Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[ArchAngel]

I did the Red Mile yesterday and even such a simple concept was done badly by them. I expected traps, turrets and all manner of enemies. In the end they spam one enemy at you, a few pathetic plants that spit shit when you get too close and that is it. I guess they needed more time to design all the offices with pointless people there...

 

[Wasteland]

Nice rundown of the Starborn "powers," along with commentary on how well they scale with NG+ upgrades:



I'm still very skeptical of the game overall--the writing, ESGisms, loading screens and so forth give me pause, but I admit that the NG+ mechanics in this game look clever and interesting. Here are a few snippets from a couple of reddit threads, describing some of the game world's NG+ permutations:

Warning: Redditors

EDIT: I don't know why the images are so small. So I'll quote too:

Yes. After becoming Starborn you have 2 options at the Lodge: omit telling them you are Starborn and do the missions pretty much the same way you did the first time, only this time when there are decisions to make there is a Starborn option. Or you tell them you are Starborn and the game will progress differently. I did both (to an extent). Choosing the former will take you to Andreja again.

So I read through all the comments, and wanted to share an alternate lodge that I got which I haven't seen anyone else talk about:

On my 2nd NG+, I walked into the lodge and was greeted by myself. In fact, there were about 6 of me in there--one representing each faction. The "Constellation Me" explained that they kept showing up there so they decided to team up in this universe. I died laughing after he introduced the "Loner Me" who just screamed "I WORK ALONE!".

I couldn't save and couldn't access my inventory like your other weird runs, so it's definitely intentional by BGS. I don't think we're supposed to continue with those runs. I'm loving all of this XD

I'm on my 3rd NG+... At the second NG+ (Spoilers) >! I saw Sarah the floor, she was the last survivor of Constalation. When I initiated the dialogue, she started to berate me, saying that they shouldn't have trusted me with all that Starborn talk, and asked me how could I have strangled Barret. Then another me appeared and he was wearing all black, and said something along the lines of "I'm every universe that I went, I always did good. In this one, I'm trying something different". I couldn't access my inventory, so he killed me pretty fast and then...screen goes black and I'm at the start menu. !< After that, >! I reload the save before that NG+, and it's normal again (while I had my encounter with my evil twin, I couldn't save or quick save either)!<

Just to add to this, the game determines your Constellation seed based on when you enter the Unity. I entered NG+2 and it was the vanilla lodge scene. Reloaded my save before going into the Unity, played through it again, walked into the lodge and an NPC of my character was already there explaining about the mining incident. Told him who I was recruited him to my ship and now this universe's me follows me around as a companion. Has a whole conversation dialogue tree and I've gotten a couple unique lines out of him.

can you clarify this, I am on my NG 2 and had the vanilla lodge scene. Did you replay the main story, skip or is this something just random?

Random yes, 15 scenarios

Of course, the idea that Todd wants you to play through the game 10 times is obnoxious, even if you can skip most of the questing on each run. Also LOL at a comment talking about how one of the NPCs swapped from black to hispanic on a second playthrough; maybe if you play enough Starfield will turn into an Aryan utopia. I'm also generally not a fan of "multi-verse" storytelling in general; Bethesda-tier writing surely won't change my opinion there. But if you are going to do the multi-verse trope, folding it into NG+ mechanics is a pretty neat idea.

Yeah, might just do that Game Pass after all.

(Edited to address the tiny pictures, lol)

 

[Child of Malkav]

Getting mogged by cyberpunk 2077 it's over.

Shit getting mogged by other shit. It's not the win you think it is.

 

[Rhobar121]

Getting mogged by cyberpunk 2077 it's over.

Shit getting mogged by other shit. It's not the win you think it is.

I consider it a certain justice. Todd has been screwing people over for years by blatantly lying and releasing shitty games at the lowest cost possible.
"It Just Works" didn't come out of nowhere.

