Bethesda's Starfield

[coopasonic]

I went with the BethSoft classic stealth archer... but my bow is a suppressed semi-auto rifle and my stealth is... not great.

I can't remember the class I went with but started with pickpocketing... it's so much easier to just shoot them first.

[Blackhawk]

The rest of us should be getting our access in a little over an hour.

[Smoove_B]

Not sure if I did that weird Bethesda game thing where I'm leveled up because of non-combat things I've done and now I'm in a spot where I have weak weapons skills vs enemies leveled to my big brain....and combat is the only option. I'm following the main story and helping someone in need.

Spoiler:

I'm at the abandoned base trying to rescue Barrett from the Crimson Fleet and they're cleaning my clock

EDIT: I figured it out. Remember lessons from days of old

Spoiler:

A frontal assault is rarely the answer

[infinitelurker]

The rest of us should be getting our access in a little over an hour.

Finally - it just started unpacking for me on Steam. I've felt like a kid the week before Christmas these last few days...

[Isgrimnur]

THAT'S NOT AN UPDATE, MICROSOFT!

[hepcat]

I went with a long hauler. I just like the idea of a Mal Reynolds type cargo ship captain. Although I almost took the pre made character that looks quite a lot like Amos from The Expanse.

I had to go read up on space combat as my first battle was essentially “I’ll sit here and fiddle with the knobs while you kill me”. But after I grabbed some tips it was a bit easier.

Overall I’m not seeing a vast improvement over Skyrim graphics or gaming. But I’m still really early in the game.

[Blackhawk]

Installed. Turned off all of the 'filmic' settings (depth of field, motion blur, film grain.) The mouse sensitivity was crazy high, and I found myself thinking that it would be like FO76 where the minimum was still too high. Luckily, it works right (for me) at 5% sensitivity.

Bethesda: 17 years after Oblivion, and you still can't put in an FOV slider on PC. It's locked at 70 (an FOV designed for play on TVs from across the room.) I've found a workaround that I'll fiddle with tomorrow. Also, there are no brightness, contrast, or gamma controls at all, and everything looks washed out as a result. Apparently there's something broken with their HDR implementation. I'll get around that one by using the Nvidia tweaks.

[jztemple2]

Regarding lock picking... I put this in spoiler tags as it is my way to use scratch paper to be able to solve a difficult lock on the first try. Some folks might want to work it out on their own.

Spoiler:

I took a photo of the scratch paper I was using to solve a tough lock. The left x-y is the outer ring, the right one is the inner. The center vertical line is just a separator. The little circles are the opening in the lock circles, the "Px" are the different digipicks. The "APx" designations are because sometimes there was more than one way the digipick would fit into the circle. Obviously I wasn't making it neat for publication , just more of an idea of how you can use scratch paper and solve the lock on the first try.

[Blackhawk]

Installed. Turned off all of the 'filmic' settings (depth of field, motion blur, film grain.)

I spoke too soon - the lens flare is forced on. I think I've found a fix tomorrow - I'll fiddle with it then. Why do game companies keep trying to make immersive games look like movies shot with a cheap camera?

[Blackhawk]

Don't worry, I'm not just bitching. I came in expecting Bethesdisms, so I'm not upset.

I'm sitting at character creation. Knowing me, I'll be here so long that I won't have time to actually play tonight. I'm going to do it backwards - start with background/traits to get an idea of what my character is like, then go back and match his look to the concept.

Noting: Nukes & Dragons has a character builder up that helps give some context to the choices.

[Blackhawk]

Professor

Dream Home, Extrovert, Raised Enlightened

[jztemple2]

I'm guessing they had somebody on the development team that just did doors, appearance and operation

[Daehawk]

Professor

Dream Home, Extrovert, Raised Enlightened

You're Andy Serkis?

[Blackhawk]

No, but he worked at a randy circus.

[Punisher]

So, still trying to give the game a chance. Now that I understand fast travel a bit better, it does help navigation for me since I can be in City A, Planet B, and System C, and as long as it's known can FT directly to Cit Z, Planet A, System A.
Unknown systems/planets/cities are still a pan, but over time I should at least know most of the main ones.

Question.
Does anyone know if there is a true jetpack in the game somewhere? something like Mandos jetpack where it's not just a boosted jump but you can actually fly with it.

