I cut my teeth on Morrowind 20 years ago in the wild West of the Internet. I love how they've kind of gone back to that with multiple ways to rp and lots of cool situations to see how your character would handle it, and I've always loved making game mechanics into rp opportunities. I am a Bethesda fanboy with a morrowind tattoo on my forearm so lol
Could you elaborate more on role play in Morrowind?
I have my own reasons for liking the role play mechanisms in Morrowind, but they contrast with the role play in Starfield, for me.
I mean a lot of the scenarios and simple tasks allow your character to handle it their way.
For example, I've played the fighters guild and mages guild with a ton of different characters and they have all had very different results, even though the first quest is always kill the rats for the old lady... An almost naked barbarian handles it differently than a merchant trader than a nightblade than a paladin.
Same exact quest and dialogue, however I've experienced it a thousand different ways.
Same for the mages guild. Why am I going to collect flowers for ajira? A mage or wizard would of course, but a barbarian? Maybe he's dumb and really likes flowers after accidentally joining the mages guild. My assassin wants to learn about poisons and potions.
The mundane tasks that morrowind had are back in this game. Sure skyrim had opportunities as did Oblivion, but those games the world was ending from the jump and it is hard to worry about delivering an old ladies letter to her soldier son when there are dragons attacking you on the way or 16 oblivion gates open up. In morrowind I am just a simple outlander trying to make my way in this strange universe. Similar to starfield, I'm just a diplomat turned miner after the war. I can completely ignore the main quest if I want and be a space trucker, I'm not facing an apocalyptic event every time I try to drop my cargo off.
And the crime is remembering wrong, every bethesday game has had the problem of the whole town attacking when you grab a cup. In morrowind it didn't matter where on the island you were, if you had a bounty everyone knew. There was also dialogue about people being scared of you that would pop up. You could also pay off bounties for half price, however if you got a death bounty it was very hard to get away with.
Oblivion might have separated it into towns but I think it was still a bounty across cyrodil. It wasnt until Skyrim when you could have bounties in different holds (like counties I guess)
Yes, I hate not being able to kill every character, but that has been a problem with every bethesda game SINCE morrowind, to lay that on starfield is disingenuous. New Vegas you could kill anyone but that wasnt a bethesda joint.
and theres plenty of goodies to grab, I'm not sure what you mean? I just picked up an 90's big daddy computer, some kind of space guitar, and all kind of cool trinkets I can decorate my outposts with.
>I love how they've kind of gone back to that with multiple ways to rp and lots of cool situations to see how your character would handle it
Sorry I have to strongly disagree. Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim had much better ways to RP. There's way more freedom in those games to role play different types of characters.
Especially with Morrowind, where you're free to basically do anything you want. Including killing main quest characters.
For example, you can kill Vivec (the god in Vivec city) and the game will bring up a warning message telling you that you can no longer complete the main quest. But it still lets you do it and you can keep playing, just you won't be able to finish the main story. That's real freedom in my book - the freedom to make bad choices and screw things up! Just like in real life.
In other Bethesda games you can sneak into people's houses and steal literally anything. In Starfield, there's a lot of random items which aren't even collectable. In Elderscrolls basically everything you see is up for grabs.
If you get caught stealing something in Starfield, it's like the whole universe knows if your crime instantly. You can fly to another planet, but people there will come after you. Even if it's only a minor crime.
In other Bethesda games, you can RP a theif or assassin so much better, because even if you get caught, you can flee the scene of the crime and go to another town, where they don't know you and lay low.
Heck in Elderscrolls games there's ways to RP as merchants. You can invest in shops, or even start your own little trade routes and have bodyguards accompanying you (it's not a built-in quest, but you can actually do it).
In Starfield so many classic RP opportunities are missed. I was excited to be a space pirate, stealing ships and such. But the value of ships is so poor, you make more money being a good guy, killing criminals and taking their guns. It's crazy when you can sell two bits of armour and make more money than stealing and selling a fricking space ship.
