Guide: Introduction for Vanilla Players

There are many, many many differences between vanilla Starbound and Frackin Starbound. While the general advice is to play the vanilla game to completion first before starting your Frackin experience, doing so may lead you to becoming overwhelmed, and you might not know where or how to even start, or may miss important details and information.

Thus, this guide has been made with the intent of easing veterans of vanilla or even complete newcomers into Frackin Universe.

The first difference you will notice comes before the game even begins, at your character creation menu. To begin with, there are 13 new races for you to enjoy (including two that were in vanilla but not playable, those being the Fenerox and Tenebrhae (Shadows).) See the Races for more details on the others. However, new races aren't the only change here. The biggest change is that races now also have distinct advantages, abilities, and disadvantages. Once again, see the races article for more details.

But let us take Florans as an example.

Florans have a 20% resistance to poison, and -30% resistance to fire. What this means is that Florans will have a much easier time on Toxic worlds or other worlds with Poison Gas such as Fungal worlds, and will take less damage from poison attacks (such as those used by Snaunts, Miasmops, Pteropods or certain NPC weapons.) On the flip side, it will be harder for them to explore Volcanic worlds, Scorched worlds, Infernus worlds, or even Deserts (as deserts now have minor heat.) In addition, Florans will take more damage from being on fire or from fire attacks (such as those used by Crabcanos, Pyromantles, Fennix, flamethrowers, or certain other NPC weapons.)

Additionally, you will now need to consider your race's Diet. Florans are now carnivorous, as per their lore. Whereas in Vanilla this detail had no impact on their gameplay, in Frackin Universe, it does. What this means is that unlike in vanilla, Florans can eat raw meat without being poisoned by it. However, this also means that they cannot eat plant matter without suffering from food poisoning. This not only applies to raw plants, but also to foods with plant ingredients (Florans cannot consume cake, for example, as it contains wheat.)

Finally, there is racial weapon proficiency to consider. Florans are naturally proficient in bows and spears, gaining 20 and 15% mastery in them both, while daggers and spears have a chance to inflict poison upon a target regardless of element type. They also gain a 2% critical chance with 'needlers' other or 'floran' weapons.

It should be noted that these proficiencies do not mean you cannot use other weapons. You will simply gain a buff to their weapon of choice, and won't gain any for using anything else.

As one can see from this example, your choice of race now has a much greater impact than it does in vanilla. Do not worry, it is still feasible to experience everything Frackin has to offer as any race. Some races will simply have it easier than others in certain places and in certain conditions. Florans can still explore hot worlds, but may need to do more to protect themselves, or make use of Mechs (see mechs section further down)

Once you pick your race (and get past or skip the intro mission, which, some dialogue changes aside, Frackin makes no changes to,) your next choice will be whether you wish to use your race's vanilla ship, or instead use the new Build Your Own Ship (BYOS) system. This guide will not go into details about the latter (see the linked article instead) but it will go over the important differences between them, and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

The vanilla ship system is unchanged from vanilla, and operates the same way.

PROS

• Simpler, less input required.
• Less resources required
• More familiar to new players.
• More research for other things.

CONS

• Less creative control over your ship
• Your ship's speed, fuel capacity and efficiency are (crew bonuses aside) static.
• Reliant on Crew or Fake Licences to increase the size of your ship.
• Crew Capacity is capped per tier with a max of 8.
• Part of the Craftsmanship tree is completely useless to you.
• Progression is tied to the main quest (cannot get licences until you advance in the vanilla questline)

The BYOS system on the other hand is, true to its name a system that not only allows you a starter ship of your choice, but also allows you to build your ship out of blocks instead of being stuck on a pre-determined upgrade path.

Not only this, but the system itself operates very differently from vanilla. It has a much different progression system (research and resource based rather than being crew-based).

PROS

• More creative freedom. Don't like the shape of your ship? Want more room? Want something else entirely? Build more!
• Starting ship choices. Want to play an Avian but want to use the Hylotl ship for some reason? Go for it!
• Ability to upgrade your ship's functions. Want more fuel? Just put in more tanks. Want to go faster in STL? Upgrade the endgine and/or boosters.
• You can have as many crewmembers as you have beds to house them. No 'tier limits'. Or 'tiers' at all.
• No licenses. Crew and Main Quest progression are completely irrelevant. You can be a Main Quest avoider and still max out your ship.
• Progression is completely optional. Like the way your ship is? Just give it a normal FTL engine and never touch it again. You can do that.

