• Starside Weekly – 09.26.2025

    Starside Weekly – 09.26.2025

    NEW: UNIVERSITY UPDATE

    There are a number of new features in this update including a new way to measure planetary ecological health, but what really caught peoples' attention were the changes to skill trees.

    Built into this update is a way to view our future plans for skill trees. We included trees and skills for parts of the game we are not working on yet. 

     https://starsreach.com/university-update

    PLAYTEST SCHEDULE HAS CHANGED

    Immediately following Saturday's Fireside Chat, we will have a playtest that lasts until Tuesday morning, Pacific time. We will take the servers offline for 2 days for updates, then restart the test on Thursday at the same time as our Thursday livestream. .

     

    Fun note: the playtests used to start at 10:00 AM and we had a developer livestream on Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach from 9:00-10:00 AM. We moved the start time earlier so players could join us in game and play together.

     

    CONTROLLED CHAOS INTERVIEWS THOMAS MARCON

    Another great Controlled Chaos interview – this time he interviews Playable Worlds Community Manager Thomas "Frommy" Marcon. Come hear about this multitalented man with a great, Italian accent.

    THOMAS MARCON INTERVIEWS DAVE GEORGESON:
    CHANGES COMING TO COMBAT

    We can expect new weapon types, new deployables, customization, new combat mechnics, vehicles, crowd control, added effect, and weapon customizations.

    Some of this content is years away, but it's all very interesting. Don't miss this interview.

    KICKSTARTER LATE PLEDGES ENDING IN DAYS!

    The late pledges have remained popular after the close of the Kickstarter campaign but these will be ending on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. You have this weekend plus Monday & Tuesday to purchase them either on Kickstarter.com or on StarsReach.com/store/ at the same price but with a couple additional payment options.


    Be advised that for a period of time there will be nothing offered for sale other than logo merchandise. It will still be possible to sign up for the waiting list for future invitations to playtest.

     

    PLAYING WITH THE DEVS LIVESTREAM

    We had a test run last week and it was great fun but it would be more fun if the playtesters joined us. 

    We will do it again on Thursday, October 2nd. We will meet at the Transplanetary League base by the mission kiosks. We will ask everyone to accept two missions from Akacala which we will complete together. Then we will move together to the Akacala portal.

    We will start with the closest mission locations and work together to clear them all. Then we will go back together and turn them in earning klaatu.

    Be ready with your client updated and your character already finished with the tutorial and waiting in the Transplanetary League base. Come with us!

    If you prefer to watch, join us on Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach.

     

    LOGO MERCH AVAILABLE

    • We updated our game logo recently. A new game logo also means that new game logo merchandise arrived in the store! 

    SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK 

    • Upgraded lighting and a bit of volumetric fog is visible here in a familiar location. The values have not yet been tuned but it's already very noticeable.

     

    ,

  • University Update

    University Update

    Skill Trees

    Hugely enlarged the skill trees to show the shape of things to come. Many of these are works in progress ("WIP") and unattainable at this time, but we wanted players to be able to look at what's coming and know where the game was going, beyond the relatively modest offering that's available at the moment.

    There's a lot of new stuff in there, including:

    • Botany now includes Herbalism, Forestry, Farming, and Foraging
    • Combat now includes the Combat Tactics tree, which shows how that tree will progress as we develop and includes Ranged, Melee, Drones and Combat Engineer combat options.
    • Cooking now has Preservation and Foods. (The Medicines and Cures have moved to Medical.)
    • Crafting contains Tailoring, Armorer, Machinist, Weaponsmith, Toolmaker, Civil Engineering and Architect. The Refining tree has been moved to Mineralogy to make it easier for mining folks to unlock those functions.
    • Medical now includes Pharmacology (which holds the Medicine and Cure recipe unlocks), the Healix specials, and Genetics.
    • Mineralogy has Refining, Prospecting, Mining, Gemology, Industrial Mining, Gas Harvesting, Depositing, and Chronophasing.
    • Ranger has the Trailblazer utilities, Survivalist, Surveying, Stealth (and Stealth Attacks), Navigation and Camping.
    • Vehicles include room for Ground and Air Vehicles, as well as Starships.
    • Xenobiology accesses Xenolinguistics, Xenoarchaeology, Pets, Animal Training, Husbandry, and Hunting and Fishing.

    New skill trees include:

    • Business: Including Management, Logistics, and Advertising
    • Humanities: Including Writing, Journalism, Music, Dance, and Acting
    • Leadership: Including Inspiration, Group Tactics, and Coordination

    New Weapons (and weapon changes)

    The trusty OmniBlaster has been renamed to OmniShock. Why? Because there is now an OmniForce also that uses Kinetic damage (compared to OmniShock's shock damage type).

    There are two other new weapons also: The Freeze Ray and the Corrosion Drones.

    OmniForce: Uses Kinetic damage. The primary fire is very similar to the OmniShock, but fires slightly slower but delivers a more powerful punch. The specials for the OmniForce are:

    • Artillery: Hold down the "E" button to see an indirect fire arc and ground decal. Release "E" to fire the shot that will impact in that location. Causes significant knockback.
    • Hunter Seekers: Use the "Q" button. Three shots fire out in a fan (like the OmniShock's Tri-Shot ability), but they each then burst into a vertical line of shots (nine projectiles in total) that start homing in on nearby targets. These also cause knockback.

    Corrosion Drones: The primary fire on this weapon is much like the Companion Orbs, except that it uses Corrosion damage. Because it doesn't cause terrain to heat up, it does slightly more damage instead. The specials for the Corrosion Drones are:

    • Acid Bath: Trigger this with "E" and projectiles arc out in all directions, creating AOE detonations where they impact. Causes targets to be Poisoned.
    • Bug Bombs: A fan of shots goes out in front of you, detonating at short range and saturating an area with corrosion damage. Causes targets to be Poisoned.

