Public Test Universe now open!

[JoelFB]

Hello everyone. We have some exciting news: We have started a Public Test Universe where we will push out updates before bringing them to the Early Access for everybody.

Public Test Universe (PTU) serves as an experimental branch of the game where we push updates live on a more frequent basis - essentially as soon as possible. These updates include hotfixes to bugs but also new features (with their own bugs). We'll then gather feedback from volunteer players and our own testers, and fix issues, and once the game is reasonably stable, we'll push out the update to the "real" Early Access universe.

Public Test Universe is available to everyone who owns the game, and will be open from time to time with new patches - most likely better parts of the week at least, and definitely when larger content updates are coming. The regular universe and the PTU are completely separate and have no effect on each other.

To enable PTU - check out the attachment to this post! Text explanation: Go to the Properties of Starbase on Steam, click the Betas tab, and choose "Public Test Universe (PTU)" from the dropdown menu. To disable PTU, simply choose "None". Going back and forth requires a patch-sized download, not a full re-download.

Please note that PTU will be more buggy than the main Early Access version, and we only recommend enabling it if you are interested in testing and getting a sneak peek at upcoming features. On PTU we will provide infinite credits (and soon ores) to players to speed up testing. There will also be a different set of rules (especially regarding PvP), because the main purpose is to test out features and not wreak havoc generally. Of course, sometimes the features that need testing are PvP features...

Regardless of this change, we will still aim to release 2-3 updates every month for the regular Early Access version of the game. We hope that by using the PTU we will make those updates much more stable than these early weeks of Early Access have been!

The first update is now live on PTU - check out PTU Update 12 August 2021.

 

[totoro]

I'm gonna easy build my heart out, Well, I'm going to mine a bit then easy build a bit.

here's hoping free ore isn't too far off, I want to explore easy parts and their various rotations

 

[Anto]

Sadly we have to choose between installing normal or test game and it's a pain

 

[Lukas04]

Please make the PTU its own seperate game in the steam library instead of a beta.
Switching to a Beta is always a pain, as after having played enough of it, switching back to the main build will always require another download.
Having it as a seperate install would help a lot with making it less tedious

 

[Sthone]

OMG very nice keep the good work!!! Along time ago that I didn't see a game like this!!! Very goodddd

 

[Kane Hart]

I would like to help test, but due to the nature of it being a MMO and such not having it's own version makes it painful especially since I have poor download speeds.