Closed Alpha transition to Early Access

Official page: This page is maintained by Frozenbyte, the developers of Starbase, and cannot be edited by users. Information on this page has been confirmed to be correct at the time of writing (please get in touch if you notice anything odd or outdated).

Summary

This outlines the transition plan from Closed Alpha to Early Access in July 2021. All Closed Alpha testers will need to purchase the Early Access version just like regular players.

CLOSED ALPHA END

In preparation for the Early Access release on Thursday 29th of July, the Closed Alpha of Starbase ("Starbase ALPHA" game on Steam) will come to a close on Monday 26th of July, 2021 at 03:00 UTC. Note that 03:00 UTC is late evening on Sunday in North America.

CELEBRATORY EVENT ON SUNDAY

We will most likely organize an event on Sunday to celebrate the end of Closed Alpha. More information to follow.

MAJOR CHANGES

There's quite a few changes in Early Access compared to the last Closed Alpha build. EA brings some new features in the form of the Research Tree and Crafting, and 30 starting stations (Origins) and the station selection screen. In addition, the long-awaited Easy Build Mode has been added and works for both ships and stations. Station building will use the easy build mode by default, and it supports multiplayer. The old blueprint station building mode (Station Designer) has been disabled and it will be re-introduced later in Early Access, and the same goes for Lot and Interior Designers. Marketplace has also undergone a lot of changes and most shop terminals have been removed as part of the move to ore-based economy. Check out the full list of important changes at the bottom.

MOONS, PLANETS

Moon locations and details have been shuffled for the Early Access launch, and in fact there will be a a couple of new moons as well. The gas planet Eos stays in its place as does the current star. Asteroid belts and asteroids have been moved. All developer stations (like Robur, Proia) have been removed, only Origins + Moon City exist.

ORIGIN STATIONS

There are now multiple Origin stations in Starbase - the original Origin still exists, however it is now just one of many. The radio transmitters from the original Origin have been moved to "Beacon stations" (North, East, South, West in the Origin "ring"). Any GPS system will need to be recalibrated with the new fixed beacon stations.

SHIP BLUEPRINTS

We will add the ability to import ships from Alpha to Early Access in the near future. This feature will most likely come in the early phase of Early Access.

PLAYER STATIONS

By default, all player stations will be wiped when we launch Early Access. However, we may accept and store some player stations as relics. They won't be at the same coordinates as they are in Closed Alpha and they will be unusable (can't be claimed). If you'd like to submit your station(s), send a DM to our CMs with the coordinates of your station and preferably a couple of screenshots so we can evaluate easier. We make no promise to include any particular station, and any stations we choose are completely at our sole discretion.

OTHER ITEMS

All other (non-ship blueprint) user-owned items will be wiped as we move from Closed Alpha to Early Access. This includes all player and station inventories.

NAMES IN EARLY ACCESS

Alpha players who have played Starbase ALPHA for at least ten hours will have precedence for their established usernames and faction/company names for a week-long period, and will be guaranteed their name in the event of name clashing upon request to a community manager. This span of time may also be extended at the will of Frozenbyte, to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Following this, we reserve the right to change any player's name for this reason or for any other reason (e.g. moderation purposes).

We also do not allow the use of names that belong to any well-known online personas. If you are such a person and can't register your name, please pick another name and get in touch with us at [email protected] and we will change the name.

We will be keeping an eye out for any wrongdoings or false registrations of user names or company names.

Note about name changes: We will allow name change requests through moderation at some point later during Early Access.

ALPHA REWARDS

Our development roadmap is tracking "Cosmetics" for Q4 2021 and once the feature has been completed, we will look if we can add something special to our Alpha Testers, such as a special Alpha badge in the CV or a cosmetic item. Stay tuned! :)

THANK YOU

We would like to thank all of our Alpha pioneers, your feedback has been very valuable in our development journey! We couldn't have arrived here without your support. Starbase will launch into Early Access as an "alpha stage" game and is far from finished - we've got a long way to go but we look forward to the journey with the community by our side!

CHANGELIST

New features coming in Early Access

• Research Tree, used to unlock things to craft
• Crafting
• Easy Build Mode for spaceships
• Easy Build Mode for stations
• 30 starting stations (Origins) and starting station selection screen
• Spaceship Designer: Laborer II premade blueprint now available

Universe changes

• Moon positions and amounts have changed
• Most developer stations have been removed, only Origins + Moon City exist
• Ore hotspot locations shuffled
• Added new asteroid belts

Other major changes

• Lots have been removed from the game (hence it's not possible to access the Lot Designer or Interior Designer either)
• Station Designer is not accessible (has been replaced with Station Easy Build Mode), and hence stations do not have blueprints either (this means no automated building from inventory)
• Spaceship Designer: Attachment Plates are no longer available in Spaceship Designer. Also Attachment Layer has been replaced with "Bolts" layer.
• Spaceship Designer: Twin Vasama, Vasama Vanette, Tugger, Urchin, Ithaca IV, Ithaca I and Remus premade blueprints are no longer available.
• Spaceship Designer: Rails and Rail Devices are no longer available. Also Rails Layer has been removed from Ship Designer.
• All the other shop terminals have been removed, except "Kite" Armor shop, Auction house and 3 sell terminals in Marketplace, as well as Spaceship shops.