The structures, or PoIs on such maps, are they random or clustered around the LZ? Is there a point of venturing beyond the first immediate discoveries around the LZ?
Some POIs are immediately visible from your LZ, but some only "pop up" when you get in range (by boosting your scanner with an outpost or walking in the general direction). That's especially true for planetary features/traits. Additionally, since your outposts can extract underground resource veins, you can walk around and search for a location that has multiple resources at the same time. This way you can set up a production chain in one outpost, rather than having multiple outposts that have to feed resources to a different place for production.
Edit: To clarifiy: some higher tier upgrades or buildings require fabricated items. You can either loot them (in POIs, from ships), purchase them at traders or build them yourself (either at an industrial workbench or automated by connecting the required raw materials to a fabricator)
Some POIs are immediately visible from your LZ, but some only "pop up" when you get in range (by boosting your scanner with an outpost or walking in the general direction). That's especially true for planetary features/traits. Additionally, since your outposts can extract underground resource veins, you can walk around and search for a location that has multiple resources at the same time. This way you can set up a production chain in one outpost, rather than having multiple outposts that have to feed resources to a different place for production.
Edit: To clarifiy: some higher tier upgrades or buildings require fabricated items. You can either loot them (in POIs, from ships), purchase them at traders or build them yourself (either at an industrial workbench or automated by connecting the required raw materials to a fabricator)
A lot, ranging from cooking recpies (buff food) over weapon mods (surpressors, magazine type, optics) to base building (decorations, defense, extractors). Plus a lot more.
There are also a lot of materials, but they can be obtained in different ways. Unlike Engineering in Elite, it's actually fun gameplay.
Thankfully, once I'd visited the Lodge, I was finally off the rails completely. I had taken all the available Constellation exploration missions, but that was completely optional. As was taking Sarah to the Sol system to continue the story.
Before I left New Atlantis, I decided to add to the Frontier:
The new module on its port side is the armory module, IIRC. It give me access to the suit, weapon, and manufacturing workbenches. I also added a "ballast" cargo container, which increases my carrying capacity by 50%. I also had to upgrade the engines as well.
After that, I went to the nearest of system for my exploration mission that wouldn't have Vasco screaming "Danger! Will Robinson!" The first world I scanned from orbit showed two persistent POIs. I chose the crashed ship, and visited the ship, since it was somewhat on my way to the first natural POI my hand scanner had detected.
I had wanted to build an outpost first, but the world was an extremely cold, high gravity one. I needed to gain some skills at outpost building in order to even erect a beacon, but unfortunately I'd burned my saved skill points at New Atlantis. Walking on this world was a lot different from world of Kreet. Sprinting depleted my O2 much more quickly, and my booster pack barely got me over some low lying rocks. A far cry using my booster pack to rest for a bit, relying on my momentum to keep me going.
I eventually found my exploration target, which bumped up my level to seven, and my scanner had picked up a structural POI beyond that. We investigated, and found an abandoned listening post, with a single pirate standing guard outside. I wanted to sneak up on him for a stealth kill, but the gravity made for a rather difficult climb down. I suffered a (thankfully temprorary) status effect, and ended up shooting him instead.
There was a door leading into the interior, but I chose to ignore it at the time.
There was another natural POI in the distance, which I had hoped would complete the planetary survey, but it turned out to be similar to the one I'd initially found. There was another POI after that, a manmade structure, which turned to be the camp of a bounty hunter who was looking to raid the listening post I'd found earlier... which was four kilometers away by now. Thankfully, fast travel was an option.
Between the three of us, we made relatively quick work of the dozen or so pirates inside. I gained more medi-packs than I lost, but pretty much depleted the ammo for my legendary laser rifle again. I'm seriously considering switching to a ballistic weapon for everyday use, and saving the laser rifle for boss fights. I spent nearly 3000 credits on that ammunition. Granted, my share of the bounty was 5000 credits, but it's the principle of the matter.
I did snag a nice epic double barrel shotgun, which will be handy for close encounters. And a "bonus" magazine which raised my carrying capacity 5 kilograms. I also managed to loot some nice suits, helmets, and suit packs. Weirdly enough, one of common suits (a raider sniper suit) is all around better than the rare suit I was wearing at the time.