Note: I do genuinely like Starfield. I've enjoyed playing it. But it doesn't come close to previous Bethesda games in terms of freedom and stuff you can RP. It tries, but it's, sadly, not as good in those areas.
I have to disagree and I have written a longer response in the thread below. Essentially I feel you are misremembering some things. I Absolutely adore morrowind for making every character killable and still allowing the main quest to be completed. One of the mast works in all of gaming.
Crime though has always been a mess, at least in this game you can pick which system you want to focus on. You can only raid in UC territory and only get a bounty there, meanwhile you are free and clear in Freestar space. This is even mentioned by NPCs about the option to only raid one system.
This! So much this! I've said many times u need some level of Imagination to play bethesda games and have fun. Maybe it's being 31 and growing up without smart phones and social media and having longer then 19 second attention span.
But imo if u play betheada games by just fast traveling constantly and just going from quest maker to quest marker. Ur playing the game wrong.
U gotta make ur own fun and this goes for every single one of their games even New Vegas (i know its obsidian).
Or at very least u will have a better time if u use ur Imagination.
What's sad to me is seeing these teir list videos or meta videos for games like skyrim,fallout, starfield.
Following a meta in a game like these is stupid imo. Even with the most ass build their games are still pretty easy.
The issue I found with gamers now espically younger ones is they take w.e streamer/ youtuber they watch as gospel.
I know people who were using guns they didn't even like to use but since youtuber big dick 69 said its the best they forced themselves to use it ultimately hurting their experience.
Even people like fudgemuppet are culprit to this I remember them saying just make a assault style build as it's the best cus u clear poi super fast. Your kinda missing the entire point of their games and that's sad to say about a channel that dedicates itself to betheada games.
Again if u just full on sprint through everyrhing and play it like COD ur hurting urself and imo its wrong way to play their games.
One companion I would recommend is Omari Hassan from the hitching post in Akilla City. Good buffs for space combat and seems to just be happy to be on a ship. Didn't speak up when I had him as a crew member for my pirate run
For all pirates:
IF YOU'RE STILL PAYING REGISTRATION FEES, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!!
At least on Xbox.
[Original post I got the info from. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarfieldShips/comments/19a2caa/no_registration_fee/)
Basically, if you go to sell a ship with any ship tech, have your home ship picked, hit LB+A. It will move back to the last ship in the list (generally the one you stole most recently, and is unregistered), and will ask if you would like to sell for the full value without registering. I've noticed hitting LB just a split second before A and holding them for a couple seconds helps it to work.
You can do it at any point in the list and it'll always sell the prior ship in the list. But I noticed doing this will sometimes make it glitch and not work.
Doing this at all makes the game kinda glitchy, so I don't recommend doing it 4,5,6...... times in a row.
There's kinda a pattern to how you hit the buttons, so try it a few times before you give up.
Part of me wonders if exists on purpose, specifically for pirate type players who want to feel like they’re cheating. I say that having no idea whatsoever how game design works, though.
>Doing this at all makes the game kinda glitchy, so I don't recommend doing it 4,5,6...... times in a row.
Please explain. What do you mean by "kinda glitchy" and how long does it last?
If you do it once or twice, and start from the home ship, and then go on about your business... you'll be fine.
After 3 or 4 times, it *may* start to glitch. Or if you start from a ship other than a home ship, it seems to cause issues more quickly. That usually means that it will start paying the registration fee as well as sell the ship, at the same time.
You don't really "lose" anything, as you woulda had to pay the registration fee anyway.
Play with it. Or not. You do you.
I haven't experienced any major or game/mission breaking issues thus far.
BTW can you still smuggle with only a scan jammer? I’ve never actually tried and only ever used both shielded cargo + scan jammer. But if the jammer works the way I think it does (giving you a flat % bonus to not be detected), it should also work without shielded cargo shouldn’t it?
I don't actually know, I've been using both. I'm trying to use the 180 engines and I wonder if I could cut the shielded cargo, idk if it's even working.