CONS

• Requires research for upgraded parts.
• Requires more resources (specifically, blocks) and creativity than a normal ship (unless you don't progress it past FTL stage).

In short, it's recommended to use the vanilla ship only if you don't care about your ship much and/or you don't care about any potential upgrades or crew members. In any other case, it's highly recommended to instead use BYOS, even if you don't intend to do much with it.

Alright, now that you are planetside, it's time to talk about everyone's favorite topic: gear. Let's start with weapons.

In vanilla, crafted weapons are for the most part an afterthought, and are generally less useful than the randomly generated weapons you find throughout the world. In Frackin however, the reverse is true. Not only are there far more craftable weapons and types of weapons, you will find they far exceed any 'RNG' weapons you may come across, especially past the early game.

You will also receive a few more weapons to start with. Namely, a Damaged Pistol. However, these will not be adequate, nor may they be attuned to your race's abilities. You will want to truly start by crafting some primitive weapons that you are able to make via hand crafting.

One minor note that needs to be stated, especially if you are carnivore or omnivore: Spears, both 2h spears and 1h 'Shortspears', are now considered hunting weapons in Frackin, whereas in vanilla, only bows had this ability (the hunting bow is itself joined by the hunting crossbow and hunting rifle as alternatives. Crossbows are also their own weapon type instead of just a bow.) The Wooden Boomerang also has this effect.

Next, let's address armors. In vanilla, up until the penultimate armor set, there was only a linear progression path for armors. You went from iron to tungesten to titanium to durasteel, then had a choice between three armors that increased health, attack, or energy, then upgraded that to your final armor. Not so in Frackin. Not only are there a lot more armors, they also have much different effects. Especially, 'set bonuses': bonuses you gain by wearing the head, chest, and legs of a particular set of armor. For example, one of the earliest armors you can research is Bone Armor. While this armor is simple and less effective than the iron armor, it does come with some set bonuses. Namely, wearing the whole set offers minor boosts in damage, fall damage protection, and buffs to longsword and axe damage. It offers another marginal increase to health and protection while on Garden or Forest worlds.

And this is the low end of armors. More advanced armors (including the vanilla ones) also have set bonuses and more advanced ones. Luckily, you will be notified what these set bonuses are on the armor itself.

Next, while it may be a bit early on your journey to talk about this, they are equipment so we'll mention EPPs as well, as they are changed drastically. In vanilla, EPPs are a linear path. Each upgrade of the EPP protects not only from the stated effect, but all previous effects as well (the Cooling EPP for instance protects not only against heat, but also against cold and radioactivity as well.)

This is not so in Frackin Universe. In Frackin, the vanilla EPPS only protect against one single threat. The Cooling EPP now only protects against heat, it does not protect you against radioactivity nor cold. Additionally, they now run on the "resistance" model instead of simply protecting against a type of environmental effect (which itself runs in tiers. For example, deserts now have 'Minor Heat', while infernus has 'Deadly Heat'.) For example, the cold EPP now only grants 20% ice resist, the Cooling EPP II grants 40%, while the Cold EPP III grants 60%. The amount you will need to be protected relies on the severity of the effect in question. Minor Heat can be defeated by having >20% fire resistance, while Extreme Heat requires >60% to safely traverse.

Going back to our example of a Floran, to be protected from Deadly Heat, even the Cooling EPP III will not in of itself be enough thanks to the Floran's -20% fire resistance debuff. Wearing it will only put you at +40% fire resist, which is not near enough to protect you from being burned alive on an infernus world. You will need to supplement it with other fire resistance additions, such as a Fire Barrier EPP Chip. Alternatively, you may consume a Dragon's Beard Herb to bypass the need for a cold EPP altogether. On the flip side, a Novakid will have a much easier time on hot world, requiring only a Cooling EPP II or even a base Cooling EPP with the aformentioned Fire Barrier chip to explore the hottest worlds, as they start with +20% fire resistance, needing only +40 more to meet the Deadly Heat requirement.

Wrapping up this section, let's briefly talk about some tools. You will need to research them (see research section), there are some very useful tools to cover. These being the Hookshot, the Ore Detector, and the Mining Laser and Pickaxes.

