Elite handles the transitions really really well (but then, flying around is the entire game). But you’re actually incorrect. From the game/server perspective, you load into a new “cell” when you drop in and out of Frameshift Drive or Supercruise. Elite is very very good about masking this so that you have a smooth and seemless experience of piloting a ship, but the way it works under the hood is very very different from a game that actually simulates all of the space around and between planets, like Kerbal Space Program (full physics only exists for objects in a bubble around you, but the whole space is really there in one “cell”).
In Elite, once you “load” into the space above a planet, it’s true that flying down to the surface and around it is all done in one space. Elite does do a much better job of this specific area than Starfield does. But that’s the entire game I’ve tried to get into Elite a number of times, I even have the expansions, but somehow they made SPACE boring.
Elite is seamless enough I don’t think it really matters. Visually, timing, and controls, you are really doing it as if it were real-time. I’m sure games do all sorts of things behind the scenes, like the hidden merchant chests in Skyrim (they exist in Starfield too), and the fact that the moving train in Fallout 3 is actually attached to an NPC head.
I just wish Starfield would have done something more/better.
My first outpost was in a spot with 4 different resources, one of them legendary. I will admit I cheated; I did some poking around and someone on Reddit posted where they built their outpost, so I did what I could to try to find a spot close to theirs. There is still a lot of luck involved, but I guess I got lucky. I have harvesters going for all of the materials.
When I first created the outpost I thought it only had one element (Helium), and was frustrated. But then I realized that when you are in build mode, there will be an option for a harvester for each type of element within the bounds of the outpost. When you choose a harvester, the map will change to highlight where that harvester can go. (I use the top-down view for it.) Once I figured that out, I was ecstatic, and got harvesters going all over the map. Atamasama Industries is born!
Between Skyrim, FO3, FO4, and FO New Vegas, I’ve got thousand of hours in Bethesda games (modders give a long life to these games). I even have a few hundred in FO76. I love open-world Bethesda games, and I’ve been waiting for a good new one for years(I dont’ count FO97 as very good). I was concerned at first, but after about 20 hours, Starfield opened up and I started to feel more at ease in the world. I’m over 60 hours in now, mostly doing planetside stuff. I’m finally starting to get ‘hooked’, like with past games.
I haven’t build a ship or an outpost yet, but the game seems pretty big. I wonder how this compares to FO4 and Skyrim, in terms of number of missions and places of interest.
I’m having a hard time with the space combat though. I have the Mantis ship, but some missions I pop out of hyperspace with a whole bunch of enemy targeting me, and I can’t handle them all. Even if I switch to Very Easy, there are some missions I can’t do. There’s just so many ships, and they’re on me so fast.
I’ll watch some more Youtube videos to see if it helps, but it would be nice if we could come out of hyperspace somewhere further away and pick where we want to approach the enemy. I have a little trouble seeing what’s going on sometimes as well, with all the rocks floating by. I often lose track of the enemy when they have a bright planet behind them. I hope there will be some sort of visibility mod on the Nexus.
I did some googling, and it seems like it just me with these issues. I’m gonna be bummed if I can’t get the hang of space combat in a game called Starfield.
Make sure you have at least one rank of Piloting so that you can boost, that can get you out of the line of fire for a bit when you’re taking on a lot of hits at once. And more importantly, if you’re targeted by a missile, you’ll get a warning and can boost out of its way to avoid being hit.
Boost is also great if your shields go down. I put my speed to max, boost, and get out of range a bit so my shield has time to regenerate. It can be tricky to shake them but it has worked for me.
Target Control System is a great perk. It’s almost like VATS light. When an enemy ship is on your sights long enough, they are tracked and you hit a button and go into sort of a “slow motion” mode for a bit. Then you can target guns, engines, shield, etc. It’s handy later on for disabling engines so you can board and take a ship. (My current ship, replacing the Mantis, is a level 30 Raven II that I was able to capture from Spacers.) But even before you’re doing that, it’s a handy way to toss a lot of damage against an enemy. It’s the primary way I beat enemies.
The lock system is also needed for missiles. This game has no ammo, just cooldowns and recharges. So don’t hesitate to throw all you can at enemies in your sights including missiles. Once you have an enemy locked, fire that missile. You can also shoot them when tracking an enemy with Target Control System; your missiles are locked on for the duration.
When outfitting my ship I avoid lasers and ballistic weapons. I go with two sets of particle weapons and shoot them simultaneously. They rip up shields and hull the same amount, and simplify combat. And keep an eye on range; I only get weapons with a reasonable range so that enemies aren’t shooting at me when I can’t shoot back.
In combat I target the weakest ships first. If you have say 4 enemies, 3 are scrubs and one is powerful, ignore the strong one at first. If you’re spending time chipping away at it, you have 4 ships ripping you up. Take out the weaklings quickly, 1-2-3, and you’ll find it’s just you and the big guy pretty soon, and now only one ship is hitting you as you chip away.
Keep an eye on your hull and don’t hesitate to repair if it’s getting low. Make sure to keep a lot of ship parts. If I don’t have at least 10 at any given time I’m nervous. You can pick them up from many vendors under the “aid” category hidden among the med packs and snack foods. Remember they have to be in your ship’s cargo hold to be usable; if they’re in your character’s inventory they don’t count. Plus they weigh 10 lbs each so you don’t want them burdening you anyway.
Those are all the tips I can think of. I’ve found space combat to be fun and not too overwhelming once I figured out some tricks and got the hang of it.
Good advice. Another thing to try is to use turrets instead of normal guns. They auto-fire instead of requiring aiming. There are some downsides:
They ignore your targeting, so can sometimes spread their shots around instead of focusing on one enemy at a time
There’s no means of stopping them, so they’re useless for boarding (though you can put them in a separate weapons group that you depower if you want to board)
But they do let you focus on flying instead of firing, and let you fly in different directions than you’d normally be able to. For example, none of that playing chicken thing that always comes up in space combat games. Instead, fly off-center and as erratically as you can. The turrets do the rest.
