Starfield (Bethesda Game Studios)

[Mister Pink]

I'm 50+ hours in and still discovering things in New Atlantis. In a way,  I kind of appreciate that there's no map as things are always just discovered in a more organic way. I always passed the UC Distribution Centre but never bothered going in until recently. They've got great items for sale in there. Also, didn't come across Outland til recently either. 

 

I've still only done one main story mission. I'm just having lots of fun, exploring, doing bounties. Twice now, I've got arrested and it's taken me to a new place. For example, I got arrested for stealing on that clinic space station. The clinic was great because ever NPC has some dialogue. And I love that many NPCs have these conversations with you that just add to the world and just add to the lore. Not ever NPC that talks to you and engages in conversation is a mission-giver which is a lovely touch! So, got arrested in that space station, Then it took me to Hopeland. I really like Hopeland. It's like a massive truckstop but for spaceships. Seeing two massive spaceships in a hangar was cool. The little stories where you can help people and activities are f*cking brilliant. I feel bad for anyone that gave up early on this game. 

 

Normally around 50hrs I tend to put a game down for a break but Starfield seems to just get better as you progress. I haven't done so many things. I haven't built a ship from scratch, I've barely levelled up, I've barely added weapons mods and I haven't built any outposts or set up proper trade routes. I've spent f*ck-all time in Neon, despite my signature here, lol, I've spent about 20mins in Akila. I've all Neon and Akila ahead of me. I'm still just living out of New Atlantis and I'm just trying to do as much as I can before I move off-world. 

 

I think like San Andreas or RDR2, I'm going to "live" in each city, if I can. Blend in, dress like the locals and roleplay a bit. Just do all the content I can in each city that I can do. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Mister Pink

[Tacymist]

[Jason]

50 hours and having barely spent any time in Neon and Akila, damn lol. I'd probably say Neon has more quests than NA tbh, at least it feels that way. Akila is not exactly lacking in that area either, with the trio of Neon, NA and Akila being the three main cities in the game. Stuff like Hopetown, Gargatan (or w/e it's called), New Homestead and a few others all have their own stuff as well, ableit on a smaller scale.

 

I'm having a lot of fun with Cyberpunk 2.0 and starting tomorrow no doubt with Phantom Liberty but I'm still thinking about Starfield and my second playthrough. Definitely going with a merc playthrough, probably do more mission board stuff in that save as well. I won't really be touching the main story at all in that save once I get Andreja I think, as I want to do her companion quest after doing Sarah's and Barret's in my first playthrough. Got no interest in Sam's lol, he's never setting foot on my ship ever again cause of Cora.

 

 

[OysterBarron]

I feel like I got trolled last night by the random generated missions planetside. I noticed on the horizon that there appeared to be some kind of structure thurther in the distance than any other random gen structure I've come across so part of me is like this might be something special. I waltz over there and looking at my ship I was over 4000m from that location so I'm thinking damn this must be on the edge of the playable area, after some exploration it turned out to be a small camp with just one person in it, that person was a bounty hunter and after a conversation she offers me togo half's on a bounty she's tracking at a listening station i accept thinking to myself at least this journey was slightly worth it. She marks the waypoint on my map and says I will meet you there, cool cool I thought until I realised it was 7000m in the opposite direction.

 

Are you serious....

Edited September 25, 2023 by OysterBarron

[Margot Robbed Me]

6 hours ago, Jason said:

I'm having a lot of fun with Cyberpunk 2.0 and starting tomorrow no doubt with Phantom Liberty but I'm still thinking about Starfield and my second playthrough. Definitely going with a merc playthrough, probably do more mission board stuff in that save as well. I won't really be touching the main story at all in that save once I get Andreja I think, as I want to do her companion quest after doing Sarah's and Barret's in my first playthrough. Got no interest in Sam's lol, he's never setting foot on my ship ever again cause of Cora.

