This game is online-only, currently.

• Public Server #1 = PvP. Players can kill each other, destroy others' bases, and steal stuff (including vehicles left unattended while the owner is offline). It looks like this server isn't supported any more.
  
• Public Server #2 = PvPvE. Players can't steal and destroy from others. I assume they can fight when in the "control point" areas (notable as large dome structures - I have stayed away from these).
  
• The "Solo" Server. Yes, you need to log in to a server to play solo, and may get kicked off.

The button claiming "Solo" play connects you to a server, though offline mode is supposed to be in development.

You can also host a server, but I never tried that.

So, I won't walk you through the tutorial mission; this guide is more about working around the technical and design problems in this unfinished game.

Follow the tutorial instructions. Don't try to "outsmart" the tutorial mission, such as buying a Pickaxe (or any other starting gear). The tutorial expects you to follow instructions precisely, and the text won't leave the screen until you do so. If you find yourself "jumping ahead" of the steps they want you to take, such as staking a claim before they tell you to, just follow the instructions anyway to get rid of the tutorial text, then undo what you just did (deleted claims return to your inventory when removed).

You are expected to take an escape pod down to the surface of Beta Praerie (Prairie?), but you can choose a different planet if you are willing to die & respawn before you start doing anything. In your inventory is a "Respawn Pill" (tastes like almonds); use this to die, or just punch a giant robot. At the respawn screen, you will default to Redberry on Beta Praerie; you can select one of the alternative options on the right ... but do NOT choose Salty Springs (on the desert planet Brutus)! You can't craft anything there, because no flora grows (no wood), and the starport ferries don't work (you'd be stranded). Tokki Island (the water planet Cassius) or New Raleigh on Tigon are fine choices. Ignore the warnings of "light atmosphere" or poison gas; that isn't implemented yet.

While you are on the starting ship, you can rummage through a large number of containers for mostly-useful items. I ran through the whole ship and managed to sell over 500 credits worth of stuff (old build; TBD on current build). Of course, you may want to harvest those rocks and flint and bug eggs yourself.

I think the devs wanted more threats than they implemented. Currently, you have four "needs" which decrease at a steady pace, regardless of activity or lack thereof:

• Exhaustion (Sleep): not a challenge, since the tutorial has you craft a sleeping roll. I think your stamina won't replenish if you drop below 20%. When you reach 0% you lose a chunk of Stamina.
  
• Hunger: Starts to damage you when it reaches 0%. In an emergency, eat Plant Fiber (kids, don't try this at home). The best meal is Bug Egg Soup (find Bug Eggs in trash bins, or kill Trawlers): at your Campfire, combine 1 Bug Egg + 1 Salt + 1 Water = 3 Bug Egg Soups, each giving +50% Hunger.
  
• Thirst: Starts to damage you when it reaches 0%, which can happen quickly (don't go AFK for more than a few minutes). You need to dig in the trash to get enough plastic bottles, then fill them at bodies of (dirty) water, then purify them at a campfire. I guess you could buy them, too. Carrying too much water could be heavy, so I shoot for 12 Clean Water and 3-5 empty bottles, sticking the rest in storage.
  
• Oxygen: Usually stays at 100%, except under water and floating in space. Caution! Not every part of space stations have air (but they should), so watch for dropping 02 when off-world (it will take a minute or two to run out of air). I once took a ferry to Nox and went AFK during the flight, only to come back to my suffocated corpse.

There's also Toxicity and Temperature on the HUD, but they're placeholders; nothing raises your toxicity, and your character feels comfortable in the rain at 0° C (when it should be snowing, instead) or squatting on top of the blazing campfire. Even Tigon, which is a purportedly poisonous planet, has clean, breathable air (albeit rather green).

There's a mysterious, unexplained red skull & cross-bones when you are in space or near another crew's "control point" (one of the large domes). I think this means that you won't be able to retrieve your items if you die here.

You may see Trawlers (bug aliens), bears, boars and foxes roaming around. Craft a bow and a bundle of arrows (unpack the bundle after crafting) or two. When attacking with a bow, you may have to shoot far from where the targeting reticule says you're aiming. Currently, the enemies stop advancing when they attack, meaning if you keep backing up while shooting, you won't get hit at all. If you do get hit (and start bleeding), make a bandage from scrap cloth and use it to stop the bleeding.

