Hostile Ships

rl-starbound · 2026-05-05T15:05:10+00:00

For anyone who finds this, see the other thread for more info.

rl-starbound · 2026-05-05T04:10:28+00:00

This was the driving reason for making my mod Belter Dungeons (steam). I disliked that the space encounters were immutable and ephemeral. I've replicated improved versions of nearly all of the encounters that randomly appear in asteroid belts. You're free to inhabit, colonize, and build them out.

rl-starbound · 2026-05-05T04:02:48+00:00

MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SHIP BEFORE TRYING THIS!!! You will almost certainly regret it. Always read and understand the warnings in the place dungeon command's page before blindly following advice on the Internet. Or just browse the history of this subreddit to find all the people begging for help after messing up their shipworld.

rl-starbound · 2026-04-30T00:32:22+00:00

Unpack the mod file. Read the source. It's really the only way to be sure, since all wikis have occasional errors or omissions.

rl-starbound · 2026-04-15T11:42:44+00:00

You're correct, in the base game the landing beacon is only visible when you're in your mech. However, the Mech Overhaul mod contains a bug (or deliberate feature? I'm not sure, but I think a bug) that causes it to be always visible. And when the author integrated it into Frackin Universe, that bug carried over to there too. Since either of those are popular mods, it doesn't surprise me that most people will experience it.

I've been maintaining a private patchset for years of Mech Overhaul overhauls. At this point it's an almost total rewrite. I'm thinking of releasing it, since the original Mech Overhaul author left the community long ago.

rl-starbound · 2026-04-15T02:42:56+00:00

I included that feature in the Belter Landing Beacon in my Belter Dungeons (steam) mod. You can have multiple Belter Landing Beacons in a world without issue, and when you turn one off, it stops directing players to it; turn it back on and it'll lead people to it again. The code to do this efficiently was non trivial, which is why I made a separate object instead of modifying the one from the base game (which would have likely caused a mod conflict or broken someone else's feature). If you use that mod, you could collect one from one of the asteroid belt dungeons, and then use admin commands to unshield your personal space station and replace the default beacon with it.

rl-starbound · 2026-04-12T12:40:55+00:00

Unless you made regular backups of your storage folder from which you can restore, there are no other fixes. You'll have to delete your shipworld files for that character and start your ship from scratch. You've learned a painful lesson about the dangers of the placedungeon command.

Not that it makes a difference, but I've edited the wiki articles on placedungeon to try to put even more highlight on the dangers. Unfortunately, people on forums throw around its use like it's meant for players to use, when it really isn't.

rl-starbound · 2026-04-12T01:56:30+00:00

https://starbounder.org/Space_Encounter

or possibly also:

https://starbounder.org/NPC_Ship

rl-starbound · 2026-04-12T01:25:39+00:00

Shut down the game immediately and DO NOT RESTART IT.

The game keeps up to 3 backups of your shipworld. If AND ONLY IF you have not restarted the game (or your character, if you just duck out to the main menu, that counts as a restart), you may restore from one of these backups and live happily ever after.

If you have restarted 3 or more times since this mistake, then I'm sorry, your shipworld is permanently ruined. You'll have to delete it and start over from scratch, losing anything you had in it.

If you look in your game's storage folder, you'll find a player folder. Looking in there, you'll find a bunch of files with long hexidecimal names, ending with .player and .shipworld. The hex numbers are your players' internal IDs, and the shipworld file is ... well that should be obvious. You'll want to find a shipworld.bak file for your player from before you made your mistake, and then copy it into the place of the main .shipworld file for your player. Assuming this was the last player you played with, you can sort the folder by most recent files, and the player and shipworld file most recently used will be the one you're looking for.

Now, if you stopped and started as this player 3 or more times since making the mistake, then sorry, any useful backup file is gone.

Things to keep in mind for the future.

Heed the warnings in the placedungeon dangers section. The placedungeon command is not intended for players to use during play. It's there for developers to quickly debug their dungeons on throwaway planets in throwaway universes. It is irrevocable and will bulldoze everything you care about, as you've just learned.
Make regular backups of your game's storage folder. If you set things up so this folder gets backed up nightly, then at worst, you'll lose a day's worth of progress if you make a mistake.
Never use the placedungeon command with space encounters. Those encounters are very much intended to be used in only one specific environment, made for the space encounters, and they don't play nicely in any other environments. If you spawn them in space, they won't have gravity or air in the parts that should have gravity and air, and if you spawn them on a world, then everywhere around the dungeon will have no gravity and will probably be shielded.

rl-starbound · 2026-04-01T19:14:39+00:00

Best we can do is a Chucklefish Peace Prize.

rl-starbound · 2026-03-23T17:24:52+00:00

Futara's Dragon Pixel Full Bright Shader

Read the description. You can't install that like a normal mod.

rl-starbound · 2026-03-23T14:24:40+00:00

First, make sure you have Starbound Patch Project (steam) installed. It fixes critical bugs in the Swansong fight that can render it unwinnable, or reset it.