 

[Vic]

Nice rundown of the Starborn "powers," along with commentary on how well they scale with NG+ upgrades:



I'm still very skeptical of the game overall--the writing, ESGisms, loading screens and so forth give me pause, but I admit that the NG+ mechanics in this game look clever and interesting. Here are a few snippets from a couple of reddit threads, describing some of the game world's NG+ permutations:

Warning: Redditors

EDIT: I don't know why the images are so small. So I'll quote too:

Yes. After becoming Starborn you have 2 options at the Lodge: omit telling them you are Starborn and do the missions pretty much the same way you did the first time, only this time when there are decisions to make there is a Starborn option. Or you tell them you are Starborn and the game will progress differently. I did both (to an extent). Choosing the former will take you to Andreja again.

So I read through all the comments, and wanted to share an alternate lodge that I got which I haven't seen anyone else talk about:

On my 2nd NG+, I walked into the lodge and was greeted by myself. In fact, there were about 6 of me in there--one representing each faction. The "Constellation Me" explained that they kept showing up there so they decided to team up in this universe. I died laughing after he introduced the "Loner Me" who just screamed "I WORK ALONE!".

I couldn't save and couldn't access my inventory like your other weird runs, so it's definitely intentional by BGS. I don't think we're supposed to continue with those runs. I'm loving all of this XD

I'm on my 3rd NG+... At the second NG+ (Spoilers) >! I saw Sarah the floor, she was the last survivor of Constalation. When I initiated the dialogue, she started to berate me, saying that they shouldn't have trusted me with all that Starborn talk, and asked me how could I have strangled Barret. Then another me appeared and he was wearing all black, and said something along the lines of "I'm every universe that I went, I always did good. In this one, I'm trying something different". I couldn't access my inventory, so he killed me pretty fast and then...screen goes black and I'm at the start menu. !< After that, >! I reload the save before that NG+, and it's normal again (while I had my encounter with my evil twin, I couldn't save or quick save either)!<

Just to add to this, the game determines your Constellation seed based on when you enter the Unity. I entered NG+2 and it was the vanilla lodge scene. Reloaded my save before going into the Unity, played through it again, walked into the lodge and an NPC of my character was already there explaining about the mining incident. Told him who I was recruited him to my ship and now this universe's me follows me around as a companion. Has a whole conversation dialogue tree and I've gotten a couple unique lines out of him.

can you clarify this, I am on my NG 2 and had the vanilla lodge scene. Did you replay the main story, skip or is this something just random?

Random yes, 15 scenarios

Of course, the idea that Todd wants you to play through the game 10 times is obnoxious, even if you can skip most of the questing on each run. Also LOL at a comment talking about how one of the NPCs swapped from black to hispanic on a second playthrough; maybe if you play enough Starfield will turn into an Aryan utopia. I'm also generally not a fan of "multi-verse" storytelling in general; Bethesda-tier writing surely won't change my opinion there. But if you are going to do the multi-verse trope, folding it into NG+ mechanics is a pretty neat idea.

Yeah, might just do that Game Pass after all.

(Edited to address the tiny pictures, lol)

As far as I understand each universe has a temple for each power, they max out at rank 10, so if you want to max out your powers you have to collect all temples in 10 runs….also they keep upgrading your ship and starborn armor until 10 each time… so as you can see doing multiple NG+ is just another autist activity like the majority of the game’s systems

 

[Turjan]

GeForce GTX 960 4GB

It’s a nice card, but it’s going to turn 9 soon and was on mid-lower end of GTX cards when it launched. Sucks that you can’t run it, but at some point even desktop PCs start nearing the point when they can’t run the latest games.

True. The system itself is from early 2012 and hasn't seen a clean install since. The main issue is the CPU, btw.
Anyway, I'll buy something new whenever I get around to it.

 

[Rhobar121]

GeForce GTX 960 4GB

It’s a nice card, but it’s going to turn 9 soon and was on mid-lower end of GTX cards when it launched. Sucks that you can’t run it, but at some point even desktop PCs start nearing the point when they can’t run the latest games.

True. The system itself is from early 2012 and hasn't seen a clean install since. The main issue is the CPU, btw.
Anyway, I'll buy something new whenever I get around to it.

THIS is the worst thing you can do. I recommend doing a clean install, After such a long time, even this should noticeably improve performance.

 

[Vic]

GeForce GTX 960 4GB

It’s a nice card, but it’s going to turn 9 soon and was on mid-lower end of GTX cards when it launched. Sucks that you can’t run it, but at some point even desktop PCs start nearing the point when they can’t run the latest games.