[ydejin]

I'm guessing they had somebody on the development team that just did doors, appearance and operation

The doors are actually a bit inconsistent. Some airlock doors you have to poke around looking for an entirely separate switch box, which you will hit and which cycles the airlock. Other airlock doors you don’t look for a switch box, you just click on the door itself.

They do look very nice. I would say in general almost all the man-made items and structures including buildings, clothing, tech gear, all look quite good. The people are rather hit and miss.

[Grifman]

I'm guessing they had somebody on the development team that just did doors, appearance and operation

The doors are actually a bit inconsistent. Some airlock doors you have to poke around looking for an entirely separate switch box, which you will hit and which cycles the airlock. Other airlock doors you don’t look for a switch box, you just click on the door itself.

They do look very nice. I would say in general almost all the man-made items and structures including buildings, clothing, tech gear, all look quite good. The people are rather hit and miss.

Pro tip - some doors have orange bolts on them. You can use your mining laser to cut those bolts to open hidden rooms you cannot reach otherwise.

[jztemple2]

Pro tip - some doors have orange bolts on them. You can use your mining laser to cut those bolts to open hidden rooms you cannot reach otherwise.

Awesome, thanks for the tip!

[ydejin]

Pro tip - some doors have orange bolts on them. You can use your mining laser to cut those bolts to open hidden rooms you cannot reach otherwise.

Thanks Grifman, I never would figured that one out!

[Victoria Raverna]

Anyone using Microsoft Store/gamepass version? Can you use the DLSS mod with it?

Gamepass version can use the DLSS mod but doesn't work the script extension mod which is probably going to be needed for a lot of mods in the future.

[raydude]

My name is Kaylee Song. I grew up on Neon, poor, but not alone. I was part of a gang of street rats, begging where we could, stealing when we couldn't. I thought I'd never get out until my leader sold me to a man who wanted to "adopt" me. He took me off-world then injected me full of alien DNA. It merged with mine; and it hurt. A lot. Luckily it helped my physiology. I was more resilient, had more lung capacity. So one day I put that to good use and locked both of us in an airlock until he told me who put him up to giving me alien DNA. Not much though, he just said, "the Company." So now I roam the stars, searching. I tell others I'm a pilgrim; they think I'm on a spiritual journey. And I am, of sorts. I'm on a journey to find this Company and get some answers.

[Hamlet3145]

I played about 90 minutes last night. My first impression of the game was finding out there is no way to drop resolution from 4k to 1080p (and keep it fullscreen) without changing my resolution on my desktop. This was followed by the narrative whiplash in the first 60 minutes of going from being a lowly miner to an Important Person with Important Mission who is given a fancy ship & robot only to have said robot make me go Rambo on a nearby pirate base before doing anything else. LOL wut. Yes, my down on his luck professor will get right on that with his mining laser. (Well, I guess if Gordan Freeman can do it . . .).

I'm not finding it awful or anthing, but you can put me in the camp of feeling that the opening could have been handled with a wee bit more finese. I eagerly await the magical 12 hour mark that I keep hearing of.

On a positive note, it's running better than I expected for me at 1080p high* (feels like 60fps) though I haven't hit the first big city yet.

*Specs: Ryzen 3600x CPU, Radeon 6700xt & 32gb RAM.

[Victoria Raverna]

I played about 90 minutes last night. My first impression of the game was finding out there is no way to drop resolution from 4k to 1080p (and keep it fullscreen) without changing my resolution on my desktop.

Why you don't just use FSR? You can have the game rendered at lower resolution then upscale to 4k using FSR. It'll be better than playing it at 1080p.

[Scraper]

3 impressions after 13 hours:

1. I was surprised when the robot said the actual name I gave my character. I tried to go the firefly route and I built a character that somewhat resembles Nathan Fillion and called him Malcolm Reynolds. Now people in the game call me Captain Reynolds. It was a nice surprise and I wonder how many last names they had their voice actors record.

2. I hit the 12 hour mark and it didn't change the game for me. Spoiler for specifics

Spoiler:

The part where you get powers

. I was already digging the game before that, in fact I flew from Akila to Neon and was hooked at that point after doing missions at both spots. The game is just so varied. It can feel like a space western (Firefly) and other spots feel like Cyberpunk 2077. I like the variety.

3. I think the biggest thing I struggled with early on is the lack of walking around on foot to get to new places. Prior to this game every Bethesda game had that sense of exploration. With Starfield there is still a sense of exploration but it is different than past Bethesda games. Like many have said you literally have to fast travel to get to most new places. Which is weird at first.