    Freeze Ray: The primary fire on this is cold-based and much like the Gravity Gun's primary beam. However, it doesn't do knockback, so it does slightly more damage instead. Specials for this weapon are:

    • Snow Globe: Projectiles streak out in a hemisphere pattern all around you, detonating at short range and potentially impacting a great number of targets. Can Freeze impacted targets.
    • Deep Freeze: An indirect projectile that does light damage, but causes everything…including the terrain…to freeze solid. Hold "Q" to see the targeting arc and decal and release "Q" to fire.

    The new weapons have skills (to unlock the specials in Combat and to unlock making the weapons in Weaponsmith) and have new recipes, as well. The new recipes are "component" recipes, similar in nature to the recipes for the Terraformer and Harvester and are a good way to increase your Crafting XP.

    Other weapon changes:

    • The OmniShock Tri-Shot and Doom Blossom specials now do Electrified effects when they impact targets, adding crowd control to their abilities. (Electrified can knock flying targets down to the ground.)
    • The Companion Orbs Ring Nodes will catch opponents on fire, doing damage over time to them.
    • The Gravity Gun knockback effects have been increased slightly.

    Mining Improvement

    When you mine through rock and soil now, you'll see additional drops of resources occurring that weren't there previously.

    Depending on the material you dig through, you'll start to find bits of Ores (like Carnotite or Pitchblende) or Found Materials (like Obsidian Shards or Quicklime). You can also occasionally find gasses or gems this way.

    Ecology Kiosk

    The Starbase and every planet now has an Ecology Kiosk on it. You can access that Kiosk to find out the Ecology status of that area.

    The first screen you see when you access the Kiosk is the Overall Health of that planet or region of space. It's broken into three stats: Flora, Fauna, and Mineral. Overall Health is affected by quantity (how much of the original indigenous stuff is still present) and diversity (how many species or types of mineral are still present).

    If you want to drill down into it more, you can click detail tabs for each of those categories and you can find out how much of individual species or minerals are still present.

    Servitor Violations

    If you hunt a species to near extinction or get close to eradicating it through mining or harvesting, there are repercussions.

    The Servitors will launch edicts telling you (essentially) "don't do that anymore". If you continue to pursue that (and we know you will!) then they will respond. They can do this through meteor strike…or they can appear and take care of you personally!

    Every time you do a negative thing, you will rack up Servitor Violation rating. This rating only dissipates over time, and the worse the overall planet health is when you do something forbidden, modified by how bad your Servitor Violation rating is, the more severe their response will be to your actions.

    Later (soon-ish) we'll also add carrot to go with this stick and you'll receive rewards for taking care of a planet and keeping it healthy. But for now, it's all stick. Enjoy!

    NOTE: If an item has an edict on it, and you mine/harvest/kill that thing, the doober you receive will be highlighted in red. If you see that, stop unless you strongly desire the attention of the Servitors.

    First-Time User Experience

    A large number of edits were made to the First-Time User Experience ("the FTUE Hallway"):

    • During character creation, you have the choices of "Show me the way" or "I know what I'm doing". If you choose the latter, then when you appear in the world, you will have the skills and equipment for the Explorer profession. If you want other skill sets, you'll need to navigate the Hallway instead.
    • The lava/Fire Suppressor room has been revamped to make it much easier to navigate and so the Fire Suppressor freezes the lava more effectively.
    • The Debris Tool area has been changed slightly to make it easier to navigate after the debris is cleared.
    • Revamped Soldier and Explorer because both professions were granting waypoint skills…and we don't have any way to use those in-game currently.
    • Soldier now gets the Artillery special unlocked. (Also gets the OmniForce pistol instead of the Companion Orbs.)
    • Explorer gets longer lasting camps and the second stage of camp unlock.
    • All profession kiosks had the text edited and reformatted to make it easier to comprehend
    • Edited text to direct the player to the Mission Kiosk more effectively (hopefully) once they reach the starbase.
    • Restructured some of the FTUE Hallway logic to avoid repetitive dialogs.
    • Told the player directly to jump into the electrical room and die on purpose (instead of making it seem like an accident, which was frustrating players and making them feel like they were left with a hopeless non-choice).
    • Edited the angle of meteors in space so they feel less like they're just falling straight down
    • Removed some servitor dialogs to avoid constant click-closing of dialogs.

    Misc Updates

    We've also made a bunch of fixes that don't really fit into discrete categories. Here's a list of them:

    • Portal objects (in space) have been replaced so you only have to fly through them instead of land and run through them.
    • Added wormhole opening and closing VFX and Audio
    • The Healix VFXnow properly updates the VFX on its specials when PQRV enhances the radius of those effects. So when you make it bigger, you see the change now.
    • If you release LMB on an ability and then click-and-hold LMB, the ability will trigger again after the cooldown timer expires.
    • Players can now (properly) burn flora that are on their Homestead. Other players that have edit privileges on that Homestead can do that also.
    • Kiosks in the starbase now are different colors to make them easier to differentiate.
    • Paver tool no longer alters the landscape that you pave other than to change its materials.
    • "Stripped" tools are now called "Starter" tools and have their own first-time help dialogs.
    • Flying creatures now properly fly above ground when patrolling.
    • Tree spreading rate was decreased to make it possible for players to depopulate flora again. Also, if a species goes extinct, it will no longer naturally propagate through spreading and reappear on the world.
    • Multishot damage is capped again. This broke a while back and we didn't notice. What that means is that if you get point blank on a target and fire many projectiles from a single weapon click, you can only do so much damage to a target, regardless of how many projectiles hit them. Conversely, this also applies to creatures, so you should get nuked less when you're close to creatures that have multishot capabilities (unless they are powerful enough that one projectile does the job anyway).
    • You can now see a Homestead owner's name from a greater range (above the Homesteader object).
    • All Farming and Forestry skills now grant Botany XP so that you can unlock nodes in those trees in the new setup.
    • Healix beam is fixed now and heals characters again.
    • Issues with the Xyloslicer and certain kinds of seeds causing the Xylo to malfunction have been resolved.
    • Saguaro cacti no longer spread logs.
    • Food consumables should now work correctly.
    • Chat has been overhauled. New back-end functionality is not yet implemented, but the UI is new and somewhat more useful. Pressing ESC will minimize the chat pane.
    • Skills menu can now be closed by hitting "K" again.
    • If you open a full-screen menu and the game changes you from fixed-reticle to free-reticle while you're on that menu, you will return to fixed-reticle when you close that menu.
    • Lights have been optimized. Greatly. Homestead light limits have not yet increased, but will likely go up on the next update after we assess during playtests how the optimizations are performing.
    • Some volumetric fog has been added to the game, but we are using it lightly until further optimizations occur.