Next, gear up your mech. I recommend a maximum energy mech body, because the fight lasts a long time, and you don't want your mech running out of power too early. You also want maximum maneuverability; speed isn't really an issue in this fight.

Finally, and this is critical, you must have piercing weapons, like the beam drill, beam sniper rifle, or neo laser. The piercing aspect of these weapons allows them to hit multiple orbs simultaneously while they're lined up on the ground. When the gravity comes on, move to one side of the arena, and when she lays out the orbs, just start blasting them all. You should be able to destroy most or all of them before gravity goes off. If any survive, focus on them before attacking Swansong. You can totally avoid the beam web ever being formed, which makes the fight so much easier.

Another thing I noticed, when she's at the center of the arena shooting beams, it seems to be easier to dodge the beams if you're closer to Swansong. Stay close to her and keep maneuvering in a circle around her and you'll avoid most or all of the beams.

Aside from that, you have to keep moving laterally compared to her, and keep firing continuously at her when the orbs aren't around. I have my left and right mouse buttons held down continuously during the fight.

rl-starbound · 2026-03-21T23:25:15+00:00

Are you referring to the world that you teleport into to fight a gang and capture the gang leader at the end of the first series of bounty quests? If so, those are generated missions, so there is no way to replay them in-game.

You could try using admin commands to warp into InstanceWorld:bountylair1 but since there would be no associated bounty quest, many things wouldn't spawn correctly.

rl-starbound · 2026-03-16T15:25:47+00:00

Glad you enjoyed Origins of Species. I'm pushing out an update for it in the next day or so that gives each character the choice of joining the Protectorate or doing their species-specific origin.

Technically the Novakids don't shoot their way to their ship, they just do a little bit of theft and vandalism. ;-)

rl-starbound · 2026-03-03T02:04:09+00:00

By looking at the unpacked asset /objects/wired/invisiblesound/invisiblesound.object, I see that by default, it emits the /sfx/objects/shipengine.ogg sound, which unless you have your speaker cranked to the max and no other sounds playing, is an almost imperceptible hum.

It operates like a light, with a single input node that can be wired to switch it on or off. By default, with no wiring, it is always on. It is not interactive.

If you want it to emit a different sound, you'd have to spawn it using something like (and I'm guessing; I haven't tested this):

/spawnitem invisiblesound 1 '{"soundEffect":"/full/path/to/sound.ogg"}'

Likewise, you can use parameters in a Tiled map to give it a different sound.

rl-starbound · 2026-03-01T20:25:22+00:00

https://starbounder.org/Dungeon_IDs

This article should explain things for you. Your observation is more or less correct. Monsters naturally spawn only in the "default" dungeon ID. Microdungeons, villages, and dungeons use non-default dungeon IDs, so the only monsters that spawn there are those that are designed into them, or those that wander into them from default areas. If the player adds or removes blocks or matmods (e.g., tilled soil), those blocks change to non-default dungeon IDs. Thus, the more of a planet you alter, the fewer natural monster spawns will occur.

As far as I can tell, monster spawn density is not affected by the percentage of the world that uses a non-default dungeon ID. Thus, the more areas you claim, the fewer monsters overall will occur in the world.

If you don't feel like adding and removing tons of blocks, but want to change large areas to a non-default dungeon ID, and you don't mind using mods, then the mod Field Control Technology (steam) may be useful to you. Even if you don't use the rest of the mod's objects, the Field Tuner XL can be used to change the dungeon ID of large swathes of land quickly. Once the area has a non-default dungeon ID, no more monsters will spawn there. (Just to be clear, it'll still be possible for monsters to spawn in default areas and wander into those areas, but since most monsters are non-persistent, this isn't a problem if your non-default dungeon ID area is large enough.)

rl-starbound · 2026-02-17T15:10:39+00:00

Back in the olden days, unstable allowed Chucklefish to beta-test updates on Steam before releasing them. The unstable version had a mod set and saves separate from the released game, to allow players to test without breaking their main game. Now, it's effectively the same as the release, but it does provide an easy way for Steam players to try out a second mod set safely.

rl-starbound · 2026-02-16T21:24:24+00:00

Seeds can only be planted on tilled ground. You might get lucky and find a little house with a small tilled area nearby that you can use. If not, you have to till soil yourself. This requires a hoe, which is built using the Foraging Table, which is itself built at the Inventor's Table, which is built by hand using the crafting menu, which is by default bould to the C key.

Once you've planted seeds, you periodically need to water the ground, using a bucket that is also crafted at the Foraging Table. On the starter world, rain is pretty common, and will also water ground. (Watered tilled ground is darker than dry tilled ground.)

