The fossils stretch goal has been achieved, no new goal has been announced yet.
Edit: Pets are the new stretch goal

Pets stretch goal achieved.

This does look interesting.

Seeing this thread bumped reminded me I pre-ordered this and forgot about it.

Finally! Beta ought to be up on Steam starting around Dec. 4th:
https://twitter.com/Tiyuri/status/405292961044234240

Bump when it's actually DRM-Free. Only available on Steam and having an Authentication Server screams DRM to me. I'll pass until it's here on GOG without the Authentication Server.

Can't wait for next wednesday. As for it being on steam, if people would actually bother to read the status updates on the site, then they would know that it's only the first two stages of the beta that'll favor steam, for various reasons. The final product will be DRM free.

Shame I don't have a beta-tier, but then again I haven't even tried Terraria again since before the 1.2 update.
In other words, no hurry. :p

If you preordered on any tier, even pixel (that's what I did, with a 4pack) you'll get the option for the beta. But as explained the first stage will be very unstable, lots of updates, even daily. So people are better off waiting, if they can't stomach non complete stuff.

This looks really interesting, but I really suck at games of this sort using a keyboard and mouse. I hope they add gamepad support at some point (or that someone makes a gamepad mod, like with Terraria.)

Saw TB and Jesse Cox on a coop LP. I enjoy the extreme weirdness of the alien-stuff-spitting fauna.

Use a program like Xpadder or Pinnacle Game Profiler or similar and you can map the keyboard keys to buttons and an analog stick to mouse. Should be possible. Try it out with the free version of Xpadder first, though, see how you get on, and if that works fine, maybe then consider going for the paid version.

Darn, crashes trying to launch. Well, I'm actually kind of glad I can't play it right now as I was in the middle of playing the Crusader games and I really want to see those through.

This is one reason why GOG imho should have alpha/betas here.... Steam unfortunately handy for devs to push out regular updates for alphas/betas :/
Did you guys pre order via devs site or Steam early access?

"Pre-Order Starbound!
Learn more about Starbound!

Thank you for supporting us! Your purchase will go directly towards the development of the game and help us to get it into everyone's hands sooner. We'll have a beta available this year and we'll email you when a download link is available. You'll also be sent a steam key.
In the mean time, the soundtrack is available now and we'll continue to add to it as new tracks become available."

Umm that seems to indicate there SHOULD be a separate beta download link...aside from steam key

Dev site $14.99 for Game + Steam Key + Soundtrack
Steam $14.99 + $4.99 soundtrack

i think i know which is the better deal.....

I've got Xpadder, but Terraria didn't really play too nice with it. The PC version is just made to play kb/m... I eventually found a mod someone made that made it work with an Xbox 360 gamepad, but the control scheme that was necessary just ended up being more frustrating.

The good news is, this means I'm getting more used to kb/m, and I'm adjusting more quickly than I expected. Not to suggest it's happening "quickly" at all by normal standards... I'm quite clumsy at it, but getting better. :)