    Known Issue

    When you return to the Mission Kiosk with completed missions, then after you turn them in and go to select a new mission, the list will be blank.

    To fix this, just move the scroll bar (or use your mouse wheel) and it will populate normally again.

    This issue will be resolved soon in a new update.

    ,

  • Starside Weekly – 09.19.2025

    Starside Weekly – 09.19.2025

    Your weekly update on Stars Reach

    AMAZON WEB SERVICES CASE STUDY ON STARS REACH

    How can one offer engaging gameplay across space and worlds, with significance and permanence, at MMO density and scale, without requiring that players own powerful computers?

    Playable Worlds worked with Unity and AWS on this case study of how we are achieving this level of detail at this scale set in a living simulation.

    Read this case study to learn hints about how we allow you to join your friends in space and build a new civilization.

    https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/playable-worlds-unity/

    TOP TEN QUESTIONS FROM NEW PLAYERS

    Such a great idea for a video. Huge thank you to Grumpy and Glitch for posting this on YouTube.

    They make a good point about how many people don't want to read answers in an obvious Discord post. They want someone to tell them the answer in Discord or in a video.

     

    PLAYTEST SCHEDULE

    Playtests are currently starting at 9:00 AM on Thursdays and running until 8:00 AM on Tuesdays. To look at it differently, the playtest is running everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

    Fun note: the playtests used to start at 10:00 AM and we had a developer livestream on Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach from 9:00-10:00 AM. We moved the start time earlier so players could join us in game and play together.

     

    PLAYING WITH THE DEVS LIVESTREAM

    We had a test run this week. We met at the Transplanetary League base by the mission kiosks. We asked everyone to accept two missions from Akacala which we would complete together. Then we moved together to the Akacala portal.

    We started with closest mission locations and worked together to clear them all. Then we went back together and turned them in earning klaatu.

    Then we asked "who still needs a gravmesh?" We had been traveling with just ground movement and grapplers up until then. We went through our bags, collected enough ore to make the metal parts. We harvested enough materials for Leric to manufacture laboratory diamonds, then crafted the gravmeshes and handed them out. Everyone left equipped.

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2563815849

    Next week we are going to try continuing this adventure with participation from players. If you are free to join us in game, you are welcome to come. We will tell you where we are and help you complete missions and build a gravmesh.

     

    CATCHING THE DEVS BY SURPRISE

    Creating a steam-powered geyser and more in Stars Reach.

    KICKSTARTER LATE PLEDGES ENDING
    The late pledges have remained popular after the close of the Kickstarter campaign but these will be ending on September 30, 2025. You have approximately ten days to purchase them either on Kickstarter.com or on StarsReach.com/store/ at the same price but with a couple additional payment options.


    Backer Invites + Discord Backer Badge.  Almost all of the backers have submitted their survey, but if you haven't then search your email box.

    • New testers received an invite from FirstLook with a playtest schedule and instructions. (Check your spam folder if you don't see it!)
    • Existing testers will not get a new invite, your Discord role should now show a Backer badge. Not yet? Log into FirstLook.gg and sync.
    • Can't find it? Click here: https://playableworldshelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us 

     

    NEW LOGO MERCH

    • We updated our game logo last week. A new game logo also means that new game logo merchandise arrived in the store! 
    • Screenshots of the Week: 

    Who knew you could tame ten creatures at the same time?! PoisonGirl knew, that's who. And she invited them down to the portal for a party.

    ,

  • Starside Weekly – 09.12.2025

    Starside Weekly – 09.12.2025

    FROM THE STARS REACH LABORATORY

    We have uncovered an experimental concept that may or may not have involvement or funding from the Transplanetary League. The technician we questioned called them "turrets" or "turret concept". 

    We are excited to bring you this video:

     

    NEW LOGO FOR STARS REACH

    Old Logo:

    New Logo:

    This also included an update to the Stars Reach icon as well. The hands-reaching-for-the-stars icon evolved in this transition.

     

    NEW WEBSITE FOR STARS REACH

    That's right. We updated https://starsreach.com to a new, stronger look. The new design is more modern, dramatic, and performs better.

    We are going through updating our social media presences, press kit, Steam store page, and other key elements to match our new style guide.

     

    BEHIND-THE-SCENES WITH MARKETING

    Yesterday the marketing folks got coffee and joined a livestream together to talk about a week in our lives, what kinds of things we do, the new logo, the new website, and even new logo merchandise. You can catch our VOD for a limited time here:

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2563815849

     

    PLAYTEST SCHEDULE

    • Playtests are currently starting at 10:00 AM on Thursdays and running until 8:00 AM on Tuesdays. To look at it differently, the playtest is running everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.


