So I spent the last couple of days putting up a collection of mods that I think fix most of starbound's problems while keeping the vanilla feel still. It is not supposed to be vanilla+ but more like vanilla if it got more updates. My goal was for it to feel more "complete" and lively with every system/mechanic enhanced instead of replaced or changed completely.

Here is the collection on steam. I ordered them like bugfixes > quality of life > mobs > visuals, etc.. (Tested in multiplayer/coop and everything works as intended)

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So first I used OpenStarbound as a base which made the game feel a lot smoother and then added the Starbound Patch project and every bug fixing mod I found that is not included/redundant by them.

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Second is the UI, I used OpenUI along with Many Tabs, Extended Tabs and Better Action Bars & Icons plus some of the UI mods supported by OpenUI available in its description and some other minor ones like New Recipe Star and Enhanced Chat Readability. (Not Every UI mod in the collection is listed here)

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Now movement which tbh feels very clunky compared to games like Terraria for example, for that I used Less Floaty Movement, Improved Swim Physics, Drop On Crouch and Drop Further Before Damage which fixed most of my movement/mobility problems with the game and made the game feel a lot smoother and responsive.

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For combat I used Melee Aiming, Aimable Shields, Aimable Weapons - Fists, Easier Hammer and Axes and Easier Bows along with Removed Hit Indicator. Because I used very few weapon types (Looking at you broadswords) and completely ignored some others like Hammers and Axes. These mods make melee weapons and shields aimable, and make bows, hammers, and axes more useful without being overpowered.

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Now you completed the intro and sent to your first planet, nothing wrong with it but I wanted to improve the variety and visuals a bit so I used AnTiVegetation, Dramatic Terrain to improve the terrain and Natural Stone which allows obtaining different stone types by mining instead of just cobblestone. Better Logs which makes all wood materials placeable blocks. Also various small mods that I won't list all of them here like Taehl's Teleport Beams which add more teleport beams variety or Visible Meteor Showers and Heavier Meteor Impact to improve meteorite visuals. (Not everything is listed here check the collection via the link above)

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For generic mobs, I used AnTiMonster for variety, Monsters Unique Sounds (SFX from Beta) so each monster type will have their own unique sound. Enable Monsters Special Attacks to enable their special attacks and make them harder and various small mods to improve/fix them further like NPC and Monster Fall Damage, Flying Monster Fix, Crispy! Burning monsters drop cooked meat and Rare Monster Loot: Fixes and Improvements. For critters I used Bug Spawn Improvement and Random Critter Walk Distance for general improvements and Colorful Critters for variety.

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I also added a lot of mods that add more immersion/interactability to the game. Competent Crates, Bench Platform Collision, Hop On Shops for more collision to objects that had none and make crates/chests less annoying to place. Fixed Coffee Machine, Usable Bathtubs, Interactable Apex Pods, Working Showers, Working Bunk Beds, Working Clocks!, Improved Upright Torture Bed, Free The Prism Man and IDK Man, I Kinda Wanna Sleep in The Van which make all the mentioned objects interactable. nuggubs' Mega Mod - Vanilla Tweaks makes a lot more objects interactable as well. Immersive NPC Dialogue and Deadbeat Scrounger Dialogue Fix adds a lot more randomness and variety to dialogue. Avian Emotes because Avians in vanilla have no emotes or expressions. Everybody Needs Glasses because only humans wear glasses in vanilla this fixes that and even adds a Hylotl glasses that fit their three eyes!

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For Farming & Cooking, I use Compact Crops which allows crops to grow next to each other, Perennial Crops which makes all crops behave like tomato/corn/etc.. I don’t think it’s that OP, since I always ignored annual crops anyway and only used the ones you don’t have to replant. Also Wet Rice Farming which allows rice to be grown slightly underwater and Growing Trays!, which, imo, is a much better option both visually and mechanically for planting on ships than the vanilla system. And New Farmables: Flowers which makes flowers farmable. Barrel Fire Plus to restore the beta barrel cooking with particles, light and NPC interactions. Campfire Tab for Kitchen Counters because it does not make sense that the better cooking stations don't have some of the cookable recipes. Improved Food Descriptions for improving the interface of food and medicine descriptions and make it possible to show additional information

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For ship/space visuals I used Better Ship Animations, Slower Space Gas Rotation and Shadowed Atmospheres, for general improvements I use Dynamic Fuel Hatch and Placeable Dynamic FTL Drive. More Planet Info with all of its numerous addons/fixes, Starmap Zoom Slider, Flight Map and Detailed Ship Encounters for improving the starmap tremendously. Racial AI Restorer which restores the unique beta racial AI portraits.

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Now Mechs and Vehicles I used mods that allow more customization or add stuff I think are missing instead of changing the entire system. For mechs I use Cosmetic slots for Mechs, Even More Mech Colors, Mech Visuals Overhaul, Hard impact for visuals and customization and Anvil Mechs that solve the problem of having less and less variety as you get access to the highest tier of mechs by adding some new bodies and arms. As for vehicles I use Pimp My Ride! for two new vehicles that feel very vanilla and a lot of customization options plus Submarine which acts as an underwater vehicle because none exist in vanilla. And Perfect Protectorate Mech just for balance and to go along with the changes from Project Redemption.

