Starbound [Winter Update!]

[MENTION=6823]Polantaris[/MENTION]

Tiyuri was the lead artist for Terraria. He is now the lead developer for Starbound from Chucklefish Games.
There is a thread with compiled information about what the game can offer. It offers so much more than Terraria. I don't know if you have read it, if not you should.

Multiplayer, PVP and Servers -

• Server owners will be able to limit joining players to using new characters and/or can also allow existing characters to join as well. How they are being limited (Either tracking minimum Item Levels, or simply having brand-new chars with a flag in their save file, for example) is still being discussed.
  
• PVP will be in the game, and there will most likely be pre-generated Arena Asteroids for organized game modes which will automatically keep score for you, etc.
  
• The entire universe of experiences will be available in both Single player and Multi-player.
  
• Servers will be able to hold as many players as it can based on its power, and internet speed.
  
• Character saves that are transferable from "local to server" and visa-versa are planned and will be limited only by the choice of the server host. "Think Neverwinter Nights" - Tiy
  
• While the feature will not be available at release, the goal is for servers is to be able to run a MOD and have all clients who join it automatically have the added content from the MOD sent to them. And Servers themselves are planned to also be able to toggle a players use of custom config files to prevent them if so desired.
  
• Server-side characters can be "exported" to local characters so that they can be used elsewhere.
  
• Servers can be launched from a dedicated server executable, but there may also be the option to launch the server from within the game client itself.
  
• The games current netcode is already working, being called "smooth and seemless." - Rho
  
• Server to Server portals to allow players to server hop mid-play are planned, but not set in stone.
  
• Launching and joining LAN games will be reletively easy.
  
• Players on a server are not required to be on the same planet at the same time, and may go off and explore different planets.
  

Modding -

• Content-wise, basically nothing is "hard-coded" so the dev team is trying to make mods "modules" that can be pushed to the client easily.
  
• If someone makes a mod that makes player's lives easier, Tiy has stated that he feels like it should be in the default server and would want to either add it themselves or add the mod to the game.
  
• Starbound is structured in a way that modding could be really easy.
  
• More information on modding can be found here until a short version is added to this post.
  
• Texture pack support most likely won't be available at release, but the dev team is hoping for it as a post-release update.
  
• The game will have Lua scripting support. Lua scripts can be built directly into dungeons and wiring works too.
  

Source: http://community.playstarbound.com/index...ation.450/