    PLAY-WITH-THE-DEVS LIVESTREAM

    • Next Thursday, September 18th, at 9:00 AM Pacific/noon Eastern we will get together in-game in Stars Reach and on Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach to livestream some group play.

      We will team up to help each other clear missions, acquire raw materials, and make some progress together.

      Audience members are encouraged to join us in the game. We will tell you where we are on which planet, and you can join us and participate. Come play with the devs and moderators!

    NEW AND OLD MERCH

    • A new game logo also means that new game logo merchandise arrived in the store this week!
    • Not only that, but a couple of pieces with the old logo were discounted and put on "last chance" sale. The old logo items will be gone soon. Check out our licensed merch in our Web Store! https://starsreach.com/store
    • We also have late pledges available on payment plans at our store
    • Backer Invites + Discord Backer Badge.  Almost all of the backers have submitted their survey, but if you haven't then search your email box.
      • New testers received an invite from FirstLook with a playtest schedule and instructions. (Check your spam folder if you don't see it!)
      • Existing testers will not get a new invite, your Discord role should now show a Backer badge. Not yet? Log into FirstLook.gg and sync.
      • Can't find it? Click here: https://playableworldshelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us 
    • Kickstarter late pledges are scheduled to end soon. We are getting close to your last chance to get one of these historic offers. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach
    • Screenshots of the Week: 

    MrGoshDarn goes on a nature walk on Akafin:

    ,

  • Starside Weekly – 09.05.2025

    Starside Weekly – 09.05.2025

    Your weekly update on Stars Reach

    This week was all about Performance Improvements

    • Flora improvements (both visual and performance)
    • Item limits and lighting limits on homesteads
    • Wipes of existing worlds and reseeding them better

    But there were other Game Improvements as well!

    • Testing a new version of "tailings" ejected from your mining excavator tool. These new tailings are initially ejected as a slurry which moves like a liquid to fill in crevices and holes, avoiding piling up into an unsightly pile. Then they quickly solidify and begin to age into dirt with any nearby grass spreading on top of them. This should improve the landscape a great deal.
    • Meteor swarms were completely renovated to avoid leaving a mess across the landscape. You'll need to try the new ones and tell us what you think.
    • The new player initial tutorial has been updated. Please create a new character and try it.

    What's dynamic about Dynamic Update?

    • Wild wormholes are now a dynamic event instead of a static portal to a new world each day.
    • The wormhole will stay open a random amount of time each time it opens and even the Servitors don't know how long that will be. But the Servitors have tech to monitor the basic stability of the gateway and can give us some indication of its health on our HUD:
      • Green = stable
      • Yellow, blinking slowly = starting to destabilize
      • Yellow, blinking moderately = becoming more unstable
      • Yellow, blinking rapidly = wrap it up! Time to head home!
      • Red, blinking furiously = the wormhole is about to collapse!
      • Steady red = it's too late now. Prepare to go back the hard way.
    • If you don't make it back to known space before the wormhole closes, you are forced to reconstitute your life form to your last saved ReLife pattern back in Servitor space. You will find that you no longer have anything you collected on the other side.

    There's a lot more to try out in the Dynamic Update debuting at the playtest on Saturday, September 6, right after the Fireside Chat.

    Playtesting

    • This is a 70-hour playtest, a short break on Tuesday & Wednesday, followed by a 118-hour playtest, our longest yet.

    Fireside Chat

    • Saturday, September 6, Dave Georgeson and Rick Reynolds will host Fireside Chat #47 to introduce the Dynamic Update. We have moved the Fireside Chat from the Discord auditorium to the Twitch.TV channel. Please join us at 9:00AM Pacific/Noon Eastern at Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach.

    A Grand Tour

    • Rod Haza jumped into Discord and took us on a grand tour of various build sites and constructions created by players for one last look before the wipe.
    • Thomas/Frommy took over yesterday's Thursday livestream for a look back at the evolution of art in Stars Reach. We started in 2019 and worked our way forward through Raph's art archive, looking at successive generations of videos, concept art, and screenshots. We've come a long way, baby. Temporary VOD link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2558629154.
    • The Stars Reach Infinite Worlds series merchandise has been a big hit. Check out our licensed merch in our Web Store! https://starsreach.com/store
      • We also have late pledges available on payment plans at our store
    • Backer Invites + Discord Backer Badge.  Almost all of the backers have submitted their survey, but if you haven't then search your email box.
      • New testers received an invite from FirstLook with a playtest schedule and instructions. (Check your spam folder if you don't see it!)
      • Existing testers will not get a new invite, your Discord role should now show a Backer badge. Not yet? Log into FirstLook.gg and sync.
      • Can't find it? Email support@playableworlds.com
    • Kickstarter late pledges are still available but this may wind down soon: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach
    • Screenshots of the Week:

    Club Jericho is likely to be rebuilt once more:

    ,

  • The Dynamic Update

    The Dynamic Update

    We are pursuing the "zombie" bug where a player gets into a non-responsive state after dying. (You might not think you're dead because your health bar isn't telling you the truth while in this state, but if the rest of the following conditions are true, then you are a "zombie".)

    • You can't /camp (it tells you that "you can't camp if you're dead" in chat)
    • You can't switch items on your toolbar
    • You can't interact with consoles or camps
    • Creatures ignore you completely (won't aggro on you)

    If these things are NOT true, then you are NOT a zombie. (No matter how cool that sounds like it might be, you ain't it.)

    We have added a reporting mechanism if you end up in this situation. If you end up in the zombie state, then:

    • Please type /reportbrokencharacter in your chat pane and add text after it to describe why you think you're in the zombie state. (You must enter text or the report won't be sent.)
    • Then hit Enter. This will send a report to us so we can examine your character to determine similarities with other such reports.

    We've also added a ton of logging around the suspected areas where it might be happening. We've tested extensively internally after doing so, but of course, as Murphy requires, we can't get it to dupe. So we're updating the servers with that extra logging to see if it's still happening "in the wild".

