Starbound: How to unlock the Beta sector

By now, you've probably noticed that all the galaxies you've explored begin with Alpha. There is a next tier of the universe with a higher difficulty that you can unlock called the Beta sector. Read on below to see how you can achieve this:

Optional Starter Quests

Upon starting up Starbound for the first time, you get a series of quests that start from searching your ship's locker for a matter manipulator and ending with building a Distress Beacon.
Each race has a tiny difference in the title and text of their quests but they are all the same in their objectives.

Quest 1: Obtain Matter Manipulator from the ship's storage/locker and equip it on your skill bar. Press E to open the locker when it is lit.

Quest 2: Obtain some unrefined wood and craft a Wooden Crafting Table. You'll need to leave the ship by using the platform on the left or pressing the Down Arrow icon on the menu on your right. Use your Matter Manipulator on a tree trunk to break it down for some wood. Press C to bring up your crafting window and craft wooden planks from the unrefined wood you just got. Then you can craft the Wooden Crafting Table from the planks by selecting it on the menu.

Quest 3: Obtain Raw Alien Meat and cook it to get Cooked Alien Meat to satiate your hunger. Beam down from your ship once again to kill some aliens for food. You may use your weapon from the locker or craft a Hunting Bow which has a higher chance of giving you meat. Craft a Campfire with wood and torches (from locker) and place it on the ground. Press E to interact with it and cook your alien meat.

Quest 4: Craft a Furnace. You will need to obtain 25x Cobblestones and 1x Campfire at the Wooden Crafting Table. Again, use your matter manipulator on some grey blocks to get cobblestone. You may look at the material requirements by accessing the crafting table at any time. Optionally, by now you'd probably want to have a Stone Pickaxe for easier mining so craft that next.

Quest 5: Obtain Iron Ore and use Furnace to smelt it into Iron Bar. You will need 2 iron ores to make 1 bar so mine accordingly. Press E on Furnace to bring up smelting and put your ores into the box.

Quest 6: Craft a Distress Beacon at the Wooden Crafting Table. The materials that you'll need are: 150x Pixels, 2x Silver Bars, 10x Copper Bars, 10x Iron Bars, and 100x Wooden Planks.

After you obtain a Distress Beacon, place it wherever you think is a good spot to kill the boss that will spawn: The Dreadwing Penguin Ufo!
You'd want to be equipped with Iron Armor and a ranged weapon in a large open area to make the fight easy. This boss drops little penguin minions that can be annoying but overall, the fight should be pretty easy.

Defeating the boss will reward you with 5x Molten Core (you only need one) which you will need to craft a Metalwork Station. Additionally you will need 1x Iron Anvil and 300x Pixels.

The item you need at this crafting station is the Starmap Upgrade MK2!
Requirements are: 5x Iron Bar and 400x Pixels.


Use the item after crafting and you should be able to access the Beta sector with your ship!

Starbound: Multiplayer Setup!

The selling point of Starbound for me, was the Multiplayer mode. There is no greater joy than exploring your planet, building a new house/base or exploring your new discoveries with a friend or two. Singleplayer mode is fun and relaxing in its own way but most of you have probably heard the saying:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Multiplayer Setup
And so the first thing I did when starting up Starbound was set up Multiplayer mode. There are a couple of server setup guides out there on the web but I thought I'd simplify it for you here.
If you're hosting, that means that you want your friends to connect to your PC and play in your universe, you will have to navigate to your Starbound folder. It should be in the following directory or wherever you installed the game:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Starbound\win32

There is an .exe file that you need to run first called starbound_server.exe in the win32 folder. There is no need to run as administrator.

It should take a bit to load everything. Afterwards, go to www.whatismyip.com and copy or write that IP address down. This is the IP address that you need to give your friends to allow them to connect. After they make their characters they can choose Multiplayer mode and there will be a field to enter server address. You can disregard server name and password.
For yourself, enter your own local IP address. This can be found by bringing up your command (cmd.exe) window and typing in ipconfig. Your local IP address would be the numbers next to IPv4 Address.

Additionally, if your friends are on the same network as you, they may use 127.0.0.1 or your OWN local IP address to connect to your server.

But we're not done here. You will have to set up port forwarding for the game through your router settings page which was http://192.168.1.1 for me. This will most likely be different for you so you'll have to lookup the info! Make sure the port 21025 TCP is forwarded to your computer's IP address.

*If you're getting errors trying to connect, please make sure both you and the server are on the latest version which is beta v. furious koala. You can find this version info on the lower right of the Starbound startup window.

**Try and make sure that all your friends connect to the server around the same time so you can spawn on the same planet. Every time you restart the starbound server, it will place new players on a new random world so be advised!

Here is a link to a more extensive server setup guide.
Once you're feeling more adventurous and want to play on public servers, visit Starboundservers subreddit or Starbound serverlister.

freetype6.dll and other errors: If you get a freetype6.dll error or some kind of system resources error from running Starbound, please remember to run as administrator! Or you can go download it here and place it in your windows system folder. I should probably mention that this is only for windows machines!

Starbound: First impressions!

You may or may not have heard of Starbound, a pc game by an indie studio called Chucklefish. It is a diverse 2D exploration sandbox game set in the universe. Technopedia defines a sandbox game as:

..... a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish. 

It's pretty accurate and is a fairy new game concept that has been quite popular lately largely in part to a game called Terraria which is all sorts of fun that I won't get into in this review. Now the tiny and boring description above is just a small part of what the actual game experience is like. You'd have to play the game to discover its potential. There are numerous possibilities and the game's still in Beta! You may also choose between singleplayer or multiplayer modes.

There are 6 races and numerous color/clothing options to help differentiate yourself from others. I'm a big fan of the 2d pixel graphics so no complaints for me! After customizing your character, you start out in a lone spaceship and are given your first quest to help intro you to the game. If this is a first for you, you probably should read a beginner's guide since all the features can all be very daunting.

There are special hotkeys to bring up inventory, crafting, etc. which I don't even think they tell you about but.. you'll figure it out! You are then told to beam down to the planet your spaceship is hovering over and this is randomly generated. Here's where the fun begins.

I was not prepared for the slew of cute and disgusting monsters that populate every planet. They hurt and they will kill you a number of times before you learn how to survive in this harsh new environment! Following the quests will help provide you with a hunter bow which makes it a tad easier to kill monsters and hunt for food.

Did I mention you have a food and warmth meter of some sort? You will need to keep your character fed and warm or otherwise die.. Food can be obtained from monster loot and random fruits/plants you see lying around on the face of the new world. Warmth can be remedied by crafting torches and other light/fire items. Your health sadly can only be recovered by sleeping in a bed you should craft or by crafting bandages from plant fibres. Also beware the night.. a whole host of hard-hitting aliens may swarm you if you haven't already died to the cold temperatures.

Overall, the game is very fun and immersive. You will find that you spend most of your time exploring or gathering resources and it is rewarding! Be prepared to find friendly/hostile npcs, houses, villages, castles, tombs and even underground facilities!

Best part is there are hundreds of planets out there.. you can always set off and find something that answers to your tastes.

Starbound is purchasable at its own website, Steam or over at the Humble Store for $14.99.