Starfield

[FordGTGuy]

I agree, it's not a true next gen title despite what Todd Howard says. It needs to be on an SSD because it's loading a lot of data and there's a lot of loading required. But ultimately, it is on an old game engine that's showing it's age now.

That said, I am not letting any of those things spoil it for me, the loading is a minor irrittation for me, it takes about 3 or 4 seconds to load a new area on the SSD I have it installed on and I'm having a blast with the game. So while people perhaps aren't wrong about it not running as well as it could/should be expected to, the game isn't terrible as a result.

Of course, not everyone will like it, but I think there's a lot of bandwagon jumping going on with this game. It's become trendy to knock it. Todd Howard hasn't done himself any favours say it is a next gen title and people might just need to upgrade thier PC's though. But I'm still having a blast with it.

Loading is around 1-3 seconds on my Gen 4 x4 Samsung 990 Evo Pro.

Not to take away from your point but man... imagine hearing someone complain about 4 second load times in the og Xbox era.

Kids won't know how long you would wait just for Windows to boot.

Just so you can play Warcraft at 640x480, Not World of Warcraft but the original Warcraft RTS games.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Loading is around 1-3 seconds on my Gen 4 x4 Samsung 990 Evo Pro.

Not to take away from your point but man... imagine hearing someone complain about 4 second load times in the og Xbox era.

Kids won't know how long you would wait just for Windows to boot.

Just so you can play Warcraft at 640x480, Not World of Warcraft but the original Warcraft RTS games.

Some people will never know what it's like to wait 45min for a cassette to load just to watch it fail (C64) or have a game on 15 floppy disks that you need to constantly swap with only 1 disk drive (Amiga)

 

[LM7325]

One thing nobody really brings up is that this game runs just fine offline. The loading times are not bad on a Series X. I have only ran into a few bugs, nothing that even required a reload to fix. I have not had a crash happen even after hours of play. It has exceeded all my expectations for what I expected.

 

[Dave A]

Loading is around 1-3 seconds on my Gen 4 x4 Samsung 990 Evo Pro.

Not to take away from your point but man... imagine hearing someone complain about 4 second load times in the og Xbox era.

Kids won't know how long you would wait just for Windows to boot.

Just so you can play Warcraft at 640x480, Not World of Warcraft but the original Warcraft RTS games.

I agree entirely, and I wasn't that the loading is bad, it really isn't, it's impact is minor. It just becomes a minior irritation when you've moving through areas that require loading one after the other in quick succession, but that's only in certain areas and again, it's a minor irritation (and only even that due to the nature of modern games and technology).

I remember having to wait at least 15 minutes (if not longer) for games to load on the Amstrad CPC464. My point really was just that the game doesn't seem to be as next-gen as Todd Howard claimed when you look at the engine it's built on and so on. That's not to say it's not a great game, it absolutely is.

 

[FordGTGuy]

I agree entirely, and I wasn't that the loading is bad, it really isn't, it's impact is minor, it just becomes a minior irritation when you've moving through areas that require loading one after the other in quick succession, but that's only in certain areas and again, it's a minor irritation (and only even that due to the nature of modern games and technology).

I remember having to wait at least 15 minutes (if not longer) for games to load on the Amstrad CPC464. My point really was just that the game doesn't seem to be as next-gen as Todd Howard claimed when you look at the engine it's built on and so on. That's not to say it's not a great game, it absolutely is.

I think the main reason they gave for a lot of the loading is due to how the game handles items in the world. Like being able to like a placed object in an apartment in New Atlantis and then traveling many worlds away and can come back to it.

Not something many games are capable of.

It still sucks that a more seamless experience isn't possible yet.

 

[Dave A]

I think the main reason they gave for a lot of the loading is due to how the game handles items in the world. Like being able to like a placed object in an apartment in New Atlantis and then traveling many worlds away and can come back to it.

Not something many games are capable of.

It still sucks that a more seamless experience isn't possible yet.

Yep, the world is semi-persistent, but it's also built on an old engine that was designed a couple of generations ago, so it's probably a combination of both doing something most other games don't do while still being limited by an old engine.

I'm not sure if I'm recalling it correctly, but I'm sure I've read that the next Elder Scrolls will be on a new engine.

