Well, I came to post that Starbound has changed quite a bit since I last played! (At least the beginning part). Which, I last played about 2-4 months when it was first buyable. So, its been a long time.
I've been really enjoying it a lot. The beginning at least is a lot more fun. Had to remake my character, because guess they wiped at some point...not a big deal.
I just left the part where you get the core shards and at the gate (so still in the beginning). Think unlike last time, all my stuff is gonna be on the ship and I'll just travel around. Instead of having a base on a main planet which gets a bit boring to be honest. Since I wanted to play with my friend too, I got a couple of the mods he uses (just 3 I got, one adds a bunch of quests, another adds more biomes and one adds tons of music). I think one added a companion early on, as I got a dude called Love Jones or something like that. Or maybe its part of the "newer" starbound. In any case...it was cool...put him on my ship and now I have a two man (including me) crew
Pretty much made me decide to live on the ship and travel around on it.
I haven't really seen anything else yet, but the beginning before entering the gate. But it sure is different at the start, than it used to be.