    We've made a bunch of other fixes, so it's possible that we fixed it without knowing we fixed it. That's unlikely (because life isn't usually that kind), but we won't know for sure until after this update goes live.

    Other "under the hood" fixes included are:

    • Code fixes to ensure that the servers stay in sync with each other during the Wild Wormhole events.
    • A performance fix when crafting stacks of items or merging stacks of resources.
    • A fix around Food items that prevented their duration being affected by PQRV stats.
    • A performance fix that mostly affects forest fires and lava.
    • A typo in a recipe that involved the Fluorine ingredient is now fixed.
    • A building tile performance improvement.
    • Some code cleanup around drones (aka Drone Lights) and DOTs (damage over time effects).

    SKILLS KIOSK

    Skills are now learned at a Skills Kiosk. You can still access your Skills display out in the field, but you'll have to head back to the Starbase in order to upgrade your skills.

    Upgrading your skills costs XP, as usual, but now also requires a Klaatu expenditure, as well. (Earn Klaatu by completing missions from the Mission Kiosk.) The amount of Klaatu required to upgrade your skills is shown on your Skills page ("K" to open it) along with the XP cost.

    The Skills Kiosks are located in the main hub of the Starbase, near the entrance to the theater area.


    DYNAMIC WORMHOLES

    Wild Wormholes are now a dynamic event!

    On previous tests, wormholes were static and stayed for the entire length of the test. But now they are transient, as intended, and the wormholes themselves are inherently unstable.

    What this means is that wormholes will stay up for a random amount of time. During that time, you can travel through the wormhole, far beyond the reaches of Servitor-controlled space, and end up on a "wild" planet. There, you can explore and exploit that planet as desired.

    BUT…the wormhole is definitely going to collapse. If you're still on the wild planet when it does, then you'll have no choice but to release and be reformed according to your last-saved ReLife pattern back in Servitor space…without anything you acquired on the wild planet.

    So, it's a race against time. Your friends at the TPL have provided a Wormhole Status Indicator on your HUD. It has different states to show you how close the wormhole is to collapse:

    • Green = stable.
    • Yellow, blinking slowly = starting to destabilize.
    • Yellow, blinking moderately = becoming more unstable.
    • Yellow, blinking rapidly = wrap it up…time to head home.
    • Red, blinking furiously = you're pushing it…the wormhole is about to collapse!
    • Steady red = your goose is cooked…prepare to head home the hard way without any new stuff you picked up on the wild planet.

    In the future, every time a dynamic wormhole opens up, it will connect to a new world, but for now, during this phase of testing, it's likely to be the same planet every time, each calendar day. This will change in the future.


    Wild Wormhole Missions

    Wild planet missions will be unavailable now unless a wormhole is actually open. Conversely, when a wormhole collapses, wormhole missions will become unavailable.

    But once a wormhole opens, there will be missions available for the planet on the far end. Be sure to grab some of those before you head through the wormhole!

    If a wormhole collapses and you have incomplete missions for that world, they will time out after a bit (or you can Abandon them if you'd prefer). If you have completed the missions, then they don't time out and you can cash them in at your convenience.

    Non-kill missions are now rewarded more highly if the mission is further away from the planet's portal.

    Known Issue: When you portal or open a full-screen menu, the wormhole will falsely tell you it is stable green again. This will update at a maximum of two minutes after that and show you the correct status of the wormhole. This will be fixed soon.


    ADDITIONAL UPDATES

    "Slurry" Tailings

    Tailings have been improved so they flow quite rapidly when first placed and then quickly solidify into soils. Those soils will then start to grow grass if there is any grass nearby.

    Advantages to this include:

    • Less "hills" created all over the place by dumping tailings
    • Granting you the ability to fill holes more easily by filling the holes with tailings and smoothing out the divots.

    Improved Meteors

    • Metal deposits were removed from all existing meteor showers to avoid "balls of metal" all over the world.
    • Anti-gravium and Megarock events were removed entirely.
    • Heavy Metal Noise! events (meteors) were added instead. They act like Megarock and make a big pool of lava where they impact and the metal they deposit sinks down into the world. When they cool, they leave a flat-ish surface behind and you'll have to dig/prospect for the metal. There is one event for each metal category (Common, Rare, Exotic, etc.), but the event announcements are identical, so you have to prospect to find out what the meteor deposited.

    Improved Flora

    • Many tree and bush asset upgrades to improve both visuals AND performance.
    • Trees and bushes were shuffled to their proper biomes and there is now greater visual differentiation between biomes.
    • There are now logs in many biomes again. Use your harvesters to get wood!

    Kiosk Changes (Homestead, Mission and Tools)

    • If you release a Homestead, it now refunds it into your inventory (instead of just losing it).
    • When you access the mission kiosk, there are separate "pages" for each world so you can easily pick missions for that specific world.
    • When viewing your current Missions, the rewards for those missions are now shown on the list.
    • Missions that you can't take are moved to the bottom of the list in the Missions Kiosk.
    • Until we get a chance to make some improvements, Maguffins will be much closer to the surface so you won't have to dig very far to get them. (To avoid the frustrating "infinite sand" issues.)
    • There is now a Stripped Xyloslicer in the tools kiosk.

    User Interface

    • Crafting recipes that create many items should no longer lag the player's client.
    • Improved first-time experience hallway with improved tutorial dialogs.
    • You can now remove items from your toolbar. Navigate to your inventory, and click the "X" on the toolbar item to remove it from your toolbar and return it to inventory instead.
    • You now get tooltips when you hover over items on your toolbar.
    • Added a first-time Food tutorial so you can tell what food does and why you should use it.
    • Keyboard sprites added to dialogs and first-time dialogs are greatly reduced in verbiage.
    • There is now an option to skip the first-time experience Hallway when you make a new character, as long as you've gone through it once before.
    • Gravemarkers are red now to match the waypoint color.