Eventually, I'd visited each POI near my landing site, as well as the POI's I'd detected near those, and so on. This ended up with a cluster of POIs in the NW corner of my map, but nothing to the SW, SE, and NE. I figured I'd need to visit a second location to complete the survey (much like I had for Kreet), so I elected not to wander aimlessly hoping to find something, and landed at the second planetary POI. I ignored the nearby artificial structures, and traveled to the natural POI. This turned out to be a cave, much to my surprise. Every cave I have visited showed up as such when I refined my scan (selecting it in the scanner), while this insisted it was a natural POI.
It turned out that this cave didn't require a loading screen. Feeling a bit uneasy from what I could see from the entrance, I ventured in, hoping that this would complete my survey. Instead I found something that pretty much had me going "Nope! I'm out of here!"
The new natural POI my scanner picked up turned out to be the natural structure I was looking for. The completed survey was enough to raise my level to eight. I now have two skill points, and I'm not sure what I want to spend it on. I'll keep them in reserve, until inspiration (or desperation) strikes.
I'll visit the two structural POIs before leaving to explore system #2. After that, I'll have to return to New Atlantis to sell all the loot that's filling my ship's cargo holds.
Also, unless something drastically changes, I doubt "trading between the stars" will ever be a viable option in this game. Still, I'm getting quite a bit of money selling the weapons, space suits, and accessories I'm looting from the bad guys, so I'm rather happy with that. Unfortunately, my plans to make a good ballistic rifle and handgun from the mods attached to the looted ones was stymied by the fact that removing a mod destroys it... unlike Fallout 4.
One interesting side effect of the whole thing is that I find myself actually boarding my ship more often than I had thought I would... because the research station and the armory are all near the entrance of the ship. Also, there's a small container in the workshop, where I can keep some of my "keepers" away from the main cargo hold. It only holds 10 kilos, though.
One before creating a POI to land and one after you land - so if you like what random tile you got but blunder it, you can reload the save after you landed, else you can reload the save before the POI generation and you will get the chance of a better / more interesting tile (maybe)
Based on my limited experimentation and experience... I think in any particular map, non-fixed POI's are generated:
When the map is first generated, upon landing. This seems to determine the broad class of POI: structure, natural phenomenon, and cave system.
When the POI is first visible to the player, the particular structure of the POI is decided. The "test" campaign save was an auto-save just after exiting Frontier, with the POI. The only way the POI on the left of the pictures I posted above could change is if it changed as I turned to my left, bringing the POI into view.
When the player approaches the POI, the "encounter" told at the site changes.
OA provided the best overview of exploration in Starfield yet. Based on this video, I think this is going to be a game I get a lot of hours out of. I guess I will find out tomorrow at 8 p.m.!
I wanted to buy a ship. A big ship. Dealer told me I'm not qualified to pilot this ship yet. How very British. "U got a loicense, m8?"
So, since I'm currently at 300,000 Credits and can't buy that ship, I am tempted to finally pay off the bank for my house (character origin) instead. I already have some legendary weapons and armor I could put on display. On the other hand, if I see it correctly I "only" need to destroy 15 more ships to earn that next rank in piloting and I have a skill point to spare. That might be enough to fly the "Shieldbreaker"
It has been confirmed that planets have multiple biomes. How long have space gamers been asking for that? Also, if you come across any panels marked as cutaway, you can use your mining tool to cut them away just as in Odyssey. There is more interesting stuff in this vid as well:
It has been confirmed that planets have multiple biomes. How long have space gamers been asking for that? Also, if you come across any panels marked as cutaway, you can use your mining tool to cut them away just as in Odyssey. There is more interesting stuff in this vid as well:
This is exactly how i pictured AI youtube channels would look like: reading reddit headlines with a bunch of clickbait titles.
It's simple, don't need to do much other than scan popular topics on Reddit every day add clickbait title and done.
For reference, ObsidianAnt that's what Human channels looks like.
P.S: Last day for free Refunds on Steam. Not to late to switch to Game Pass and save 90$.
Yeah game pass is great. After getting over the mental concept of subscription games, been quite impressed with it. Having said, im leaving open the option of picking up the retail edition once its discounted enough, maybe in 6 months they'll meet in the middle and i can switch over.
Also "i feel like" saying that you probably want ultimate for the cloud streaming option. With so many games its a great feature to try it out video compression style to determine if its worth installing properly. Like the ori games, or the racing games etc.