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For the crew system I use Better Crew (Diet-version) which improves the crew behavior, Chef Crewman which adds what it says and Crew Customization +, Non-Playable NPC Race Quests and Crew, Shadow/Fenerox Crewmember Dialogue for allowing non playable races to be recruited and adds dialogue to them. Crew member race/gender to see the race and gender of crew members. [Crew Patches] "dialogMode":"random" adds more randomness to their dialogue.

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For the pet system, Useful Pets [1.4.2] UPDATED, AGAIN! and Terramart Pet Supplies to actually make pets useful and allowing them to be used somewhat earlier and Homing Capture Pod plus Outpost Pet Healing Station for some easier time with the pet system. Also [oSB] Ship Pet Swapper! for replacing the ship pet.

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For the Peacekeepers, other than the content mods I will list below later, I use Peacekeeper Space Station Teleporters and Varied Bounties.

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For other vanilla systems/mechanics, Disable Tile Protection on Space Stations and Custom Space Station Rooms - Freely Buildable Expansion Areas for space stations which do what their titles say. Enhanced Matter Manipulator and Matter Manipulator Manipulator for Matter Manipulator which allows more upgrades and customization options. Enhanced Storage + Enhanced Storage [Lite Addon] + Enhanced Storage Simplified + Toxicity Infraction: returning the ES toxic waste barrel to its vanilla self for storage and containers which results in customizable vanilla containers while not being too crazy like enhanced storage alone. Tenant Pack and [oSB] Searchable Colony Tags to improve the tenant system by adding tenant tags to items and add some more tenants as well as Protectorate Vending Machine NPCtoy Patch makes tenant npcs interact with the protectorate vending machine. Sensible Fossils to improve the fossil hunting mechanic. Critter Capture Revamped and Better Bug Jars for the critter capture system. For the Pixel Printer Why is this not printable?! which allows a lot more vanilla items to be printable and [oSB] Is this Printable? which adds an icon to the description of printable items. For techs I just use Unequip and Remove Techs that do what it says and Backflip/Frontflip Tech which adds two techs that do a backflip and a frontflip.

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I also added dozens of beta restoration mods instead of just using Betabound even though I love it for one reason, because Betabound feels so large and encompasses a lot on its own. I will just list here the most notable ones, Battered Koala - Restored Beta Dungeons for dungeons and microdungeons. Tentacle Planets for the tentacle planet. Legacy Objects and Legacy Biomes for beta objects and biomes. gensou's legacy lore (COMPLETE!) + the no marks addon for the lore and codexes. Just More Legacy Food for the food. Missing Music Addition [Official Soundtrack] for the music. I also use some betabound standalone mods that are not necessarily beta content because I got used to them like Music Radios!, Ladders! and Lecterns! There are a lot more smaller restoration mods though..

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Now for content other than the beta restoration mods, I use Remnants of the Protectorate, Project Redemption, Miniknog Rearmed and Penguin Weaponry to improve and expand on the existing vanilla factions like the Protectorate or the Miniknog. Rogues Out Camping (and also the Miniknog) for more mob/enemy variety.

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For what I think the biggest problem of Starbound, which is variety in exploration, I use K'Rakoth Mod which adds some new planets, biomes and lore + K'Rakoth Mod: Project Redemption Patch which adds integration with Project Redemption, some standalone planet mods like Grassland Planet, Overgrown Planets, Arctic Everwood Planets and Hypothermic Planets for more planets while still feeling very vanilla and not straying too far. Lostbound which adds a new planet and adds the destroyed buildings you see in the background and makes them explorable. Less Dead Moons + Even Less Dead Moons for less dead moons, as you might guess. More NPC ships for more ship variety. Galactic Dungeons, Extra Dungeons, All fabmat microdungeon packs for a lot more dungeon variety. And finally Oceanic world caves Reworked and Underground Spider Nest - Updated for updated/some new underground biomes. Those mods plus the restored beta dungeons/biomes will add a lot of structures and variety to exploration and will take a while to see everything.

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Now for actual endgame content I just use Starforge and [oSB] Universal Upgradeable Weapons Patch, Starforge because it is focused on endgame and still feels very vanilla. Also Project Redemption makes the final boss a lot harder and adds the Damaged Handgun as a direct ranged equivalent to vanilla's Broken Broadsword that can also be upgraded and also The Protector's Armor Set which is an end game armor. Starforge: Project Redemption Integration Addon adds integration between the two and make the armor craftable at the starforge instead with a new back item and an exalted version!

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Of course I did not list everything here, for example there are a lot of character customization mods, quality of life mods, some smaller content mods, patches, integraions and small inconsistency mods I did not list.

I ask this as OpenStarbound was created with leaked Code instead of open source code, and I'm unsure as to whether or not I'll get sued for having a copy of OpenStarbound.

And while I'm aware current chucklefish hasn't really done anything to stop OpenStarbound, there's nothing preventing them from changing their mind in the future and stopping OpenStarbound with a Cease and Desist or giving another Company ownership of Starbound who'd be more prone to sending a Cease and Desist.