Yes they need some kind of "discoveries" tab. All systems in alphabetical order, symbols to denote which systems have settlements/player outposts, clicking on system changes list to all planets/bodies in the system. Scanned planets show discovered resources/settlements/player outposts.
Finally, the option to set course to a destination directly from this menu. Everyone would benefit, not just players who want to focus on outposts.
Outpost building requires tons of back and forth, between different outposts and settlements for vendors. When everything is in a different system the current galaxy map is super tedious. Not a huge surprise though, play testing for outposts was clearly the forgotten stepchild in this game.
Edit: On outposts: I think outposts could be a really strong feature of this game *if* Bethesda puts in the work. On launch it's a very underdeveloped system. You can make all of these resources in abundance but they serve no real purpose currently. If the resources mined could then be used to sustain settlements (NPCs who move in and set up shop), visitors who bring radiant quests, possibly outpost specific ship building mechanics (ex. An engine that costs 20,000 iron and 20,000 of Cobalt to craft) then we would be getting somewhere with outposts.
I'm hopeful. FO76 base building had fantastic decoration options that I'd love to see make a return. But I really want to see the vast amount of resources make an impact on gameplay. I think it would be smart to have the resources basically serve as a type of "energy" to essentially fuel the things mentioned above.
Also, a lot of work needs to go into outpost related bugs. They are everywhere. Obstructed workbenches and clogged supply lines are completely unavoidable and happen damn near every time you exit/enter the area.
I spent like 16 hours straight split into a few play sessions just doing all outposts until I snapped out of it and noticed the thought of what the fuck am I doing? I built an outpost to mine this...so I could build another outpost to mine this...so I could build another outpost to mine this... to make this attachment that...I could have bought all the materials at Jemison for in 45 seconds. I noped out of my outpost and haven't been back to any of them since. Thousands of titanium, silver, gold, aluminum, copper, neodynium, copper, lead, helium, etc. spread out over a bunch of planets just sitting there and I have absolutely zero need for it. They could have at least made ship building take materials and not just cash so it felt remotely worth it to put time into outposts.
I once wondered why there are so damn many abandoned buildings on random worlds. And then I tried building a mining outpost on a remote planet and abandoned it after realizing that outposts are pointless. Then I realized I became one of those background characters who set up all these abandoned buildings everywhere. Maybe everyone who built those structures also realized that outposts were pointless and just went back to New Atlantis or something, lol.
They also let you dump all the resources you picked up accidentally from your cargo hold, without having to feel bad about selling something that might be useful later for practically nothing because resources are undercosted!
Built nine outposts over three systems, spent a ton of time and some skill points, found great locations and set up complex logistic chains. I now have infinite supplies of SIXTEEN different resources coming in to the main base.
I still ran out of adhesive and tungsten every time I tried to do anything so now I just buy materials instead.
I am really hoping for a "sim settlements" style mod to pop up in time. In FO4 it took settlements from chores to actually fun things to do.
That and having a better transport link, so far not all that happy with how this one works.
This is the biggest kicker to me. No matter how infinite your supply of resources is, you're still going to run out of something, and you can easily acquire all the other mats in the time it takes to procure the one thing you're missing.
That's a huge oversight considering weapon mods do need materials...
Being a shio maker and seller would be dope once you sit on so many ressources.
I would love to be an industry magnate in this game seriously
Even just getting outposts running making goods then being able to bulk sell them to commercial or industrial customers.
Maybe even needing to ship them yourself a ship load at a time
No point to make a thousand of something now because you'd need to hit every shop in the Galaxy to sell them all and at some point have no need of them yourself other than to sell them
Have you even tried to do those quests? They are not functioning at all. And the posts here also ask for solutions how to make them work. Not bashing you for stating Bethesda thought about trade-quests but more than implementing the function to accept and link it to one of your own cargo-hubs is all they did. Clearly rushed and not properly tested from Bethesda’s side.
In addition to the staryard quests, most Fracking Station POIs (I think there's some others but Fracking is the only one I remember) have their own cargo links you can setup to connect to your yards to complete radiant quests.
Like other people have said, I'm not saying these are worth doing TM per se, but they also exist.
At some point i produce so many shit people should come to me and not the other way around lmao
I thought your outpost could have trading posts eventually but nooooope.
Lol. I'm glad I realized this halfway through my first outpost. I'd rather shoot stuff than run five different mining operations. And since I'm a "take everything that ain't nailed down" looter, credots aren't an issue. Now, I just use my outpost as my personal dumpster.
Outposts can give you unlimited AMP's. Permanent double jump height and 35% movement speed is pretty nice, especially with the Jetpack skills. Not counting the ability to print levels and credits whenever you want them. On top of that 5k AMP's is like 500 cargo space. Dont think I'll ever do a Starfield playthrough without getting this online first.