 

[R55NA]

Spent far too long organising this, and made all the more painful on a controller 😬

 

[EngieDiesel]

I didn't mean for it to look like a refrigerator from the 1950's, but I the more I built it the more I realized that Taiyo's aesthetic leans towards the "retro-future" style like you'd see in a Fallout game, so I just decided to run with it. Still, a couple points in Starship Design and the quirks of these parts meant i was able to hide cargo pods in spots where they're barely visible, which helped clean up the design somewhat. And the end results...

Can't really argue with that. At least the Crimson Fleet ships that jumped me on the way back to Neon can't cause... y'know, they got reduced to their component atoms.

 

[Whitestar]

Looks like this (StarUI) might be as essential for Starfield on PC as SkyUI was for Skyrim.

Language warning!


PCGamer:

Rejoice, there's already a Starfield interface overhaul called StarUI

Bless these modders.

www.pcgamer.com

Some people will never know what it's like to wait 45min for a cassette to load just to watch it fail (C64)

I'm not sure I ever knew myself actually. I think I was hypnotized into thinking it wasn't that long, with flashing colors and fzzzzz-brrrr-ding sounds.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Looks like this (StarUI) might be as essential for Starfield on PC as SkyUI was for Skyrim.

Language warning!


PCGamer:

Rejoice, there's already a Starfield interface overhaul called StarUI

Bless these modders.

www.pcgamer.com

I'm not sure I ever knew myself actually. I think I was hypnotized into thinking it wasn't that long, with flashing colors and fzzzzz-brrrr-ding sounds.

Kids nowadays, just don't know aye

 

[EngieDiesel]

Small-ish update today that concentrates on stability improvements, and a reassurance that official modding support will be arriving early next year. The message posted on Steam says "This is a game we'll be supporting for years and years to come", so clearly they're hoping it'll be as long lived as Skyrim has been, and knowing the modding community Bethesda has gained over the years I imagine it will be.

It's also got me wondering just how much leeway they've put in as far as being able to add in new locations, because if people can make entirely custom planets and star systems and just pop them into the starmap without having to replace anything already existing, that'd be absolutely wild. Especially having seen some of the Skyrim mods out there that add in entire regions that are almost as big and feature-filled as the base game's map.

 

[Veinz]

Steam :: Starfield :: Starfield Updates and Mod Support – September 13, 2023

First, an enormous thank you to all of you playing Starfield and your support. We are absolutely blown away by the response and all you love about the game. We’re also reading all your great feedback on what you’d like to see improved or added to the game. This is a game we’ll be supporting for...

steamcommunity.com

This first update is a small hotfix targeted at the few top issues were are seeing. After that, expect a regular interval of updates that have top community requested features including:

• Brightness and Contrast controls
• HDR Calibration Menu
• FOV Slider
• Nvidia DLSS Support (PC)
• 32:9 Ultrawide Monitor Support (PC)
• Eat button for food!

This will relieve a lot of pc performance complaints. Nvidia just released a driver update too.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Spoiler: Even in the future, you can't get away from it...

I both love and hate Bethesda for putting that in.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Spoiler: Even in the future, you can't get away from it...

View attachment 1286996

I both love and hate Bethesda for putting that in.

And for that...I shall blow you off the stars... Raise shields, arm torpedoes!

 

[Mr Grumpy]

If you land near London you have to pay the ULEZ charge.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Well, today I choose to give up, after 6-7 h or so of play and seeing how humanity will just fill the galaxy with abandoned facilities, litter and random piracy, I'm just not engaged or motivated to go on. Already uninstalled.

 

[Veinz]

This game is kind of boring now that the honey moon period has worn off. I’ll return to this after the Cyberpunk expansion.

 

[R55NA]

How many hours you guys got if you're bored of it already? I am 40+ hours deep and still loving it, barely even done any main mission stuff, and the Ship Building has so much yet to offer.

 

[NLxAROSA]

How many hours you guys got if you're bored of it already? I am 40+ hours deep and still loving it, barely even done any main mission stuff, and the Ship Building has so much yet to offer.

Same. The filler content that @Nacho Libre refers to is very repetitive though; layouts and loot always exactly the same. Fortunately there is more than enough handcrafted mission/faction content to not have to spend a lot of time with the filler content, if at all. I am apparently 102.5 hours in.

 

[Nacho Libre]

How many hours you guys got if you're bored of it already? I am 40+ hours deep and still loving it, barely even done any main mission stuff, and the Ship Building has so much yet to offer.