The hookshot is not to be confused with the vanilla Grappling Hook, as while they appear similar, the Hookshot instead operates more like how Terraria's Grappling Hooks operate: they automatically pull you towards the block that the hook hit. This is very useful for both vertical and horizontal traversal.

You may be surprised to find that the Ore Detector is an item available early game and not late game like it is in vanilla. In addition, it is now split into two tools: the Multi-ore Detector and the Precision Ore Detector. The former works like how it does in vanilla: it sends out a radar pulse that detects nearby ores and is useful for general mining. The latter is a more refined version. This allows you to search for a particular ore type and search only for that particular ore type. For example, if you feed it copper ore (done by using it while holding shift), it will only detect copper ores and nothing else. This is useful if you really need to find a particular ore and don't want to be distracted mining every single ore around you.

And speaking of mining, yes, your usual method of the Matter Manipulator for mining remains intact and works the way it does in vanilla. In fact there are even upgraded versions you can research later into the game to increase its capability further. But you might not even want nor need to as not only is it now possible to craft Pickaxes and Drills (whereas in vanilla they were purely loot based), Frackin introduces a new item to the game: the Mining Laser. This is a 1 handed device that uses energy to mine blocks. Being 1 handed means it can either be paired with another tool (such as the aformentioned hookshot) or dual wielded for double effectiveness. Also unlike the Vanilla one you get from the peacekeeper shop, Frackin's Mining Laser does not have durability and does not run out. However, the mining laser is limited to your line of sight and cannot mine uncovered background blocks (though it will mine background blocks behind foreground ones however, so should you opt to use the mining laser primarily, placing foreground blocks in front of background ores can be a way to mine those.)

All of the above can be upgraded via your Tricorder using the upgrade function. Armors and weapons use Upgrade Modules and can be upgraded up to tier 6 (going higher requires other means,) while tools are upgraded with Manipulator Modules and can be upgraded up to tier 10.

Speaking of the Tricorder, we come to our last but most certainly not least item in your inventory. This is a swiss army knife of information and utility. Primary fire (left click) will open up a status menu with many items on it. See the Tricorder article on what they all do and what this looks like. Holding shift while using primary fire will instead open up the Research menu. Alt fire (right click) will open up the quests menu, where you can do small quests for rewards (of particular interest in this point in time are the tutorial quests.) Holding shift while alt-firing will open up the Matter Manipulator configuration menu, which will allow you to adjust its size, toggle liquid collection, or swap out the aforementioned manipulator upgrades.

The next thing to bring to your attention at the start of your journey is the Research system. It might seem overwhelming to a new player. In fact, it probably will be. However, it is rather simple to use and operate once you understand it. This guide will not go into great detail about the system nor its trees. For that, consult the aformentioned hyperlink. However, we will go over the basics.

For the most part, research is a currency is gained passively. When you run around exploring your world's surface, research is gained. While you do crafting and decrafting in your base, research is gained. When you dig for ore down to the planet, research is gained. When you sit and chew a tasty hamburger, research is gained. If you remain 'active' for a certain period of time, the amount gained increases.

There are ways to increase the amount of research you gain, active and passive. Namely, looting Research Data from dungeons or chests (such as the Dark Cavern, but we will return that later,) or sacrificing (non-block, non-liquid, non-container) items to Computers. Archeology can also be a good vector to gaining research (yes it has an actual point now.) You can even buy Illicit Research Disks from the Peacekeeper shop. As for increasing passive research gain, you can hire a Researcher and having them follow you around, or wear Researcher or Geologist Armor, or consuming Neuropods. In addition, being on a higher tier world will generate more research than being on a lower tier one (your ship counts as a tier 1 world, yet another reason you should not ship-nomad.)

Once you gain research, you can use it in your research tree to unlock craftable items and workbenches. This is how crafting recipes are unlocked in Frackin. Not by picking up ores or items.

For newcomers, the tree might be a bit overwhelming. You have so many choices, and know not what to pick. Well, for this starting guide, we will suggest an unlock path for you. It is recommended that you unlock what you need in the moment, not what you think you will need in the future, at least until you have research to spare.

We suggest you unlock the following items in this order. Keep in mind the following is a suggestion, not a binding requirement.