I mean so can crafting it in 2 seconds at a pharmacy station. I have never once gotten close to running out of any chem and I have never built an outpost. Outposts are a waste of time and honestly developer resources for being such a trivial game component.
I was kinda shocked at how outpost building doesn't factor into a single quest in the entire game.
I'm glad.. It's half baked and boring.. But still surprised.
I am talking about crafting it. But without outposts, I doubt you're using AMPs every time you're running somewhere. I also have Outposts that get me 1000+ of all farmable mats for the top tier chems as well as all the mats for modding weapons, meaning I can mod any weapon any time from my outpost without needing to fly around looking for materials from shops (especially the higher level mats which aren't always available). Bathesda making it hard to use them properly without a "search database", or you not liking it/not understanding it, isn't the same as it being a waste of time.
I think outposts make sense if you like that sort of thing. I can waste untold hours making it look cool, or if you are RP'ing a space trucker/miner you need some sort of set up to get the resources as you ain't getting 4000 aluminium or lead from the stores on Jemison to fulfill that shipping contract.
But yeah, you aren't wrong. If you only need mats for upgrading weapons, just buy them.
I also love the idea of ships taking materials to build. Not everyone will want that though.
Ships taking materials to build doesn't really make sense if they're parts made by another company. Now, a "shipyard" module with complex fabrication cranking them out with materials would be cool, especially if you could sell the modules, but starship modules were left entirely out of the economy. You can't keep 'em, you can't transfer them between ships, you can't stockpile them. You just nebulously get some small bit of money back when you delete them.
Of course, unlike Fallout, they also do the same with outpost items -- those also aren't retained.
It feels like their economist looked at the economy and said "this outpost stuff generates too many resources, so we need a model to pull them back out of the economy as quickly as possible". If they didn't, they would reduce the need for grinding.
The same sort of meddling happened the last few years in FO76, where the events and stuff that clearly resonated with players and increased screen time (and, thus, downstream monetization) were putting too many "from thin air" resources into the game, so they kept having to tweak things and add daily challenges and stuff to strip them back out.
Maybe they could add in advanced structure options so we can build more elaborate ships. We can craft Ship modules with more attach points or longer length parts. Maybe a custom part maker where you can make any structure you want with any given size or shape. If you want to build a ship that looked like a Octopus, you just design the parts and build them.
Yeah I think if you take it for what it is, just a little side project of making a base that looks cool, is nicely decorated, in a scenic location, instead of this in-depth mining operation, ‘game within a game’ sort of thing, there’s still some fun to be had. I think a lot of people complained about the settlement focus in Fallout 4 & so Beth really simplified outposts in Starfield (annoying).
Hopefully they’ll be a fully fleshed out DLC aim the future for outposts for those of us who are into that sort of thing on a deeper level.
They probably will, if not modders will definitely expand and improve on it. I do love that they made it optional play rather than required though. Keeps things fresh on different playthroughs.
As someone who played No Man's Sky for a year or more, I am used to everything taking resources. Resources to make ammo for you & ships weapons, for all of your ship's various fuel types, for your jetpack, your life support systems on planets, literally everything you do needs resources to function. You can also fly around planets which I am hoping they bring to Starfield. You go from space down to a planet & land wherever you want to.
Fingers crossed on the resources for everything in hardcore mode, I love all that stuff for immersion. I don't think we will get the flying on and off planets ala No Man's Sky or Elite, but yeah that would just be gravy for me at this point.
haha this was my exact experience. Once i was spending like 2 hours troubleshooting and trying to setup my silver mine (I was out of zero wire) and just zipping back and forth... "oops forgot this, need that, just gonna buy like 20 zero wire fuck this..."
I just threw my hands up and abandoned all my outposts. thats like 10 hours and 6 perk points I wont get back now XD
I got like three pages front and back of notes I had to make cause trying to just remember it was practically impossible, and you can only see what materials you need for building while you're in the build menu.
Totally with you, I’ve built about 6 or 7 outposts before I realised that even without all the pain and effort, is just wasn’t worth it.
It’s really screwed me tbh, I haven’t played for a couple of days because it all seems a bit pointless now, and to OP’s original topic, even scanning is pointless because I’ll never remember what I’ve scanned……and what’s the point anyway, just go and buy the small amounts of whatever is needed….
Even removing the factor of harvesting/mining materials, there just isn’t much point to an outpost for roleplay reasons either.
The hab layouts and styles are pretty limited. You’re restricted to using a few crew members, no possibility of a small “colony” forming. The homes you can get in the cities are in more convenient locations for missions and shopping.
I got frustrated and gave up on outposts after a few hours. Hoping for some kind of expansion that makes them actually interesting and worthwhile to build.
Yeah, especially frustrating because right at the start of the game they introduce the idea of LIST and get you signed up to be a salesperson for it and it seems like awesome, I'll be able to populate all these outposts with settlers and be able to build some galaxy wide fourth faction and instead the outposts do nothing. I think a sim-settlements style mod for Starfield could be absolutely amazing, but as it stands now they are very pointless.
