One matter manipulator can pretty much do anything, which renders the pickaxe useless.Mining is at a slow rate at first until upgrades are available.Matter manipulator can break up to 5×5 blocks at a time and can also extract liquid and provide item descriptions.Progressive mining with an upgradable matter manipulator (space plasma cutter that breaks and extracts blocks) that is given at the start of the game or a self crafted pickaxe).Different types of axes and tools to gather different materials.Well thought out “tech tree” where mining efficiency increases steadily.Breaks one block at a time, more tedious and time-consuming mining.Easy mining with an upgradable pickaxe that can increase mining speed, power, and mined minerals.Survival – hunger, drop items 30% loss of Pixels (items could be retrieved from the ground at the place of death). Casual mode has little risk of dying because can beam back up to ship almost anytime anywhere.Can sell things but the profit margin is too low except for a few expensive items.Has limited variety of healing items, two for HP and two for HP and status effects.Temperature/climate changes affect body (hot, cold and high radiation planets require certain equipment).Hunger levels need to be taken care of, and different food items have different effects (healing, stat buffs) food has expiry.Tiers are separated by quests, bosses, and planets: Expert – stronger monsters, more coin and item drops.Death penalty depends on difficulty level:.There is no quick way to escape from danger and the player must be cautious at all times.Can sell things for a lot of profit, which makes trading quite useful.Has different types of potions to heal different types of status effects.Weather has minimal effect on the player.Has cooking element but no hunger to use it on, food is used to make potions that have different effects.Tiers are separated by ores and the tools crafted with them.Traveling is made easy as they are flags that can bookmark useful places to come back later.
Each race has it’s own themed furniture, villages, items, artifacts, and architecture.Has lots of different types of underground dungeons, tombs, hunting grounds, underwater cities, and villages.
Allows for free exploration by the player.A tutorial is done by a guide device while the player escapes from the apocalypse.Starts off at a graduation ceremony being under attack by a tentacle monster.A tutorial is provided introducing the basics, done by an NPC.
Starts in the middle of nowhere like Minecraft.I made a table summarizing all the different aspects of comparison: Intro Since Starbound and Terraria are quite similar games that people often compare, and most of the comparison posts I found online were made when Starbound was still an early access game, I decided to give SB justice by comparing current SB to current Terraria.