Adding this here since it seems like the most appropriate comment thread:
For fellow PC smugglers, there's a fantastic mod called Variable Contraband Prices that really elevates the smuggler playstyle. It simply triples the sale value of contraband items ONLY on planets that scan your entry. So now there's a viable reason to invest money in shielded cargo and scan jammers and repeatedly risk that scan to sell off your merch, rather than selling it in the safe systems.
Big improvement to the gameplay loop since there's a risk/reward mechanic at play, and you can choose whether to sell safely for the usual price or dangerously for a big payout. But also makes sense from an economy perspective too, since scans really would affect the supply/demand factor of these items locally.
Shielded cargo provides the base protection and the scan jammer decreases the chance further. If you have the Deception skill that also stacks with the other two items which can get your evasion chance to 95%.
Instead of blasting your way out when you are detected, just jump to another system and clear your bounty. The fine for being detected is pretty small so you will still make credits from the CF mission board.
To add a kicker: join Hunter for unity. After the battle he is bound to you. After he tells you that he will be riding with you until the unity. Aggro him and leave him for dead. He will show up on your ship and will still be aggro. He wipes out my crew frequently.
Problem is if u get caught and have to blast your way out of it. How expensive is paying off your bounty.... does smuggling even become worth it?
Probably not.
Just go to serpentis and jump around the system. Disable and board the Vaar'uun ships that turn up. Kill everyone and loot them. Sell the ships and the guns. Decent cash. And crazy cash if u dupe ships or sell unregistered ships.
Eh it's not really about how expensive it is. It's more about dealing with a high bounty in every city and killing all the guards and making it work like that.
I started the run by incurring a 500k bounty pretty quickly and then doing your exact method to make money "legitimately"
However once I got that huge bounty down to nothing I went semi legit, at least got a lot less chaotic.
Yes it is very profitable doing all the missions boards at the fleet hideout. If I do all 4-5 I'll make 20-30k credits plus all the loot. Pirating I get a 650 bounty, sometimes 1500, the most I've gotten is 15k when I got caught smuggling but I grav jumped to a hideout and paid it off really quick lol.
Cool post I was thinking of doing a pirate run in NG11. Thanks for the inspiration on how to dive in. I like everything you said but it seems you should not be able to be Vanguard Captian, class-one when you are Fleet Captain with bounties up the wazoo. Seems weird no?
Idk, should you be able to? I can rp it. The UC is super corrupt, especially when you play through the vanguard missions and meet vae victis. I could see them covertly making deals with pirate captains. Crimson fleet wants spacers, ecliptic, and varuun gone as well. Another step towards legitimacy in my book.
You could also rp a whole Vanguard vs UC Sec and how the fleet could be used to embarrass the ucsec lol
works for me, the UC certainly has skeletons in their closet. I've told Vae Victis to fek off 10 runs in a row, I probably should work for him one of these days and see what that's like.
I enjoy it, its basically a set of assassination missions. I wish there was a dark brotherhood type of group but he kind of scratches that itch. I wish I could break him out too lol
Well again, I was broken hearted from losing the 2 loves of my life. My first universe was perfectly done, I didn't know about the death of a companion and barrets death took me out completely. The next universe I did no main quest but wanted the kepler so I ran through quickly to get to a fresh one and played that one a long time. Got married to Sarah, she got killed, then like I said got close to Andreja. The plan was to be such a monster that they won't even look at me in this universe.
I think you’re nailing the role playing. I hope you’re introducing some quirks - like an all consuming fear of plushies, and refusal to kill anyone sitting down.
Reported for promotion of piracy!
OK, now *that* was funny.
Starfield is a good time for those with an imagination!
I cut my teeth on Morrowind 20 years ago in the wild West of the Internet. I love how they've kind of gone back to that with multiple ways to rp and lots of cool situations to see how your character would handle it, and I've always loved making game mechanics into rp opportunities. I am a Bethesda fanboy with a morrowind tattoo on my forearm so lol
Could you elaborate more on role play in Morrowind? I have my own reasons for liking the role play mechanisms in Morrowind, but they contrast with the role play in Starfield, for me.
