|OT| Starfield | No Man's Skyrim

[spindoctor]

One of the main faction quests also sends you there. Not very early, but early enough.
...

Been playing every day since early access. Every day I find something new that impresses me.

I finished the Vanguard faction quest line and I have to say that it was quite good. One normally doesn't have high expectations for video game writing but this story actually did manage to surprise me a few times. You also get a very nice legendary space suit near the end. And the final reward is cool but

Spoiler

umm... what am I supposed to do with an empty apartment? Does this game have some sort of Animal Crossing Happy Home designer mode that I'm not aware of? There's no reason to ever visit your penthouse if it's going to be empty throughout right?

And yeah, the game constantly has these moments that amuse/impress you. Either through systems driven game design or just thoughtful bespoke moments they've put in.

One random example is that I didn't know this game had different types of jetpacks. One of them boosts you up really high into the air. What I didn't know about that jetpack is that you need to boost slightly when you're about to land to soften your landing. So the when I first started using it I'd keep randomly getting afflicted by sprains when I landed and I couldn't understand why it was happening. It was only after it happened 2-3 times that I heard a companion telling me that I should try for a soft landing. Think about how much work went into this. Aside from implementing the sprain mechanic, they went to lengths of getting (presumably all) companion voice actors to record a line specifically to inform dimwits like me why I kept getting sprained. Such a tiny detail they thought of when they could have easily left out the entire mechanic.

One out of game thing that I realized is that when you launch the game it has just one black screen with some copyright stuff, the BGS logo animation and nothing else. They could have easily added animations for Zenimax, Xbox studios, middleware companies and what not but they didn't. They did this deliberately to not waste the players' time. The other game that had this this year was Hogwarts Legacy. That game had a 10-15 second shader caching cycle on every startup but when it's over they directly throw you onto the start screen. No studio logo, no Warner logo, no Wizarding World logo. Just respect your players' time and get them into the game as quick as possible. I really do appreciate this.

I keep getting sidetracked on planets, i'm off to perform a story rescue now and i've got good kit at least.
When i work out what weapons i really like i'll have more space in my inventory for things but at the moment all i take are weapons, plushies, ammo, plushies, meds, plushies, and any decent suits, packs or helms i find... and plushies.

Yeah I constantly keep getting sidetracked in the game. I've been meaning to visit Akila and explore it and it's quests properly for 3-4 days now and I've not made it there because I keep doing something else. I did get the skills to increase your inventory capacity. A friend told me that I wasted my points and could have just modded that but... yeah, I can just mod everything and break the game completely. Give myself all skills and infinite credits and items. I don't want to do that. But yeah, having an increase inventory helps immensely.

One thing I do wish I could mod is the research and crafting system and specifically cooking because I find it very frustrating. I had mentioned that I wanted to do spacesuit research but that comes later in the tree so I thought i'll get gastronomy first. The problem with cooking is that first of all, cooking items go into your inventory in the aid slot and not resources. This is an issue because with other crafting you can just transfer all resources into your inventory and go off and start doing what you need to. With cooking you need to pick and choose which aid items are actually going be used in cooking. Also, there are some cooking items which go into resources anyway (like water, nutrients I think) and some even go into miscellaneous (like alien eggs). Secondly, there are times you don't actually know if you even have the right ingredients. Like for example, some research or recipe asks for poultry. There's no specific poultry item in the game that I've seen. So you need chicken but in which form? Do those cube things work? Do you need tinned chicken? Does synthameat work in it's place? Are eggs poultry? Because there's a different category of items that you can need called eggs. And what kind of eggs work then? Do those chunks work? Do you need tinned eggs? I really do want to do the research and crafting stuff but the UX is so hostile I just give up on it. I'd want a mod to clean this up a bit. Maybe colour code items in your inventory so you know which ones are for cooking or for weapon modding and stuff. And also add some kind of infinite storage in the Lodge basement.

 

[STHX]

Spoiler

umm... what am I supposed to do with an empty apartment? Does this game have some sort of Animal Crossing Happy Home designer mode that I'm not aware of? There's no reason to ever visit your penthouse if it's going to be empty throughout right?

Spoiler

Check the walls inside your houses/apartments and there should be a switch which allows you to decorate them

 

[spindoctor]

Spoiler

Check the walls inside your houses/apartments and there should be a switch which allows you to decorate them

Would have never guessed that lol. Thanks for the tip. I'll go back and check it out.

 

[bobnowhere]

Spent 200k+ to make the best B class I could at the time. Four of the best neutron beams and 2 of the best missle launchers. 2000 cargo and haven't even lost my shields in a fight in it so far, monster.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

The modding community is already working on a community patch. While in that topic, so far these are the mods that I've installed

• SFSE
• Starfield Performance Boost
• Baka Achievement Enabler
• StarUI Inventory
• SFSE ASI Loader
• Upscalling fix

So far mostly of the mods are simple fixes and retextures but I can't wait to see what will be coming in the next years.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

There's actually two Community Patches in the works.
One by Arthmoor and his lot, and one by Nexus. They invited Arthmoor but they declined to join up.
At least there will be an alternative for when Arthmoor's patch starts to get some feature creep.

