivs etc. and dressed guards.
Yes human guards now distinguish themselves by wearing uniforms, as apparently their dress code had been rather lax until now. These changes will wipe worlds.
The reason for the total character wipes, which include ships and planets, is because of the extensive work they’ve done to address save issues with Starbound, and they promise that ”this patch contains a fix for save files so after this, you won’t need to worry about our patches destroying your characters or ships.”
”It will definitely be the last time we’ll need to wipe characters or ships, and will hopefully be the last time we’ll need to wipe worlds. This explanation from Kyren should help clarify things a little:”
“The problem is that the organization of planets may change so if they go muck with a planet, how do we put it in the celestial map? Or if they build on a biome we remove, or something. So no promises, but we’ll try. But promises on the player / ship.”
Unlike Terraria, characters in Starbound aren’t limited to just one world within a single game instance as you can traverse the stars in your spaceship - hence why they are so valued and wipes can be devastating.
Below are the latest patch notes for the upcoming release:
Fixes:
◦ .ds_store issue affecting OSX 9.1 users (A bug where Finder created an invisible file called .ds_store in the player folder which caused the game to crash).
◦ A number of character creation/selection screen crashes related to loading corrupted save files
◦ An issue that could prevent the launcher from starting (MSVCRT.dll)
◦ DirectX crash bug (303 bug)
◦ Several memory leaks, including the slow-but-significant server memory leak a lot of people were experiencing and GUI memory leak
◦ Fixed a crash bug related to GUI controls
◦ Reduced memory load of FTL animation
◦ .abc files with comments no longer crash the game, plus various .abc fixes as far as key signatures/timing
◦ A number of issues with players spawning underground
◦ A bug where players spawned outside the ship if they’d previously saved the game while in the Captain’s Chair
◦ Right shift key was not working as a shift key, now it is
◦ An issue tech slots were unusable under certain conditions
◦ Wiring system fixes– wires are rendered below UI elements, wires no longer break when crossed into an unloaded sector
◦ Added image metadata caching, improved assets caching
◦ Added a jeep mech that was supposed to have been in the last patch, but had mysteriously gone missing!
◦ Object flipping issues
◦ Sped up the crafting window
◦ Fixed a sound issue that occurred after many concurrent weapon hits
◦ Characters no longer blink while sleeping in beds
◦ Assorted minor performance improvements
Additions:
◦ New game modes! Permadeath and drop-everything-on-death modes.
◦ Revolvers, pulse rifles, hand grenades, shivs, Floran needlers, Floran thorn hammer
◦ Human guards now wear soldier uniforms
◦ More decorative hats! Yay, hats!
◦ More random encounters
◦ Possibly more content, if it’s finished on time!