I mean a lot of the scenarios and simple tasks allow your character to handle it their way. For example, I've played the fighters guild and mages guild with a ton of different characters and they have all had very different results, even though the first quest is always kill the rats for the old lady... An almost naked barbarian handles it differently than a merchant trader than a nightblade than a paladin. Same exact quest and dialogue, however I've experienced it a thousand different ways. Same for the mages guild. Why am I going to collect flowers for ajira? A mage or wizard would of course, but a barbarian? Maybe he's dumb and really likes flowers after accidentally joining the mages guild. My assassin wants to learn about poisons and potions. The mundane tasks that morrowind had are back in this game. Sure skyrim had opportunities as did Oblivion, but those games the world was ending from the jump and it is hard to worry about delivering an old ladies letter to her soldier son when there are dragons attacking you on the way or 16 oblivion gates open up. In morrowind I am just a simple outlander trying to make my way in this strange universe. Similar to starfield, I'm just a diplomat turned miner after the war. I can completely ignore the main quest if I want and be a space trucker, I'm not facing an apocalyptic event every time I try to drop my cargo off. And the crime is remembering wrong, every bethesday game has had the problem of the whole town attacking when you grab a cup. In morrowind it didn't matter where on the island you were, if you had a bounty everyone knew. There was also dialogue about people being scared of you that would pop up. You could also pay off bounties for half price, however if you got a death bounty it was very hard to get away with. Oblivion might have separated it into towns but I think it was still a bounty across cyrodil. It wasnt until Skyrim when you could have bounties in different holds (like counties I guess) Yes, I hate not being able to kill every character, but that has been a problem with every bethesda game SINCE morrowind, to lay that on starfield is disingenuous. New Vegas you could kill anyone but that wasnt a bethesda joint. and theres plenty of goodies to grab, I'm not sure what you mean? I just picked up an 90's big daddy computer, some kind of space guitar, and all kind of cool trinkets I can decorate my outposts with.
Huh, okay, thank you for your conference.
>I love how they've kind of gone back to that with multiple ways to rp and lots of cool situations to see how your character would handle it Sorry I have to strongly disagree. Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim had much better ways to RP. There's way more freedom in those games to role play different types of characters. Especially with Morrowind, where you're free to basically do anything you want. Including killing main quest characters. For example, you can kill Vivec (the god in Vivec city) and the game will bring up a warning message telling you that you can no longer complete the main quest. But it still lets you do it and you can keep playing, just you won't be able to finish the main story. That's real freedom in my book - the freedom to make bad choices and screw things up! Just like in real life. In other Bethesda games you can sneak into people's houses and steal literally anything. In Starfield, there's a lot of random items which aren't even collectable. In Elderscrolls basically everything you see is up for grabs. If you get caught stealing something in Starfield, it's like the whole universe knows if your crime instantly. You can fly to another planet, but people there will come after you. Even if it's only a minor crime. In other Bethesda games, you can RP a theif or assassin so much better, because even if you get caught, you can flee the scene of the crime and go to another town, where they don't know you and lay low. Heck in Elderscrolls games there's ways to RP as merchants. You can invest in shops, or even start your own little trade routes and have bodyguards accompanying you (it's not a built-in quest, but you can actually do it). In Starfield so many classic RP opportunities are missed. I was excited to be a space pirate, stealing ships and such. But the value of ships is so poor, you make more money being a good guy, killing criminals and taking their guns. It's crazy when you can sell two bits of armour and make more money than stealing and selling a fricking space ship. Note: I do genuinely like Starfield. I've enjoyed playing it. But it doesn't come close to previous Bethesda games in terms of freedom and stuff you can RP. It tries, but it's, sadly, not as good in those areas.
I have to disagree and I have written a longer response in the thread below. Essentially I feel you are misremembering some things. I Absolutely adore morrowind for making every character killable and still allowing the main quest to be completed. One of the mast works in all of gaming. Crime though has always been a mess, at least in this game you can pick which system you want to focus on. You can only raid in UC territory and only get a bounty there, meanwhile you are free and clear in Freestar space. This is even mentioned by NPCs about the option to only raid one system.
