When comparing Star Citizen (still in development) vs Starbound, the Slant community recommends Starbound for most people. In the question“What are the best games on the PC for space nerds?” Starbound is ranked 6th while Star Citizen (still in development) is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Starbound is:
Starbound allows the player to go at their own pace while completing the tutorials. By the end of the tutorials the player will have the skills and equipment to succeed in the game and have fun doing it.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Includes a singleplayer mode, called "Squadron 42"
Squadron 42 is a single player campaign that takes place in the in game universe that allows players to play offline.
Pro Over $73million in funding
A game with the huge scope of Star Citizen will cost a lot of money to develop, and through multiple campaigns, Star Citizen has raised a huge amount of money to make that happen.
Pro Vast, detailed sci-fi world
A long term goal is to have over 400 different star systems in game, most of which will have many planets within them.
Pro Ability to command persistent ships and stations
Players will be able to command multi-person ships with other users who will be able to command their own stations on said ships.
Pro Dynamic economy system
The economy of the game and the actions to keep it moving are constantly going on in the background but allows for players to step in and out of it at their leisure in order to take part.
Pro A true PC game
It's been stated that the game will take full advantage of PC's capabilities and will not be held back by a need to accommodate a console port.
Pro Informative and well paced tutorials
Starbound allows the player to go at their own pace while completing the tutorials. By the end of the tutorials the player will have the skills and equipment to succeed in the game and have fun doing it.
Pro Incredibly deep gameplay
The exploration, crafting and combat are all both very polished and deep in terms of what you can do, especially compared to other games in the genre. This makes the sandbox very fun to play in as you're never really stuck doing the same thing over and over.
Pro Boss levels
For what is a procedurally generated game, Starbound offers boss levels that once beaten unlock new sectors of space to explore.
Cons
Con Commercial launch is still a year away (2016)
The commercial launch of the persistent universe game will be sometime in 2016.
Con First few hours can be boring
Initially the player needs to amass enough coal to fuel their ship, which is a bit of a grind.