Starbound 'Enraged Koala' refines patch system for near-daily updates

Chucklefish is celebrating Valentine's Day late with Starbound's new 'Enraged Koala' update, which introduces a refined patching system. Be sure to back up your ship file... just in case.

Ozzie Mejia

February 19, 2014 5:00 PM

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Chucklefish is celebrating Valentine's Day a little late with a new Starbound update deployed yesterday. While it does include some new Valentine's Day items, the real gift to players will be a refined patching system. The updated system will allow for near-daily patches that can shape the game's world without affecting the player's work. However, this will lead to one last world wipe in the near future.

"This update will allow us to add new biomes and make changes to worlds without the possibility of the player losing their world," writes community manager Molly Carroll on the Starbound blog. "There will likely be one more world wipe sometime in the future when we finalize the universe layout. This won't include a character/ship wipe, though, and you can still back up your worlds. A ton of work has gone into our patching system. After this update, we'll be able to push content updates as and when they're completed, rather than waiting for big engine updates to be completed. Updates after this patch will come at a near daily rate."

The 'Enraged Koala' update will also include the aforementioned Valentine's Day-themed items (swords, costumes, etc.), new Avian weaponry, and new microphone instrument sounds. Players will also be able to capture dogs as pets, with additional pets promised in future updates.

Be forewarned that this latest Starbound update has launched with some issues involving deleted containers. Chucklefish is encouraging players to make backups of their ship files before downloading the latest patch.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?