 

I keep Sam on my ship because he actually boosts your ship speed. It's how I manage to get my top speed to 280, and a boost speed of 1118. Without Sam on your ship, you are capped at 215 speed and 862 boost speed. The only other way I've gotten that boost without using Sam is by using a certain Amelia that can be made part of your crew in one of the side quests. They don't stack either, I've tried both Sam and Amelia on my ship, along with Andromeda Kepler, and two propulsion specialists and my top speed didn't exceed 280. The Piloting skill seems to be what affects it, and Sam and Amelia are the only ones I've found with high enough points in it to add the green bar. It seems to only count the higher value, any other additions are disregarded. Which seems broken. Because then it means propulsion specialists are completely useless. If you have only propulsion specialists, and no green bar is added, then they do nothing.

 

Cora doesn't bother me. Then again, Marika is also on my ship. The atmosphere just feels more lighthearted with them on the crew. I wish they'd increase the crew size beyond 8 so that those large habs (2x2,2x3, etc) don't feel so empty. Right now, I avoid the large habs because it feels empty.

[Failed Again]

7 hours ago, Tacymist said:

Steely Dan 8.0

50 minutes ago, Misumi said:

 

I keep Sam on my ship because he actually boosts your ship speed. It's how I manage to get my top speed to 280, and a boost speed of 1118. Without Sam on your ship, you are capped at 215 speed and 862 boost speed. The only other way I've gotten that boost without using Sam is by using a certain Amelia that can be made part of your crew in one of the side quests. They don't stack either, I've tried both Sam and Amelia on my ship, along with Andromeda Kepler, and two propulsion specialists and my top speed didn't exceed 280. The Piloting skill seems to be what affects it, and Sam and Amelia are the only ones I've found with high enough points in it to add the green bar. It seems to only count the higher value, any other additions are disregarded. Which seems broken. Because then it means propulsion specialists are completely useless. If you have only propulsion specialists, and no green bar is added, then they do nothing.

 

Cora doesn't bother me. Then again, Marika is also on my ship. The atmosphere just feels more lighthearted with them on the crew. I wish they'd increase the crew size beyond 8 so that those large habs (2x2,2x3, etc) don't feel so empty. Right now, I avoid the large habs because it feels empty.

I shot the Sherif. (coe) he whistled off key...

[Frabbi 01]

9 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

 In a way,  I kind of appreciate that there's no map as things are always just discovered in a more organic way.

Same here. No map doesn't bother me. I agree about the discovery, and also feel like this is a game to just take your time with and enjoy. Can't wait to see how they support it in thw future.

9 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

 

I've still only done one main story mission.

After you start the story again, complete through mission 5 I think, "Into the Unknown." I did that and then stopped to explore again. Trying to hold out on continuing, but it's quite a challenge, because I'm entering WTF territory. Trust me on this one.....

 

8 hours ago, Jason said:

Got no interest in Sam's lol, he's never setting foot on my ship ever again cause of Cora.

 

 

Then you'll REALLY love this one:

 

[Mister Pink]

19 hours ago, Jason said:

50 hours and having barely spent any time in Neon and Akila, damn lol. I'd probably say Neon has more quests than NA tbh, at least it feels that way. Akila is not exactly lacking in that area either, with the trio of Neon, NA and Akila being the three main cities in the game. Stuff like Hopetown, Gargatan (or w/e it's called), New Homestead and a few others all have their own stuff as well, ableit on a smaller scale.

That's really good to know. I've never heard of New Homestead and was hoping there were still more towns to discover that weren't shown in the showcase. 

 

10 hours ago, Frabbi 01 said:

Same here. No map doesn't bother me. I agree about the discovery, and also feel like this is a game to just take your time with and enjoy. Can't wait to see how they support it in thw future.

I'm glad someone else thinks like that. Don't get me wrong, it can sometimes be annoying with no map. I do try to keep positive though.  It might be interesting if there was a discoverable map or a local map you could buy at a trader. Or you can download a map in the game as a kiosk. 