I don’t think you can upgrade most guns to turrets; you’ll have to use the builder instead. When you place them, make sure they’re pointing forward (use the Z button to rotate if needed).
Just built myself a nice, compact class C gunship. It has 3 alpha turrets on it now, and blasts through enemies like tissue paper, but it has reactor juice to spare and I think I can squeeze even more guns on it.
One of the perks allows use of side thrusters. Basically, strafing. I haven’t quite got the hang of this in combat, but you hold down space and one of the movement keys. It’s another way of getting out of the way of enemy fire.
Absolutely, but I’m pretty far at this point and I still haven’t found any for sale, or on an A rank ship. I don’t think they’re an option at all starting out.
I haven’t quite figured out how part availability works. I built mine at a pad at my outpost, which seems to contain every part in the game. Though maybe just ones from places I’ve visited? Not sure, but there’s a lot.
I’m at level 40 but just started the UC Vanguard faction quest. Managed to complete Tier 6 in the simulator, with a little help from the debug console (I only used that on Tier 6; I managed to complete 5 without it). Everybody was very impressed with me, and I got a pretty nice signing bonus as a result.
Haven’t figured out how to rename it yet. And I’d like to give it a bit more engine, but I’m currently landing gear limited, and for some reason I’m having a hard time placing new gear. Something wonky going on there.
I’ve had problems with landing gear but was able to resolve them. In my experience there are three things that will prevent you from placing landing gear:
There is no connection point between the gear and what you’re trying to connect it to.
The gear isn’t low enough to touch the ground.
The gear would clip some other part of the ship where you’re putting it.
I love the fact that the game doesn’t allow clipping. Many games are lazy about that and you might end up with some goofy-looking results.
Also, this isn’t so much about placement, but I’ve had the warning that there isn’t enough lift for my ship. The more mass your ship has, the more gear you need, because landing gear doubles as thrusters to get your ship off the ground.
I stole a ship kinda by accident. Well, I did really intend to murder the Crimson Fleet guys whose ship it was, but didn’t fully grasp I’d end up with a second ship.
This made the Crimson Fleet people upset when I went to their base, but having forgotten who I had murdered to take that ship, I thought the lady demanding I pay 650C (a pretty modest sum for flat out murdering two people and stealing a big damn spaceship) was just scamming me, and somehow I ended up having to murder a lot more people, but I died and had to restart from before telling her to go to hell.
So then my Dad won another spaceship so now I have three, for some reason. I’ve no idea what to do with the other two. How many spaceships can you have? A lot I hope; I name them after spacecraft in works of fiction, so I am the proud owner of the ships Heart of Gold, Perihelion, and Serenity, and I have lots more names to go.
I still have no idea how to build a base, but I’ll get there.
This game is enormous and fun. I will say though that the combat is, so far, very easy. I am never, ever short of ammo, which I usually was in “Fallout” games. If you use cover and are reasonably alert and don’t accidentally start a fight with 40 pirates in their own bar, it’s hard to lose a battle.
More than a few times I’ve captured a ship that looked interesting and ended up being lousy once I flew it. Each time I’d register the ship and sell it at a small profit.
It’s only a small profit because the registration fee is only slightly less than what you’ll get for selling it. For me it’s enough to bother doing it once I get a ship I don’t intend to fly, but not enough to pursue stealing ships as a way to make money.
Another thing you could consider is setting up one ship to be great at combat and another to be a slow, bloated beast with a huge hold for hauling cargo. Cargo space really hinders your ship’s maneuverability but if you don’t plan on taking it into dogfights then it might not matter much.
Had this problem a lot. Eventually realized that landing gear has different thrust levels–so far, I’ve just found ones with 1 and 4, so a big difference. The huge legs I had been using only had a thrust of 1 (which corresponds to 200 mass units). I also had a unit on the nose with a thrust of 4, so my 1599 unit ship came in just under the wire ((4+1+1+1+1)*200=1600), but with no room for further upgrades.
Anyway, I found that I can get the better gear on Titan. Switched to 4x of the upgraded version and now have plenty of further upgrade capability.
That said, I also found that I’m limited to a 130 m/s speed with a class C reactor. So my current engines are sufficient, unless I want more maneuverability. Which I don’t think I need.
I like that this ship has only one level. The stairs are annoying. The portholes and such are nice. And the guns are quite big.
They’re good to use as starter ships for building a new one. The game doesn’t allow you to create a new ship wholly from scratch; you have to start from an existing one. And buying a ship generally costs 100k or so, and sometimes I’ve found it’s hard to find them for under 150k. You don’t get that money back when exchanging the parts.
The ship above is some crappy class A I captured from a pirate. I just deleted everything and started over in the builder.
Trick to making stealing ships relatively easy: board the enemy ship, fight your way to the pilot’s seat, sit down. Open the menu, make the ship your primary and register it. This will automatically undock your main ship which will start to drift away. Dock with it, board it, sit in the pilot’s chair, and make it your primary ship.
Now you can get back to whatever you were doing, and the new ship will be available to summon or sell when you’re next at a spaceport.
I haven’t got that far in the game, but that’s disappointing to hear. Sure, allowing clipping during placement can lead to goofy results, but it’s a single-player game. If the player doesn’t care if it looks goofy, why should the devs?
IME, builder games that are really anal about clipping shut down way too many options. I did a lot of base building in Fallout 4, which I fuckin’ loved, but hated how often I couldn’t do a design because a part didn’t quite fit where I wanted it, because the wall I was trying to place clipped too far into a solid structure.