Yeah game pass is great. After getting over the mental concept of subscription games, been quite impressed with it. Having said, im leaving open the option of picking up the retail edition once its discounted enough, maybe in 6 months they'll meet in the middle and i can switch over.
Also "i feel like" saying that you probably want ultimate for the cloud streaming option. With so many games its a great feature to try it out video compression style to determine if its worth installing properly. Like the ori games, or the racing games etc.
Yep, Game Pass is great while it lasts. Lots of games there i haven't tried yet, and some new one like "Lies of P" is coming same month as Starfield and Stalker 2 next year.
I wanted to buy a ship. A big ship. Dealer told me I'm not qualified to pilot this ship yet. How very British. "U got a loicense, m8?"
So, since I'm currently at 300,000 Credits and can't buy that ship, I am tempted to finally pay off the bank for my house (character origin) instead. I already have some legendary weapons and armor I could put on display. On the other hand, if I see it correctly I "only" need to destroy 15 more ships to earn that next rank in piloting and I have a skill point to spare. That might be enough to fly the "Shieldbreaker"
This game is a time vampire - I flash it up for a quick go then suddenly find out it’s three hours later
I’m really enjoying exploration, like Darkfyre’s excellent post above - on one planet I’ve been through forest, mountainous, and frozen biomes to get the required scans, with the forest being particularly memorable with a desperate sprint away from hunting predators causing me to burst into a clearing of their herbivore prey which also objected to my presence and joined the kill-CMDR-Arioch party
There are some great environmental details in the POIs - and things that make me chuckle, like the cubic food vending machine being a 3D printer, or the description of a potato I found in a kitchen (“a versatile vegetable, boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew…”)
This game is a time vampire - I flash it up for a quick go then suddenly find out it’s three hours later
I’m really enjoying exploration, like Darkfyre’s excellent post above - on one planet I’ve been through forest, mountainous, and frozen biomes to get the required scans, with the forest being particularly memorable with a desperate sprint away from hunting predators causing me to burst into a clearing of their herbivore prey which also objected to my presence and joined the kill-CMDR-Arioch party
There are some great environmental details in the POIs - and things that make me chuckle, like the cubic food vending machine being a 3D printer, or the description of a potato I found in a kitchen (“a versatile vegetable, boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew…”)
It’s well and truly absorbing my time, it’s like an earthtone99 sponge.
I get what you mean by just a quick go and 3 hours are gone
I’m still flying the Frontier, but now have myself and 3 others on board (a big smile seeing them in the ship; 2 active, 1 sleeping or sat at the mess table), I’ve not found another ship with more crew capacity I like enough to invest in just yet.
Exploration is spot on, albeit my only criticism is the space travel, it doesn’t quite feel like I was expecting, I was hoping for something like Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw but less arcadey.
Thankfully, once I'd visited the Lodge, I was finally off the rails completely. I had taken all the available Constellation exploration missions, but that was completely optional. As was taking Sarah to the Sol system to continue the story.
Before I left New Atlantis, I decided to add to the Frontier:
The new module on its port side is the armory module, IIRC. It give me access to the suit, weapon, and manufacturing workbenches. I also added a "ballast" cargo container, which increases my carrying capacity by 50%. I also had to upgrade the engines as well.
After that, I went to the nearest of system for my exploration mission that wouldn't have Vasco screaming "Danger! Will Robinson!" The first world I scanned from orbit showed two persistent POIs. I chose the crashed ship, and visited the ship, since it was somewhat on my way to the first natural POI my hand scanner had detected.
I had wanted to build an outpost first, but the world was an extremely cold, high gravity one. I needed to gain some skills at outpost building in order to even erect a beacon, but unfortunately I'd burned my saved skill points at New Atlantis. Walking on this world was a lot different from world of Kreet. Sprinting depleted my O2 much more quickly, and my booster pack barely got me over some low lying rocks. A far cry using my booster pack to rest for a bit, relying on my momentum to keep me going.
I eventually found my exploration target, which bumped up my level to seven, and my scanner had picked up a structural POI beyond that. We investigated, and found an abandoned listening post, with a single pirate standing guard outside. I wanted to sneak up on him for a stealth kill, but the gravity made for a rather difficult climb down. I suffered a (thankfully temprorary) status effect, and ended up shooting him instead.
There was a door leading into the interior, but I chose to ignore it at the time.
