Hi. I love StarMade. My wife and I both opted in to the pre-release from Steam. We have both been playing the single player version in order to learn the game. Everything has been working great until recently. Both my wife and I are experiencing the exact same issue. (She has Windows 8 and I have Windows 7). The problem occurs when we quit the game and restart the game, if we are on our home planet, the one side of the planet that we are on when we quit the game, it is failing to load correctly upon restarting the game, and the planet plane is all inside of the core of the planet, and all docked ships are inside of the core. The other sides of the planet load just fine. It is only the side with my base and docked ships which I am standing on when I quit the game which fails to load upon restarting the game. It is as if the terrain plane is rotated at an angle and is stuck inside of the planet core, but the other sides are aligned correctly and place the terrain as expected. What happens is that I am spawned on the surface of a naked planet core or slightly inside the core. I have to hit up, and I am not in any gravity, so I can reach obit outside of the gravity of the Planet in Astronaut mode. The side that I was on with my base and docked ships can be seen protruding about 10% or 20% out of the planet's core with the rest inside the core!
The interesting thing is that if I then build a little scooter ship in orbit, and fly to a shop far enough away so that the planet de-loads it's surfaces, (10 or 20 kilometers), and then fly back to my planet, then the plane is redrawn correctly and the plane rights itself and my base, docked ships, and the planet surface has reset, and I can then go down to the planet and play normally. Also, if I quit the game in orbit outside of the planet's gravity field, then the game seems to load normally and I do not encounter the problem. The problem seems to only be happening when I am on the surface of my home planet (or in a building) and quit the game, then when I start the game again and hit "spawn", I am standing on a naked planet core, and the terrain fails to load on the one side that myself and my buildings and docked ships are on, the plane is rotated and stuck inside of the planet core. Others have said that if you are inside of your docked ship on the planet, or inside of a build block on the planet, then it is safe and the planet will load correctly after quitting. I am too afraid to test that, so I cannot say. I did test the theory that if you quit the game outside of the gravity of the planet, like in orbit, then the planet loads correctly. I was able to confirm that. As long as I quit the game above my planet base, out in orbit, then the planet seems to load correctly upon restarting the game and the plane with my base and docked ships is aligned correctly and not drawn inside of the core.
I have noticed that others have complained about this problem, and you seem to be aware of the problem, and seem to have announced that it was fixed with version .19361, but that is the version I have loaded and the problem is still occurring. As far as I can tell, I never even encountered this problem until I updated to version .19361. Can you please advise.
Also, I have noticed that you cannot see your salvage beams through a glass block. If I build a cockpit and put glass around the ship core, then I can see space, the stars and planets, and other ships and objects, from inside of the ship core, but my savage beams are not showing up. If I put a camera on the front of the cockpit, outside of the glass blocks, then I can see the beam just fine. I think that you should be able to see your weapons fire, through glass blocks just like you can see the stars and planets and other ships. I don't know if I am doing something wrong, but this appears to be a bug. The glass blocks appear to be opaque to the salvage beam and are preventing one from seeing the weapons beam from the ship core if the ship core is enclosed in glass blocks.
Also, I wish to make a request. I love the new Flashlight, but I was thinking even before news of the Flashlight, that we need a search/flood light block for our ships too. There are times when I wish I had a light on my ship that I could turn on and see what is on the dark side of an Asteroid, or inside of a hollowed out Asteroid or other dark place. A search/flood light block for our ships which functions like the Flashlight, only with a little more distance throw (a bit more powerful) that could be turned on and off from the ship hot-bar would be fantastic and add much mood and realism to the game.
Thanks for the job you do. I think your game is fantastic and I look forward to the future. I hope you are getting over your illness and are feeling better. Keep up the great work!