Starfield Omnibus Thread

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Death From Above said:

I spent way too much time decorating that shitty little appartment you can buy in The Well.

Wait until you build your first outpost and see all of that empty space in your habs. 

It will trigger your inner HGTV demon.

I went back to the Research Facility on Kreet to nab widgets for my Bessel outpost including a pencil case and a paperweigt for Lin's administration desk and some dumbbells for Heller's living space. 

And it would not be complete without standees with spacesuits, an armory / personal weapons station, and strategically placed succulents for greenery.

I should never have watched the Darth Xion video I posted.

Edited October 8, 2023 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

I got the Penthouse in New Atlantis, put a bed in it and then realized I probably would never return to it

[tbarrie]

So now that we're a few weeks in, let's talk about some of the game mechanics, from a perspective of what's changed from Fallout 4.

There's a new lockpicking mini game. Not much to say here. The old one was fine, but the new one is better. They also now use the same skill and mini game for computer hacking, which makes sense in a world where all the locks are electronic.

Turning persuade checks into a mini game is, in my opinion, a massive upgrade over both the Fallout 4 method and the New Vegas method, both of which were unsatisfyingly simple. Now you can choose your approach either tactically or based on what fits your character, or whatever mix best fits your playstyle. I might quibble with the fact that you always know up front how much a given line will help if it works and how likely it is to work, though. Seems like you should have to put some points into social skills before you get that information.

Diverging slightly into how the mechanics are used, I'll also note with pleasure that the persuade checks seem to consistently DO something. That alone is an improvement over Fallout 4, where it felt like most of the speech checks affected nothing.

The new skill system also strikes me as a big upgrade in principle. In Fallout 4 higher ranks of a skill (perk) were gated behind level requirements. I didn't like it, because it took away the choice to specialize or not. It didn't matter if you saw your character as a full-fledged scientist or a dabbler, if you were taking Science at all you'd be taking rank 2 around the same time. The Starfield approach of requiring you to use the skill in certain ways a certain number of times avoids that problem entirely.

However, the implementation of that system sometimes leaves something to be desired. For example, to level up Stealth you need to hit sneak attacks. So if your game plan is to sneak PAST enemies, you're not going to get good at sneaking. Similarly, the Deceive skill both improves your chance of evading contraband scans and your chance of getting strong ships to hand over their cargo without a fight - but only the latter counts toward improving the skill. This was a problem for my first character, who wanted to be a smuggler but wasn't interested in actual piracy.

Hmm, what else? The already light penalties for carrying too much stuff have been dropped even further, with the effect that there pretty much IS no limit on carrying capacity. Not a fan of that. If nothing else, it makes the Weightlifting skill useless (unless you really want its rank 4 effect, which protects you against being staggered by enemy attacks).

Might add more later if I think of it.

Edited October 8, 2023 by tbarrie

[Death From Above]

I did build one very basic outpost on my first character but never did much with it after that. I watched a couple Youtube videos and I definitely missed out on some stuff that way, maybe I'll do a high Science tree character at some point just to focus that.

I'm honestly baffled by how much hate the new lockpicking minigame has gotten online. Personally I actually think it's a perfectly fine little bit of puzzling that makes me pay attention, but doesn't stress my stupid ass brain too far. 

Weightlfting 4 is honestly totally worth it just for the stagger protection. It's an S tier perk. There are a lot of enemies that will rush you with Rescue Axes and whatnot and it's one of the few combat scenarios that actually gets gnarly. Also virtually all the wildlife uses melee so avoiding 50% of staggers is a serious nerf to them.

[J.T.]

I used to hate the lockpicking game until I figured out that I was just being an angry old idiot. 

My only previous concern was finding enough locks to pick or computer terminals to hack in order to to clear enough challenges so that I would be able to at least get to Security 3 and be able to bypass Master-level locks. 

I would actively seek out any opportunity to pick a lock or bypass a computer terminal so that I would clear enough challenges and be able to acquire the next level of skill.

I never bothered with Security 4.  You can get past the free do-overs for Security 4 simply by employing the old tactic of taking a scumbag save before you make your lockpicking attempt and reloading if you bollocks it up.

My main criticism now is the game physics or at least the state of game physics now that the 1.7 update has apparently broken it.  There are a lot of noclip bugs that allow objects like brooms or luggage to sink through the ground, the Skyrim poltergeist now haunts Starfield and throws random objects around the game, and we're now back to Fallout 3 combat where people's bones turn into jello when they die and bodies get stuck into walls or furniture when they fall.

We won't even talk about the number of times I have connected with a melee strike to someone's boost back and gotten a brief glimpse of the Legendary item in their inventory before their boost back exploded and the body went zooming into the sky never to be found again.

Edited October 8, 2023 by J.T.

[odessasteps]

Doing the Mantis mission, so many weirdly deformed corpses I was finding. 

Glad I saw a video about keeping resources in the storage chest in the Lodges basement and not just the safe in your room.

[odessasteps]

Just learned you can have a Constellation skin on some weapons. 
 

also finally set up an outpost to mine argon since I’m supposed to set up a trade link to Jamison. 

[RIPPA]

I literally just recruited Supervisor Lin solely so I can put her in charge of the probably one outpost I build

[Death From Above]

I ventured around with both Lin and Keller for a while. Lin has demolitions so I gave her a grenade at least just for the endless mirth of Bethesda AI chucking grenades. Keller has nothing going for him combat skills wise but at least he gives you random minerals I guess.

