Even though Terraria was built on a simpler system, a very functional build only took a few months of development with less people
Starbound has had a lot of time and many more invested resources and manpower and still surprisingly lacks certain things like active questing and whatnot. Sure it has better technology and a lot more potential than Terraria, but the rate that potential is being realized is kinda sad imo
All I see in terms of dev talk in the last few months is tweaks and small features in combat, which is alright to an extent. The only major update I was impressed by was the customizing of ships (I haven't actually utilized this, but I remember hearing it being added in an update). I really think there should be more updates if not at least proof of more work on quests and making the worlds feel a little more alive, instead of just adding a bunch of small items and tweaks to other things like combat. Just a small rant by me. I think the team should re-prioritize.