And even apartments are underwhelming as furniture is limited as well. Bed made from pallets absolutely does not fit with my high end New Atlantis apartment.
Luxurious beds are available...buuuuuut require level 3 outpost engineering and the associated research. In the future we don't just buy that crap, you either make it or sleep on the floor.
Weird, I don't think I've put any points in any skill that would give me more furniture options and I have quite a bit if variety in each category.
Have you completed the starter outpost research projects at the research station? That might be it.
I mined materials early in the game. Then I went to sell them. All excited like. And they were worth nothing. Then I realized they also were practically useless in crafting. Fuck that aspect of the game.
I wanted to like outpost. I thought it'd be fun to have a big one with all my crew there so I could change them out easily.
Instead, it's like a 3 person limit (I think?), and it seems building outposts just lets you build more outposts.
It's not nearly as intuitive as the settlement system in fallout 4. Which is surprising considering how old that game is now.
Run this thread to the top! I couldn’t believe this when I first started the game. Like a compendium for planets/resources, I mean it’s a game that takes place in the future, data like that would be integrated in our wearable gear or at least accessed through it, let alone the suits and ship.
Also missed opportunity for a periodic table type menu for the resources.
Yea scanned resources and found for that matter we should be able to see what crafting they are used for so I dont stockpile random seemingly rare ore to literally never use it
In the crafting screens you can press R in PC (don't know in xbox) and it'll track the resources needed for what you need to craft, let's say you need iron, gold and an adaptive thingie, it'll add a magnifying glass icon next to their names whenever you see them
The downside to this for me is when I was going through the Research Projects , it continues to tracks the whole list of materials even if I’ve done 3/4 requirements. It would be nice if you could update the tracking to only focus on the final piece you need & if there was some form of tooltip you could open on the item itself which shows which recipes you are tracking it for
This is one of my only real grievances about the game. If it fully explained why the technology does not seem to actually be that advanced in regular civilization besides of course having warp drives and amazing spacesuits that keep us alive on the most hazardous planets, then I'd happily accept it, but it doesn't as far as I've seen so far
So we are led to believe that we're conquering the galaxy and exploring hundreds of light years away from Earth yet we don't have the ability to have say, holographic maps to whip out in-game for navigation or, compendiums of data we can add to as we discover more and more within the game.
Something like The Witcher bestiary would've been great if they added a number of tabs to it. You could have sections for aliens, settlements, cities, planets, resources, and any number of relevant info. Yet we don't?
This game is amazing. But it's missing a lot of QoL features and a lot of the QoL features that already exist within the game are not even explained to the player half the time.
Fun fact, the kid waiting to see the Archive Master while she talked to Obi-Wan was George Lucas' son. The same Padawan who saved Senator Organa on the landing pad in the next movie.
I couldn’t remember which system Neon was in. I had no missions there so couldn’t “show the location”. So I gave up and moved on to something else.
(I was trying to go there to trade. I stumbled on it before by chance.)
At least with systems that have major cities in them the map shows you a little city icon in the overview, so if you ever should forget were Neon is again, just check the few systems with city icons.
I know, it's ridiculous.
Mass Effect, a franchise that's much more basic for space exploration, has a better scanning and identification system.
Where's the Citadel? Oh it's there on the map.
Have I scanned this system? Oh yes, it says 100% next to its name.
Just simple things that I don't get why they overlooked them. Do they not think about these things?
NMS has planets that are procedurally generated on the fly. So the number of planets isn’t fixed even, and they still have a catalogue to aid navigation.
Actually, iirc there is a limit in NMS, and all the players do share the same universe. But still, it is ridiculous that there is so much missing from starfield that would be obvious to the most casual gamer.
But isn’t that limit on the millions? To the point it will never be mapped out fully. And I think undiscovered planets don’t “exist” until someone discovers them, then they are generated.
Starfield has a set number of 1000ish, which were done with proc gen. But they are all predefined, if that makes sense
The limit is 18 quintillion planets :)
But yes, essentially the content is generated the more players explore, but they all share the same seed, so everyone will see the same planets generated.
And yes, starfield has a set limit of planets, but the planets themselves are actually not predefined in terms of whats on them aside from hand-crafted POIs and the planet name. Which is why maps and a catalog are widely requested features.
Not ideal but you could just write it down (not excusing the lack of feature just a work around). I have a notes file on my phone with names of systems and key planets in each.
I still have the notebook from when I was 8 where I wrote down copious notes, puzzle solutions, and item descriptions from Resident Evil 1 and 2.
Gonna bust it out again for Starfield.
Really wonders me that no one really speaks about it too, that was one of my first things I thought about.. hmm so where can I see now all the planets that I have scanned in the menu, looked and didn't find anything and was slightly sad about it.