True. The system itself is from early 2012 and hasn't seen a clean install since. The main issue is the CPU, btw.
Anyway, I'll buy something new whenever I get around to it.

THIS is the worst thing you can do. I recommend doing a clean install, After such a long time, even this should noticeably improve performance.

I've been using the same OS install since 2012, there is nothing to support your claim

since then I've upgraded every part over the years except for the SSD with the OS on it and one HDD which I still have from that time. all other parts are new, including motherboard. Oh and the PSU is still from 2012 too now that I think about it

 

[Vic]

today is the first day since last month where I booted up a game other than starfield

 

[Rhobar121]

GeForce GTX 960 4GB

It’s a nice card, but it’s going to turn 9 soon and was on mid-lower end of GTX cards when it launched. Sucks that you can’t run it, but at some point even desktop PCs start nearing the point when they can’t run the latest games.

True. The system itself is from early 2012 and hasn't seen a clean install since. The main issue is the CPU, btw.
Anyway, I'll buy something new whenever I get around to it.

THIS is the worst thing you can do. I recommend doing a clean install, After such a long time, even this should noticeably improve performance.

I've been using the same OS install since 2012, there is nothing to support your claim

since then I've upgraded every part over the years except for the SSD with the OS on it and one HDD which I still have from that time. all other parts are new, including motherboard. Oh and the PSU is still from 2012 too now that I think about it

Why doesn't this surprise me?

 

[Wasteland]

Nice rundown of the Starborn "powers," along with commentary on how well they scale with NG+ upgrades:



I'm still very skeptical of the game overall--the writing, ESGisms, loading screens and so forth give me pause, but I admit that the NG+ mechanics in this game look clever and interesting. Here are a few snippets from a couple of reddit threads, describing some of the game world's NG+ permutations:

Warning: Redditors

EDIT: I don't know why the images are so small. So I'll quote too:

Yes. After becoming Starborn you have 2 options at the Lodge: omit telling them you are Starborn and do the missions pretty much the same way you did the first time, only this time when there are decisions to make there is a Starborn option. Or you tell them you are Starborn and the game will progress differently. I did both (to an extent). Choosing the former will take you to Andreja again.

So I read through all the comments, and wanted to share an alternate lodge that I got which I haven't seen anyone else talk about:

On my 2nd NG+, I walked into the lodge and was greeted by myself. In fact, there were about 6 of me in there--one representing each faction. The "Constellation Me" explained that they kept showing up there so they decided to team up in this universe. I died laughing after he introduced the "Loner Me" who just screamed "I WORK ALONE!".

I couldn't save and couldn't access my inventory like your other weird runs, so it's definitely intentional by BGS. I don't think we're supposed to continue with those runs. I'm loving all of this XD

I'm on my 3rd NG+... At the second NG+ (Spoilers) >! I saw Sarah the floor, she was the last survivor of Constalation. When I initiated the dialogue, she started to berate me, saying that they shouldn't have trusted me with all that Starborn talk, and asked me how could I have strangled Barret. Then another me appeared and he was wearing all black, and said something along the lines of "I'm every universe that I went, I always did good. In this one, I'm trying something different". I couldn't access my inventory, so he killed me pretty fast and then...screen goes black and I'm at the start menu. !< After that, >! I reload the save before that NG+, and it's normal again (while I had my encounter with my evil twin, I couldn't save or quick save either)!<

Just to add to this, the game determines your Constellation seed based on when you enter the Unity. I entered NG+2 and it was the vanilla lodge scene. Reloaded my save before going into the Unity, played through it again, walked into the lodge and an NPC of my character was already there explaining about the mining incident. Told him who I was recruited him to my ship and now this universe's me follows me around as a companion. Has a whole conversation dialogue tree and I've gotten a couple unique lines out of him.

can you clarify this, I am on my NG 2 and had the vanilla lodge scene. Did you replay the main story, skip or is this something just random?