 

[Jason]

The lack of a map can be problematic at times when you're brand new to the game but the towns aren't really hard to learn. Outside the main street of Neon is probably the hardest to learn and most will still follow quest markers there I'd guess, but NA and Akila are pretty straight forward layout wise.

[cant remember]

I finally moved the game to an SSD and now it works. I was following a main questline and did a slight detour to land on the moon, I also tried landing on earth, where my house would be but it was a barren wasteland. Pretty fun game so far though I'm still at the stage where I don't understand everything.

 

I was a little peeved that even though the overmap showed me being on the side of the moon facing earth, I couldn't actually see earth from the moon's "map". You're essentially fast traveling from map to map. I also have a companion following me from the main questline and she's pretty helpful during combat.

[Jason]

You should be able to see Earth from the moon I believe? The solar systems are fully simulated from what I understand, they're not a skybox. Planets and moons spin and orbit etc.

[Mister Pink]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

You should be able to see Earth from the moon I believe? The solar systems are fully simulated from what I understand, they're not a skybox. Planets and moons spin and orbit etc.

This is correct. 

 

I could see Earth from the moon. It's small but bigger than all the other stars so it should be obvious enough. 

 

Starfield does the textbook thing Tyson talks about here. Planets are really spread out mad far from each other. That's why if you are just viewing a system and planets look close and you imagine X planet is going to look massive when viewed from Y planet and it's not - it's just that the map does that text book thing. They wouldn't be able to for all plants in the same screen at their size if they had a realistic scale of distance. 

 

 

[OysterBarron]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

You should be able to see Earth from the moon I believe? The solar systems are fully simulated from what I understand, they're not a skybox. Planets and moons spin and orbit etc.

It appears that was just marketing bull unless its a current bug, I noticed the other evening and made a point of landing on a moon so the gas giant that it orbits would be directly above my landing spot, when I got down there it was just above the horizon.

 

So something isn't simulating properly or the system map view is skewed compared to the physical position of it planetside.

[Margot Robbed Me]

You can see Earth from Luna. You just have to land on the correct side.

 

In real life, the moon is locked to Earth so we see the same side every time. The Near Side of the moon is where you have to land in order to see the Earth. It's quite easily identifiable by all of the dark features on it. If you're into the whole Alien universe and are familiar with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. They actually have their HQ at the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis), which is the only reason I know about these lunar features. 

 

 

In the game however, the moon is rotated. You shouldn't be able to see the Earth from the moon if you land at the Sea of Tranquility while it is in this orientation. But you can. So ignore the actual Earth/Luna placement and just land in the area that we would consider the near side in "real life", and you should see Earth as a white ball in the sky.

The landing site I chose was Lacus Somniorum.

 

 

[Emmi]

 

[Mister Pink]

I don't think there are any games to compare to Starfield that don't have seamless fast travel or atmospheric flight. Comparing NMS is awful. It just doesn't have all the systems Starfield has like a gargantuan amount of objects in the game that you can pick up, store, blow up etc that the game stores and remembers. Let alone the story, the NPC dialogue, expansive shipbuilding and deeper character customisation. They're two different beasts. What else have you? Star Citizen, a €500m live service game, a game 13 years in production with twice the amount of developers (1,100). Versus, a game that went into production in 2015 and cost €200m with 500 devs. 

 

I think the closest game to compare Starfield to is Mass Effect: Andromeda. Their budget was about €40m with about 200 staff. I think BioWare actually punched above their weight mostly, but were shafted on the budget, hence the outsourcing of facial animations. But the scope of the game - multiple planets with some open-world areas is more akin to Starfield. Nobody really complained about loading screens in Andromeda. Sure, it was last generation. But no complete, AAA games that have the same amount of scale: mission content, lines of dialogue, customisation as Starfield and have no loading screens. Anyone enjoying BGS games in the last 10 years has been confronted with loading screens; Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Starfield is no different. I always say Starfield as an evolution of Mass Effect. I think if Mass Effect 5 had the same functions as Starfield and Starfield didn't exist, there would be no faux outrage at loading screens. Also, I'd love atmospheric flight but really, with Starfield you can skip the atmospheric part, fast travel to your ship and then fast travel to the planet you want. Loading screens takes like 2 seconds.  