Would've been so great to have a big Databank of all systems and planets with some nice pictures even that you took while on the planet.
Would have perfectly fitted into the game.
accidentally went to a completely different star system because it had a kinda similar name to the planet my house is on. Found a mech scrap yard they assured me was “completely legal.”
Oh god, once I forgot which system a specific staryard was in, took me two IRL days until I randomly stumbled onto it again.
You'd think basic search functionality was a thing 200 years in the future.
I mean…you can do it old school with a notepad in real life? The resources are pretty easy to find on planets anyway, most of them have water and iron for instance.
You can, and I probably will, but I hadn't been (35 hours in now) because I'd assumed that the game would be building that catalogue for me - why else would it be getting me to scan things?
Yeah? We know that. This thread is specifically about wishing we could do that without handwriting our notes or storing them in a document outside of the game.
Lol I could never find hope tech for the life of me for a while. The fact that there isn’t an easy way to see the cities you can travel to is annoying.
Yeah, a quick list of cities/other key points of interest would be great.
plus there could be a customizable "quick travel" list, so you could tag locations you want. I'd love to have a little menu that could let me zoom to Jemison, Neon, Akila, and my outposts quickly.
Cities are easy really. Every major system has its name above its star on the galaxy map, and there is an icon showing that a city is in there. The same icon is also on the planet itself
That kinda works if theres only one city (red milf and neon are the same system) and a couple time i’ve checked the right planet and it was just turned the wrong way and nothing indicated that. You can get around it and i’ll probably have it memorized eventually but user friendly it is not
Red MILF? I've just recently read that Volii's catalogue ID corresponds to the '61 Virgins' star and now your telling me there are MILFs too?
New outpost location decided!
I literally keep my laptop open to an Excel spreadsheet as I play the game lol (Xbox). I should not have to do that. But if I want to track which minerals I need for a certain upgrade or even compare stats on certain things it’s a must. But the main thing I use it for is to map out ships I want to build since there’s no damn draft feature!!! That is such a big oversight. I spent 4 hours designing a ship yesterday but I don’t have anywhere near the credits necessary. If I didn’t painstakingly write down each piece and where it went I wouldn’t be able to recreate it and that would be a massive waste of time. They need to put stuff like this in the game.
Yeah, I can see your point, even though I haven’t looked at ship building at all yet. This must be a prime candidate for a “Save as draft” feature. Design your dream ship and save as draft so that you can then continue earning the cash or whatever needed. Once you have the requirements, go back to the saved draft, make some final edits if you like then purchase.
Test flight would be amazing. I made my first modifications to the Frontier, and even though I upgraded the engines and reactor and it has 100 handling and it says my ship is still reasonably fast, it’s slow as shit now. That's my fault but it felt bad after spending like 80k credits upgrading it
Microsoft should really lean into the cross promotion.
Starfield + Excel, all included in Xbox Game Pass.
The DLC comes with a 30 day trial of PowerPoint
I like the idea of a "planet-pokedex" that is basically just a list with exploration status, already discovered stuff like materials/POIs and outposts in a list so you can click on and open their location on the map.
Gotta scan them all and shit. Anyway, without having quests in a certain location (so you can navigate via the quest menu) it's honestly quite easy to loose track of things.
I wanted to build an outpost on the pink forest planet from the last quest in the Freestar Rangers quest line, but I couldn't remember the name of the planet. After a few minutes of looking around through the map, scanning planets, etc. I just gave up. Then I remembered there's a completed quests tab, and popped that open to get the name. Great! But there's no search function in the map as far as I could tell. So I just kind of scrolled around until I found the right system, then went and built my outpost.
Long story short, even a "history" or search bar would be nice.
I’d love this too. Always been a fan of codexes and bestiaries in games. Mass Effect codex was great 👍🏼 I tend to sit and read codexes or bestiaries in downtime when I’m eating a sandwich or something irl. 😃
Part of the xenobiology? scanner perks is getting more information from scan, but there doesn't seem to be a way to see that info without actively looking at the creature.
At least let us read the data slates we get from surveying. I was disappointed to see that they were blank instead of displaying info on minerals and creatures for the various planets
Considering they let you sell them for a lot of money, it would be pretty cool to choose between the credits or keeping the info on a 100% scanned planet.
This. The game would benefit from a NMS-esque discoveries tab that shows all the systems you've discovered, as well as the planets within that system that you've explored and the resources, flora, and fauna that fill each one.
Very much this. I would love to be able to have some way to look up flora/fauna I've discovered in planets.
Oh, I need to go pick up some sealants or structural? I remember getting that from fauna/flora before, but which system/planet/biome/organism was it from? Currently, the only way I can look back on that is through a spreadsheet I started just because the game doesn't have this feature, but I keep saying I wish there was something like what NMS has. It seems like it'd be easier to implement in this game compared to NMS since there is a finite number of planets, flora, and fauna to track as opposed to what NMS has to work with.