1. Geology 1 (Geology) (You should unlock this first before anything else.)
2. Iron (Geology) (This will be needed alongside Copper to produce the Machining Table and to progress through Vinalisj's quest.
3. Copper (Geology) (Ditto.)
4. Agriculture (Agriculture) (Needed to make the Foraging Table needed to progress through above quest, and needed for many tricorder tutorial quests.
5. Machining (Engineering) (Needed to craft the Machining Table)
6. Extraction Basics (Engineering) Needed for Tricorder Tutorial Quests. Plus it's never too early to start on extacting blocks and such.
7. Tinkering (Engineering) Table is needed for a Tricorder Tutorial quest, plus it provides some nice items for early game mining, such as the hookshot and Ore Detector
8. Survival, Husbandry, Gathering, Farming (all Agriculture) (Needed for Tricorder Tutorial Quests)
9. Chemistry (Chemistry) (Needed for tricorder quest)
10. Electronics (Electronics) (Needed for tricorder quest)
11. Basic Crops (Agriculture) (Needed for tricorder quest)
12. Silversmithing, Goldsmithing (Geology) (will be needed at the outpost for the tech quests and future items.)

Some others you may want to (but certainly don't need to) unlock before you leave your Garden World.

• Beekeeping (Agriculture) Unlock this only if you wish to explore the Beekeeping feature. Otherwise you can safely ignore it.
• Culinary Arts (Craftsmanship) Useful, but not overly necessary at this stage.
• Wooden, Iron, Copper Construction (Craftmanship) If you wish to fix up the ruined house on your garden world and turn it into a functioning base, colony, etc, you will need these. Otherwise, your research is better spent elsewhere at the moment.
• Bonecraft (Armor and Weapons) An easy to unlock and craft set of early game armor if you so desire to have something for your garden world and first forest world. However, you may choose to skip this altogether in leu of skipping straight to Iron.
• Weapons and Armor Forging (Armor and Weapons) You will need to unlock this at some point, but if you have unlocked Bonecraft prior you may consider holding off with unlocking it until later and progressing straight to tungsten or other weapons.
• Gadgetry (Engineering) Can provide some very useful items early game, especially the Hookshot and Multi-ore Detector (which, yes, is an early game item in Frackin and not a late game item like in Vanilla). Useful as these are, they are not essential, so if you need to conserve research, you may opt to skip them for now and come back to them later.
• Steam Power, Powered Sifting (Electronics) If you opt to start on your home base right away via the starter house, you might want to unlock this to get your sifting operation going as that can yield a lot of good resources. If you wish to set up your base elsewhere however, you will want to save the research and hold off on this until later when you've found such a location.

The following should be avoided until you leave your starting world (even though you can unlock them prior), as until then they are just a waste of precious research that can be better used elsewhere. Note that this is not to say they should be avoided entirely, as most of them you will need to unlock at some point, but they should be left until you have the resources to make use of them.

• Basic Fishing (Agriculture) The rules concerning fishing have not changed in Frackin (other than there being more 'ocean' planets for you to fish on, such as Aether Sea worlds.) You still cannot fish on any non-ocean worlds (this still isn't Terraria) and that includes your Garden world. Even if for some reason you do wish to engage in fishing, unlocking this now is a waste of research.
• Geology 2 (Geology) Although technically possible to encounter tungsten on your garden world (but only through sifting) you will not encounter it in large enough quantities to make effective use of it, thus it is foolish to waste the research on this until you are STL/FTL capable of mining it elsewhere.
• Mercs (Craftmanship) You 'unlock' the ability to 'craft' these at the Hiring Office at the science outpost. While you can go there prior to leaving the starter world, you will likely not be able to afford the crew members (or at least the ones actually worth it), especially after spending the pixels needed to unlock this. You are better off waiting till your wallet is somewhat full from selling loot from the Dark Cavern before unlocking this.
• Metaphysics tree (Anything from here) You aren't even supposed to be able to interact with the Madness mechanic at all at this stage. Even if you somehow can see this tree, you can't really use anything here yet anyway. So if by some un-miracle you do see this tree, ignore it for the time being.

As you wander around your Garden world, you will notice a few things. A few things missing and a few new things. First and foremost, you will notice the distinct lack of an Ancient Gate which is how you normally leave the Garden World. If you explore the abandoned mine (against the wishes of your S.A.I.L,) you will also notice there is no longer any Mother Poptop for you to fight down there to give you the Core Fragments needed to open the apparently missing gate. You may even begin to wonder if your world generated with some sort of bug.

