By a truly unbelievable coincidence, I was out for a walk when I saw a small package fall off a truck ahead of me. Inside, I found the 1.4.4 Starbound source code. OpenStarbound is derived from that source code. It fixes many bugs, adds many new features and improves performance. ^{there is only so much you can do to polish a turd, just play Terraria or something}

Q: Doesn't 'Open{game}' imply an engine reversed from scratch? (see Open.. TTD, RCT2, MW)

A: yeah too late to change it now though. whoops

These link directly to the latest build from the Actions tab, main branch.

Windows Installer, Client, Server

notice: get Linux and macOS builds directly from the Actions tab until the nightly.link service fixes things

Linux Client, Server

macOS Intel, ARM

All Nightly Builds

{
  "assetDirectories" : [
    "../assets/",
    "./mods/"
  ],

  "storageDirectory" : "./",
  "logDirectory" : "./logs/"
}

• Install vcpkg globally.
  • vcpkg recommends a short directory, such as C:\src\vcpkg or C:\dev\vcpkg.
  • If you're using Visual Studio, don't forget to run vcpkg integrate install!
• Set the VCPKG_ROOT environment value to your vcpkg dir, so that CMake can find it.
• Install Ninja. Either add it to your PATH, or just use Scoop (scoop install ninja)
• Check to see if your IDE has CMake support, and that it's actually installed.
• Open the repo directory in your IDE - it should detect the CMake project.
• Build.
  • If you're using an IDE, it should detect the correct preset and allow you to build from within.
  • Otherwise, build manually by running CMake in the source/ directory: cmake --preset=windows-release then cmake --build --preset=windows-release
• The built binaries will be in dist/. Copy the DLLs from lib/windows/ and the sbinit.config above into dist/ so the game can run.

• Make sure you're using CMake 3.23 or newer - you may need to add Kitware's APT repo to install a newer version.
• Install dependencies:
  • sudo apt-get install pkg-config libxmu-dev libxi-dev libgl-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libsdl2-dev python3-jinja2 ninja-build
• Clone vcpkg (outside the repo!) and bootstrap it with the linked instructions.
• Set the VCPKG_ROOT environment value to your new vcpkg directory, so that CMake can find it.
  • export VCPKG_ROOT=/replace/with/full/path/to/your/vcpkg/directory/
• Change to the repo's source/ directory, then run cmake --preset=linux-release and cmake --build --preset=linux-release to build.
• The built binaries will be in dist/. Copy the the .so libs from lib/linux/ and the sbinit.config above into dist/ so the game can run.
  • From the root dir of the repo, you can run the assembly script which is used by the GitHub Action: scripts/ci/linux/assemble.sh
    • This packs the game assets and copies the built binaries, premade sbinit configs & required libs into client/ & server/.

Starbound in general is built from the ground up, with its own engine written in C++ on top of some basic libraries.

• CMake is a C++ build scenario generator and your first target. You need at least version 3.23. Where Ubuntu uses APT, Fedora uses DNF as package manager.

  1. sudo dnf upgrade --refresh to ensure your OS is up-to-date
  2. sudo dnf install cmake
  3. cmake --version to verify

• You will need at least the same dependencies ("basic libraries") as for Ubuntu. Some packages have different names or contents between Linux builds. Namely, Fedora uses "-devel" instead of "-dev" for development packages.

  1. sudo dnf install pkg-config libXmu-devel libXi-devel libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel SDL2-devel python3-jinja2 ninja-build
  2. If you find out that you need any other dependencies not listed here, try finding them via Fedora Packages first. And, preferably, improve this instruction.

• Next you will need VCPKG.

VCPKG is another package manager/dependency resolver for C++. CMake will need it to pull the rest of dependencies automatically early in the building process. If you've worked with language-specific package managers before (for example, NPM or YUM for JavaScript), VSPKG is similar. For reference, the list of dependencies VCPKG will try to install later can be found in source/vcpkg.json.

1. There are many ways to get VCPKG. Here's one: . <(curl https://aka.ms/vcpkg-init.sh -L). This instruction should install VCPKG in your Linux home (user profile) directory in .vcpkg. Note that this dir is usually hidden by default.
2. Next you need to set your VCPKG_ROOT environment variable to the correct path. Run . ~/.vcpkg/vcpkg-init to bootstrap VCPKG. You may want to check if the path is now known to the system by running printenv VCPKG_ROOT afterwards.
3. Step 2 (init command) should be run in every new Terminal (Konsole) window before you begin building (environment variables set in this way do not persist between terminal sessions)

• Change to the repo's source/ directory
• Optional. First step for CMake is now to run VCPKG and install the remaining dependencies as per source/vcpkg.json. You can run this step manually via vcpkg install on its own to check if it works, or skip to the next step.

If this step throws errors, Fedora probably still lacks some packages not listed explicitly before. Read error messages to identify these packages, find them via Fedora Packages and install with DNF. What you need most of the time is the package itself as well as its -devel and -static subpackages.

• Optional. Next, we can ask CMake to assemble instructions for linux build without actually running them. The instructions generated will be stored under build/linux-release. To do that, run cmake --preset=linux-release or skip to the next step.
• Run cmake --build --preset=linux-release to build. It includes previous two steps, so if any of them throw errors, you will have problems. If that's the case, run and debug them separately as described earlier, as CMake itself can just throw Error: could not load cache without specifying the exact problem. In case of major changes (example: you've reinstalled VCPKG to a different location and need to regenerate path to it for CMake) purge CMake cache by deleting source/CMakeCache.txt.