    Other

    • Homesteads now have building tile limits. You can place up to 330 building tiles on a single Homestead, and 30 of those tiles can be lights. These limits are likely to increase as we optimize the building tiles and the lights (we are working on this now).
    • Overcharge has improved VFX.
    • Loading screen text improved for clarity

    BUG FIXES

    • You should now get event notifications when you enter a zone, even if the event is already started.
    • Fixed the "permanently frozen" issue some players were encountering.
    • HUD display is now delayed until world is fully loaded (should prevent you from seeing the world without terrain)
    • You can now properly do all drag-and-drop actions from a sorted inventory view.
    • You should no longer see meaningless resource numbers when doing a Resource Scan with the Terraformer
    • Debris Tool (for the first-time experience Hallway) has been increased in strength and radius to make it easy to clear the debris area so you can crouch walk through it without problem.
    • The camera is tucked closer to your character's body in tight situations to make the camera less jittery in tight quarters.
    • The "low health warning" edge-of-screen effect on the HUD has been restored.
    • Keyboard layout should be at the top of the list when F1 Help is accessed.
    • Underwater plants should no longer appear above the water
    • Seaweed and Kelp are no longer classified as trees. They are harvested by the Harvester, not the Xyloslicer.
    • Paver tiles can be extracted again.
    • First time player experience logic improved so if you die in the lava, you don't get the electrified death dialog.
    ,

  • Starside Weekly – 08.29.2025

    Starside Weekly – 08.29.2025

    Your weekly update on Stars Reach

     

    Playtesting

    • There is currently a 96-hour playtest running – our longest yet. These longer tests are a kind of stress test that teaches us valuable information in advance of moving into 24/7 continuous operation.
    • The current test ends Tuesday, September 2, at 8:00 AM Pacific/11:00 AM Eastern.
    • The next test starts Thursday, September 4, at 9:00 AM Pacific/Noon Eastern.
    • Saturday, September 6, Dave Georgeson and Rick Reynolds will host Fireside Chat #47 to introduce the next update. We have moved the Fireside Chat from the Discord auditorium to the Twitch.TV channel. Please join us at 9:00AM Pacific/Noon Eastern at Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach.
    • Rod Haza joined us on livestream to talk about bugs and bug reporting this week. You can see the video recording here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2552621772.
    • Do you remember National Geographic Magazine? Fans have made an homage in the form of Galactic Geographic and it's excellent. Enjoy the first issue here: https://galacticgeographic.org/2025/08/25/the-first-journey.html. 
    • Controlled Chaos interviewed Stars Reach Moderator Leric Dax about his gaming and Stars Reach journey:
    • The Transplanetary League (TPL) logo merchandise has been a big hit. Check out our licensed merch in our Web Store!
    • We also have late pledges available on payment plans at our store
    • Backer Invites + Discord Backer Badge. Almost all of the backers have submitted their survey, but if you haven't then search your email box.
      • New testers received an invite from FirstLook with a playtest schedule and instructions. (Check your spam folder if you don't see it!)
      • Existing testers will not get a new invite, your Discord role should now show a Backer badge. Not yet? Log into FirstLook.gg and sync.
      • Can't find it? Email support@playableworlds.com
    • Kickstarter late pledges are still available but this may wind down soon: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach
    • Screenshots of the Week:
      • ObsidianStone chooses land for their mushroom farm:
      • The bar inside Shae's Light – save Carneros a spot!:
    ,

  • Starside Weekly – 08.22.2025

    Starside Weekly – 08.22.2025

    Your weekly update on Stars Reach

    • More changes to the Twilight Update! – We found a netcode issue and it was a biggie. Fixing it allowed us to improve your framerate. You should see some significant improvements to your frames-per-second.

      Tools and Weapons Refactor
      We overhauled the PQRV (potential, quality, resilience, and versatility) stats on all tools. In general, the things you'll notice most will be big improvements in the behaviors of tool and weapon batteries. In short, you can use them a lot more now before the batteries give out. But additionally:

      • The Chronophaser works again to melt stuff…however…Quality controls the max heat of the beam. So you'll need a high-quality Chronophaser to melt really tough stuff like diamonds. However, even a low-grade Chrono will melt dirt.
      • Higher Quality Healix tools will heal better.
      • Higher Quality Companion Orbs will do more damage.
      • Higher Quality Omniblaster will also do more damage.
      • Gravity Gun doesn't get increased damage because it already had increased knockback (via Potential).


     Inventory Changes

    • You can now merge your inventory stacks (as long as each stack has two units or more in it)! If you have stacks of smaller than two units, then you can either wait until they have more in them and can be merged, or just delete them.
      To merge stacks:

      • Drag and drop a stack onto another stack.
      • The process is lossy. You will end up with fewer units of material than the sum of both stacks.
      • The stats of the end-product stack will be an average of the two stacks. We add up the stats of all resources involved and then divide by the number of resources. So if you only have two units in one stack and you have 57 in the other, the end result stacks are going to be very similar to the stack of 57.
    • You'll get a dialog giving you a preview of the final stack and you can decide whether to do it or not thereafter.

      Tuning Changes
    • Creatures that use cold projectiles no longer generate heat when those projectiles hit the terrain.
    • The Fire Suppressor in the first-time user experience hallway is now more effective and it's easier to freeze the molten floor.
    • We've increased the batch sizes of many recipes (blocks, building tiles, alloys, ores, and more) so that you don't have to sit there and hit the Craft! button so many times in a row.
    • Many meteor storms have been modified so they deposit different types of metal into the world to supplement the fact that you've mostly mined the worlds out right now. This may not be a permanent change.
    • The announcement text at the top, center of the screen now refreshes much more rapidly so it doesn't get caught in such long update queues.
    • Pulse mining is dead. Oh…and did you know that you can just hold down "Q" when emptying your Hopper? Because you can! (You don't need to pound the "Q" key.)