There was another natural POI in the distance, which I had hoped would complete the planetary survey, but it turned out to be similar to the one I'd initially found. There was another POI after that, a manmade structure, which turned to be the camp of a bounty hunter who was looking to raid the listening post I'd found earlier... which was four kilometers away by now. Thankfully, fast travel was an option.
Between the three of us, we made relatively quick work of the dozen or so pirates inside. I gained more medi-packs than I lost, but pretty much depleted the ammo for my legendary laser rifle again. I'm seriously considering switching to a ballistic weapon for everyday use, and saving the laser rifle for boss fights. I spent nearly 3000 credits on that ammunition. Granted, my share of the bounty was 5000 credits, but it's the principle of the matter.
I did snag a nice epic double barrel shotgun, which will be handy for close encounters. And a "bonus" magazine which raised my carrying capacity 5 kilograms. I also managed to loot some nice suits, helmets, and suit packs. Weirdly enough, one of common suits (a raider sniper suit) is all around better than the rare suit I was wearing at the time.
Eventually, I'd visited each POI near my landing site, as well as the POI's I'd detected near those, and so on. This ended up with a cluster of POIs in the NW corner of my map, but nothing to the SW, SE, and NE. I figured I'd need to visit a second location to complete the survey (much like I had for Kreet), so I elected not to wander aimlessly hoping to find something, and landed at the second planetary POI. I ignored the nearby artificial structures, and traveled to the natural POI. This turned out to be a cave, much to my surprise. Every cave I have visited showed up as such when I refined my scan (selecting it in the scanner), while this insisted it was a natural POI.
It turned out that this cave didn't require a loading screen. Feeling a bit uneasy from what I could see from the entrance, I ventured in, hoping that this would complete my survey. Instead I found something that pretty much had me going "Nope! I'm out of here!"
The new natural POI my scanner picked up turned out to be the natural structure I was looking for. The completed survey was enough to raise my level to eight. I now have two skill points, and I'm not sure what I want to spend it on. I'll keep them in reserve, until inspiration (or desperation) strikes.
I'll visit the two structural POIs before leaving to explore system #2. After that, I'll have to return to New Atlantis to sell all the loot that's filling my ship's cargo holds.
Also, unless something drastically changes, I doubt "trading between the stars" will ever be a viable option in this game. Still, I'm getting quite a bit of money selling the weapons, space suits, and accessories I'm looting from the bad guys, so I'm rather happy with that. Unfortunately, my plans to make a good ballistic rifle and handgun from the mods attached to the looted ones was stymied by the fact that removing a mod destroys it... unlike Fallout 4.
One interesting side effect of the whole thing is that I find myself actually boarding my ship more often than I had thought I would... because the research station and the armory are all near the entrance of the ship. Also, there's a small container in the workshop, where I can keep some of my "keepers" away from the main cargo hold. It only holds 10 kilos, though.
It’s well and truly absorbing my time, it’s like an earthtone99 sponge.
I get what you mean by just a quick go and 3 hours are gone
I’m still flying the Frontier, but now have myself and 3 others on board (a big smile seeing them in the ship; 2 active, 1 sleeping or sat at the mess table), I’ve not found another ship with more crew capacity I like enough to invest in just yet.
Exploration is spot on, albeit my only criticism is the space travel, it doesn’t quite feel like I was expecting, I was hoping for something like Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw but less arcadey.
I’ll be interested to see what modders come up with once the Creation Kit is released - it’s already been proved that you can fly between local orbital bodies (someone has flown from Mars to Phobos) - so I can imagine a SuperCruise-style mod or time dilation thing being implemented.
I also wouldn’t be surprised in Bethesda does something with space in future DLC - Hello Games massively improved space combat in NMS after it being widely derided as simplistic and it seems like a common complaint about Starfield.
I have two ships at the moment, a (slightly ) upgraded Frontier and a ship I got from a quest (I won't spoil anything here). Most of the time I use the Frontier.
I've captured plenty of ships and sold them to the ship vendor in Jameson (I won't even try to write the Starfield version of the name correctly ). But yeah, I've neglected the ship skills for too long and now have to play catch up
When it comes to Starfield, I keep being told what it isn't...or what it should or shouldn't be by other folk who (seemingly) bought into it with a heavy hint of rose coloured myopia involved.
I bought in early because with my previous experience of Bethesda games, I almost knew exactly what it was going to be (warts and all) before I handed my cash over... turns out I was right...I'm playing it like I would any other Bethesda game and I'm loving every minute
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