---

I have these in my MO2 list so far:
SPFE
SPFE ASI Loader
Baka Achievement Enabler
SFSE ASI FSR2 Bridge ( enables DLSS )

Undelayed Launching ( skip intros )
Inventory Prefixes ( No Ammo )
Better HUD XP and Location messages
Completed Missions ( Adds a "Completed" divider in mission screen instead of a line )
Undelayed Menus ( 60fps version )

Subtle Quest and Scanner sound changers.

SGS LUT - Luma Strength 50 version
YAFM - Yet Another Flashlight Mod - Makes Flashlight brighter
Lore Friendly Barren Earth with UK - lol
Enhanced Blood 2k
Real Milky Way Galaxy - Vanilla Improved
Randolph P Checkers Quartermaster Painting
National Space Agencies Flags V2 ( contains ESA )

Sprint Stuttering Fix
Faster Workbenches ( quicker to access/exit Workbenches )

Eyebrows Redone
The Eyes of Beauty - No Reflections

HoloMyth TShirt
Fauna Baseball cap

Ocean Texture Kodama gun

 

[bobnowhere]

I'm level 46 now, things I still haven't done:

Progressed any of the factions beyond their first missions
Been to Neon apart from one emergency delivery quest
Done anything apart from shopping at Akila
Done Sam Coe's missions
Have Space Shouts

Things I do have, cash, more money that Elon and a wife.

 

[inky]

What's the rule for screenshots? 2 per post?

 

[TioChuck]

Just finished it after 80hrs, I enjoyed it a lot, have no desire to play anymore of it tho'.

The faction quests and random quests are way more enjoyable than the main quest.
Ship building is pretty cool, but the credits necessary to enjoy it fully is bs.
Space battles are fine, but auto turrets kinda breaks it
Leveling is too damn slow, to unlock all the cool skills takes so much time.
Outposts is cool, and thank god they are not mandatory.
For a game with so many planets, to have only 3 fleshed out cities in the entire universe is kinda fucked up.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Elite mod - FAQ~!

Hololive SAKURA MIKO tanktop

My purpose in life, Miko Sakura. Don't you want to wear Miko Sakura? That's right! I made it.

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Le Pertti]

I just have no idea how persuasion system works, seems way too random and unclear. Any advice? Starts to be a pain in the ass when one conversation has several points where one has so persuade.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

No idea i just usually click the green or yellow options. I think you need to get points to fill the ring at the bottom right but the higher point values are riskier. I always save before entering a conversation. Also take whatever charm boosters you have before the conversation too.

 

[STHX]

Starfield - Starfield Updates and Mod Support – September 13, 2023 - Steam News

 

[inky]

I just have no idea how persuasion system works, seems way too random and unclear. Any advice? Starts to be a pain in the ass when one conversation has several points where one has so persuade.

It's not really about how persuasive the content of the text itself is, but instead it's a mini-game trying to add up numbers.

You have a set amount of turns to convince a person, in this case 03 Turns. Then, under "Persuasion" in the bottom left, you can see a few empty boxes or pips. These pips light up by a certain amount (+1, +3, etc,) when you successfully pass a persuasion a check. If you fail, you lose one turn and no pips are added. When you succeed or fail one answer, that answer is off the table and sometimes new options for you to choose will show up, or you will exhaust the options you can see and have to choose from the ones left.

To successfully persuade someone, you need to fill all the pips. The color next to each answer determines how hard it is for each check to succeed. Green is easier, red is harder, so you might want to go slow and steady, or you might want to try a high risk, high reward option instead. (The +4 here will fill all the pips in one go if you succeed, for example).

There is also an Auto-Persuade option (not shown here). When you successfully pass checks, the Auto-Persuade ring will fill up a little with a blue outline. When full, you can hit the Auto-Persuade button to automatically complete the game.

The Persuasion skill will improve these odds of course, and this will be reflected in the text window itself. A character with a high persuasion skill might see green (easier) +3 options than someone who has no points into it, and Auto-Persuade will also be easier for them.
...

There are other ways to boost your skills. Some clothes have a small +5% to persuasion. There are drugs and food like wine that give you another +%, but you can't stack several of the same kind.

If you are really playing trying to persuade everyone, my recommendation is to put points into the skill and carry some boosters/dress appropriately. I'm not playing a persuasive character, so the way I do it, is just go for the highest yellow option first and see if I can get away with it. I've had several successes like this so far, but it's random chance, and if I fail, I just live with the consequences.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Starfield - Starfield Updates and Mod Support – September 13, 2023 - Steam News

Apparently SFSE is updated now.

Starfield Script Extender (SFSE)

Starfield Script Extender (SFSE) is a tool adding additional scripting capabilities and functionality to the game.

www.nexusmods.com

Gonna keep an eye on Reddit and Discord to see what people say when they test it.

Edit: We still have to wait for Baka's plugin and others to be enabled but that should be quick now that SFSE is updated.

---

Keeping old post because it's helpful to remember how to download old files from Steam Depots.

There's instructions in this thread to rollback the update if you'd rather wait until all the mods you use are updated too.


edit:
I just tried the commands and they work, well they downloaded something at least.