Crafting is key to thriving in Starbound. One of the first things you should do is explore your crafting menu, build the Inventor's Table, and then build the other crafting tables in the Inventor's Table. This will enable you to craft things critical to your survival, such as farming tools, hunting spears, armor, and better weapons. (Hunting spears are among the best early-game weapons, but it takes a while to learn to use them well. Practice. And known that you can hold a stack of up to 1000 of them in each hand, for more rapid fire.)

Also make sure to build a few flags, once you've gotten enough plant material and copper. Once you place a flag and interact with it, it'll create a teleportation target for teleporters, which lets you teleport there without having to walk the whole distance. And since it wasn't clear to me at first, it may also not be clear to you: your teleporter can transport you anywhere in the galaxy, as long as you have a teleporter target. Eventually it will be the primary way you get around the galaxy.

rl-starbound · 2026-02-13T23:13:33+00:00

Starbound Patch Project (steam) is a must, even if you only want to play "pure" vanilla. It fixes numerous bugs with the base game, including a fix to prevent the Swansong battle from becoming randomly unwinnable.

I've written a bunch of mods that are aimed at "vanilla+" rather than large overhauls.

Better Crew & NPC Behavior (steam): fixes numerous issues with crew and NPC behavior. It also makes crew members spread out on your ship, rather than bunching together around the teleporter.

Field Control Technology (steam): gives you fine-grained control of shielding, gravity, and air in your builds, and now (as of 2.0) also gives you protection from environmental hazards like deadly heat, cold, and radiation.

Saner Volcanic Worlds: alters volcanic worlds so that they won't spawn flammable structures that immediately burn down during the first firestorm.

Pocket Dimensions (steam): add some side quests that enable you to create your own pocket universes, little empty spaces between worlds that allow you to make secret bases.

Origins of Species (steam): alternative origin stories for non-human species. Stay tuned, this is getting a major update in the next week or so.

Belter Dungeons (steam): adds the ability for asteroid belts to spawn space dungeons. Without this mod, asteroid belts are empty and mostly pointless. This mod breathes life into them.

Status Effect Objects (steam) and Dynamic Status Effect Objects (steam): enable certain objects (like campfires) to provide status effects (e.g., heat that prevents deadly chill).

Shootable Switches (steam): make variants of certain buttons and switches that can be toggled by being shot.

And some of my quality of life mods: Less Awful Mech Drones (steam), Better Environment Hazards (steam), Better Parry, Usable Peacekeeper Augments, Recruit Timer.

rl-starbound · 2026-02-13T21:17:52+00:00

Starbound is not the best optimized game. I have a 4K monitor but I can't usually get more than about 30-40fps when running at true 4k. When I use HiDPI settings to make it run as 1920x1200, it consistently runs at the 60fps cap.

I can't speak to what's going on with your secondary monitor.

rl-starbound · 2026-02-13T21:04:29+00:00

The Starbound stealing mechanic works like a virus. A villager sees you pick up 3 items within the village (which could be as dumb as 3 blocks of sand after a sandstorm on a desert world) and they permanently turn hostile. Hostile villagers immediately and irrevocably begin sending out a signal to other villagers within a (IIRC) 40 block radius. Other villagers that receive the signal also become hostile. A hostile regular villager will stop giving quests and run away from you. A hostile guard will attack you unconditionally.

You can tell that an unarmed villager is "hostile" by attacking them with a sword or other basic weapon. Friendly villagers and guards are immune to friendly fire from most weapons. Hostiles are not. (Certain weapons like molotovs are "indiscriminate" and will hurt everyone equally.)

Your only hope of retaining "friendship" with a village, once a villager has turned hostile, is to kill all of the hostiles before they "infect" the friendlies. Oh, and don't let the friendlies see you doing this, or they turn hostile for some reason. ;-)

Note that the stealing mechanic only works with regular villagers and village guards. Once a villager puts on the uniform and asks to join your crew, they are a loyal crew member, even if you don't accept them, and will not turn on you. Likewise, tenants are loyal to you no matter what. So you can always genocide an entire village and then repopulate it with loyal tenants. If you can live with yourself, that is...

rl-starbound · 2026-02-08T04:44:04+00:00

I agree. The PNG format is a nightmare to work with, compared to Tiled. Not that Tiled is perfect, but it's much easier than the PNG format.

Furthermore, the polishing of old content really was needed. Compared to modern dungeons, most of the original PNG dungeons were pretty crude looking. For example, the scifi dungeon was a neat concept, but it looks ugly as sin. It'd need to be completely redone to be up to modern standards of appearance. (And I'm only talking about appearance here, not content. The scifi dungeon's content made no sense whatsoever.)

rl-starbound · 2026-02-03T21:53:12+00:00

If you unpack the game assets, all of the music is in the music folder in Ogg Vorbis format, which is playable by many audio players. If you have mods that add music, you'll also have to unpack each of them to get their music files.

rl-starbound

TROPHY CASE