    Known Issues

    • When other players have their weapons equipped, you will see an animation twitching/vibrating issue that is new, but we're going ahead with the test and we'll fix it in the next update. It is a visual oddity only and shouldn't affect your gameplay (other than aesthetically).
    • We temporarily removed the low-health (red screen edge) overlay while we convert it to a new system. It shall return! (But is not here now.)
    • The Control key image is currently missing from the F1 Help Screen. Here's the image for reference while we get this fixed in an upcoming update.
    • Saturday, August 16, Dave Georgeson and Rick Reynolds hosted Fireside Chat #46 to introduce the new update. You can join catch the video here:
    • Hooby posted a new blog entry about the Twilight Update: https://hooby.blog/posts/PAT20-twilight
    • Controlled Chaos interviewed Stars Reach Moderator Signus about his gaming and Stars Reach journey:
    • The Transplanetary League (TPL) logo merchandise has been a big hit. Check out our licensed merch in our Web Store! https://starsreach.com/store/ 
    • We also have late pledges available on payment plans at our store
    • Backer Invites + Discord Backer Badge. Almost all of the backers have submitted their survey, but if you haven't then search your email box.
      • New testers received an invite from FirstLook with a playtest schedule and instructions. (Check your spam folder if you don't see it!)
      • Existing testers will not get a new invite, your Discord role should now show a Backer badge. Not yet? Log into FirstLook.gg and sync.
      • Can't find it? Email support@playableworlds.com
    • Kickstarter late pledges are still available but this may wind down soon: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach
    • Screenshots of the Week:

      • PoisonGirl's favorite tamed creature so far:

      • Dr. Vellaut's Farmer-Gone-Wild ammonia farm:
    ,

  • Player Spotlight: Part Three 2025.08.21

    Player Spotlight: Part Three 2025.08.21

    Carneros: What is something you can imagine your character doing in game one or two years from now? What is one thing you are hoping we will have in this game?

    mrgoshdarn: Beautifying any planet I land on and helping others do the same. If a planet becomes a mess, I'd like to make it excellent again for any playstyle to have a great time on, whether it's controlled by a government or a bit on the wild side.

    The planetologist profession. But with how much I've been mentioning it, I completely understand if you just make it a title at this point.

    ObsidianStone: Cruising the space lanes in my medium to large repurposed freighter. exploring. Making medicines and concoctions to help people. Hopefully searching for clues to Tír na nÓg and other fun mysteries. And so many other possibilities.

    One?! Oof. Oodles and oodles of outfit options and customisations in general, for ships, buildings, vehicles. Like an absurd amount. Constantly being added too. But it's painful to just pick one thing.

    Dr. Julie Wainlight: I could potentially see myself running a clinic on a GUNC outpost as a medic to triage patients or consult with other guilds for best practices for wildlife management on their governed planets, as well as genetic engineering pets/mounts from custom requests.

    Servitors exist, we have seen them now too! So I hope to see that we're able to droidmake or create robots or cybernetics! It'd be a strong contender to replace my initial idea of being a genetic engineer!

    LastDitchPlan: I came in fully wanting to do cooking! I'm not much of a cook in real life so I felt it would be a lot of fun to be a master chef in a virtual world. That said, the more of Stars Reach I play, the more I have to keep my committment to any one profession in check, simply because I'm loving a lot more professions than I thought I would! Architecture being a great example, I never would have thought I'd enjoy building buildings as much as I do, but it just works great and "clicks" for me (being inspired and learning from other's amazing works has helped a lot too!)

    Got a little long winded, next two answers incoming shortly!

    I really want to see an entire "entertainer" profession, or more precisely: a profession that encompasses dancing, music, and generally leans more towards a roleplay focus. Any game that has a facet of its gameplay loop that is just for fun really speaks to me. I grew up on Nintendo games and really appreciate fun for fun's sake. Plus the idea of jamming with some friends at a player built bar/hang-out is just what I need after a long work day!

    JesDyr: Does annoying the devs count? Really, it is hard to say. Different games can bring out a different player in me at different stages of gameplay. I imagine it will be either player housing or Taming/breeding animals. I have spent an unreasonable amount of hours doing both in other games.

    Success? No, I think that is too cheesy of an answer. I think I had about 50 things in the old "One wish" channel on Discord. I already got Space Otters in some form, so I guess the one thing would have to be complexity. I can enjoy simple games, but I don't stick with them for years. I don't mean every system needs to have a steep learning curve. Complexity can come in the form of many simple systems interacting with each other. I think the game needs to be approachable, but I also think there needs to be enough depth for those who want to go down the rabbit hole to be able to do so. We are already seeing that in the PreAlpha so maybe the real hope is that it continues..

    hooby: I have not decided yet what I'm going to do with my character. There are so many interesting options to choose from, and I'll be taking full advantage of the opportunity to try out all of it during testing. I'm pretty sure by the time the game does release, I'll know what I want to be doing.

    But regardless of what specialization I'll end up with – I sure hope that I'll also be able to sometimes just have my character lean back in a comfy chair of some player-run establishment, and watch the hustle and bustle of others rushing by. The game just added a player hub area – the TPL Starbase – and it feels great to have a place where there's always player traffic. People being busy visiting the mission terminals, and going to and returning from the planet portals.

    Dr. Julie Wainlight: I could potentially see myself running a clinic on a GUNC outpost as a medic to triage patients or consult with other guilds for best practices for wildlife management on their governed planets, as well as genetic engineering pets/mounts from custom requests.