 

When no loading screens become standard for massive intergalactic RPGs and BGS still have loading screens then, I'd complain. But right now it's not standard. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Mister Pink

[Jason]

I don't think Starfield is a technical showpiece of a game by any means, like Cyberpunk is, but the inconsistency with instanced locations is a blemish on Starfield. It's easy to get used to and ultimately not a huge deal but given some interiors don't have loading screens and some do it's a bit odd.

 

That being said, as has been said, Starfield has vastly different design goals to something like Cyberpunk. Starfield's core design goal, if there is one, is probably player freedom. BGS make jack of all trades games, loaded with systems and various ways to play the game. They don't really ever single out certain systems and mechanics too much and give them a significant amount of attention over something else and the result of this is their games, Starfield included, rarely do anything great. They do a lot good, usually some meh or bad, but single specific mechanics or systems in a BGS game are, IMO, rarely truly great. The magic of BGS games though are when you combine all those good and even meh and bad systems altogether into one game cause the result of that is something special, a game like literally no other beyond other BGS titles.

 

Cyberpunk on the other hand is very different. The game is designed to be incredibly immersive. It's a first person only game that uses that perspective in ways I've never really seen a game do before as typically first person story telling in a FPS is done in a Half-Life style way where everyone interacts with the world except you. Cyberpunk however has you interact with the world directly during moments of story telling - sitting down at tables, sitting down next to people, getting right in peoples faces and people getting in yours, watching V touch and feel things, etc. The game being completely seamless is a deliberate part of this hyper focus on immersion.

 

In any case, it's classic video game whataboutism. Cyberpunk does this! Starfield doesn't! Look at how much better Cyberpunk is! Meanwhile I can go build a spaceship out of a wide variety of parts and make something literally no other person has made.

 

And I say all this as someone knee deep in Cyberpunk 2.0 who started the expansion last night and is thinking that Cyberpunk 2.0 & Phantom Liberty, or Cyberpunk "complete" edition for lack of a better term, is very probably going to end up in the top 5 of my best games I've ever played, which Starfield isn't in.

[Failed Again]

I was hoping for more vibrant landscapes, and cave type locations. 

With all the incredible locations and dungeons in ESO - Starfield so far seems lacking.

 

I did see a beginning of hope on my last mission to help Sara. 

So maybe there's still much to see.

 

Also Romancing companions has always seemed creepy to me.

Been married over 40 years and - It seems disloyal.

So, I avoid it. 

 

[Mister Pink]

4 hours ago, Failed Again said:

I was hoping for more vibrant landscapes, and cave type locations. 

With all the incredible locations and dungeons in ESO - Starfield so far seems lacking.

Yeah, the caves definitely seem a bit lacking, which might be a bit of a lazy oversight given a huge amount of us are coming from Skyrim. And I get it might not be realistic that caves are such a big thing on planets but it's believable enough and they could have taken artistic licence with it. 

 

4 hours ago, Failed Again said:

Also Romancing companions has always seemed creepy to me.

Been married over 40 years and - It seems disloyal.

So, I avoid it. 

Also, don't cheat on your wife in a space video game. She might actually think you are not only a cheater but a fine astronaut. 

[lndex]

I was wondering. Do rivers or small streams exist on some planets? I saw a post on Reddit about someone's game accidentally generating a river. It honestly looked like the type of place you'd want a small, cosy outpost next to as well.

[Margot Robbed Me]

If you spend enough time, you'll probably run into a randomly generated one. Sometimes you can land at the same spot on a planet (by reloading a save) and it will generate something different.

[Jason]

Rivers have been found in the games proc gen code but they seem to be extremely rare as far as I've seen.