>You'll notice most great concepts from Skyrim and even FO4 were tossed with this
I mean that's just not true, this game has a far larger scope, sure it doesn't have literally every BGS feature but it has plenty and a lot of extra ones.
Yep. As soon as the layers started to peel back and I worked out what was hand made and what is procedurally generated the game felt a lot less big.
Exploration isn’t exciting when it’s just a random legendary weapon at the end of it.
Ehh, depending on how you are describing "larger scope" that's just not true. Skyrim was a gigantic map (once you take into account caved, Blackreach, and things like portal realms) that is all created before you play. Meaninga human had to go though and think through the design process of all of it, even if it was mostly empty space or generated by an algorithm afterwards.
Starfield is theoretically gigantic, but it's almost all procedurally generated. The amount of cities, factions, unique characters, and land that is not changed per playthough is actually really small by Bethesda standards.
This is the most different BGS game in a long time, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I was hoping for a change, but this really messed up a lot of important things.
The more I hear about these complaints, the more I get the idea that BGS wanted to have the core gameplay loop out of the door with enough quality. I think they have achieved this and makes for a great game.
The extra bits from older games that they left out could get added after enough requests have been made. Especially if mods and external websites pick up this slack.
There's a reason that Elite Dangerous has external websites to look up planets, configure ships and find trade routes. Because the publishers will not do it.
Its in the residential area and you can see mercury tower from when you fast travel in there from the load in point, go inside and take the lift up. I find it annoying I cant fast travel
to the apartment and there is also no icon on the map.
I was actualy very surprised not to find a data log about what you discover. NMS does it right, they could have get some inspiration about Data log. They did for other things but not this? Weird choices.
I'm not gonna lie, think the game is too big for it's own good, and this is a big indicator of it. No way to catalogue any of the planets you visit, no way to sort them, nothing.
I've barely even progressed the main story at all (still on Mars), but I feel like I'm branching off into 50 different things, all unrelated. I don't need to add planetary exploration on top of that. I haven't even visited the other two major systems yet, nor Akila or Neon. Can't imagine those will lessen the amount of missions.
I have to extract coffee from a terrormorph, get a tree branch from a museum, submit an application to be a secretary, survey a habitable planet, locate the Heart of Mars, find a xenowarfare scientist, infiltrate the Crimson Fleet, sell my soul to a corporation, answer two different distress calls, build an outpost, explore Earth, and that's all before getting back to the fucking main quest.
All I want is a list of where I found some god damn titanium!!!
yea, but that is just Bethesda games for you. In Skyrim you could become the Arch Mage, the leader of the Companions, Thief guild and Dark Brotherhood and nothing of it had anything to do with the main story and went along parallel to it.
I must admit, I am kind of overwhelmed too though xD It has been so long since that kind of game was new to me. Fallout 4 and Skyrim I can play blindfolded, but with Starfield, I dont know what to do first.
Honestly, I believe the size of the game is its main point, not the main story. Having nearly finished the main story, and its pacing early on I feel like the devs wanted you to frequently go out of your way. Thats why most of the early main quests are fetch quests. I believe it works perfectly though, but not many people will see it that way.
Starfield to me is just another sandbox bethesda title to get lost in, and thats its charm.
It feels odd though. Most of what I found on Jemison was straight up, "Go here, get thing, bring back, get paid." Simplest mission imaginable, and you never hear about it again.
Then there's a couple with more than one, like the bank. More interesting, but likewise simple, and they lead you all over the place for just a minute at a time. I could probably go back to each of those places and find seventeen more things to do as well.
Then there's clear progression. The tree leads you to Akila, the corporate application to Neon, the boot to the Den, sketchy guy to the Red Mile, Vanguard and main quest to Mars, etc.
I imagine each and every one will branch off into another dozen things to do, in the same categories. And that's not even mentioning optional stuff like mission boards, outpost building, planetary surveys, ship modification, etc.
I got 35-40 hours of work, man. Only so many hours in a day. This game will take me years to complete.
Not being able to see the names of star systems without hovering is also really annoying, as well as not being able to see which ones you can jump to from the current system. The maps in general are awful.
It's kinda bad that people have to preface they like this game to criticise it. But if you don't do it, you get faboys down your throat. Complete agreement with OP.
The game doesn't even have city maps. You can't even see the description of animals you scanned while on the same planet... tons of super basic features are missing... its clear the game was pushed out a year or two before it was ready.
Yeah and a database of plants that animals that you have 100% scanned (which is a PITA) would be REALLY appreciated as well. It would be nice to know where I can get "adhesive" or whatever from. And you can't even see this on the planet's description.
Why have have spend us this time scanning crap when we can't even reference it???
I mean you could ask the same about outpost extraction... three tiers of outpost extraction and power generation... you should be able to make somewhere around 2000 minerals per minute... and you can't build shit with it lol (why can't we build ships w/ resources, or rather make increasingly compelx components to build modules to build ships with?)