There are several large domes on Beta Prairie, four around Redbury spaceport and another on the surface of Nox. I think these are "PvP zones" where teams can vie for supremacy over control nodes. I assume without verification, because I have no interest in PvP (I may as well just hand the other guy my stuff and take a suicide pill; it'd save him a few bullets). Approach at your own risk.

If you are out exploring, without any distinct landmarks, you may not be able to find your gear if you die. Like many games, Stars End makes you dump everything you were carrying, so don't carry everything you own and accidentally sit on the hyperdrive button next to a planetary surface (I can tell you from experience, that sucks).

If you can recover your equipment, death is pretty harmless in Stars End (currently). Every respawn includes a suicide pill, a scanner (you can sell the extras), and two short haul ferry passes (which can get you some interesting places). Additionally, you can shred your extra respawn clothes for a quick batch of scrap cloth. I suppose you can make some "easy" cash by intentionally killing yourself, selling the free respawn gear, stowing the credits in the global access point storage and repeating the process.

In general (especially on Beta Prairie), you can you use your Scanner (middle mouse button, by default) to find resources (cycle the scanner "bandwidth" with the 'N' key, by default). Be aware (when travelling away from Beta Prairie) that your scanner may not pick up legitimate resources (or may even indicate some resource that you can't harvest). On "lesser-developed" worlds, the scanner may not work at all.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't read the tutorial text telling me to attack the piles of rusted junk with my pickaxe to harvest needed Scrap Metal (& other metal parts, like Nails).

On Tigon, I found that these piles would stay harvested even when my stone resources (Rock, Iron, Salt, etc.) regenerated -- possibly because I was hanging around in the crater of New Raleigh, not travelling far enough away. This was not the case in Redberry (Beta Praerie), where Scrap Metal was plentiful and regenerated frequently while a galloped to and fro.

Small trees drop 10 wood logs (after sawing x5). Large trees drop 60 wood logs. Giant cacti (on Eden) drop 30 wood logs. Trees on slopes (particularly the odd mushroom "trees" on Tigon) may drop some of their logs underneath the terrain, effectively producing less wood.

When chopping down larger trees, it can be very difficult to find the right spot -- even though the *CHOP* sound plays, and a particle effect displays, the tree's health gauge doesn't go down. Make small adjustments to your position, making sure you are neither too close nor too far from the trunk. Slowly rotate around the tree trunk until you find the sweet spot. In some instances, the trees won't even display their health gauge, so you just have to see if it falls down eventually.

It may be easier just to chop down small trees, which only take two hits. Note that some "small" trees are actually large trees scaled down, and take multiple chops (but yield multiple logs to saw).

When crafting wooden planks for further crafting, take into account that the recipe is 3 Wood Logs = 2 Wooden Planks (not just 1 plank). You can't craft Wooden Sticks from logs, planks, or anything else, so you have to forage in shrubs or trash bins.

The resource stones take 20 hits to break on Beta Prairie (on other planets they take 10 or 12 hits), about 2 seconds per strike.

I have come across the following stone resources, most of which have a chance to produce Flint instead of the main resource:

• Rocks = mottled gray/brown; used to make Concrete at planetary refineries. Common to all planets?
  
• Salt = white; used for cooking and to make polymers at orbital refineries.
  
• Sulfur = bright yellow; used to make gunpowder for ammunition, and for hydroponics. Only found on Beta Prairie and Brutus (I think?)
  
• Iron = dark green (even though Copper oxidizes this color; iron oxidizes rust red); used for most tools, crafting stations, weapons and vehicle parts.
  
• Tarphite = blue (scanner icon is purple); used to make batteries (for claiming vehicles and making crafting stations) and land claims. Found in a mine on most planets, or in bulk on Brutus.
  
• Platinum = shiny black; not found on Beta Prairie, but is found on Cassius and elsewhere. Does not require smelting from ore to ingots. Sell excess Platinum (125 credits ea) at the Industry merchant found on orbital stations, or combine with Silicon to make CPU chips to sell at a Tech Toys merchant.
  
• Helium = dark yellow; used (with plastic) to make fuel cells for spaceships. Helium is found in a mine on Nox, another on Janson and in bulk on Caliban (currently can be harvested with a pickaxe, not a Grazer). If you want the best exploit for the current resource harvesting numbers, mine and sell Helium & Platinum.
  