Appreciation of anything is subjective, so if you got 40+ hours of joy out of it, more power to you, no one could tell you otherwise. In my case it was 6-7 hours of nothing really eventful happening in the main story, apart from the event that sets all in motion, and not even that (it's not Commander Shepherd, if you know what I mean).

IMO, if anything does not grab you almost right away or within a reasonable amount of time, it won't hours later. Heck, Beethoven's fifth symphony only takes four notes! Games like Halo, Gears of War, Cyberpunk 2077, the Outer Worlds, Skyrim, etc. have you going right from the start, and then their stories/lore begin to unfold and go places. E.g., within an hour Mass Effect has laid down it's setting, the threat, and general gameplay, and keeps expanding on that.

To be honest I went in with almost no expectations, and the technical performance wasn't even bad (very good on Series X, merely good on PC), it's just that it didn't connect with me.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

I spend most of my time gravity pushing pirates on the moon & watching them fly away.

Currently in the process of building a oversized X-Wing, then I'm going to attempt Starbug from Red Dwarf.

I'm running 2 games saves, 1 for messing about & the other to become......... You know.

To be honest I hate rpgs, I'm a sim racing guy but I'm having a little break & thoroughly enjoying this.

Don't care much for the story though, couldn't care less who lives or dies.

 

[ImaRobot]

I honestly really enjoy the game. I don't mind the vast openness to it or being allowed to do literally anything you want. I haven't even followed the main mission for some time now and started doing sidequests, until I stumbled upon Ryujin. It was a fun little story within itself and I felt fine the way it played out as well. Also felt a bit different paced than what I had encountered so far as well. I think I would have liked it less if the fast travel wasn't available, its so seemless and really makes things easy to navigate.

I'm only about 30 hours in so far, but I honestly feel like I'm not even far into it yet, and that's not a bad thing. After you unlock the next few strings of main quest, I only completed Into the Unknown of those you acquire, and then I just started doing my own thing.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I'm only about 30 hours in so far, but I honestly feel like I'm not even far into it yet, and that's not a bad thing. After you unlock the next few strings of main quest, I only completed Into the Unknown of those you acquire, and then I just started doing my own thing.

This is what most people did with Skyrim as well, played the main quest until they hit the first big plot point, then went off and did their own thing until they got tired of it or were overwhelmed by the giant pile of quests in their journal, then came back a few months later and were like "oh right, there's a storyline, I should finish that!"

So far it rather oddly feels like the main story is intended to take a backseat to all the other content on offer, since the faction questlines and a lot of the shorter quest chains you have to go a kinda out of your way to find all feel much more interesting and also do a better job of explaining the game's setting. Though the issue with that is a lot of people won't bother doing them because they can't be bothered to go out and find them, and a lot of the other stuff that's been included like shipbuilding, outposts, research, mission boards and the like aren't really explained fully anywhere, so they tend to get completely passed by if someone's just chasing the blue markers because "that's the real game".

So I can understand if people are getting bored with it early, since they're not being nudged towards all the other stuff to explore it like other Bethesda games did in the past. Skyrim encouraged you to go talk to the lady at the forge when you got into Whiterun and learn about how crafting worked. I didn't even know about the (kinda cheaty feeling) basement room in the Lodge until after I had built my little factory ship some 20 hours in, because it never even gave me a reason to explore the building other than go to my room and head right back out again. I guess they just presumed that everyone is so familiar with how a Bethesda game is structured that players will automatically know these things are present and don't need to be actively led right to it.

 

[ImaRobot]

This is what most people did with Skyrim as well, played the main quest until they hit the first big plot point, then went off and did their own thing until they got tired of it or were overwhelmed by the giant pile of quests in their journal, then came back a few months later and were like "oh right, there's a storyline, I should finish that!"

So far it rather oddly feels like the main story is intended to take a backseat to all the other content on offer, since the faction questlines and a lot of the shorter quest chains you have to go a kinda out of your way to find all feel much more interesting and also do a better job of explaining the game's setting. Though the issue with that is a lot of people won't bother doing them because they can't be bothered to go out and find them, and a lot of the other stuff that's been included like shipbuilding, outposts, research, mission boards and the like aren't really explained fully anywhere, so they tend to get completely passed by if someone's just chasing the blue markers because "that's the real game".