[LIST]
[*]Open "Run" menu (Windows Key + R)
[*]Type steam://open/console/ and hit enter, you should see a CONSOLE tab appear in the steam main window.
[*]Enter the command download_depot 1716740 1716741 4447793252473787578 into the console.
[/LIST]

download_depot 1716740 1716741 4447793252473787578
Downloading depot 1716741 (27 MB) ...
Depot download complete : "H:\Steam\steamapps\content\app_1716740\depot_1716741" (21 files, manifest 4447793252473787578)

I'll just rename the updated Starfield exe, copy in the old one from the downloaded depot and when SFSE and plugins are fixed rename the old depot exe, rename the updated exe and maybe verify files in Steam just in case.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I can wait some days for the mods getting the update needed. At least Bethesda put a FOV slider according to the release notes.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

I am going to start Starfield via SFSE in MO2 in a minute and see if it updates or not.
I have both the current and new update exe depots downloaded and backed up so i can play around with a rollback if required.

edit:
I changed nothing, launched Starfield via SFSE in MO2 and i'm playing.
So, changing Starfield to "Update when i launch the game" and then using SFSE from MO2 seems to not trigger the update process.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

First Contact - Quest Spoilers

Spoiler

So the mission starts in a very interesting way, there's this huge ship in orbit of Paradise a resort planet owned by a corporation and they ask you to try to contact the ship as they are afraid it may scary their guest and have an impact in their finances. I tried to communicate but I only got stactic, docked the ship and to my surprise it was a generational ship that left Earth before the grav drive invention!

The people have been living in that ship for more than 200 years and they finally reached they destination and they want to settle in this planet, her captain even mentions her ancestor made a claim to that planet back on Earth even though no one took him serious.

I went back to the CEOs and one seemed like a reasonable person wanting them to settle on the other side of the planet, though the other two were just you typical assholes, I thought there could be a way to find that claim on the planet and fuck that corporation, but no, you can't solve it that way. You can basically explode their ship, make they live in the planet in indentured servitude or spend my own money to retrofit a grav drive for their ship. WHY CAN'T I JUST KILL THE FUCKING CEO BETHESDA? It's one of the things that I always hated on Bethesda RPG, how some of their quest NPCs are just unkillable.

Long story short, I paid for the grav drive and I hope to see more of them in the future at least.

UC Vanguard - Quest Spoilers

Spoiler

You know, I didn't paid much attention to the UC lore before, and now doing the Vanguard quest line the whole idea behind the UC seems like the Starship Troopers book as you only get to your citizenship after serving for 10 years.

Besides that, I'm curious about the whole Terrormorph thing, I fought some of them before the quest so I had an idea about what to expect, the current shotgun I'm using also melts their health bar. I'm still not done with it so I'm curious to discover how the Terrormorphs always appears on settled worlds.

 

[hersheyfan]

Have any of y'all finished the Crimson Fleet quest line yet?

That finale was some super intense shit, just some Star Wars-ass moments. I just cleared it yesterday and its been burning me up having no one to talk to about it haha (all my IRL gaming friends havent beaten that quest line either).

And what major ship did you end up investing your money in?

 

[spindoctor]

First Contact - Quest Spoilers

Spoiler

So the mission starts in a very interesting way, there's this huge ship in orbit of Paradise a resort planet owned by a corporation and they ask you to try to contact the ship as they are afraid it may scary their guest and have an impact in their finances. I tried to communicate but I only got stactic, docked the ship and to my surprise it was a generational ship that left Earth before the grav drive invention!

The people have been living in that ship for more than 200 years and they finally reached they destination and they want to settle in this planet, her captain even mentions her ancestor made a claim to that planet back on Earth even though no one took him serious.

I went back to the CEOs and one seemed like a reasonable person wanting them to settle on the other side of the planet, though the other two were just you typical assholes, I thought there could be a way to find that claim on the planet and fuck that corporation, but no, you can't solve it that way. You can basically explode their ship, make they live in the planet in indentured servitude or spend my own money to retrofit a grav drive for their ship. WHY CAN'T I JUST KILL THE FUCKING CEO BETHESDA? It's one of the things that I always hated on Bethesda RPG, how some of their quest NPCs are just unkillable.

Long story short, I paid for the grav drive and I hope to see more of them in the future at least.

I swear I started writing a post about this quest yesterday and then just got lazy and gave up. For those who are not aware of it, this is a quest that starts on the planet which has the Paradiso resort. You will get a distress call if you enter the system which has that planet and that will start the quest. In general, I would recommend always responding to distress calls. They are always bespoke and interesting quests in my experience.