• Uranium = dark?; used (with plastic) to make nuclear fuel cells for spaceships. Found in bulk on Nox.
  
• Quartz = reflective crystals found on Caliban (identical crystals are found on Janson, but are not harvest-able). These don't drop Flint as the "junk" resource, but drop Stone, instead.

The item description for Cystal Shards implies you can go to Janson to harvest them, but I had no success attempting to do so. The only recipe that appears to use them is the Grazer recipe.


At the end of the tutorial, you are asked to claim a spaceship (NOVA) and fly up to harvest resources in space:

• Copper Ore (to make Copper at a Planetary Refinery); as far as I can tell, copper can ONLY be gathered from space junk (no planetary sources).
  
• Quartz (to make Silicon at an Orbital Refinery); this can also be found on Caliban's surface.
  
• Uranium Ore (refine into Enriched Uranium at an Orbital Refinery); this can also be found on the surface of Nox.
  
• Platinum, which can also be gathered on Cassius (among other places).

Crafting is executed a bit clumsily in this game. The recipes can be illogical or inconsistent, such as Fungi Noodles not being made from Fungi, or some building parts requiring a workbench (but not others). Some "component" items aren't used by any other recipe, like Synthetic Cloth. The output of recipes aren't given, so you never know how long it takes, whether you get empty containers back or not, nor output quantity (how many copies of the intended item a recipe produces).

Note that you have a "Crafting Queue" that continues while you can go on to do other things, even if you are no longer at the requisite crafting station (e.g. you can purify water from a Campfire long after you've picked the Campfire up and walked away). While the crafting queue is processing, however, you can't access your inventory, nor can you jog or sprint (like when you are over-encumbered).

Also, many intermediate components can only be produced at specific Refinery sites (one per planet or orbital station, I think). This means many players set up base near the local Refinery.

At the crafting screen, you have access to many of the recipes in the game, but most appear disabled if the requisite materials or crafting station aren't at hand. Sometimes (I don't know when), the game thinks that one crafting station (like a Campfire) counts as another (like a Clothing Printer), allowing you to exploit this bug to craft something you shouldn't be able to, such as Cloth.

If you aren't playing Solo, you can waltz into another player's base and use their crafting stations for your own needs, without wasting Electrical Components on your own stations.

One glaring oversight is trying to make Plastic (which is needed for Electrical Components, which are found in nearly all higher-tier recipes). It takes (20*3) = 60 credits worth of Oil Canisters to make 1 Polymer, which doesn't give you the empty canisters back; or you can purchase one Polymer directly from the Industry merchant for 68 credits (is it worth the 8 credits?).

Save yourself some time and just purchase the Electrical Components, Plastic or Polymers directly.

Finally, be aware of how expensive Concrete is:

• It takes 12 Concrete to make 1 Concrete Foundation
  
• The foundation is 5 x 5 floor "blocks"; each Concrete floor costs 16 Concrete to make
  
• Concrete costs 4 Rocks
  
• To lay down a concrete floor on a concrete foundation takes (12 + 16 * 25 = 412) Concrete, or 1648 Rocks

Each Rock resource (the mottled gray stones in the environment) takes about 40 seconds to harvest (on Beta Prairie), and yields 20 items (a mixture of Rocks and Flint; I think roughly 75% Rock / 25% Flint). It could take you several hours of breaking rocks to be able to set the floor of your base.

Instead, concrete can be purchased from an Industry merchant, found on orbital space stations.

It may appear difficult to afford anything in Stars End, but if you utilize the following exploits, you'll be able to afford everything.

Vehicle flipping is still a reasonable choice, but no longer as exploitable. Claim a horse or spaceship (NOVA), strip the vehicle of any parts (from Vehicle Loadout screen), sell the vehicle and then sell the parts individually (you need to go to a seller for Spaceship parts).

To sell an owned vehicle, press Tab and go to your "Info" screen to see your five vehicle slots and three base claim slots. Click on the big X to the right of the vehicle to sell; it will ask you to confirm. You get 20% of the item's value, without having to travel to a seller.

Flint: Rather than making excessive numbers of arrows, sell your surplus Flint; they are priced at 25 credits each, far FAR more than they are really worth.