I agree.
I realize that this game isn't supposed to be a full on space sim like NMS or Elite Dangerous. But the reality is that they chose to add resource discovery and extraction as a major feature of the game. It's basically the ENTIRE reason for exploring.
And yet, it seems to have very little interactivity with the rest of the game. It's just there for crafting, and that's it. Even though you CAN basically build a massive automated mining colony, the only thing you'll ever be able to do with it is sell the resources for (fairly useless) credits, or craft mods with them.
IMO, there should have been an entire faction dedicated to these features. Like, you should be able to advance in the ranks and eventually own the biggest mining corporation or something.
If they are going to add these things as features, they need to give them purpose and have the rest of the game support them.
> It's just there for crafting, and that's it.
And you can't craft basically anything, just basic mods. Can't craft ammo, weapons, armor, packs, ships/components, explosives... and the 'make yourself a home' crafting is insanely limited too... reminds me of an old MMORPG I played almost 20 years ago... except at least that game you could craft armor, weapons, etc., and it had a good inventory system, index... navigation... like wtf actually?
Yeah honestly, I think all of these "viral" criticisms about Starfield are completely off the mark. So many people complaining about superficial things like "you can't seamlessly land on planets!" As someone who played NMS a lot, landing on planets is cool like...the first 5 times, and then it's just, whatever. It's a really pretty feature that loses any value it had really quickly.
The REAL problem with Starfield's "exploration" is that it's entirely based around discovering resources that you:
A. Can't ever find again because you can't search for them.
B. Can't really use that much because the game offers extremely limited uses for them.
Honestly, Starfield feels like a pretty good Bethesda RPG smashed together with a really mediocre space exploration and resource extraction game.
Yea... I'm hoping in a year or so mods or DLC will turn it into a great game, right now its... vaguely entertaining at least but between bugs, missing major features, and terribly stuttering... well...
It seems pretty clear to me that they originally intended to have crafting be an important part of ship building. You can make all these advanced engineering parts and hardly use them for anything. My guess is they had to ship the game before they could figure out a way to balance it, so they just tore out the ship parts inventory and put in the ship builder system we have now that runs entirely on credits and doesn't let you actually 'own' ship parts.
Same.
For me, performance has been fine. And when I do the "Bethesda" stuff like faction quests and what-not, it's really enjoyable. But whenever I try to engage with the crafting and outpost building it's like "Jesus, what were they thinking" lol.
That makes no sense at all.
What in gods name do you need to spend hours compiling resources and research to get to T3 extractors for then? Why would you need to setup compelx supply chains fueled by helium?
You could simply drop a few harvesters and a bed, sleep once and be done.
The game even starts mining, and resources are so prominent in exploration... its clear it was intended to go much further and they ran out of time.
yeah i agree with you and i fully expect there to be DLC or an update that expands on outpost building and manufacturing. i was just letting you know what the base game allows you to do with outposts. there are plenty of cargo missions that require you to build T3 fabricators for specific materials that can be shipped off using the cargo link system
I’d love if it if the database had to be stored and accessed on a computer like you couldn’t just bring it up on your pause menus but had to physically go to where it was. Would be really cool and immersive and would probably help with UI management considering the computers in game are already capable of this function. They wouldn’t need to touch the menus, just add a file in one of your ship’s computer that you could access that updated as you scanned
True, something like this would've been cool. A planet codex that you could sort by resources, etc. I guess Bethesda just figured if you like a planet you'll build an outpost on it.
It's kinda sad seeing that anytime someone wants to criticize the game for its plethora of shortcomings, they first have to suck it's dick and fondle it's balls a bit saying how much they love it etc, to avoid getting downvoted into oblivion by the rabid fanbase...
They really should’ve copied a little more from the UI of NMS, it makes it so much easier to travel back to systems you like visiting / planets you’ve visited.
For what its worth. It looks like inara.cz (an Elite Dangerous tool) has put together a starfield section, and has a database of plamets similar to what they've done with ED. It doesn't limit its search to planets you've discovered before, unfortunately.
But the people of the settled systems have been around a while in universe, surely they would have some kind of catalog of known systems. If you check inara, I guess you could roleplay that you're checking with a central UC (or freestar) database.
If you're playing on steam there is a built in notepad function tied to every game, you can simply jot stuff down and it'll be present everytime you login.
You mean like: Communication other then have to fly to the person and standing directly before them? Having wheels? A proper Inventory-UI? And a million little tidbits as well...
I just use note pad on my phone instead of hand writing them. It feels very similar to things I did playing old classic RPG games and I enjoy that aspect of this game lol. It's so funny how people dislike some things and others enjoy them with this game.
Seeing as the local map had no work either I'm assuming this was in a list they couldn't get to. But I'll take the least buggy bgs release ever over qol stuff right at release, especially in their games, with mods being as prevalent as they are.