[Max Peck]

Steam reviews, out of the gate, are pretty much in line with the critical reviews, at 85% positive w/14k+ reviews. I expect that will slide somewhat once reviews start accumulating from players who didn't go all-in on the Premium edition for the early access.

[infinitelurker]

I got about 2.5 hours in last night and me and my robot were over-encumbered for most of it I need to go back and read this thread now that I’m in game. I know I shouldn’t be picking up everything, especially with the robot deriding me at every turn about it, but it’s a hard habit to break.

Also, I keep walking around with my scanner on in an attempt to not miss any items, but while in the scanner view you can’t open things like lockers. Or at least I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that yet…

[Hamlet3145]

I played about 90 minutes last night. My first impression of the game was finding out there is no way to drop resolution from 4k to 1080p (and keep it fullscreen) without changing my resolution on my desktop.

Why you don't just use FSR? You can have the game rendered at lower resolution then upscale to 4k using FSR. It'll be better than playing it at 1080p.

I am. At 1080p. Edit: I'll see how it goes in the city, and start upping the resolution if I can (with FSR still on).

[Max Peck]

3. I think the biggest thing I struggled with early on is the lack of walking around on foot to get to new places. Prior to this game every Bethesda game had that sense of exploration. With Starfield there is still a sense of exploration but it is different than past Bethesda games. Like many have said you literally have to fast travel to get to most new places. Which is weird at first.

When/if you get into planetary surveys and exploration there is plenty of walking around to check out points of interest and look for resources/flora/fauna to scan and/or harvest. Some planet-side quests also require you to hoof it to a location, because you can't fast travel to a POI until it is flagged as discovered.

[Max Peck]

I got about 2.5 hours in last night and me and my robot were over-encumbered for most of it I need to go back and read this thread now that I’m in game. I know I shouldn’t be picking up everything, especially with the robot deriding me at every turn about it, but it’s a hard habit to break.

My companion of choice (Sarah) reliably chides me for being a pack-rat once my personal inventory starts to fill up.

[Smoove_B]

My companion of choice (Sarah) reliably chides me for being a pack-rat once my personal inventory starts to fill up.

I've had companions comment on my behavior when I'm looting in the middle of a firefight. They're not wrong.

[coopasonic]

I pick up all ammo as it is weightless, similarly with slates and keycards that are also weightless and generally useful, beyond that I'll pick up the 3 levels of healing kits and all the lockpicks. The only other thing worth a look is weapons and gear, but only if it is something I will actually use or worth maybe 5k or more, otherwise it isn't worth the weight. Now the only other relevant things are items for research but I find it more effective to seek those out specifically when needed rather than clutter all the inventories with random resources in the hopes they meet your needs.

You literally never need to build a base. There is a story beat where it is an option, but still not necessary.

[Max Peck]

She's generally pretty helpful. If I've got plenty of free inventory capacity she'll encourage me to scavenge weapons and ammunition, but she'll give me grief for picking up junk or overloading myself. She'll also often point out interesting things in the vicinity to check out, such as computer terminals that can be used to hack security systems.

[Max Peck]

You literally never need to build a base. There is a story beat where it is an option, but still not necessary.

For some values of need. I currently do need to build a base so that I can store this huge pile of contraband I've accumlated on my current run, until I am able to put together a proper smuggling ship. Or find a non-UC system that doesn't scan incoming ships and also has a shady trader who will buy my cache of stolen art and stockpile of forbidden war-crime-adjacent technology, and maybe launder this really nice stolen rifle.

[Skinypupy]

I was going to wait for a bit. But I finished up BG3 over the weekend and watched a couple more reviews last night, and I think this looks interesting enough to give it a shot.

Bethesda is hit and miss for me (love Elder Scrolls, really disliked Fallout) so it'll be interesting to see if this one clicks.

[Brian]

Installed it last night. Started it up and it ran like complete dogshit.
It was stuttering, freezing, audio sync issues, black screen, etc.
Tweaked some graphics and gameplay settings with no change.
Double checked the requirements and I'm within spec.
Started looking at upgrading my PC anyway (it was a complete new build about three years ago).

Then I thought, which drive did I install it to?
Double checked and realized that I installed it on a spindle drive.
Used the Steam tool to move the installation over to the M.2 drive this morning and tested it, much better.
Phew!!