Rest assured, it did not. This is intentional.

Frackin changes the entire progression path on your Lush World. It is not quite so simple as to simply find some core fragments then open a gate and leave. You may at this point begin to wonder just how you are supposed to even progress past this world at all. In your search for the apparently non-existant gate and mother poptop, you will come across three new things.

1. A strange cave with a cave mouth 'door' that you cannot enter. You need an item to do so. (Tip: You might want to plant a flag near this location to mark it.)
2. A dilapidated old fixer-upper house.
3. A sci-fi looking structure with a large slug man inside. (You don't need a flag here, there is a teleporter ready to go for you.)

The latter is the key. No, don't worry, the slug-man won't eat you. In fact, he's kind of the reason why you still have a ship (At least according to him.) His name is Vinalisj, and in order to progress, you will need to do a very small quest for him (which consists of building a foraging station, a machining table, some Copper Wire, and an Electromagnet, in that order.) after which he will give you a key to the cave which you could not enter before.

This cave is known as the Dark Cavern (or as it's sometimes called, the 'Poptop Cavern'). See the link for a detailed run-through. Note that this acts as the 'Starter Dungeon' for Frackin Universe (taking the role away from the Erchius Mining Facility in vanilla. A mission which is 100% optional in Frackin). It contains lots of loot (including chances to gain Research Data as previous mentioned. Grinding this cave is a decent way to get a good supply of early game research, pixels, and modules) and starting versions of the Dash, Jump, and Ball techs. At the end of this cave, you will find not only the aformentioned Mother Poptop, but also the ancient gate, and your ticket off this world.

As for the dilapidated house, it exists to give you a starting point to start a base/player home/colony with, and has no relevance to progression. Feel free to fix it up for your own ends, bulldoze it to create something entirely new in the space, or simply ignore it entirely.

While we've gone over most of the changes from Vanilla, enough to get you started, we shall end this guide with some changes that appear outside of your Garden World you should be aware of going forward. However, we believe that after this point, you will be able to explore the rest of it yourself. If you need further help, check this wiki's other articles.

Some other changes to be aware of.

Mechs have been drastically changed to be more useful planetside instead of just being glorified starfighters. Mechs now have their energy separated into Health and Energy, and the blue batteries have likewise been changed to Red and Green to reflect this. You will need to keep your mech fueled with Fuel of some variety to keep it operating. Otherwise it will become little more than a oversized garden gnome.

Of other note, mech bodies now have specific resistances to certain environments. These are stated quite plainly on the mech body's description. This can be used to your advantage. IE: a Floran unable to mine on an Infernus world due to the heat may opt to equip their mech with a Brute III Mech Body and a pair of Mining Cannon IIIs instead.

Finally, mechs are flight capable planetside, whereas in vanilla they could only jump. This is done by tapping W twice. Be aware this consumes fuel.

As mentioned before, enemies in space encounters now drop red and green batteries instead of just

Additionally, Space Encounters themselves (even the 'vanilla' ones) operate a little differently. Enemies are now more randomized. While rare, you may encounter a Heavy Drone even at early tiers. Not to worry, they share the tier of the world.

To make a long story short, it is no longer possible for an enemy to be 100% immune to physical damage. Yes, that include the Erchius Horror, which means it's possible to kill it without using the lasers. However, doing so still takes a long time and it's still faster to use them. However, defeating it without the laser yields an additional reward. Including a little ghost buddy to keep the erchius ghost away. Speaking of which...

It operates like it does in Vanilla but with one caveat: It can die. Yes, you can destroy the Erchius Ghost with firepower. Keep in mind that doing so will cause it to immediately respawn offscreen, so defeating it is not a permanent solution but merely a temporary reprieve. Nonetheless there are ways to permanently banish it. Though most of them require going down the Madness path.

In addition to the four vanilla elements (Poison, Fire, Ice, and Electric) Frackin introduces two new elements: Shadow and Cosmic, both of which have effects, resistances, etc. of their own. There are also offshoots of these (IE: Bio being a poison offshoot, Aether being a Cosmic offshoot, Hellfire being a fire offshoot, etc.)