Glossary

Air well
One of the following devices: Liquid Collector, Atmospheric Condenser, Entropic Converter.

AFK
"Away from keyboard", time when the game is running, but the player is not doing anything. Pauses passive Research and Madness gain.

Core ocean
Infinite liquid in the bottom layer of some planets.

Dungeon
Building or NPC settlement on the surface of the planet, for example: Abandoned House on Garden planets, Hylotl city on Strange Sea planets, USCM penal colony on Atropus planets, etc. See also: microdungeon.

EMF
Erchius Mining Facility, optional tier 3 mission. Was required in vanilla Starbound, but not needed in FU (see STL Drive).

Elder
Related to Eldritch beings (such as Cthulhu) and their cultists. Aside from being important for lore (they were investigated by at least 2 factions that the player will learn about), these cultists can be enemies in some locations, and they wield strong (nearly magical) weapons that we can take and use, but could never understand.

Extraction
Use of Extraction Lab, etc. to turn some materials into other materials.

FTL
"Faster than light", starship engine that allows to travel to other star systems (e.g. Small FTL Drive).

FU
Frackin' Universe, massive overhaul mod for Starbound.

Incompatible mod
Third-party mod that replaces some Starbound scripts that are necessary for FU to work properly. Do not install such mods (see the list).

ITD
Item Transference Device

Joule
Same as in physics, 1 joule refers to quantity of produced/used Power. For example, if Basic Battery has 1000 Joules stored, and Liquid Mixer needs 20 Joules per action, then it will be able to make 1000/20 = 50 actions from this battery alone.

Item Network
Complex wiring that involves movement of items between chests. Uses ITDs, Storage Bridges, Terminals, etc.

Liquid mixing
Pouring some liquid into another liquid (or onto some block) to get another liquid/block. Can be done in-world (in some lake) or via Liquid Mixer. See also: infinite mixing.

Log
File  within the Starbound directory. We need it when there is a bug/crash (to investigate/fix this), because it contains: 1) any errors that happened (Lua errors, failed patches, etc.), 2) list of mods (some of them might already be known to cause problems).

Microdungeon
Very small dungeons (such as water wells on Garden planets, lone houses with a treasure chest, bridges, lakes, weird terrain formations, stone ruins, etc.) that are randomly placed in the biomes. These microdungeons can have any blocks, not just the biome blocks of that biome. See also: dungeon.

Missing unlock
Situation when some item has crafting recipe, but it can't be researched/unlocked (is not in any research node, etc.). This can be a mistake, but can also be an old (semi-removed) legacy item that is not intended to be crafted.

MM
Matter Manipulator

Precursor
Very advanced civilization that predated us. Their technology was superior to our own, but they became extinct (we can no longer meet them). They left behind some interesting devices, and lucky explorers will sometimes find them.

Researching
Learning "how to craft " via research trees.

Sifting
Use of Sifters.

STL
STL Drive, where STL means "Slower than light" - a starship engine that can only travel within the current star system, and (unlike FTL drive) can't travel to other stars.

Snarsh
A made up verb that means "craft/rig something weird from weird components, which shouldn't really work, but somehow does".

Tech
Movement assistance techs like Physics Field, Phase Sprint, Zero Burst I, etc.

RNG
"Randomly generated", can refer to either weapons (that you find in chests) or monsters (that are not predefined unique monsters).

Unlock
Something that teaches you "how to craft ". Can be either a node of research trees, or (rarely) picking up some item (e.g. Red Glowstick unlocks Green Glowstick), or (rarely) finding a blueprint (usable item that gives you the recipe, e.g. for Stone Bed).

Vanilla
Starbound without any mods.

Watt
Same as in physics, 1 watt refers to how many Joules of Power does machinery produce/use every second. For example, if Powder Sifter needs 40W, then after 20 seconds of working it will spend 40*20 = 800 Joules.

Well
One of the following devices: Well, Wooden Water Tower, Water Generator.