If you harvest resources in space (or set up base on the island planet Cassius) you will find more Platinum than you can use, so sell the extras for 125 credits apiece. Platinum can only be sold at the "Industry" merchant, found next to the Ore merchant on any orbital station.

Helium harvested from a mine on Nox or Janson also fetches a very high price.

While individual merchants buy items for 10%-25% of their value (35% at "general" stores), they only buy certain items. The nearest merchant may not buy items that you are selling (they may not even buy items that they are selling), so you may need to hunt around for the right merchant to buy your wares.

The Shoden orbital space station has a weapon seller. The station is 4-way symmetrical, with four similar-looking platforms around the central elevator. Above the arms dealer is a sign that says "ProtoSys: Bringing you the news whether you like it or not." You can also look for the "set dressings" that look like large missiles and artillery.

Kalus Station and Hera Station also have their own weapons dealers.

On an orbital station, towards the back of the "parking lot" (the empty one, not the one for ferries), in parking spot #8, inside of an open shipping crate, you will find a ship seller. You could buy an easily-claimed NOVA, a Frigate or Fighter (I haven't tried these) or the top-tier ship, the Spinner.

Note that you can also craft a Spinner; if you take this approach, only craft the frame, hull and cockpit. Once placed, the ship comes pre-assembled with all components (except mining beam), so don't craft the engine and whatnot. Crafting a Spinner with plastic made from purchased polymers costs (68*2*32) = 4,352 credits, about half the asking price at the ship merchant.

If you feel like crafting everything (like a Spinner), you want to go to the Industry merchant to buy Polymers to craft Plastic to craft Electronic Components and all the other higher-tier recipes. One Polymer costs 68 credits, while the three gas cans used in making a Polymer cost 60 credits.

Getting a ride isn't too hard in Star's End. With two hide and some scrap cloth, you can make a saddle and claim a wild horse. Three batteries will get you a slow spaceship (NOVA), useful for short trips to harvest space junk and asteroids. ATVs can be claimed on Beta Prairie, but require more investment (they don't come with all the parts); if you claim an ATV but can't get it working, don't leave it there with the intent to come back and fix it -- it will be in the same place as a new instance of "unclaimed ATV", so you won't be able to interact with it.

• To find somewhere to go, turn on your Spotter (middle mouse button, by default) while in space.
  
• Press LShift (by default) to enter boost mode (like warp 1)
  
• Then, press C (by default) to enter Cruise mode (make sure not to hit any planets!)

If you manage to get a spacecraft (such as a Spinner) that has these capabilities, you can reach any destination in Stars End (with time).

You should be able to use your Spotter to see markers for nearby planetary markets and space stations, along with the distance to each. If you are looking for a different planetary system (e.g. you are in Anu system near Beta Prairie, but you want to go to Caliban in the Janson system), you have to first travel to that system, then stop to find the planetary body you want when you are close enough.

When you have a spaceship and are near the ground, the game will attempt to find the nearest suitable landing spot (indicated with a circle and green arrows). If you get close enough to one, autopilot will take over and land your ship for you. If you cut all thrust near the ground, you will start to fall (space bar will keep you afloat).

If you fall to the ground, you'll "crash," bouncing around like a discarded child's toy. Similarly, hitting space debris or other objects makes a loud noise and sends you careening off at a strange angle. However, the ship doesn't appear to suffer any damage!

If you engage "Cruise Mode" (default 'C') near enough to the ground, apparently you actually crash the ship. I destroyed my Spinner and nearly everything I owned this way (oops).

If you are travelling in a vehicle while letting your crafting queue run, the crafting sound will continue until you exit the vehicle and craft something else.

If you are in a vehicle when the server kicks you off (even the "Solo" server), the vehicle will be broken because the server thinks the driver seat is filled, but your local game (client-side) says you aren't in the vehicle. You can get in to the vehicle's passenger seats, but you won't be able to use it as a vehicle anymore (mighty inconvenient if you're out in space). The vehicle needs to be sold and replaced. Try to get all items out of the locker first.

Land vehicles can be flipped or get stuck on rough terrain/rocks. If the obstacle is a stone resource that you can harvest, break it and wait for the debris to sink down, then you can drive normally. Otherwise, you will need to sell and replace the vehicle.