Random yes, 15 scenarios

Of course, the idea that Todd wants you to play through the game 10 times is obnoxious, even if you can skip most of the questing on each run. Also LOL at a comment talking about how one of the NPCs swapped from black to hispanic on a second playthrough; maybe if you play enough Starfield will turn into an Aryan utopia. I'm also generally not a fan of "multi-verse" storytelling in general; Bethesda-tier writing surely won't change my opinion there. But if you are going to do the multi-verse trope, folding it into NG+ mechanics is a pretty neat idea.

Yeah, might just do that Game Pass after all.

(Edited to address the tiny pictures, lol)

As far as I understand each universe has a temple for each power, they max out at rank 10, so if you want to max out your powers you have to collect all temples in 10 runs….also they keep upgrading your ship and starborn armor until 10 each time… so as you can see doing multiple NG+ is just another autist activity like the majority of the game’s systems

Yeah, though there's some question as to how many temples are in each NG+ instance. Some people on youtube and elsewhere claim that all 24 temples were available in each NG+ at launch, but that a subsequent patch reduced the number to 17. If it's 17, then you may be looking at considerably more than 10 runs to max out the powers that you're interested in. Personally I'm more interested in the changes to the game state--the NPCs shifting around, the goofy this-universe-is-crowded-with-the-player's-clones gimmicks, the encounter-your-evil-twin-who-killed-everyone easter eggs. There's a certain charm in all of that, a level of thoughtfulness for which I wouldn't usually credit Bethesda's writers.

It's also morbidly amusing that apparently the only way to kill off some of the plot-critical NPCs is to have your evil twin do it for you, in a game state that you can't even save.

GeForce GTX 960 4GB

It’s a nice card, but it’s going to turn 9 soon and was on mid-lower end of GTX cards when it launched. Sucks that you can’t run it, but at some point even desktop PCs start nearing the point when they can’t run the latest games.

True. The system itself is from early 2012 and hasn't seen a clean install since. The main issue is the CPU, btw.
Anyway, I'll buy something new whenever I get around to it.

THIS is the worst thing you can do. I recommend doing a clean install, After such a long time, even this should noticeably improve performance.

I've been using the same OS install since 2012, there is nothing to support your claim

since then I've upgraded every part except for the SSD with the OS on it and one HDD which I still have from that time. all other parts are new, including motherboard.

As long as you don't change your hardware significantly, and as long as you have good habits WRT browser security, what you download, etc, you can go for a very long time on a single install. Even changing motherboards can work reasonably well as long as you thoroughly clean out your old chipset drivers, though even then you might find that a clean install will fix small issues that you might otherwise assume to be unrelated. I had an irregular microstuttering issue on a machine on which I swapped mobos, for example--everything else worked great on the same Windows install, so it didn't even occur to me that a clean install would fix it--but it did.

It's generally best practice to do a clean install after a motherboard swap, for sure. It doesn't sound like Turjan made any significant hardware changes, though. In his case I'd be more concerned about the likelihood that he upgraded his OS (e.g. from windows 7 to 10) at least once without a clean install. That can cause small instabilities too.

I do think the gospel of clean installs is probably a little overrated these days, though. Modern OSes are much more stable than they were 10+ years ago.

EDIT: There was actually a minor controversy awhile back in the tech-review community with respect to when or how important it is to do a fresh install of windows after a motherboard swap. Some outlets were using the same Windows disk to benchmark dozens of different CPUs from AMD and Intel, which can lead to odd results, but the oddities can be very subtle. Really there's no excuse for not running at least two different disks in that instance, and even for the consumer enthusiast, there's no reason not to spend a few hours reinstalling Windows after a major hardware change. Just note the apps you've installed, backup your user folder, and do the deed. Tools like Winget and Ninite are very helpful here, and of course game installs are easier than ever to import to Steam/Heroic/GOG Galaxy/Playnite.

 

[Vic]

Yeah, though there's some question as to how many temples are in each NG+ instance. Some people on youtube and elsewhere claim that all 24 temples were available in each NG+ at launch, but that a subsequent patch reduced the number to 17. If it's 17, then you may be looking at considerably more than 10 runs to max out the powers that you're interested in. Personally I'm more interested in the changes to the game state--the NPCs shifting around, the goofy this-universe-is-crowded-with-the-player's-clones gimmicks, the encounter-your-evil-twin-who-killed-everyone easter eggs. There's a certain charm in all of that, a level of thoughtfulness for which I wouldn't usually credit Bethesda's writers.

from what I've seen it's RNG and it's just small flavour stuff. You get unique [Starborn] dialogue options but they are the same across all runs.