Honestly, and I know I'm quite positive about this game, just pretty much anything to avoid spending more time with Barrett. That guy annoys me, a lot.

[odessasteps]

I always make sure to give my companion a grenade. 

[J.T.]

3 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I literally just recruited Supervisor Lin solely so I can put her in charge of the probably one outpost I build

I have both Lin and Heller assigned to the one and only outpost I will build.

[RIPPA]

I didn't have room for Heller so I will have to refind him later

Learned today that you have to be ULTRA careful with Andreja - grazed a friendly robot in a firefight and she lost her mind and raged back to the ship and despite passing the check, she still wanted out

Fortunately only lost like 5 minutes of gameplay going back

[odessasteps]

Found the empty space casino with no gravity but full of pirates. Think my first Zero G fight. Not as much money I’d have hope to find. Make sure to find the jackpot password. Also contraband hidden in an air duct, 

did exploring on couple planets including the other parts of Jamison. 
 

earlier, fought first 2 Starborn guys when I went to get Artifacts. 

[J.T.]

7 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Found the empty space casino with no gravity but full of pirates. Think my first Zero G fight. Not as much money I’d have hope to find. Make sure to find the jackpot password. Also contraband hidden in an air duct,

Did you have Security 3?  If so, you could've cleaned out the safes where you found the jackpot passcode.

I'm surprised you're finding that this late in the game.  IIRC it's in the Olympus system and that's the first jump point before going on to Volii.  That casino was one of the first locations I found while traveling to Volli Alpha and I had to skip it on purpose because I was only 10th and had Security 2.

[J.T.]

9 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I didn't have room for Heller so I will have to refind him later.

Makes sense.  By that time, I had expanded my Frontier to have additional passenger space so I was able to pick him up after recruiting Lin.

I think I will experiment more with cowling and such in a future playthrough and try to make Sylver's Powerhouse build on one level instead of using stacking.

Edited October 9, 2023 by J.T.

[odessasteps]

3 hours ago, J.T. said:

Did you have Security 3?  If so, you could've cleaned out the safes where you found the jackpot passcode.

I'm surprised you're finding that this late in the game.  IIRC it's in the Olympus system and that's the first jump point before going on to Volii.  That casino was one of the first locations I found while traveling to Volli Alpha and I had to skip it on purpose because I was only 10th and had Security 2.

I opened 2 of the 3 safes in the managers office, and entered the jackpot payoff code which wasn’t the jackpot I expected. Like 5000 credits or so? 

[Shadow]

Entanglement was absolutely phenomenal.

[RIPPA]

I need to gain another level so I can drop another point into Stealth so I can finish the Ryujin Questline

So I guess I will finish the Free Ranger quests to get the most XP I can

[odessasteps]

I need to go back and finish Ryujin stuff. 
the problem with watching all these videos is wanting to start over again, but I’m prob not even a third of the way finished, 

 

[odessasteps]

 

[J.T.]

I was about to post that the 1.7.36.0 update is now live.  

Let's hope those "stability" issues that were fixed includes the noclipping bugs that might have been introduced with the previous update.

I am old and have astigmatism in my left eye, so I am extremely happy about to see the news about the FOV slider.

Edited October 9, 2023 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

That is quite the cock tease

WE FIXED QUEST ISSUES!!!

Yeah - one specific quest

[J.T.]

26 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

That is quite the cock tease

WE FIXED QUEST ISSUES!!!

Yeah - one specific quest

Yes, and it is a part of the Crimson Fleet questline so edgelords worldwide are rejoicing.  There is a lot of moaning on the Reddits about the lack of "evil" gameplay.

Meanwhile, I think that Nyssa Marcano's final mission, Drinks on the House, is still busted.

From what I have gathered, Bethesda is gearing up to release QOL hot fixes every couple of weeks until the setting is stable and then they will release a major update once a month to address other game breaking glitches.

By the time Bethesda releases their first monthly update, I suspect the modding community will have already released an unofficial patch that fixes everything and then some.

Edited October 9, 2023 by J.T.

[tbarrie]

23 hours ago, Death From Above said:

I'm honestly baffled by how much hate the new lockpicking minigame has gotten online. Personally I actually think it's a perfectly fine little bit of puzzling that makes me pay attention, but doesn't stress my stupid ass brain too far. 

Has it really? That surprises me too. Granted it's a little on the easy side, but you do it often enough that if it were harder it could easily become frustrating. I think they got pretty close to the sweet spot. 

23 hours ago, Death From Above said:

Weightlfting 4 is honestly totally worth it just for the stagger protection. It's an S tier perk. There are a lot of enemies that will rush you with Rescue Axes and whatnot and it's one of the few combat scenarios that actually gets gnarly. Also virtually all the wildlife uses melee so avoiding 50% of staggers is a serious nerf to them.

Yeah, I was thinking stagger protection sounded pretty good. But worth four skill points? I'm not sure. 

[tbarrie]

23 hours ago, J.T. said:

You can get past the free do-overs for Security 4 simply by employing the old tactic of taking a scumbag save before you make your lockpicking attempt and reloading if you bollocks it up.

Or, I mean... there's an undo button.