Commands, also known as cheats, are used to add, remove and change things in Starbound. They're simply pieces of text you enter into the chat. This article will take you through the basics of commands in Starbound, showing you how to use them and giving you important tips to make your life easier. If you're looking for something specific, you can hop to a specific part of this article with these links:
How to Use Commands
Unlike other games, Starbound doesn't have a console to type commands into - all you have to do is type them into chat. All commands start with a / (forward slash).
This paragraph takes you through the /whoami command as an example. To open the chat, press ENTER on your keyboard, then type /whoami in chat and hit ENTER again. After doing so, you will be sent a message with some information including your username and whether or not you're an admin.
What are Arguments?
You may see the word "argument" being mentioned a lot on our commands list - an argument is simply a parameter, or extra piece of information you give to a command so that the game knows what to do.
For example, the spawnitem command's syntax is /spawnitem [item id] [amount] - in this example, [item id] and [amount] are arguments. Without these arguments, the command wouldn't know what item and what amount to give you.
Arguments are separated by spaces, so to use the spawnitem command to spawn, say, 2 Oculus Reavers (which has an item ID of 'eyesword'), you'd use the command /spawnitem eyesword 2. In that command, the arguments would be 'eyesword' and '2'.
What are Admin Commands?
If you were to join a random server and attempt to run the command /timewarp 60 (the timewarp command moves time forward) nothing would happen. This is because timewarp is an admin command, and on a random server you would not be an admin. Admin commands require a user to have admin mode enabled before they have access.
How to Enable Admin Commands
Some servers have disabled access to admin commands for all users - on these servers, it is not possible to get access to admin commands without the admins of those servers explicitly granting you access.
On single player, and servers that do not have admin commands blocked for everyone, you can enable admin mode by entering /admin into the chat. This will toggle admin mode on (granting you access to admin commands). To toggle admin mode off, all you need to do is type /admin again. See our list of admin commands for more commands.
What are Debug Commands?
Debug commands are similar to admin commands in the sense that you must first enable something before being granted access to them. Unlike admin commands, they usually have a "debug" purpose to them, like showing something on the screen, hiding something from your character, etc.
To gain access to debug commands, all you have to do is type /debug into the chat. To disable debug mode after enabling it, simply type /debug again. Check out our list of debug commands to see what commands you can access.
That's all there is to this guide. If you're looking for more content to feast your eyes on, why not check out our god mode guide or find out how to spawn money.