Spoiler

Although honestly I was disappointed with this quest. Mostly because it had so much potential and they just didn't tap into it. The idea of a generation ship in sci fi has an enormous number of possibilities for interesting stories, experiences, moral and ethical dilemmas and just a study of how an isolated society would evolve. It's such a vastly interesting topic that you could build an entire RPG just based on that setting itself and I understand BGS couldn't go that deep for a side quest but I feel like they could have done better anyway. For starters, the characters in the quest are rubbish. The colonists who believe that an entire planet should be evacuated because they have some centuries old claim that nobody knows about are genuinely insane. The moment you hear their request is when you realize you cannot be on their side. Then you go down to the planet and the Paradiso board of directors are written as cartoon villains. Their characterization is so shallow that they could have literally been replaced with cardboard signs with the words "Capitalism BAD" on them. And their solution of making the colonists into slaves is where they lose you as well. The only real solution to that quest is the one where you buy them a new grav drive and that will mean you personally lose 25-40k credits that you are not reimbursed for. Depending on when you do that quest, that could actually be a substantial amount of your total money. And the rewards you get for the quest... old world antiques... there's a guy in New Atlantis who says he collects those things so you think maybe you can go and sell them there to make some money but no, he offers the same price as every other shop. It would have been pretty cool if you had been able to link this random guy you come across at one point in the game with a quest that comes later, but they didn't think of it. This whole quest is one of missed opportunities.

Panda Pedinte I'm going to talk about what comes next in that quest and I can't put a spoiler tag within a spoiler I think so don't read ahead if you don't want to. That said, you've done 90% of the whole quest and what I'm about to say is not a major spoiler or anything, but figured I'd tag you anyway.

So after you've sent the colonists into a new system with their new grav drive, you can visit them again. This presents another opportunity for you to talk to them about how they feel now that they know they are not alone in the universe. And the game does adapt to that notion which is cool. You get a couple of side quests that could have been really interesting. One of the people on the ship expresses her desire to leave the ship now that they know that they can. But she is the one in charge of growing all their food. So you're given a sort of moral dilemma about whether you let her leave and put the rest of the ship in a dilemma or you suppress her desire for the greater good. Unfortunately, the actual resolution to the quest is that you either use Persuasion to get the captain to accept her request or you deliver... 50 potatoes... on her behalf so they can carry on until they can figure things out. This second option is so comical and ridiculous it completely breaks any immersion or any sense of gravitas that the quest might have had. There's another set of quests you can get which also have interesting possibilities but are reduced to simple fetch quests.

Ultimately I do appreciate that they put a reasonable amount of effort into this side quest but they could have done much better.

UC Vanguard - Quest Spoilers

Spoiler

You know, I didn't paid much attention to the UC lore before, and now doing the Vanguard quest line the whole idea behind the UC seems like the Starship Troopers book as you only get to your citizenship after serving for 10 years.

Besides that, I'm curious about the whole Terrormorph thing, I fought some of them before the quest so I had an idea about what to expect, the current shotgun I'm using also melts their health bar. I'm still not done with it so I'm curious to discover how the Terrormorphs always appears on settled worlds.

So far I've done the Vanguard and Freestar quest chains and I thought the Vanguard one was substantially better. But yes, you do need to pay a little bit of attention to the history of the colony wars to fully appreciate this quest. I've mentioned it earlier but I thought this quest chain was rather well done.

Have any of y'all finished the Crimson Fleet quest line yet?

I actually have a question about this. Are there two different Crimson Fleet quest lines? I got the one when you start the Vanguard chain where you presumably have to infiltrate the organization and do Vanguard stuff. But I've read there's another way to start the Crimson Fleet stuff and that is by getting caught smuggling contraband onto a planet. Are these the same quest chains?

And what major ship did you end up investing your money in?

I've not done this because it seems so expensive. I had another question. If I were to modify the Razorleaf and add or replace parts on it, would it still be recognized as the Mantis' ship by Spacers when I'm out and about in space? Because honestly I do like being recognized and the consequence that comes with it and obviously you cannot replicate that if you have another ship.

Meanwhile, I'm still loving the game. Still has those moments that make you smile every now and then. Like for example I was on Mars doing some quests. And so I'm bouncing around in the low gravity and Andreja actually says something along the lines of "If you enjoy jumping around in low gravity then this is the place for you". The devs realized that players would like jumping around in that gravity and actually got the voice actors to record a line to acknowledge and encourage it. Nice little touch. Another one is that if you've been to Earth or the Moon, you will notice there are no bespoke landing points on the planet. However, if you happen to find a copy of the novel Oliver Twist while playing the game and read it, you will get a marker on Earth to go to London. If you pickpocket Administrator Bayu at his club in Neon and go to his private suite, you will find a book that puts a marker for St. Louis on Earth. If you explore the Lodge properly you will find a book about Dr. Livingstone in one of the rooms that will put a marker for the Apollo landing site on the Moon. There are probably more of these that I haven't found yet and they are nothing more than easter eggs but they're nice little moments.

I had a question about Andreja's personal quest;

Spoiler

Does anyone feel like it ends a bit too abruptly? I let her kill that guy who betrayed them and then she says she cannot ever return home and that's that. I looked up what would happen if I had chosen another path but it always ends up the same way. I feel like there was more potential for the quest where you could have tried to find her home world or something like that. Also I have to admit I was surprised when she admitted to being Va'ruun. I honestly did not see that coming. Another minor victory for the writers' in managing to surprise me.

 

[C-Dub]

Have any of y'all finished the Crimson Fleet quest line yet?

