Getting Started & FAQ

= Getting Started on Galaxy Citizen =​

. . . Galaxy Citizen is a Starbound roleplay server, because of this there is no base-building, PvP, PvE, boss battles, or overall expectation to play the game ‘as intended.’ Instead, your character and their items are used as ‘props’ for text-based roleplay on the game server and a decent portion of roleplay happens over Discord as well. We have our own lore and interpretation of Starbound’s universe and races, based partially in earlier versions of the game’s story. Things that are canon in normal Starbound are not necessarily canon in the universe of Galaxy Citizen, and vice versa.
. . . While Galaxy Citizen has a lot of lore, it isn’t required you read it all to join. All of the information you need to pass the quiz, and as such join the community, can be obtained by skimming these pages:

• Our rules: Rules
• A short summary of the universe of Galaxy Citizen: Lore Starter Guide
• A chronological timeline of events within the setting: Galactic Timeline
• A guide to general roleplay etiquette and terminology: Roleplay Guidelines
• A guide to narrative consent, such as those used in combat roleplay: Character Consent

. . . Galaxy Citizen is a whitelisted server, and you will not be able to get on the server or interact with the setting until you take a short quiz on the information above. Once you are completed with the quiz, you’ll be expected to send a staff member proof of completion (a screenshot of the last page of the quiz) as well as the username and password you’d like to use for your whitelist account.
. . . The quiz can be found here. Joining the Discord is also highly recommended, as it contains the best means of interacting with the community and several settings within the lore are contained solely on Discord. An invite link can be found here.

= Frequently Asked Questions =​

Q: Who are the staff members?
A: You can find a complete list on the forums here. In the Discord, it is anyone with the Admin, Technician, Moderator, or Monitor role. Please do not ask for help from anybody with the Vacation role unless absolutely necessary.

Q: What race/species can my character be?
A: Any lore or player-created species! Some player-created species require permission from the creator to play. You may also play as a genetically engineered organism or custom android, known collectively as ‘engineered lifeforms.’ You can also write and apply for a new species to be added to our lore, but this is time consuming and not recommended for the purpose of playing only one character.
. . . Please do not use race mods. They will crash the server.

Q: What mods can I use?
A: Anything that doesn’t add assets to the game. Disallowed mods include Frackin Universe and race mods. Mods that are client-side and marked as “vanilla-compatible” (Starface, Extra Zoom Levels, RP tech mods, Quickbar Mini, Green’s Dye Suite, Optimizebound, etc) are OK. If you aren’t sure about a mod, you can ask in the #question-board channel of the Galaxy Citizen Discord. Some useful mods are also pinned in the #modding-citizen channel.

Q: How do I make my character look a certain way if I can’t use race mods?
A: There are multiplayer-compatible ways of changing a character’s appearance:

• Custom-sprited hair can be used for custom heads, advanced hatter will even allow you to include blink animations.
• Custom-sprited clothing can be used for custom bodies.
• LuAnimator is also good for custom bodies.
• You can make recoloured clothing with Green’s Dye Suite.

. . . If you are confused or need help spriting, don’t hesitate to ask for help!

Q: What gamemode should I select for my character?
A: Casual, otherwise you might starve to death mid-roleplay.

Q: Can I use my survival character for GC?
A: As long as they’re in casual, you can. However, since GC encourages “cheating” (spawning items, using noclip mods) for ease of roleplay, we recommend keeping your survival characters and roleplay characters separate.

Q: Why is spawning items allowed in GC?
A: In-game items and in-character items are not the same thing in GC. Having an item in your Starbound inventory does not mean you have it in character. Items and wealth must be reasonable for the resources of your character, or acquired IC. (See the roleplay guidelines for more on this.)

Q: Where do I go once I’m on the server?
A: Go to your ship’s teleporter and you will be able to access a list of public hubs. Please do not travel to random planets on server; this will generate new worldfiles, which causes bloating and lag.

Q: How do I find people on the server?
A: You can use the !players command in the #bot-citizen channel of our Discord. It’ll list who is on-server and which hub they are on.

Q: When are most people online?
A: Most of the community lives in North America, so weekend nights in North American timezones (especially EST) are when the server is most likely to be active. However, if ever want to roleplay, you can always get on yourself and make it clear you are on through the user of !players or saying so on the Discord.
. . . If no one is online and you’d still like to roleplay, you can also use Discord. The main Discord has an in-character nexus chat, and radio chat, and various Discord servers exist for the purpose of representing individual settings in GC.

Q: How do I get a building onto the server?
A: Build something in singleplayer and send its world-file (located in steam/steamapps/common/starbound/universe) to an admin. Do not build it on the server! If you do, it will be automatically deleted on the next restart.

Q: How do I make a hub world?
A: Build it in singleplayer (as directed above) and ask an admin to list it as a hub. Follow the hub guidelines here. Here are some hub-making tools:

• Custom parallaxes
• Custom-sprited furniture
• Furniture recoloring
• Introduction to WEdit
• Custom Trees

Q: How do I start a faction?
A: Follow the faction guidelines found here. Factions need to have multiple players involved before they can be powerful, so ask around the community and recruit! Post on the forums and Discord! It’s very likely someone will be interested in your writing and join.

Q: My question isn’t answered here, help!
A: You can ask questions in the #question-board channel on the Discord, or in the help center!