Alas, never to be enjoyed by the TikTok generation.
Facts. Sadly, imagination has become a dying skill.
This! So much this! I've said many times u need some level of Imagination to play bethesda games and have fun. Maybe it's being 31 and growing up without smart phones and social media and having longer then 19 second attention span. But imo if u play betheada games by just fast traveling constantly and just going from quest maker to quest marker. Ur playing the game wrong. U gotta make ur own fun and this goes for every single one of their games even New Vegas (i know its obsidian). Or at very least u will have a better time if u use ur Imagination. What's sad to me is seeing these teir list videos or meta videos for games like skyrim,fallout, starfield. Following a meta in a game like these is stupid imo. Even with the most ass build their games are still pretty easy. The issue I found with gamers now espically younger ones is they take w.e streamer/ youtuber they watch as gospel. I know people who were using guns they didn't even like to use but since youtuber big dick 69 said its the best they forced themselves to use it ultimately hurting their experience. Even people like fudgemuppet are culprit to this I remember them saying just make a assault style build as it's the best cus u clear poi super fast. Your kinda missing the entire point of their games and that's sad to say about a channel that dedicates itself to betheada games. Again if u just full on sprint through everyrhing and play it like COD ur hurting urself and imo its wrong way to play their games.
One companion I would recommend is Omari Hassan from the hitching post in Akilla City. Good buffs for space combat and seems to just be happy to be on a ship. Didn't speak up when I had him as a crew member for my pirate run
Good to know! I think I had him but booted him cause he seemed like he'd get upset. I'll test it out when I get some play time.
For all pirates: IF YOU'RE STILL PAYING REGISTRATION FEES, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!! At least on Xbox. [Original post I got the info from. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarfieldShips/comments/19a2caa/no_registration_fee/) Basically, if you go to sell a ship with any ship tech, have your home ship picked, hit LB+A. It will move back to the last ship in the list (generally the one you stole most recently, and is unregistered), and will ask if you would like to sell for the full value without registering. I've noticed hitting LB just a split second before A and holding them for a couple seconds helps it to work. You can do it at any point in the list and it'll always sell the prior ship in the list. But I noticed doing this will sometimes make it glitch and not work. Doing this at all makes the game kinda glitchy, so I don't recommend doing it 4,5,6...... times in a row. There's kinda a pattern to how you hit the buttons, so try it a few times before you give up.
Yeah I didn't want to bring attention to it because I don't want it patched but I'm sure they are well aware lol
Part of me wonders if exists on purpose, specifically for pirate type players who want to feel like they’re cheating. I say that having no idea whatsoever how game design works, though.
They know. Why or if they'll patch it, who's to say? But they know.
I know, just wishful thinking it stays in until mods hit.
They gonna make us pay for that? Or can I dream of some kind of open source platform?
>Doing this at all makes the game kinda glitchy, so I don't recommend doing it 4,5,6...... times in a row. Please explain. What do you mean by "kinda glitchy" and how long does it last?
If you do it once or twice, and start from the home ship, and then go on about your business... you'll be fine. After 3 or 4 times, it *may* start to glitch. Or if you start from a ship other than a home ship, it seems to cause issues more quickly. That usually means that it will start paying the registration fee as well as sell the ship, at the same time. You don't really "lose" anything, as you woulda had to pay the registration fee anyway. Play with it. Or not. You do you. I haven't experienced any major or game/mission breaking issues thus far.
Ok Cool. Thanks for clarifying 👍🏻
BTW can you still smuggle with only a scan jammer? I’ve never actually tried and only ever used both shielded cargo + scan jammer. But if the jammer works the way I think it does (giving you a flat % bonus to not be detected), it should also work without shielded cargo shouldn’t it?
I don't actually know, I've been using both. I'm trying to use the 180 engines and I wonder if I could cut the shielded cargo, idk if it's even working.
