Game Discussions Bethesda Softworks Starfield Space RPG

[Mole HD]

That would be a pretty clumsy way to get around the planet, hopping like a giant grasshopper from one location to the next. It's an interesting question to be settled.

Not as clumsy as hoofing around it on foot in the unlikely event it's an option...from when you initiate the take off sequence in your ship, I suspect from what we know (precious little really) that it's only going in one direction and that's straight up. The only other option I can see could be the ability to fast travel in your ship to another POI or marker on the planet perhaps, rather than bunny hopping it. We know you can fast travel back to your ship from random points on the same planet... since it was mentioned.

There's also the several brief clips of footage shown during the deep dive of your ship taking off as you watch it from the surface...a bit like dismissing your ship in ED. What's that about and why? Questions indeed

 

[amigacooke]

We know you can fast travel back to your ship from random points on the same planet... since it was mentioned.

Fast travel seems a likely option, though surely they'll be some sort of vehicular transport. Even ED managed that

 

[Dooguk]

Fast travel seems a likely option, though surely they'll be some sort of vehicular transport. Even ED managed that

Skyrim had horses, so a robot horse would work for me.

 

[Mole HD]

Skyrim had horses, so a robot horse would work for me.

Echoes of Horizon: Zero Dawn there

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

However, one thing that I now think is a little misleading in regards to the presentation of Starfield, is when the moon was pointed out as a place you could go. I kinda rolled my eyes knowing that with Elite, that's been around since Horizons, but now after finding out the cut-scene mechanic (if we can call it that), that part doesn't seem to ring as true to me. I mean, yeah, you can go there, but is it really "there'?

Well i had reservations about this as well.. but they showed footage of being able to land on any pixel of the planet as well as the poi markers.. so if it has to be that way, im at ease with being able to plot down anywhere. Maybe mods will add tools to make it more precise etc.

If it has ship interiors and instead provides the armstrong moment instead of piloting down, say the exact opposite of the elite experience, i would be okay. It would be fun to get ready and scope out the surrounding terrain before heading out.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

They tried monetising it for Fallout 4 on Xbox resulting in modders having a rebellion...so they dropped it. And yup, creation club was pretty bad...slightly after I had left Xbox to go back to PC, but a fair few of the big modders were refusing to mod for Fallout at all, most pulling their existing mods from creation club.

Not all sunshine and roses, even though Microsoft allowing mods on Xbox was a first, it was an account bannable offence up to that point. I almost fell foul of that by modding a Skyrim save game on my PC and using it on Xbox.

I only avoided a complete account ban by arguing that me using a modded save game in an offline game for my own enjoyment had effected absolutely no-one else, Microsoft accepted this but deleted my entire gamerscore and every achievement or award I had ever earned from every single game tied to my Xbox account in retribution...My Xbox gamerzone was also listed as 'Cheater' for the life of that account, no idea if that's still active, I'll have to take a peek on my Xbox account...although that punishment kinda backfired as everyone that saw it on my gamer profile reckoned it was cool

Nope, that heinous offence has been thankfully expunged

View attachment 359073

Hahahaha, thats great! Bet you didn't imagine getting into that much trouble on your online gaming account.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

That would be a pretty clumsy way to get around the planet, hopping like a giant grasshopper from one location to the next. It's an interesting question to be settled.

Maybe. If you can set the next place to hop to while you're in your ship.. how much difference is that from elite? Its just skipping the piloting again.

Hopefully its a really convincing cutscene, ie you can actually perceive where you're landing and its somewhere different etc.

 

[Fizzatron]

You can land anywhere on a planet surface, it was shown clearly in the direct showcase. As you click anywhere on a planet surface from orbit you create a marker...you can then enter the landing cutscene and drop the ship on that marker. Some of the planets already have fixed POI's, settlements or mission markers which have their own landing zones, each sparking off the auto-landing animation sequence we've all seen a bazillion times if you select them.

Just before setting off one of the first landing sequences shown in SF direct at the main city, Todd '16 times the detail' Howard clearly said in commentary. "You can chose to land anywhere, but in this instance we're landing at (whatever the city was called)". No, I'm not timestamping the video, do it yourself...I was paying attention the first time

There's no mystery or argument here, it's been mentioned ad nauseum by a variety of Bethesda devs even before SF direct was ever aired that the ability to land anywhere on a planet was a thing...what wasn't there was the ability to physically fly your ship from space to landing zone which seems to be confusing folks somewhat by mixing the two separate events together and assuming.

What happens once you select a random landing zone...the game engine draws in a 16km square tile relevant to the planets biome with proc gen flora and fauna to suit. As the player explores on foot, sometimes hand placed assets or events will spawn (that's not an assertion that a player can't walk completely around a planet should they chose to)...or another proc gen scenario like the deserted mine thing we were shown...it's what proc gen is all about.

I stand corrected if that is the case, from what it looked like to me, it was only a set of POIs that you could select. From this I'm understanding that you can click anywhere on a planet/moon and initiate a landing sequence. I guess that's ok, but it's still a bit odd to me, tbh.

 

[Fizzatron]

How did you come to this conclusion, do you have a source for this?