If you are particularly interested in a random change you can save before doing NG+, see if that change you want is there, and if not reload and try again, instead of doing a full run in hopes to see the event.

 

[Vic]

Why doesn't this surprise me?

it's helps to be tech literate and know how to maintain a clean system

 

[Van-d-all]

Why doesn't this surprise me?

it's helps to be tech literate and know how to maintain a clean system

Belief that consumer software can even be maintained at hygiene & consistency comparable to reinstall, through 10y of hardware swaps is the very epitome of tech illiteracy born from taking capabilities of shit like registry/file cleaners at face value. A quality rather symptomatic for fanboys.

 

[Vic]

Why doesn't this surprise me?

it's helps to be tech literate and know how to maintain a clean system

Belief that consumer software can even be maintained at hygiene & consistency comparable to reinstall, through 10y of hardware swaps is the very epitome of tech illiteracy born from taking capabilities of shit like registry/file cleaners at face value. A quality rather symptomatic for fanboys.

registry cleaners? Is that your idea of tech literacy? Wow, I see liking starfield on the codex really paints a target on your back for all the morons to come out of the woodwork, yeah, whatever retard.

 

[Van-d-all]

Why doesn't this surprise me?

it's helps to be tech literate and know how to maintain a clean system

Belief that consumer software can even be maintained at hygiene & consistency comparable to reinstall, through 10y of hardware swaps is the very epitome of tech illiteracy born from taking capabilities of shit like registry/file cleaners at face value. A quality rather symptomatic for fanboys.

registry cleaners? Is that your idea of tech literacy? Wow, I see liking starfield on the codex really paints a target on your back for all the morons to come out of the woodwork, yeah, whatever retard.

Should you care to read a text more complex than bethesda dialogue from time to time, you'd comprehend that it's the exact opposite of what I wrote.

 

[Vic]

Should you care to read a text more complex than bethesda dialogue from time to time, you'd comprehend that it's the exact opposite of what I wrote.

no it's not moron, you implied with your long winded pretentious post that I'm using registry and file cleaners, which I'm not. I'm manually cleaning shit out that isn't needed anymore, my system runs perfectly fine as it also doubles as a home media server for jellyfin and ABS so I make sure it's well maintained, which is not hard to do if you just remove unwanted drivers and software, make sure no unneeded stuff is autostarting, and there are no tasks and services active that you don't need anymore.

so how about you spend some time reading what I write instead of being a pretentious fuck

 

[Turjan]

It's generally best practice to do a clean install after a motherboard swap, for sure. It doesn't sound like Turjan made any significant hardware changes, though. In his case I'd be more concerned about the likelihood that he upgraded his OS (e.g. from windows 7 to 10) at least once without a clean install. That can cause small instabilities too.

Yeah, mobo is still the same, as is the CPU. GPU is a few years younger. I moved the install to an SSD at some point. Update to Windows 10, too. More RAM, obviously. Nothing serious.

I'll do a clean install after I have a new computer. I had to rewrite the boot sector at some point, and Win10 doesn't like that (I assume. It's not very specific when it comes to telling me what it doesn't like.)

 

[Van-d-all]

Should you care to read a text more complex than bethesda dialogue from time to time, you'd comprehend that it's the exact opposite of what I wrote.

no it's not moron, you implied with your long winded pretentious post that I'm using registry and file cleaners, which I'm not. I'm manually cleaning shit out that isn't needed anymore, my system runs perfectly fine as it also doubles as a home media server for jellyfin and ABS so I make sure it's well maintained, which is not hard to do if you just remove unwanted drivers and software, make sure no unneeded stuff is autostarting, and there are no tasks and services active that you don't need anymore.

so how about you spend some time reading what I write instead of being a pretentious fuck

Well, now you're trying to tell me that your idea of tech literacy is doing by hand tasks clearly designed for automation. No, maintaining shitloads of files scattered throughout the entire OS is nigh impossible DESPITE the automation. There are shitloads of files scattered all around the OS that aren't properly maintained simply because uninstall file lists mismatch by various files made in runtime. Some uninstallers will track and delete them all, most won't. You can delete the install dirs, but some shit will still stay in system dirs. Not to mention files made obsolete by updates, shared libs or changes in control variables. You're just full of yourself, like all fanboys, not surprising.