That finale was some super intense shit, just some Star Wars-ass moments. I just cleared it yesterday and its been burning me up having no one to talk to about it haha (all my IRL gaming friends havent beaten that quest line either).

And what major ship did you end up investing your money in?

I’m right at the end of that quest line, right where I need to make my decision.

I know which decision I’m making, but I may discuss it once I’m done.

So far this is the best questline in the game. I’ve beaten the Vanguard one and at the end of this - I’ll be doing the FC Rangers one next and moving to Ryujin after that.

Not sure if there are any other major factions in the game but I’ll look into what to do once I’ve beat those, done a few sidequests and beat the main story.

 

[STHX]

I actually have a question about this. Are there two different Crimson Fleet quest lines? I got the one when you start the Vanguard chain where you presumably have to infiltrate the organization and do Vanguard stuff. But I've read there's another way to start the Crimson Fleet stuff and that is by getting caught smuggling contraband onto a planet. Are these the same quest chains?

There is not. It's also not limited to being caught smuggling: you just have to be arrested in UC space and you get recruited by the Sysdef regardless. This is my major disappointment with this quest chain because otherwise I have found the 4 faction questlines to be great. There should have been a way to join the Crimson Fleet on your own

 

[hersheyfan]

I actually have a question about this. Are there two different Crimson Fleet quest lines? I got the one when you start the Vanguard chain where you presumably have to infiltrate the organization and do Vanguard stuff. But I've read there's another way to start the Crimson Fleet stuff and that is by getting caught smuggling contraband onto a planet. Are these the same quest chains?

As STHX also mentioned, no it's just the one quest line - the getting caught smuggling part is just another way to onboard you. They did a really good job of having multiple ways of funneling people into their "highlight" content!

Oh, and thanks for the tip about getting St. Lou from Bayu! Will get on this.

I’m right at the end of that quest line, right where I need to make my decision.

I know which decision I’m making, but I may discuss it once I’m done.

So far this is the best questline in the game. I’ve beaten the Vanguard one and at the end of this - I’ll be doing the FC Rangers one next and moving to Ryujin after that.

Not sure if there are any other major factions in the game but I’ll look into what to do once I’ve beat those, done a few sidequests and beat the main story.

It's the first one I've really seen through to completion myself - I was getting annoyed at the Fleet charging me 15 grand for blowing up CF ships in random encounters, so I mainlined it.

The final mission is just so epic! Though I could see it being much more aggravating if I wasn't piloting the Stronghold... ship is just perfect for the way I like to play. Tons of cargo space, auto turrets everywhere and shields for days.

Ive decided im going to finish the UC Vanguard questline last of the main four, since everyone seems to hold it in very high regard. Or maybe I should do Ryujin?

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Star systems, planets and resource search | Starfield | INARA

The companion site for Starfield. Game data, galleries, news and more...

inara.cz

Good resource for when you're looking for a planet with some specific set of resources

 

[inky]

 

[Le Pertti]

I just don't know what to do with Encumbered, I keep levelling up strength but it does shit all with the amount of shit one has all the time and the cargo hold doesn't seem to be able to hold that much.

If wish the game had the same thing as BG3 where one can send anything back to the camps chest with infinite storage.

 

[spindoctor]

I just don't know what to do with Encumbered, I keep levelling up strength but it does shit all with the amount of shit one has all the time and the cargo hold doesn't seem to be able to hold that much.

Well there are a few things you can do. First is obviously investing skill points into the skill that increases your inventory capacity. There are also skill books you can find around the game which give you +5 unit increases to your limit. It might be worth checking a guide online to find their locations and go collect them. There's a skill in the Leadership tree that increases the inventory capacity of your followers by 50 units which is quite useful.

Beyond that, it's a matter of paying attention to what you're carrying. For example, grenades and mines have weight. I realized I don't really use mines so I sell them all and only keep a couple of types of grenades with me. Same goes for aid items. There are bottles of liquor that weight 0.5 units each. They give you bonuses to Persuasion but with the skill maxed out I don't really need them, and even if I did, I'd only need to carry around 2-3 of them. There's no reason to carry enough alcohol to stock a bar at all times. Same goes for food items that give you +3 or +5 health. Suppose you have 70% health left at the end of a fight. You then open up your inventory and start eating the sandwiches and the sushi rolls and what not for +5 health each time. You end up clicking 10-12 items and even then your health bar doesn't fill up. Meanwhile you have 100+ med packs that you aren't using because you want to be efficient and use up the smaller items first. It's not worth it. Only pick up food if you care about the cooking skill and in that case just dump it all into storage every time you go to the Lodge.

And then of course, the last thing is just don't pick up everything. There's only one activity in the game that requires large amounts of credits and that's ship building. If you care about that then you need to care about earning credits constantly. Otherwise you can just ignore most of the stuff that's lying around anyway. I just pick up blue or higher weapons/space suits and resources (which I pass on to my follower). Even just selling off this stuff can get annoying sometimes with the limited credits that each vendor carries. Having to actually farm credits is something I would not want to do in this game.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

 

[inky]

The first few hours I picked up everything, mined everywhere, etc, just to see what everything was and what was worth doing. Ammo was the only scarce thing early on, but I got into the habit of just buying it outright. Now I find more than I can ever use.