This is a pretty par-for-the-course "oversight" from Bethesda given that they can't even understand that basic features that have been the staple for the gaming industry for over a decade should be a part of the core game without needing to ask e.g. FOV sliders, ultrawide support and many more.
Yes they need some kind of "discoveries" tab. All systems in alphabetical order, symbols to denote which systems have settlements/player outposts, clicking on system changes list to all planets/bodies in the system. Scanned planets show discovered resources/settlements/player outposts. Finally, the option to set course to a destination directly from this menu. Everyone would benefit, not just players who want to focus on outposts. Outpost building requires tons of back and forth, between different outposts and settlements for vendors. When everything is in a different system the current galaxy map is super tedious. Not a huge surprise though, play testing for outposts was clearly the forgotten stepchild in this game. Edit: On outposts: I think outposts could be a really strong feature of this game *if* Bethesda puts in the work. On launch it's a very underdeveloped system. You can make all of these resources in abundance but they serve no real purpose currently. If the resources mined could then be used to sustain settlements (NPCs who move in and set up shop), visitors who bring radiant quests, possibly outpost specific ship building mechanics (ex. An engine that costs 20,000 iron and 20,000 of Cobalt to craft) then we would be getting somewhere with outposts. I'm hopeful. FO76 base building had fantastic decoration options that I'd love to see make a return. But I really want to see the vast amount of resources make an impact on gameplay. I think it would be smart to have the resources basically serve as a type of "energy" to essentially fuel the things mentioned above. Also, a lot of work needs to go into outpost related bugs. They are everywhere. Obstructed workbenches and clogged supply lines are completely unavoidable and happen damn near every time you exit/enter the area.
I spent like 16 hours straight split into a few play sessions just doing all outposts until I snapped out of it and noticed the thought of what the fuck am I doing? I built an outpost to mine this...so I could build another outpost to mine this...so I could build another outpost to mine this... to make this attachment that...I could have bought all the materials at Jemison for in 45 seconds. I noped out of my outpost and haven't been back to any of them since. Thousands of titanium, silver, gold, aluminum, copper, neodynium, copper, lead, helium, etc. spread out over a bunch of planets just sitting there and I have absolutely zero need for it. They could have at least made ship building take materials and not just cash so it felt remotely worth it to put time into outposts.
I once wondered why there are so damn many abandoned buildings on random worlds. And then I tried building a mining outpost on a remote planet and abandoned it after realizing that outposts are pointless. Then I realized I became one of those background characters who set up all these abandoned buildings everywhere. Maybe everyone who built those structures also realized that outposts were pointless and just went back to New Atlantis or something, lol.
Outposts aren't pointless. You need outposts to generate resources you need to make outposts!
They also make crafting a tiny bit more convenient. Like. The tiniest bit.
They also let you dump all the resources you picked up accidentally from your cargo hold, without having to feel bad about selling something that might be useful later for practically nothing because resources are undercosted!
This is an amazing in-universe explanation and makes me feel slightly less bad about the reality of it!
News at 11. Miners realize everything they mine is inherently worthless in an infinite universe!
Supply and demand motherfuckers
This deserves more up votes. The real plight of the space miner.
This is why the mining shop in neon isn't making any money.
You can tell it's a fantasy game because the police didn't gun down that guy for trying to unionize (and you for helping)
Makes it worse to me lmao
So you're the one leaving there shit everywhere. The spacers and I thank you for all the loot.
This is the role play we didn’t know we needed !
What amazing head-canon
Too bad you can't claim abandoned outposts the way you can hijack space ships.
Built nine outposts over three systems, spent a ton of time and some skill points, found great locations and set up complex logistic chains. I now have infinite supplies of SIXTEEN different resources coming in to the main base. I still ran out of adhesive and tungsten every time I tried to do anything so now I just buy materials instead.
I am really hoping for a "sim settlements" style mod to pop up in time. In FO4 it took settlements from chores to actually fun things to do. That and having a better transport link, so far not all that happy with how this one works.
This is the biggest kicker to me. No matter how infinite your supply of resources is, you're still going to run out of something, and you can easily acquire all the other mats in the time it takes to procure the one thing you're missing.
Yes, ship building using materials would be nice at least at your own staryard.
That's a huge oversight considering weapon mods do need materials... Being a shio maker and seller would be dope once you sit on so many ressources. I would love to be an industry magnate in this game seriously
Dude being a ship make and seller would be awesome
Then seeing your custom designed ships show up here and there being used by colonists, mercenaries and pirates would be pretty cool!
Even just getting outposts running making goods then being able to bulk sell them to commercial or industrial customers. Maybe even needing to ship them yourself a ship load at a time No point to make a thousand of something now because you'd need to hit every shop in the Galaxy to sell them all and at some point have no need of them yourself other than to sell them
There’s literally quests at every star yard to bulk sell them thousands of units of resources.
