u/trey-a-12

Let me preface this by saying that I like this game. I've played right at about 50 hours as of this post (with two earlier playthroughs where I unfortunately had to restart due to data loss on my part), and I'm about 3/4ths the way through the story mode. I have endgame gear, have been exploring and building, have expanded my ship, all of that. I really do like this, and have tried to give it the right mindset.

I'll also clarify: Terraria IS ultimately my number 1 favorite game of all time. I recognize that this is not Terraria, even if its roots and some elements are similar. Additionally, No Man's Sky is definitely up there, as I've been playing a great deal on my Steam Deck. Both great games, and having finally learned keyboard and mouse for Terraria 1.4.5 not long ago, I decided to give Starbound a proper shot. Now, 30+ hours later... some thoughts.

I'm still enjoying this game, don't get me wrong, but two contrary things have started to occur to me and I'm curious about the thoughts of people who've sunk comparable hours into this as I have Terraria:

• If you expect this to be Terraria, it lacks that same replayability. It'd be better to sink those hours into one or two saves, as they'll mostly be the same.
• If you expect this to be No Man's Sky, it lacks that longevity. It'd be better to split up your playthoughs and do things differently.

Thing is, those two statements almost sound like they are in direct opposition, and they kind of lead to one conclusion: Starbound, in its base vanilla game, is truly more of a "one run story mode experience". That's not a bad thing, many of my favorite games are linear in that regard, and that's not to say games like Terraria AREN'T linear in some aspect.

The only issue is, as I've been "unlearning" the Terraria comparison way of thinking, I'm nearing the end of the game and wondering "what will I do after endgame?" Because I've explored most planet types and biomes, been going through achievements, expanded my ship and crew, and done a lot of what I've wanted to do. Obviously, there's a plethora of wonderful mods out there to add to the game (I've just been using Vanilla "Fix" mods that don't add content in my playthrough), but to those of you who've played the base game for hours or in multiple playthroughs, what would you say on this take? Is Starbound truly more of a "one lengthy playthrough" experience, where outside of general building, that's it?

This is getting to be way too long of a post, so last thing: If my conclusion is correct, that'd give a proper explanation as to why so many Terraria players (temporarily including myself) came into this disappointed. It FEELS enough like Terraria if you sideline the main story and just treat it as "Terraria with quests, and biomes are entire planets". That's fun, but the progression stops at basically what would be the end of Terraria's "pre-Hardmode". From there, it's really more No Man's Sky, where you just build and explore for the sake of it... but its shortcoming would be that there's not as much left in terms of sheer exploration?

Just a curiosity, that's all. I still enjoy all three games, and hope you do too! And this is ONLY applying to the BASE game, as I know there are plenty of wonderful mods that add to or change it!