If you run out (or low) of resources to harvest or fuel in your vehicle's tank, just log out to the main menu and then log back in. Your fuel goes back to 100% (only 70% in a NOVA) and all the resources you harvested (such as that field of Iron and Tarphite you spent 20 minutes breaking apart) will be back in place, full of resources.

Currently, it appears that spaceships refuel every time you land, exit, do something and get back in (without needing to leave the game). This will surely be patched in a future update, but for now, take advantage of free fuel.

You can get most places if you are willing to take the ferry for a while. It costs 50 credits for a "short haul" (same for a short haul pass). Unfortunately, some 50 credit routes don't accept short haul passes as substitutes for full fair (bring money if riding the ferry any distance from your base).

However, the longer trips only cost 250 credits, while the "long haul" pass costs 1200 credits -- quite a bit more (do not buy!).

This is the default starting location, so it's gotten the most developer attention. You should be able to find most everything you need on this planet: Sticks and Stones, Wood and Fiber, Sulfur and Salt, Iron and Tarphite (at the Tarphite Mine, just down the road from the spaceport and refinery).

You will NOT find Copper, Quartz, Uranium or Platinum. These have been intentionally removed to give you incentive to go out into space with a re-claimed NOVA and try your hand at mining. This "tutorial" planet doesn't have scanner icons for plant fiber or sticks, like other planets do.

Beta Prairie is filled with Horses you can claim, along with NOVA and ATV wrecks. The ATVs require repair, though. On multiplayer, it's also filled with other players' bases. On Beta Praire, I found four dome-encased control points -- I believe these are the "PvP zones" currently controlled by other players.

Resources:

• Plant Fiber
  
• Sticks
  
• Wood
  
• Stone
  
• Scrap Metal (& sundry)
  
• Iron
  
• Salt
  
• Sulfur
  
• Tarphite (mine)
  
• Horses (1x Saddle to claim)
  
• NOVA (3x Power Cell to claim)
  
• ATV (?2x Power Cell to claim, plus Fuel and parts to make it work)
  
• Oil

Ferry destination: Beta Prairie orbital station (50 credits).

Note that you can also fly in your own spaceship up to the ship where you initially begin (floating not too high above Redberry spaceport). If you you keep going through Space, you can reach the orbital station yourself, or continue further on to a Mercantile fleet (with a carbon copy of that same ship) or beyond.

These are all the same: Beta Prairie OS, Tigon OS, Janson OS, Brutus OS, Eden OS. The "Orbital Station" for Cassius is on the island's shore, and has no shopping section.

After you depart your ferry (or properly-parked personal ship), there will be a long corridor going left and right. To the left is an orbital refinery and a global loot spot (refine Polymers, Plastic, Silicon or Enriched Uranium here). To the right is the ferry kiosk and a shopping mall with three global loot machines. The mall includes:

• Vendor (Clothing)
  
• Vendor (Backpacks)
  
• Vendor (Hats)
  
• Vendor (Housing)
  
• Vendor (Industrial)
  
• Vendor (Ore)
  
• Vendor (Spaceship Parts)
  
• Vendor (Medical)
  
• Vendor (Camping)
  
• Vendor (Electrical Toys)
  
• Vendor (Liquor)

I found one "collect" mission on the Tigon orbital station parking lot (a guy gave me a jetpack to retrieve some cargo, but I can only find the first two packages).

Beta Prairie orbital station ferry destinations: Beta Prairie: Redberry (50c), Nox: Tollana (50c) or Shoden Station (250c)
Tigon orbital station ferry destinations: New Raleigh (50c), Shoden station (250c)


A pink moon with low gravity. It has Uranium stones and a Helium mine (instead of Tarphite). It has no oxygen, so you need a complete spacesuit to survive. I also found another control point (already domed) on Nox.

Warning! Nox ground station does not have air, and you will need a spacesuit the moment you get there. If you accidentally take the ferry without a suit, get inside as quickly as you can. Use a short haul pass (or purchase fare) to backtrack to the orbital station and breath again.