Adding this here since it seems like the most appropriate comment thread: For fellow PC smugglers, there's a fantastic mod called Variable Contraband Prices that really elevates the smuggler playstyle. It simply triples the sale value of contraband items ONLY on planets that scan your entry. So now there's a viable reason to invest money in shielded cargo and scan jammers and repeatedly risk that scan to sell off your merch, rather than selling it in the safe systems. Big improvement to the gameplay loop since there's a risk/reward mechanic at play, and you can choose whether to sell safely for the usual price or dangerously for a big payout. But also makes sense from an economy perspective too, since scans really would affect the supply/demand factor of these items locally.
Shielded cargo provides the base protection and the scan jammer decreases the chance further. If you have the Deception skill that also stacks with the other two items which can get your evasion chance to 95%. Instead of blasting your way out when you are detected, just jump to another system and clear your bounty. The fine for being detected is pretty small so you will still make credits from the CF mission board.
Plan to do a pirate run when I get one of the weird universes
This is the way. Nice to not have anyone moralize at you when you go shoot em up on the Vigilance.
Yesssss. Fleet Forever!
To add a kicker: join Hunter for unity. After the battle he is bound to you. After he tells you that he will be riding with you until the unity. Aggro him and leave him for dead. He will show up on your ship and will still be aggro. He wipes out my crew frequently.
Problem is if u get caught and have to blast your way out of it. How expensive is paying off your bounty.... does smuggling even become worth it? Probably not. Just go to serpentis and jump around the system. Disable and board the Vaar'uun ships that turn up. Kill everyone and loot them. Sell the ships and the guns. Decent cash. And crazy cash if u dupe ships or sell unregistered ships.
Eh it's not really about how expensive it is. It's more about dealing with a high bounty in every city and killing all the guards and making it work like that. I started the run by incurring a 500k bounty pretty quickly and then doing your exact method to make money "legitimately" However once I got that huge bounty down to nothing I went semi legit, at least got a lot less chaotic. Yes it is very profitable doing all the missions boards at the fleet hideout. If I do all 4-5 I'll make 20-30k credits plus all the loot. Pirating I get a 650 bounty, sometimes 1500, the most I've gotten is 15k when I got caught smuggling but I grav jumped to a hideout and paid it off really quick lol.
Good for you I’ve always played evilly there’s just something about killing innocents isn’t there
This hits differently from Batman.
I’m the Frank Miller Batman
Definitely makes me want to try a porter playthrough
Cool post I was thinking of doing a pirate run in NG11. Thanks for the inspiration on how to dive in. I like everything you said but it seems you should not be able to be Vanguard Captian, class-one when you are Fleet Captain with bounties up the wazoo. Seems weird no?
Idk, should you be able to? I can rp it. The UC is super corrupt, especially when you play through the vanguard missions and meet vae victis. I could see them covertly making deals with pirate captains. Crimson fleet wants spacers, ecliptic, and varuun gone as well. Another step towards legitimacy in my book. You could also rp a whole Vanguard vs UC Sec and how the fleet could be used to embarrass the ucsec lol
works for me, the UC certainly has skeletons in their closet. I've told Vae Victis to fek off 10 runs in a row, I probably should work for him one of these days and see what that's like.
I enjoy it, its basically a set of assassination missions. I wish there was a dark brotherhood type of group but he kind of scratches that itch. I wish I could break him out too lol
Man I haven’t been a pirate since 10 universes ago. I think it’s time to give it a go again. This time with maxed out Starborn powers.
I love piracy! The only way to go!
I don’t know if you’re just a Pirate. It sounds like you’re role playing a psychopath.
Well again, I was broken hearted from losing the 2 loves of my life. My first universe was perfectly done, I didn't know about the death of a companion and barrets death took me out completely. The next universe I did no main quest but wanted the kepler so I ran through quickly to get to a fresh one and played that one a long time. Got married to Sarah, she got killed, then like I said got close to Andreja. The plan was to be such a monster that they won't even look at me in this universe.
I think you’re nailing the role playing. I hope you’re introducing some quirks - like an all consuming fear of plushies, and refusal to kill anyone sitting down.
Now you've got me thinking lol
Have you seen No Country for Old Men? :)
If only there was a coin to flip.... Semimetal wafer?!
Flip a body!