[Tacymist]

I been dabbling in the ship builder more lately, finally gotten my head around it. Controls are still ass, but I'm adjusting.

 

 

I bought that ship called Stronghold, very high shields and haul rating. Swapped out the cockpit for one I bought on Deimos, added some wings, and changed most of the habs to Deimos habs just to go with the cockpit. Made some other minor cosmetic changes just to make it a little more symmetrical. 

 

 

Around the back I added a couple more engines. Originally I had them all in a straight line but that looked boring so I raised up the two on the ends. Slapped on some more fuel tanks because I love the aesthetic. 

 

 

I just love this shot.

[Failed Again]

Anyone who got the Kempler S, like it?

 

I'm not to found of it.

I don't like the inside trashy look.

 

If you like it, any suggestions on Fitting.

tx

[Jason]

I got the "all in one" ship from that quest, it's the ship I used to the end of the game albeit with a lot of modifications by the end.

[Emmi]

Honestly I consider Starfield to be THE no. 1 contender for the 'letdown-of-the-year' award from this years' game releases. From all the hype pre-release and all the interviews from Todd even starting comparisons with RDR2 (I think he already regrets having mentioned RDR2 and Starfield in the same sentence by now) there's not much this game has going for other than this nonsense of 1000+ planets from which 99.9% are as soulless and uninspired a place can be and do nothing to improve the experience at all. I won't even start to talk about the insane loading times and ancient technology this game is running on ... I don't think Starfield will get much game of the year awards IF any seeing the competition out there and how they pretty much outdid Starfield in every single aspect. I don't even hear or read much about this game on forums these days anymore and that's always a huge indicator for something that is an experience easily forgotten about. 25 years in the making ... yeah sure. It will make for good memes though.

[AZAZEL]

1 hour ago, Emmi said:

I won't even start to talk about the insane loading times and ancient technology this game is running on ...

 

Speaking of ancient technology - the loading times are only long, if you disregard the minimum spec recommendation of installing the game on an SSD. All the loading screens I've encountered have been roughly 3-7 seconds.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Emmi said:

From all the hype pre-release and all the interviews from Todd even starting comparisons with RDR2 (I think he already regrets having mentioned RDR2 and Starfield in the same sentence by now) 

 

He referenced RDR2 as a game where you can live in the world, which you can in Starfield. Create your own ships, buy your own homes and decorate them, build outposts, etc.

 

1 hour ago, Emmi said:

there's not much this game has going for other than this nonsense of 1000+ planets from which 99.9% are as soulless and uninspired a place can be and do nothing to improve the experience at all.

 

lol

 

1 hour ago, Emmi said:

I don't think Starfield will get much game of the year awards

 

I don't either, because this isn't the game of the year. Baldur's Gate 3 is, and it's in the same genre so it'll get the genre specific awards as well.

 

1 hour ago, Emmi said:

I don't even hear or read much about this game on forums these days anymore and that's always a huge indicator for something that is an experience easily forgotten about. 25 years in the making

 

Most notable video game forums have active threads on Starfield and the community is still very active in terms of sharing stuff from the game, like ship builds. Plus the mod community is already active despite no official mod tools.

 

I get you don't like the game - you don't like anything without a R* or Naughty Dog logo on the box these days - but every time you come into this thread you post garbage opinions on the game that fall to pieces at the first hint of scrutiny.

[lndex]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I don't either, because this isn't the game of the year. Baldur's Gate 3 is, and it's in the same genre so it'll get the genre specific awards as well.

 

 

Realistically - Zelda TotK, Ideally - BG3

[Jason]

An iterative sequel getting the majority of the GoTY awards over a highly innovative and risky standard setter for RPG's would just cement my belief that Nintendo could sell a turd for $70 and have it win GoTY.

 

It's not a knock on ToTK, it's obviously a great game and I know BG3 has some issues in places but BG3 deserves all the plaudits this year. It's everything we want from a new game in 2023.