If you've ever seen an upbeat giraffe, no doubt your thinking has turned to starship upgrades, matter manipulators, and bug catching, making it an appropriate name for Starbound's latest update which adds all those things.
It's the first stable update Chucklefish have released for Starbound since March last year and it changes just about everything in the procedurally generated universe explorer.
The main change to how you play will likely come from the new outpost. It's a new hub that's filled with shops, quest givers, and other services. It's where you can upgrade your ship with extra storage capacity and take on missions and quests that lead you into unique instanced dungeons packed with special monsters and bosses. These can be played in co-op. Having friends along with the ride will make things easier but you'll have to split the rewards.
Starbound's combat's been completely overhauled, too. You can now parry attacks, break enemies' shields, and fight in full 360 degrees.
There's a stack of new content to explore with new biomes, items, over 100 new recipes. Hell, you can even go out with a net and start catching bugs to collect on your ship.
Chucklefish suggest starting a new character after installing the update because "the game has changed so drastically that you'd miss out on most of the new content if you simply used an old character." There's a chance the team will release a conversion tool in the future but until then your old character will be unusable.
I've copied in the full patch notes on the next page because there's simply too much to go through to accurately summarise.
Universe + Worlds
Sectors have been removed, so all stars are part of the same map
Star and planet types correspond to difficulty levels, giving players access to progressively more extreme environments as they advance through the game
Added oceanic world types including tropical and arctic oceans, toxic and magma planets
Added rare Barren and Asteroid worlds with no monsters for large scale building
New biomes
New surface and underground mini biomes
Many changes to surface and underground terrain generation
Improvements to background parallaxes and sky coloration
Ships + Navigation
Player ships now include an AI avatar specific to each race that gives access to the player's techs, missions, 3D printer, and a variety of ship-related commands
Each race's ship has its own unique set of upgrades, giving players much more room to expand as they progress
Fuel costs for travel have been reworked. Moving between planets within a system is now free, while jumps to other systems require fuel in proportion to the distance traveled.
Coal no longer powers spaceships! Instead, they can use either radioactive ores or the new Liquid Erchius Fuel that now appears in Moon biomes
Many improvements to the Cockpit interface, which now indicates more detailed planet information including weather and environmental hazards
Outpost
The universe now has a civilized hub containing shops, quests, and other services. This is where players will find quests, missions, and ship upgrades which allow them to advance through the game
Includes a Sign Store based on the popular Custom Signs mod, where players can design and print their own signage for use in game. Thanks Wellbot!
At key points in the progression, players will unlock special Missions
Missions take place in unique instanced dungeons containing special monsters, bosses, and rewards not available anywhere else. Some missions can be quite difficult, so you'll want to prepare carefully – or bring friends!
Novakids
New playable race with their own unique progression of armor sets, craftable guns and ship upgrades!
Techs
Techs are now split into head, body, legs and suit slots, so you can equip up to four at once!
Head techs provide various activated effects triggered using the tech hotkeys
Body techs provide lateral movement abilities triggered by double tapping direction keys
Leg techs provide vertical movement abilities triggered with the jump key
Suit techs provide ive protection from specific environmental hazards
New tech unlocking system makes a variety of techs visible each time the player upgrades their ship. The player can then use Blank Tech Cards to unlock and equip these techs
Lots of new techs! Techs techs techs. It's stopped sounding like a word now.
Mining
Matter Manipulator can now be upgraded over the course of the game to increase its mining power, area of effect, and allow it to collect liquids as well as blocks
Pickaxes and drills are more powerful, but have lowered durability and cannot be repaired, making them a consumable alternative to the Matter Manipulator
Smashable rocks found rarely underground contain richer deposits of certain ores
Combat
Energy
Energy regeneration has been changed. Rather than continuously regenerating energy at a slow rate, energy rapidly regenerates when not being used
Using energy that exceeds your maximum pool will disable energy usage for a few seconds until your energy has fully recharged
Staves
New weapon type!
Use a staff by holding the fire button to charge it, aiming, then releasing the button to unleash a powerful effect
Unlike guns, staves manifest their projectiles directly at your targeting cursor for precision combat
A variety of staves can be crafted at the new Manipulator Table
Armors
Beginning at Tier 5, armors are divided into three different progression paths with different stat balances
Separator armors have high armor and low energy for melee weapon s
Accelerator armors have a balance of armor and energy for ranged weapon s
Manipulator armors have low armor and high energy for staff s
Weapons
Many new unique biome weapons
More bows (and crossbows) for higher level hunting
Many new thrown weapons of various tiers
Defense Turrets have been massively improved and can be equipped with a variety of weapons for different effects
Monsters
New monster type: large flying monsters
New monster type: large aquatic monsters
Many improvements to monster AI
Birds nerfed– they are now less of a menace
Survivals Mechanics
Temperature has been replaced by a system of specific planetary hazards, which the player will need to unlock new technology to resist
Hunger has been removed for now, replaced by an expansion of the cooking system with a variety of buffs (see below)
New difficulty option to drop ores and other valuable materials on death
Farming + Cookies
New crops
Hundreds of new cooking recipes
Cooked foods now provide a wide variety of buffs, with more elaborate recipes giving stronger effects
Bug Catching
Bugs unique to each planet type now spawn across the universe
Use the bug net to collect and display them!
Wiring
Most lights in game can now be wired
More interactable switches
More sensors, switches, and logic gates
Fixed lots of usability bugs with wiring
Other Content
Many new status effects
Many new costumes
Many new biome furniture/object sets
Many new block types
Many (over 150) new underground microdungeons
Many new toys and novelty items
Performance Enhancements
Tile rendering
Liquid processing
Many other optimizations
Miscellaneous Improvements
Specialty hotbar slots and keys for Matter Manipulator, Wire Tool and Paint Tool
New font
Keybinding GUI
Character deletion option
Modding Features
Items are now scriptable
Status effects are now scriptable
New Script Console functionality gives a client-side scripted canvas to build your own GUIs, games, or whatever you can imagine
Many new Lua API bindings
Server Features
Access to tile protection system, preventing modification of specific areas
Ability to set spawn point for a world
Several other new commands
RCON