 

[Vic]

Should you care to read a text more complex than bethesda dialogue from time to time, you'd comprehend that it's the exact opposite of what I wrote.

no it's not moron, you implied with your long winded pretentious post that I'm using registry and file cleaners, which I'm not. I'm manually cleaning shit out that isn't needed anymore, my system runs perfectly fine as it also doubles as a home media server for jellyfin and ABS so I make sure it's well maintained, which is not hard to do if you just remove unwanted drivers and software, make sure no unneeded stuff is autostarting, and there are no tasks and services active that you don't need anymore.

so how about you spend some time reading what I write instead of being a pretentious fuck

Well, now you're trying to tell me that your idea of tech literacy is doing by hand tasks clearly designed for automation. No, maintaining shitloads of files scattered throughout the entire OS is nigh impossible DESPITE the automation. There are shitloads of files scattered all around the OS that aren't properly maintained simply because uninstall file lists mismatch by various files made in runtime, not present in the install package. Not to mention files made obsolete by updates, shared libs or changes in control variables.

the claim by the other poster was that doing a fresh install after a long time will noticably improve performance, which is not the case as long as your system is well maintained. left over files, which I do try to clean up once a year or so, do not affect performance of running tasks.

 

[Van-d-all]

left over files [...] do not affect performance of running tasks.

M'kay mr. "tech literate".

 

[Vic]

left over files [...] do not affect performance of running tasks.

M'kay mr. "tech literate".

yeah, you're just part of the people here who pick on me because I'm in the minority of liking starfield, thinking that you're somehow smarter than me because of that, but you're just morons tbh.

I did not follow the game at all until it was released, so I don't know what kind of expectations were set, I went in blind, and I liked the crafting and looter shooter gameplay. Lots of people seem butthurt that it's different from their previous games, which is understandable, but on its own it's not a bad game per se, still currently a 6/10 because of lacking systems and bad performance, but in time it will hopefully shine.

 

[Van-d-all]

left over files [...] do not affect performance of running tasks.

M'kay mr. "tech literate".

yeah, you're just part of the people here who pick on me because I'm in the minority of liking starfield, thinking that you're somehow smarter than me, but you're just morons tbh.

I did not follow the game at all until it was released, so I don't know what kind of expectations were set, I went in blind, and I liked the crafting and looter shooter gameplay. Lots of people seem butthurt that it's different from their previous games, which is understandable, but on its own it's not a bad game per se, still currently a 6/10 because of lacking systems and bad performance, but in time it will shine.

Not really. I just can't stand people spouting nonfactual nonsense. If anything I somewhat admire your low satisfaction threshold.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am still using same Win7 install for 7+ years since I bought my SSD and did a clear reinstall of my previous Win7 install. It is not even fully updated as the pirate version of Win7 I am using cannot connect to windows update and I only have it at state of win7 patches at that time :D
And things have not started working worse over time. I guess that is advantage of using superior windows over people that upgrades to newer shinier shit.

And I am now only contemplating doing a reinstall to win 10 because I want to play some new games on it, also I can now get a cheap "legal" Win10 version from key reseller sites and such.
Oh and all my PC components are as old as this windows or older. I only upgraded RAM, GPU and SSD over time.

 

[Vic]

Not really. I just can't stand people spouting nonfactual nonsense. If anything I somewhat admire your low satisfaction threshold.

the biggest issue here is that people assume they should all like the same game. games, like books, are different and people should not expect to all like the same new game. Especially in this case as it's somewhat an experimental RPG. you could say bethesda is to blame for it by not making it clear how the game plays (basically a single player fallout 76). writing was never their strong suit, and I didn't bother with doing any quests until 20+ hours in because I knew what to expect. In this case gameplay wise it's just my jam.