I find that picking up weapons (low weight modded pistols and smgs, but also prefixed usually sell for far more) and all the ammo is the best way to sell money. I don't bother with crafted resources unless they are exotic or unique as most others can be bought on a pinch from a variety of traders, and just bother buying or looting useful organic and inorganic resources in bulk and storing them in my ship. At first I didn't bother picking up anything below a 1:1000 weight to value ratio. These days I only really see at light weapons I can sell or stuff I can mod and use.

I only have 700 storage room in my ship and it's usually only filled up to ~500 with minerals. I use a 150 weight chest from the 2x1 living quarters module to store the crafting materials, and a workshop at my ship to craft everything). I've been going heavily down the Science tree to craft Suit and Weapon upgrades (Suit rank 3 and Weapons rank 4 atm) so I'm crafting a lot too, but there's a lot of resources you'll never use (I also just have everything useful tracked. At first I was annoyed that you can't untrack materials -seems like a bug- but it really helped me discern stuff I was never, ever using).

Of course if you are going down other crafting trees like Pharma or Outpost, your needs might change, but so far I think that weight capacity is not really an issue. You can pick up everything sure, but I rarely pick up anything if I don't have an immediate use for it and a couple of utility points into Commerce (I needed the points to get Xenosociology, which is so low in the Social tree which I don't really use) has made money not an issue at all. By level 30ish, I'd paid off my house mortgage, improved the Frontier by 100k credits, and built a Class B and Class C ships out of stolen ones, and still had 250k in the bank.

I find looting in this game to be 100% about self control. Maybe playing Fallout 4 survival so long prepared me for it. I can't imagine doing what other people are doing and waiting 48 hours every time the get to town to refresh the stores however many times. Doesn't sound like fun, and it's barely needed imo. Granted, if you're an outpost heavy player, that initial investment into a big freighter and getting all the aluminium and materials to get a couple outposts set up might be much more demanding.

 

[yuraya]

I bought the Silent Runner ship for 392k credits and wow the thing is pretty big. Its like an elongated 2 story house but it does feel a bit empty as I only have 3 crew in it.

6600 cargo is amazing tho but yea with a ship this big you have to invest skill points in social to boost the amount of crew you can have. Just seeing what this thing will be like with 8+ people on board will be a really fun and cozy time.

Also its a C class ship which means you need to invest a ton of skills points for the piloting too. Its easy to upgrade the piloting skill as the UC training simulator lets you perk up fast since you need to destroy so many ships.

Funny how we reached a point in games when you have to use an in-game simulator to level up your flight skills so you pilot a certain type of ship in the game you are playing heh

 

[spindoctor]

Man you guys weren't kidding about the Crimson Fleet quest line. It's actually amazing. I haven't even finished it yet and it's already better than the Vanguard one by some distance. The Vanguard quest line had sort of a classic science fiction story with some decent missions. Crimson Fleet on the other hand is just one banger mission after the other. My current headcanon is that Todd Howard went to Arkane studios, dragged a bunch of people back to BGS and locked them inside a room and told them they're not coming out until this quest line is finished. My only 'complaint' is that I wish the missions had been deeper and richer with more things to do. Imagine if there was a game in which all the missions played out like these. Oh wait, it exists, and it's called fucking Deus Ex.

Imagine reviewers giving this game a 4/10.

Imagine.

 

[inky]

 

[spindoctor]

Those are some very nice photos inky . I've been taking screenshots but I never mess with the filters to make them look better.

I finished up the Crimson Fleet quest line. It was fantastic all the way through to the very end. I remember back when Elder Scrolls Oblivion came out I was very disappointed with a lot of aspects of that game but one part that was undeniably great was the Dark Brotherhood quest line. Crimson Fleet is Starfield's Dark Brotherhood moment. Just a really entertaining series of quests if you like the kind of gameplay that they offer.

That being said, I can see that the game is starting to creak and stretch at the seams. I've started encountering bugs frequently. In one mission that I was playing completely non violently, all the characters in the level got alerted and drew their weapons. They didn't attack or anything but they never went back to their regular state and it was a bit surreal just walking around with everyone just pointing their guns everywhere. In another mission that was in stealth, an NPC got stuck in one place and I had no choice but to kill him to continue.

There's one particular bug that can happen that I'll mention. It is possible that you get stuck with a companion that you have no way to get rid of. When you talk to other companions to try and get them to follow you they'll do nothing. The way to fix that is to go to Vasco the robot, add him as crew to your ship and then recruit him as your companion. And then you can dismiss him and go and get another regular companion. Vasco is the only one who can bypass this rather severe bug. Something to keep in mind if it happens to you.

I think this is my cue to start looking at finishing the game up. I'm at the business end of the story now and there aren't that many side quests left to do.

So I started the last faction quest line (Ryujin). Honestly, doing it so late in the game when you have maxed out persuasion/security skills and all that just trivializes the whole quest chain. You're basically just running up and down the length of Neon city for most of that quest chain.

