Man, I should’ve written down where I found that Class B. Forgot where it was and I can’t seem to find any previously visited planet with the same fauna.
After getting a good start in Starfield, one thing I’ve noticed/felt is that it’s extremely lacking in personality. It basically has no personality. It’s feels like a vanilla version of itself. I expect there will be a TON of mods for this eventually and this will become a huge space modding sandbox for years to come. So, maybe it’s perfect. I would say that I played probably a ton more 3rd party mod content in Skyrim than the original content. The same will likely be true with Starfield, or close. Plus, there will likely be several DLCs that add content as well.
I kind of think it feels unfinished, and that may be by design. And that might be a great idea, eventually.
Now, after that fight, have you tried shooting any of the asteroids?
I discovered entirely by accident that you can blow up most of them, and they leave a few resources behind that you can loot like you just blew up a ship. A fast and easy way to stock up on some resources.
Just make sure there aren’t any friendlies around that can be hit by a stray shot.
A lot of them must be ice because I’ve mostly found water.
It depends on where you are. Any given area seems to be just one or two types of resources, but I’ve seen a lot with iron as well. Faster than surface mining by hand, cheaper that an outpost.
I created another alt explore another background, this time a follower of the Great Serpent. Encountering those zealots near Venus was rather amusing.
I actually can’t since I only have turrets on that ship… maybe I should install a couple of manual guns. Sometimes the turrets will blow up a few asteroids when a ship flies behind them.
In other ships, I do actually make decent use of the asteroids. In particular, for those random mini-missions of “Our grav-drive went out; can you give us 20 iron?” And often enough, I can collect the iron from asteroids in that or a nearby location.
I managed to squeeze another two fully-powered turrets on my ship. With aneutronic fusion maxed, the best reactor, and some crewmembers with the right stats, I can keep 30 units of turrets going at once.
I was watching my kid play Fallout 4 the other night, and the notion of personality really struck home. Starfield lacks the sense of humour Fallout games had.
It’s more muted compared to the Fallout games (hard to match the craziness there), but I wouldn’t really say it’s lacking in personality. Certainly no more so than Skyrim. I really dig the NASApunk aesthetic; it really feels much “harder” than most other space themed games. And for the most part, the universe feels a lot more consistent.
That said, I agree that it has a great deal of room for further expansion.
I definitely agree. The went with the “put in a bit of everything”, and let people find what they want as far as settings. The shiny clean “Star Trek” aesthetic of Jemison. Volii, The pure Cyberpunk(surprising me a bit by even including the “Japanese corporations are taking over the world” background of classic 80’s cyberpunk) settling. and filling the Firefly-type old west in space setting with Akila.
It does feel a bit of forced fan-service to try to please everyone, and doesn’t have the feeling of a single vision of setting that great sci-fi usually has. But I am hopeful that DLC will bring some focus, and make it feel more organic.
I don’t remember where I saw it but reportedly the majority of players favor the Space Cowboy aesthetic.
Blech, Akila City is a dump. I’d certainly rather live in New Atlantis.
Although I did notice that the New Atlantis gun shop is right next to a playground. So it’s arguable that both places represent Space Texas.
I was walking through Akila at one point, and realized: they built a fantasy castle-type setting, and then populated it with space cowboys. That’s saying something, though I’m not sure what…
My only problem with it is that the layout is so damn confusing.
I thought the same thing, Akila City looked like it was pieced together from a junkyard.
The general core aesthetic of the game is exploration with a NASA feel. But it is muddled with all of the other themes built in. It’s like a lasagna with added enchilada sauce and teriyaki pork; it’s still lasagna, but that can be lost with the conflicting flavors added.
I like Akila City, and can actually navigate it better than New Atlantis. New Atlantis I believe can be fully navigated without using the metros, but it certainly seemed like that was a last-minute choice because it’s hard to get between some parts. One thing I do like doing is jumping off the top of the very tall MAST building and jetpacking to my ship.
When they brought me to the top for the Class One Citizen ceremony, I thought it sounded fun, so I jumped. I was actually a bit surprised the game didn’t break (like one of those special environments where it’s a guaranteed death). But no, I casually jetpacked down to the ground. Neat. The admin lady must have been confused when I didn’t come down through the elevator.
As an aside, the whole citizenship thing make me think of Starship Troopers. Probably no coincidence. And having an extra “everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others” class of citizenship makes it even worse. I’m a little surprised there’s no dialogue calling them out as fascists or whatever. There’s other types of UC hate from various sources, but no one seems to call them out on that specifically.
Probably not. You went up with a jetpack after all. People use them often enough you hear security folks occasionally gripe about it.
Absolutely, yes, and I’m with you in that I’m sure that Heinlein was a direct influence. I do wish there was more controversy around it, or really anything. At times the galaxy of this game feels like a Star Trek utopia pretending to be a gritty set of factions with a tenuous peace after bitter wars. It seems like they’re cosplaying.
“I hate the UC for killing my grandpa in the war!”
“Oh you’re a Vanguard member and you want to be an elite Ranger, one of only a dozen of the best people revered by our society and given almost unlimited authority? Okay, go shoot a pirate and come back. Congratulations!”
I don’t mind that you can diversify, actually I like it quite a bit. But there should at least be some suspicion at first until you really prove yourself. It’s no wonder people accuse the game of being bland. I am still really enjoying the game, it’s hard to put it down, and I know I’ve logged more hours in it than any other game since it released. But the criticisms aren’t wrong.
There’s certainly some truth to Starfield having a bunch of separate systems that don’t quite connect together seamlessly, and that a lot of stuff just didn’t quite get fleshed out. But it’s also not really a new thing with most Bethesda games. In Skyrim, becoming the leader of the Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, etc. simultaneously without any of them recognizing the others was amusing in a similar way. To some extent, it comes with the open-world territory, even if it could be improved.
Somehow, Bethesda games are both more and less than the sum of their parts. Less, because the weirdly interacting systems make the cracks stand out that much more. But more, because in spite of all that, somehow they end up with a really compelling game loop. Exploration and looting is good as always, and there’s pretty much always something to do, whether shooting baddies in the face or messing with your base/ship/house/etc. The lack of feeling railroaded into certain paths is a big part of it, I think. It’s the rare Bethesda game that I’ve put less than a few hundred hours into (Fallout 76 being the main exception).
That’s one thing I liked about Morrowind: you can’t join every faction in the same run.