I guess that was my mistake based on a video I watched talking about that. It just showed POIs and said you couldn't fly over the planet etc., so it seemed natural to presume that only POIs were visitable.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I don't know, but going by whats shown so far I didn't see landing anywhere you want.
Landing without a pad, you'll have to land like that if you're attacking one of those outposts.
Good point about building outpost, but they could also have little icons for points of interest, maybe its random, maybe its a result of a scan. Since there's things like geology and mining for crew, it might be the case that it gvies you a landing zone where there are deposits and you can choose or not to build an outpost. I don't know.

Considering there are a lot of systems and planets, I don't think they're going to make planets full of stuff. Don't think that would fit on 120GB.

It's proc genned. Like ED. Then they place crafted stuff.

 

[Morbad]

When I was a kid playing Daggerfall for the first time, I walked hundreds of miles over the course of two weeks before I realized there was a fast travel.

I will be slightly disappointed if Starfield is effectively smaller than their 1994 and 1996 titles.

 

[amigacooke]

Maybe. If you can set the next place to hop to while you're in your ship.. how much difference is that from elite? Its just skipping the piloting again.

Difficult to know at the moment, another reason i wouldn't consider pre-order, too many unknowns.

It appears that to move around the planet, you have to leave it and return again. That's not the same as ED.

 

[varonica]

It's proc genned. Like ED. Then they place crafted stuff.

Not quite the same, from what I understand the landscape will be unique for each player rather than identical for players, so every player will have different mountains and rivers and etc in their game. Of course because it's a single player game there's really no reason to make your procgen identical for all games, much easier that way I assume.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Difficult to know at the moment, another reason i wouldn't consider pre-order, too many unknowns.

It appears that to move around the planet, you have to leave it and return again. That's not the same as ED.

Yeah im going gamepass for the base game. Strangely releases you to buy all the other upgrades and toys.

Really, so you srv or fly over significant parts of the planet? I remember before they had pois people used to supercruise around looking for texture loading glitches.. it wasn't that fun. Also unless you have multiple missions on the same planet there's no reason to do this.

Okay i do enjoy canyon boosting sure. But that's legacy only.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Sorry for linking a short, but here's another look at the watch.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jm-Ic_JRRkE


Not sold on it still. I did order the headset yesterday though.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Not quite the same, from what I understand the landscape will be unique for each player rather than identical for players, so every player will have different mountains and rivers and etc in their game. Of course because it's a single player game there's really no reason to make your procgen identical for all games, much easier that way I assume.

You mean the seed changes each time the world generates? Might be good for replayability. My reply was geared towards the data required to store the game files. Proc gen doesn't need to store all the planets and what's on them. It's a solution since Elite (1984) and Lords of Midnight. Today's challenge is to find not just a static seed for storage purpose but to also generate interesting varied content procedurally.

 

[Northpin]

You mean the seed changes each time the world generates? Might be good for replayability. My reply was geared towards the data required to store the game files. Proc gen doesn't need to store all the planets and what's on them. It's a solution since Elite (1984) and Lords of Midnight. Today's challenge is to find not just a static seed for storage purpose but to also generate interesting varied content procedurally.

In a multiplayer game, you do need to (proceduraly) generate content that is the same for each and every player.

 

[Arioch]

Not quite the same, from what I understand the landscape will be unique for each player rather than identical for players, so every player will have different mountains and rivers and etc in their game. Of course because it's a single player game there's really no reason to make your procgen identical for all games, much easier that way I assume.

That’s not what I took from the Starfield Direct video - it sounded to me like the planets will be the same for all players but would then be populated in a unique way.

“…we generate the planet itself as a procedural content but the handcrafted content comes as the players explore. Our system builds the planet as the player approaches it, we stitch together blocks of terrain. After that we have a system that adds interesting locations for the player to explore, creatures to encounter, foreign plants to pick up…it allows us to add that environmental storytelling that Bethesda is known for.”

 

[varonica]

That’s not what I took from the Starfield Direct video - it sounded to me like the planets will be the same for all players but would then be populated in a unique way.

“…we generate the planet itself as a procedural content but the handcrafted content comes as the players explore. Our system builds the planet as the player approaches it, we stitch together blocks of terrain. After that we have a system that adds interesting locations for the player to explore, creatures to encounter, foreign plants to pick up…it allows us to add that environmental storytelling that Bethesda is known for.”

It was specifically stated in one video, I forget which one, that the procedural generation would be different for every player, it wasn't refering to the population but the planet itself, I will look around and see if I can find the particular article.

 

[varonica]

There's this one;

What's more is that because of how they're generated, each planet will be different in every playthrough.

https://videogames.si.com/news/starfield-map-size-1000-planets#:~:text=Starfield%20lets%20you%20learn%20a,content%20is%20placed%20into%20it.

However here it strongly states that they are saved planets, but I don't see how you can have both saved planets and procedurally generated settlements and other stuff Bethesda is implying will come with the game;

Bethesda has made it clear that while the planets in Starfield were generated at first, the studio saved the planets it liked and fixed them up, expanding them to better suit its vision. As much as this makes it so every planet may have something worth seeing, it may be too much for Starfield and its players.

Anyway, it looks like I am wrong, but it will be interesting to see how they can have a different play through every time, though the procedural quest generation would help with that. It may be that I was confused by statement like the first one, each planet will be different in every playthrough could imply different planets each time or just different quests each time, so Bethesda has said the planets have all been saved, but that's a lot of data. I suppose that's why it's so big.