Some advice for those who are earlier on in the game; Unless you are the kind of person who is happy to go in guns blazing in any situation, it is worth investing in the stealth skill. You won't need it for the most part in the game but when you actually do, it is damn near impossible to pull off stealth without having points invested in it. Likewise, it is worth investing some points into the piloting skill. There is at least one instance in the game where you will need it. The problem here that you will need the highest tier skill in that chain (the ability to pilot class C ships). It's easy to level up the piloting skill in the Vanguard simulator but it requires a 4 skill point investment which is a LOT in this game. Skill points come way too slowly. I won't say you absolutely must get piloting because you don't but it is useful at certain juncture.

 

[BlackRainbowFT]

I bought the game half expecting to regret my purchase 30 minutes in... (I bought Morrowind back in the day and hated it, started Oblivion and hated it, ignored Skyrim completely, tried Fallout 3 and didn't like it one bit, etc.).

I've now played Starfield for 59 hours and it's probably going to be my GOTY.

Although I can't say I enjoy every design decision.

• I love the idea of NG+, but they made it a grind fest there's no way I was going to repeat all 24 temples 10 times in order to max out my powers. I've resorted to skipping ("cheating") to the tenth NG in order to settle down to enjoy all side content once I've collected all 24 powers at least once, I'll use the console to raise them to level 10... and thank god I mostly played the main quest and somewhat ignored the side quests! Otherwise I'd have been pissed.
• Around level 30 the progression truly slows down to a crawl... thankfully I found this mod aptly named "Less Heinous Leveling XP" which makes it way more bearable.
• The UI/UX is sometimes a massive PITA. This mod fixes 99% of my complaints in regards to inventory management, but other things have yet to be fixed (why am I unable to look at the research requirements if I'm not in front of a research station? Steam's new notes feature has been quite useful in this regard).

Unrelated to game design, I just hope someone will able to add subsurface scattering to plants (more than humans)... because those damn congealed/fossilized trees on Atlantis are an eyesore.

Other than that, from a narrative standpoint this game is fantastic.

 

[yuraya]

The more I play this game the more I think how crazy it is Bethesda didn't do a separate online mode for it.

I get that they are your classic singleplayer devs but man...in a world where GTA online and StarCitizen exists...this game would blow up big with a proper/balanced/fair online mode.

And they were bought out by MS so they could implement a lot of cloud services/tech into all these systems. Like having a 10-20 player server for each planet/moon in the game. Or something functional along those lines. The roleplaying and grinding aspect of everything would be a ton of fun as well with friends/strangers.

It would probably require them to really update and add a bunch of other things like multiplayer raids and missions. Plus I know it would require adding a lot of slimey shit like battlepasses, microtransactions etc but I think they would be crazy not try n do it in future.

I know its unlikely but still you would think a lot of the hard work is already done for them and their support for ESO + F76 shows they are more than capable.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Starfield - Starfield Updates 1.7.33 – September 25, 2023 - Steam News

A small update has gone out for Starfield on Xbox Series X|S, Microsoft Store, and Steam. This update addresses some issues with performance and stability as well as a few general gameplay issues. We are continuing to work on a larger update that will add features and improvements that we noted...

store.steampowered.com

This update just released.

 

[Le Pertti]

Im trying to save up for a new ship, have 200k already, don't need much more to get a good ship! And can't wait to start customising that ship. Any of you done any cool ships?

 

[BlackRainbowFT]

Im trying to save up for a new ship, have 200k already, don't need much more to get a good ship! And can't wait to start customising that ship. Any of you done any cool ships?

Nah. Too rich for my blood... or at least up until now. In my first playthrough I did manage to "borrow" one with something like 3000+ cargo space. The ship just randomly landed on the planet I was scanning... I didn't kill anyone, jumped in and just took off. No bounties, no nothing. ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ

With that said, even though I like how nimble my current Starborn VI ship is... It's very limited and I'll probably end up splurging on a better ship. I saw a few 200k models but I wonder if there are even fancier models being sold somewhere. I currently have more than 300k saved up.

About the update: how annoying. Quite a few people are reporting broken mods...

Edit

SNIP

With all those loading screens I'm not sure it would be a good experience, but what do I know. But if modders were able to make something like Just Cause 3's multiplayer mod... than I guess you'd only have to wait for an industrious tinkerer to take up on the challenge.

 

[bobnowhere]

I somehow managed to get a starborn ship without going through NG+. I've had a bug for at least a week now where ships on the surface and some in space are completely empty, devoid of enemies. I can just wander in and take them, no loot though. For some reason it gave me access to a starborn one when it shouldn't!

I also have one completely broken quest, the one you get from Galbank on New Atlantis as a debt collector.

My C class monster, so far only once has a fight actually got though my shields and that was like 4x 60+ ships. Best reactor, best engines, best grav. 2x best missiles that one or two shot most ships. 4x the best targetable particle cannons and 2x the best particle turrets that frequently destroy ships I haven't even noticed. 3 floors of habs with every room bar the jail. 9 crew. Almost 4ooo cargo. Cost about 500k ish to put together.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

Im trying to save up for a new ship, have 200k already, don't need much more to get a good ship! And can't wait to start customising that ship. Any of you done any cool ships?