I then renamed all my drives to avoid confusing them again.

[Smoove_B]

Info on StarUI Inventory:

By default, Starfield sorts all of your items into large categories. Take weapons, for example: Starfield sorts all guns and melee weapons under “Weapons,” with no separate categories for “shotguns” or “pistols.” And there’s also no way to sort your inventory by value, weight, or available ammo in the case of firearms. That’s where StarUI Inventory from Nexus Mods user m8r98a4f2 comes in, dramatically improving the options you have for sorting and making sense of your (probably over-encumbered) inventory.

One of the first things you’ll notice about this UI overhaul is on the right side of each category, you’ll see an item count and the total mass of that category—which is incredibly helpful when you’re sick of being over-encumbered and aren’t sure which items are causing the problem.

StarUI also adds a spreadsheet-style layout for your inventory, letting you quickly click on columns to sort items by their mass, value, and in the case of weapons, ammo and damage output.

...

The mod also features a few other nice options, like the ability to go straight back to your gameplay from the inventory screen (Starfield features menus upon menus that can be bewildering the first time through). You can also bulk-sell to vendors based on categories of items, making transactions even speedier.

It feels like there is probably someone that works for Bethesda right now that is telling coworkers they were right about the inventory management system and the team should have listened to them.

[Max Peck]

People criticize Bethesda for continuing to evolve an old engine instead of breaking with the past and switching to a new one, and rightly so, but I've got to think that the inherited engine DNA is a big part of why the games are so moddable right out of the gate. The modders already have a deep understanding of how the game will work sight unseen, and are able to spin up substantial mods like that almost immediately.

[jztemple2]

Last night I decided to take a break from missions and go out on Jemison and do some surveying. In about two hours I found two of the three traits of the planet. I also found all the resources and some, but not all, of the fauna and flora. I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of this, at least not till later on.

I managed to come across an abandoned fuel depot which had pirates. Since I'm a pirate too nobody gave me a second look as I pilfered some loot. They are pretty crummy pirates to have not found those credit sticks! I also started practicing my pickpocketing skills. And I came across some of the other nasty types, the Spacers who started shooting right away . Not nice.

I also explored a cave which was pretty much a bust, plus I couldn't find my way out. Happily I could use Fast Travel back to the ship. Caves are going to remain low on the priority list.

I'm at 32 hours and still really enjoying it. This game is exactly, as the kids say, in my wheelhouse. After Morrowind and Oblivion and Skyrim I rather lost my taste for fantasy, spells, magic potions and the like. I'm much happier with realistic (abet science fiction-ish) hardware like grenades, rifles and mines. And I'm very happy with the whole space environment and travel. Fast travel seems like an excellent solution to boring walks or space travel.

The worlds are amazing and for me, especially the man-made stuff. I'm geeking out over the huge industry facilities and the cities. And the level of detail is awesome. I take the time to get close up looks at panels and plumbing and the like.

The missions are very good, although sometimes I do feel like I'm going back and forth between two places a bit much, but that's a very minor complaint compared to otherwise outstanding mission designs.

Glad I don't have anything serious on my plate till Assassin's Creed mirage comes out in a month.

[Grifman]

I'm guessing they had somebody on the development team that just did doors, appearance and operation

The doors are actually a bit inconsistent. Some airlock doors you have to poke around looking for an entirely separate switch box, which you will hit and which cycles the airlock. Other airlock doors you don’t look for a switch box, you just click on the door itself.

They do look very nice. I would say in general almost all the man-made items and structures including buildings, clothing, tech gear, all look quite good. The people are rather hit and miss.

Pro tip - some doors have orange bolts on them. You can use your mining laser to cut those bolts to open hidden rooms you cannot reach otherwise.

Just a slight correction - these aren’t really doors, but red sections of wall marked as “Emergency Cuttable Walls” that say “Cut Here” by each bolt. Easy to spot when you know what you are looking for, but you have to know that these are real and not just decorations.

[Smoove_B]

Just a slight correction - these aren’t really doors, but red sections of wall marked as “Emergency Cuttable Walls” that say “Cut Here” by each bolt. Easy to spot when you know what you are looking for, but you have to know that these are real and not just decorations.

Indeed. You might see them quite frequently on exterior walls - like the kind you'd find around "abandoned" facilities that have been taken over by nefarious actors.