So I can understand if people are getting bored with it early, since they're not being nudged towards all the other stuff to explore it like other Bethesda games did in the past. Skyrim encouraged you to go talk to the lady at the forge when you got into Whiterun and learn about how crafting worked. I didn't even know about the (kinda cheaty feeling) basement room in the Lodge until after I had built my little factory ship some 20 hours in, because it never even gave me a reason to explore the building other than go to my room and head right back out again. I guess they just presumed that everyone is so familiar with how a Bethesda game is structured that players will automatically know these things are present and don't need to be actively led right to it.

I actually enjoy knocking out the side quests and faction stuff first. Lets me really enjoy the game, and then I go back and do the story missions last. That way I have less distractions at that point and can really focus in on it. Also because I'll have great gear as well from all the things I've done before that. In typical fashion, you tend to find some of the best items from sidequests and the like.

I'm not going to lie, on my first build of my ship I was so confused about how to get all the labs and research station in my ship. I didn't even realize you were supposed to press right on the dpad to access the other modules. I was shocked at how easy it was to overlook that, and before that, it was pretty frustrating. Mission boards I still have trouble finding though hahaha. Also still havent dabbled in making an outpost but I think I'm going to save that for a bit later in the game.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I'm not going to lie, on my first build of my ship I was so confused about how to get all the labs and research station in my ship. I didn't even realize you were supposed to press right on the dpad to access the other modules. I was shocked at how easy it was to overlook that, and before that, it was pretty frustrating.

It also doesn't help that you have to know that the UC and Freestar territories only offer parts from certain manufacturers, and certain parts are only obtainable if you go to a manufacturer's headquarters and modify your ship there. That's on top of the parts that are gated behind leveling and Starship Design perk levels, so I certainly can't blame folks who are already installing mods to just unlock everything in one place.

Mission boards I still have trouble finding though hahaha. Also still havent dabbled in making an outpost but I think I'm going to save that for a bit later in the game.

The two easiest places I've found to get at the Tracker boards are in the lobby of the Aurora Lounge at Neon, and at the spaceport in New Atlantis. Go up the ramp like you were going into the city, and at the top turn left and follow that balcony back around to where the kiosk is. Faction boards are in their respective HQ buildings but you can't do anything with them unless you've finished that faction's quest line, Constellation excluded.

Outposts are very resource intensive to construct and I would say require at least one point in the Outpost Engineering perk to do anything really meaningful with them. So that can be held off until you're at least, say, level 25 or so and want to devote some time to focusing specifically on it.

 

[SDSmurf]

Built my first ship today. As expected, is absolute garbage hahaha

 

[TexRex]

If I'm not the only one who has misread the title of this thread as "Seinfeld," I'm still the only one who has said anything about it.

 

[EngieDiesel]

If I'm not the only one who has misread the title of this thread as "Seinfeld," I'm still the only one who has said anything about it.

Though the lack of space lasagna is concerning. Bethesda plz fix


And in unrelated news, I have built a surprisingly effective, long range, silent assassin's weapon.

It is a shotgun.

Even Fallout didn't let me do this and have it work so damn well. This game is ridiculous and I love it for that.

 

[R55NA]

I was very intimidated by Outpost building, despite watching a lot of videos explaining that this is how you make huge amounts of cash and XP, fast.

So I finally built an Outpost, and it all makes sense now why I had been collecting all that tat! It is used for buildings, storage, generators etc.

Very helpful video for those of us who have yet to touch this aspect.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I was very intimidated by Outpost building, despite watching a lot of videos explaining that this is how you make huge amounts of cash and XP, fast.

So I finally built an Outpost, and it all makes sense now why I had been collecting all that tat! It is used for buildings, storage, generators etc.

Very helpful video for those of us who have yet to touch this aspect.

Another thing to note about that large outpost landing pad is that it'll give you access to the basic ship parts from all the manufacturers, no matter where you build it. You won't see any of the more advanced and exclusive stuff, as certain structural parts, engines and grav drives have to be purchased at large settlements or manufacturer direct, but if you want to experiment with mix-and-match and don't feel like modding your game it's pretty good for a starting point.

They're also useful for registering ships if you're into, uh, "reposession", since hostile factions occasionally have contraband laying in the open somewhere on their ships and you can easily overlook it as random clutter, which makes for some very awkward conversations with sysdef forces around settled areas.