Cool might be exaggerate but this one is my proudest creation so far:

 

[Panda Pedinte]

So I was doing a mission around Akila city

Spoiler

about the sensors stuff an the ashta and I'm supposed to fight against this supposed big enemy, so I decide to try this new pistol I got and the whole enemy's shield/health just melted with a single shot lol

 

[BlackRainbowFT]

Cool might be exaggerate but this one is my proudest creation so far:

I like it! But it took me a while to figure out what it reminded me of.

Spoiler

 

[spindoctor]

I finished Ryujin Industries last night and I found it extremely disappointing. It's easily the worst faction quest line. The entire plot is based around corporate espionage so it's just awful companies doing awful things to each other. The actual plot doesn't even really kick in until the last 25% or so of the entire series.

But the worst part is just how buggy it is. The bugs I had listed in my previous post happened during Ryujin. When I continued it I got even more. In one mission I had to infiltrate some location and you get a periodic warning flashing on the top of your screen that you're trespassing and people will become hostile if you're spotted. That's fine, except that status remained even after I left the restricted area and finished the quest. I was roaming around the city and still getting that notification. And when you're trespassing you cannot rest. Had to check online and try a number of things to fix it (restarting game/fast traveling/getting arrested). Then in the very next quest I'm supposed to talk to someone in a room. The moment I reach the floor the room is on she starts floating upwards and through the roof. Fortunately you can go up 2 floors with the elevator and she didn't float all the way out of the map and so I could still speak to her. During the dialog cutscene you're talking to people who are two floors below you through the floor and all. Just very poor QA during this entire quest chain. Stark difference with the rest of the game in that regard. Also, I mentioned that you should invest in stealth skills if you want to play in stealth. The last few quests of this chain are pure stealth missions and stealth skills are not optional. I don't think it's actually possible to complete them without investing in that skill because of how inconsistent and glitchy stealth can be in the game. NPCs can hear you from distances they should not be able to and they will sometimes get alerted when they shouldn't or get stuck in a place and you'll have no way to proceed until you reload a save. The level design is actually fairly good for stealth gameplay and you have several options to proceed but it's just frustrating if the systems are breaking around you.

Anyway I did manage to finish it and I was fairly annoyed but I didn't realize until later that I was actually lucky to do so. I was reading some replies to the tweet which announced the patch notes yesterday and loads of people were complaining about severe bugs in this quest chain that prevented them from even being able to finish it. Like you complete one quest and the next one doesn't even trigger even though all the NPCs behave like it has. Or important NPCs just going missing altogether. You can tell that there is a decent level of complexity in the design of the quest ranging from choices you can make and possible outcomes as well in the gameplay choices. The problem is that this doesn't matter if the game just keeps glitching all the time.

Again, the lack of polish in this quest chain is a stark contrast to the entire rest of the game so far.

Anyway, I've finished all the factions now and I have a couple of side quests left to do in higher level regions. One of them requires a ship which has a jump range of 27 light years so I'll have to figure that out. Once those are done it's a straight shot to the end of the story. Hoping to finish it up by the end of this week.

 

[Le Pertti]

I stole my first ship! I was scanning around a planet and it was just there, didn't see any people(didn't look that hard) so went in and just flew away with it!

 

[Le Pertti]

Managed to steal a nice crimson fleet ship today! But did it in a not so nice way, since I am part of the fleet, well undercover, so I could just go on the ship without them attacking me but they flew into space so only thing for me to do was to kill them, which I did and could do it without them even getting agro on me... but felt so bad after that so I reloaded an older save.XD Like it didn't match the character I was playing.

 

[spindoctor]

Finally finished the game. I liked that there was some variety in the last few missions. There's one mission near the end that is somewhat structurally similar to a highly acclaimed mission from another well liked game. That was fun to play. The story really kicks into gear when you're about two-thirds of the way through the main campaign and it's pretty good after that.

I've moved into NG+ but I'm usually not the kind of player to do NG+ and I certainly am not keen to repeat such a long game that I just played. I might play a bit more to check out what's new in this mode but otherwise I think I'm mostly done with it for now.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the game. The BGS formula in a science fiction/space sim setting hit the target for my tastes more than I thought it would. Some annoyances here and there with some bugs and glitches but overall it was a great time. My biggest issue with the game would be that XP gain is just too slow which means you cannot invest in all the skills you might want. The other problems are inventory space limits and item management which make it so annoying to engage with research and crafting systems and outpost building.

Great game nonetheless.

 

[spindoctor]

I finished NG+ last night. The game lets you skip the main story and I didn't do any of the side quests so it was just a few hours to get to the point where I could start NG++. Did it mostly to see what the big deal was about NG+.

Can't talk about any of it because spoilers obviously but there are certainly some interesting ideas in it. Some are more impactful if you do short playthroughs like I did and some will be more meaningful if you do full playthroughs again.

I would certainly NOT recommend rushing through your first playthrough to get to NG+ like many had suggested earlier on. Definitely play the game at your own pace and in your own way. You'll get to see the cool stuff eventually but it shouldn't influence how you play the game otherwise.