Building will take some time, be patient ;)

• The built binaries will be in dist/. Copy the the .so libs from lib/linux/ and sbinit.config (see beginning of this section) into dist/ so the game can run. Sample sbinit.config can be found in scripts/linux/.
• From the root dir of the repo, you can run the assembly script which is used by the GitHub Action: scripts/ci/linux/assemble.sh. This packs the game assets and copies the built binaries, premade sbinit configs & required libs into client_distribution/ & server_distribution/.

Next you need to copy original Starbound assets at assets/packed.pak of the Starbound copy that you own into assets/ of either client or server dir (depending on what you're going to run).

The game now can be run by executing client_distribution/linux/run-client.sh (or the corresponding server bash script) from terminal.

• First, you will need to have brew installed. Check out how to install Homebrew

• Install cmake using brew install cmake

• Install ninja using brew install ninja

• Install pkg config using brew install pkg-config

• Next, install vcpkg by following the commands below.

• Run cd ~. This is just so that everything is local to here.

• Run git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git

• Run cd vcpkg && ./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh

• Lastly, run export VCPKG_ROOT=~/vcpkg && export PATH=$VCPKG_ROOT:$PATH

• This last command makes vcpkg added to the current terminal path. This lasts only while the terminal is active, and will have to be rerun for new terminal instances.

• Download the source code here. This is the current code in main. Unpack the code to your downloads folder.

• Unpack the zip, and open it up. Navigate to OpenStarbound-main/source using the terminal -> cd ~/Downloads/OpenStarbound-main. Then navigate to the source folder, using cd source.

  If using an Arm Mac

  • While in the source folder in your terminal, run cmake --preset macos-arm-release. This will get dependencies.
  • After that command has finished, run cmake --build --preset macos-arm-release. Wait for this to finish, then go to Finder. Navigate to the OpenStarbound-main folder using Finder.
  • There will be a folder called dist. Inside dist will be your game files, but you still need to do a few more things to run it.
  • First, in the OpenStarbound-main folder, there will be lib. Open lib, and open the osx folder. Inside is libsteam_api.dylib. Copy this file, and paste it into OpenStarbound-main/dist, so that it is in the same directory as the game files.
  • Navigate back to OpenStarbound-main/lib/osx, and open up the folder arm64. Here, rename libdiscord_game_sdk.dylib to discord_game_sdk.dylib. The name must be that, or else the game won't be able to load.
  • Grab the packed.pak file from your current Starbound install. It will be located in the assets folder. Copy that file into OpenStarbound-main/assets.
  • Make a new file called sbinit.config (Make sure it is .config, not .somethingelse), and copy and paste in the sbinit.config text from above, located right underneath the title Building. Place sbinit.config inside OpenStarbound-main/dist. To make a new file, open the program called TextEdit on your mac, paste in the sbinit.config text from above, and click File (located at the very top of your screen), then click Save. It will prompt you, asking where to save it. Save As: sbinit.config, Where: Navigate to OpenStarbound-main/dist. Find the file you just saved, and rename it to get rid of the wrong extension, making sure the full name and extension looks like sbinit.config.
  • You can now run the game by double clicking on the file called starbound in dist/. If it says unverified developer, open up the same folder where the game is in in the terminal. xattr -d com.apple.quarantine starbound, which will get rid of the lock on the file. If that doesn't work, run sudo spctl --master-disable to allow all unverified apps.
  If using an Intel Mac

  • While in the source folder in your terminal, run cmake --preset macos-release. This will get dependencies.
  • After that command has finished, run cmake --build --preset macos-release. Wait for this to finish, then go to Finder. Navigate to the OpenStarbound-main folder using Finder.
  • There will be a folder called dist. Inside dist will be your game files, but you still need to do a few more things to run it.
  • First, in the OpenStarbound-main folder, there will be lib. Open lib, and open the osx folder. Inside is libsteam_api.dylib. Copy this file, and paste it into OpenStarbound-main/dist, so that it is in the same directory as the game files.
  • Navigate back to OpenStarbound-main/lib/osx, and open up the folder x64. Here, rename libdiscord_game_sdk.dylib to discord_game_sdk.dylib. The name must be that, or else the game won't be able to load.
  • Grab the packed.pak file from your current Starbound install. It will be located in the assets folder. Copy that file into OpenStarbound-main/assets.
  • Make a new file called sbinit.config (Make sure it is .config, not .somethingelse), and copy and paste in the sbinit.config text from above, located right underneath the title Building. Place sbinit.config inside OpenStarbound-main/dist. To make a new file, open the program called TextEdit on your mac, paste in the sbinit.config text from above, and click File (located at the very top of your screen), then click Save. It will prompt you, asking where to save it. Save As: sbinit.config, Where: Navigate to OpenStarbound-main/dist. Find the file you just saved, and rename it to get rid of the wrong extension, making sure the full name and extension looks like sbinit.config.
  • You can now run the game by double clicking on the file called starbound in dist/. If it says unverified developer, open up the same folder where the game is in in the terminal. xattr -d com.apple.quarantine starbound, which will get rid of the lock on the file. If that doesn't work, run sudo spctl --master-disable to allow all unverified apps.