Inside the spaceport here are a variety of merchants (the same merchants can be found at most other spaceports):

• Vendor (Travel)
  
• Vendor (Spacesuit)
  
• Vendor (Air Vehicles)
  
• Vendor (Land Vehicles)
  
• Vendor (Camping)
  
• Vendor (Liquor)
  
• Vendor (Bar)
  
• Vendor (General)

Resources:

• Stone
  
• Iron
  
• Scrap Metal (& bits)
  
• Uranium
  
• Helium (mine)
  
• Oil

Ferry destinations: Prairie Orbital station (120c -- use a Short Haul pass, instead).

This station has:

• Vendor (Weapons)
  
• Vendor (Air Vehicles)
  
• Vendor (Spaceship Parts)
  
• Vendor (Spacesuit)
  
• Vendor (Travel)
  
• Vendor (Gas)
  
• Alcohol Dealer

Ferry destinations: Kalus Station (250c), Hera Station (250c), Beta Prairie orbital station (50c), Tigon orbital station (50c)

New Raleigh is also called Raleigh Crater in places (the settlement is in a crater filled with ruins).
This green planet has a lot of herbs, possibly for use with the distiller. Iron seems to be more plentiful than on Beta Prairie, but there is no Sulfur (for ammo). Lots of Salt, plenty of rocks. Large, fungal trees provide sufficient wood. There are some Rover and NOVA wrecks, but you can't claim them.

Resources:

• Plant Fiber
  
• Sticks
  
• Wood
  
• Stone
  
• Scrap Metal (& sundry)
  
• Iron
  
• Salt
  
• Herbs: Diplazite, Aquilinum, Corek
  
• Tarphite (mine)
  
• Oil

Ferry destination: Tigon orbital station (120c -- use a Short Haul Pass instead)

Anu appears to be a gas giant planet. When I tried to fly there, I got lost in the fog and was told in red letters at the top of the screen, "You can't survive here! Turn back!"

An island in the endless ocean of Cassius has an "orbital" station right on the shore, complete with an orbital station refinery (used to craft Enriched Uranium, Silicon, Polymers, and Plastic). What's more, Tokki Island has large quantities of Platinum (the one metal you don't need to refine from ore). To sell the Platinum, you have to go to a real orbital station and locate the "Industry" merchant, or else craft it with silicon into CPUs to sell to the technology merchant.

Resources:

• Plant Fiber
  
• Sticks
  
• Wood
  
• Stone
  
• Salt
  
• Scrap Metal (& bits)
  
• Iron
  
• Platinum
  
• Tarphite (mine)

Ferry destination: Kallus station (50c).

This station has:

• Vendor (Air Vehicles)
  
• Vendor (Spacesuit)
  
• Vendor (Spaceship parts)
  
• Vendor (Weapons & Armor)
  
• Vendor (Travel)
  
• Alcohol Dealer
  
• Vendor (Gas)

Ferry destinations: Shoden station (250c), Hera station (250c), Janson orbital station (50c), Cassius: Tokki Island (50c)

A snow planet with a small, industrial-looking surface outpost. The large crystals are not harvestable, as yet. The white, gnarly wood curls are harvest-able (30 logs each?). It has a Helium mine, and two "core stabilizers" nearby (I wonder what's in them).

Resources:

• Plant Fiber
  
• Sticks
  
• Wood
  
• Stone
  
• Salt
  
• Iron

Ferry destinations:

A moon. Spartan. Very barren. No NPCs or buildings of any sort.

Resources:

• Stone

(No ferry service to / from Custer)

A harsh environment without any plants and hardly any water, you are highly advised to only settle here if you have brought sufficient wood and sticks. On the plus side, Tarphite is found throughout the desert (along with a Tarphite mine down the road). You can also find Sulfur on Brutus.

This station has a merchant who sells weapons and armor.

This desert planet (unlike Brutus) sports the kind of flora you would expect to find in the desert: shrubs, Joshua trees, and lots of cacti. Besides scenery, it doesn't appear to have any special resources.

I think this will be a lava planet (the "waters" look like lava from afar), but right now it's just purple. If you need silicon in bulk, you can harvest it from the large crystals found here. I did not find any signs of colonization (no NPCs nor space station).

I made this guide as a collection of workarounds I discovered. Already, the devs have started fixing some of the exploits in this guide (which is good; exploits are bugs that benefit the player, and games should ideally have no bugs). As the information gets outdated due to updates and patches, I will have to cut this guide down until it's just a tour guidebook for planets to visit.