    Nadraxes: Hopefully I will be investigating rumours of artefacts. Being an Indiana Jones style explorer and RP'ing my heart out. I already wrote Nadraxes "Lonestar" Jones's Background up and look forward to how the character will take shape. And yes, I stole "Lonestar" from Spaceballs and of course, Jones is a reference to Indiana..

    There are actually a few things and I have a hard time putting priorities on them. I'dd love to have Archaeology (sp?) in the game. A way to investigate the past of the planets we discover and the civilisations that came before us. I'm a lore mongerer, so the more I can find out, the more I'll love it.

    Closely tied to that is the opportunity to have player made libraries and writing books in the game. Bonus if we can add graphs and illustrations (maybe through webhooks?) to them. I ran a playermade library in UO at some point and had people donate books to me with their own written stories into it. It became quite a popular hangout spot for the people that loved readin stories or rp. Hiding books with "quests" in the library also became a thing for player-run events. Good memories.

    Last is a given, but any space game needs spaceships and some space combat attached to that. But this is definitely lower priority for me than the two above.

    Keaggan: Overseeing several planets, collaborating to build memorable cities, running large-scale seasonal events, leading a team known for quest making (missions), participating in PvP sieges, & regularly hunting down random events.

    CAPITAL SHIPS! Create an instance of the interior for all players to walk around in that does NOT move with the ship. If they connect to a terminal (pilot, weapons, view port, sensors, etc), the camera moves to the ship in space, but only from the perspective of the terminal. No added models.

    Carneros: Who is a streamer or content creator you wish would come play this game?

    mrgoshdarn: I think any type of streamer or content creator that likes MMOs or sandboxes should give it a shot, but I wouldn't want to play favorites.

    LastDitchPlan: I'm not much of a Twitch viewer/content consumer, just not what I grew up with as far as social engagement for video games! That said I absolutely die laughing at Joel Haver's stuff. He has done a number of sponsored videos for video games (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remake to name one!) and has such a funny sense of humor around looking at games and "what ifs?"

    If you have not seen Lanky's reaction to the DK Rap: do it now!

    JesDyr: There are only a handful of content creators I will watch with any regularity and they tend to be more focused on Indy games. Neebs Gaming is the only one that comes to mind. I liked their Ark videos and subnautica series, but it has been a while since I watched them.

    Keaggan: I don't know any except the top people. Once we get PvP, there are a few I'd like to come in just to bring in eyeballs, but they would all; bring in bigger guilds, so it's tough to say lol

    A guildmate recommended About Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/@AboutOliver & https://www.twitch.tv/AboutOliver)

    ,

  • Starside Weekly – 08.15.2025

    Starside Weekly – 08.15.2025

    Your weekly update on Stars Reach

    • Welcome to the Twilight Update – so named because, among many other things, we have listed to player feedback that night was too dark and slightly reduced the darkness. Please tell us if we got it about right.

    Also in this update:

    • Tools and Weapons Refactor

    • We have changed almost all of the tools and weapons to a new underlying system of code that allows PQRV changes to occur (see next section).
    • We have also broken some tools (Terraformer, Harvester) into multiple tools (Terraformer, Depositor, Chronophaser, Harvester, Pruning Shears).

    • Crafting Stats Matter Now

    • Potential, quality, resilience, and versatility are now 4 factors to consider when selecting crafting inputs. PQRV, for short. You will hear this mentioned regularly in game.

    • New Shops to spend those Klaatus

    • The next time you visit the TPL Starbase, please visit the basic tool shop and the homesteader shop.

    • Homesteading Changes

    • Homesteading has been moved out of the Ranger skill tree and is now part of the Architect skill tree. Unlock the skills, purchase a single-use Homesteader from the TPL starbase shop, and place it in the world. Homesteaders are not refunded to you if you disband your Homestead later on. You will need to purchase a new one each time.

    • Resource Selection

    • When you are scanning for resources with your Terraformer or selecting which which resource to deposit with your Depositor, you now open a resource selection menu by tapping the Tab key. This also applies to planting sees with the Xyloslicer or Harvester.

    • Long-Range Scanning

    • At long last, there is a way to prospect for minerals or gems at long range.

    • And much more

    • You can now trade Klaatus (this is huge)
    • Your terraformer now ejects tailings from your hopper instead of gravel.
    • All professions now start with low-end tools to incentivize folks to craft better versions.

     

    Upcoming Playtest schedule

    • Saturday, August 16, Dave Georgeson and Rick Reynolds will host our next Fireside Chat to introduce the new update. You can join us on Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach at 9:00AM Pacific / noon Eastern.
    • In yesterday's Playable Worlds livestream, we jumped into the brand new Twilight Update and gave a demonstration of the all new long-range mineral scanning. Click here to watch the video with Thomas, Leric Dax, Signus, and Carneros.
    • If you know what PQRV stands for and you're a crafter at heart, GUNC have designed a PQRV calculator to help you figure out what stats you are looking for. This is a work-in-progress: https://gunc.org/pqrvFullCalc.html
    • The new Transplanetary League (TPL) logo merchandise has been a big hit. Check out our licensed merch in our Web Store! https://starsreach.com/store/

    We also have late pledges available on payment plans at our store

    • Backer Invites + Discord Backer Badge. Almost all of the backers have submitted their survey, but if you haven't then search your email box.
      • New testers received an invite from FirstLook with a playtest schedule and instructions. (Check your spam folder if you don't see it!)
      • Existing testers will not get a new invite, your Discord role should now show a Backer badge. Not yet? Log into FirstLook.gg and sync.
      • Can't find it? Email support@playableworlds.com
    • Kickstarter late pledges are still available but this may wind down soon: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach
    • Screenshots of the Week:

    Chayce discussing the finer points of design with Justa Mirage

    ,