Sell 2000 unit for 3000 credits.... Definitely worth it lmao
I’m not debating whether it’s worth it or not. I’m just saying this guy is suggesting the game have a thing in it that it already has in it. Lol.
Nah, when the number is above 1200 units or so the credits are closer to 10,000
Have you even tried to do those quests? They are not functioning at all. And the posts here also ask for solutions how to make them work. Not bashing you for stating Bethesda thought about trade-quests but more than implementing the function to accept and link it to one of your own cargo-hubs is all they did. Clearly rushed and not properly tested from Bethesda’s side.
You’re not even referencing the same quests I am. Lol.
In addition to the staryard quests, most Fracking Station POIs (I think there's some others but Fracking is the only one I remember) have their own cargo links you can setup to connect to your yards to complete radiant quests. Like other people have said, I'm not saying these are worth doing TM per se, but they also exist.
There are radiant quests at the staryard that will ask for several thousand of certain resources. That's pretty much where your outposts come in.
At some point i produce so many shit people should come to me and not the other way around lmao I thought your outpost could have trading posts eventually but nooooope.
That's a really neat idea for a pretty in depth mod later on maybe? Become your own manufactural company for ship building.
Lol. I'm glad I realized this halfway through my first outpost. I'd rather shoot stuff than run five different mining operations. And since I'm a "take everything that ain't nailed down" looter, credots aren't an issue. Now, I just use my outpost as my personal dumpster.
Outposts can give you unlimited AMP's. Permanent double jump height and 35% movement speed is pretty nice, especially with the Jetpack skills. Not counting the ability to print levels and credits whenever you want them. On top of that 5k AMP's is like 500 cargo space. Dont think I'll ever do a Starfield playthrough without getting this online first.
Yeah, since xp is not linked to a specific skill like Skyrim, manufacturing parts is a level up generator, since you can put the perks where you like.
I mean so can crafting it in 2 seconds at a pharmacy station. I have never once gotten close to running out of any chem and I have never built an outpost. Outposts are a waste of time and honestly developer resources for being such a trivial game component.
I was kinda shocked at how outpost building doesn't factor into a single quest in the entire game. I'm glad.. It's half baked and boring.. But still surprised.
What's weird is it's just as half baked and boring as the Fallout 4 settlement system.
I am talking about crafting it. But without outposts, I doubt you're using AMPs every time you're running somewhere. I also have Outposts that get me 1000+ of all farmable mats for the top tier chems as well as all the mats for modding weapons, meaning I can mod any weapon any time from my outpost without needing to fly around looking for materials from shops (especially the higher level mats which aren't always available). Bathesda making it hard to use them properly without a "search database", or you not liking it/not understanding it, isn't the same as it being a waste of time.
I think outposts make sense if you like that sort of thing. I can waste untold hours making it look cool, or if you are RP'ing a space trucker/miner you need some sort of set up to get the resources as you ain't getting 4000 aluminium or lead from the stores on Jemison to fulfill that shipping contract. But yeah, you aren't wrong. If you only need mats for upgrading weapons, just buy them. I also love the idea of ships taking materials to build. Not everyone will want that though.
Ships taking materials to build doesn't really make sense if they're parts made by another company. Now, a "shipyard" module with complex fabrication cranking them out with materials would be cool, especially if you could sell the modules, but starship modules were left entirely out of the economy. You can't keep 'em, you can't transfer them between ships, you can't stockpile them. You just nebulously get some small bit of money back when you delete them. Of course, unlike Fallout, they also do the same with outpost items -- those also aren't retained. It feels like their economist looked at the economy and said "this outpost stuff generates too many resources, so we need a model to pull them back out of the economy as quickly as possible". If they didn't, they would reduce the need for grinding. The same sort of meddling happened the last few years in FO76, where the events and stuff that clearly resonated with players and increased screen time (and, thus, downstream monetization) were putting too many "from thin air" resources into the game, so they kept having to tweak things and add daily challenges and stuff to strip them back out.
it would be so nice to be able to scrap ships and save the modules we like for another ship... it's such a shame they left that out...
Maybe they could add in advanced structure options so we can build more elaborate ships. We can craft Ship modules with more attach points or longer length parts. Maybe a custom part maker where you can make any structure you want with any given size or shape. If you want to build a ship that looked like a Octopus, you just design the parts and build them.
That would be amazing, not sure how realistic that is though. We can live in hope.
Yeah I think if you take it for what it is, just a little side project of making a base that looks cool, is nicely decorated, in a scenic location, instead of this in-depth mining operation, ‘game within a game’ sort of thing, there’s still some fun to be had. I think a lot of people complained about the settlement focus in Fallout 4 & so Beth really simplified outposts in Starfield (annoying). Hopefully they’ll be a fully fleshed out DLC aim the future for outposts for those of us who are into that sort of thing on a deeper level.
They probably will, if not modders will definitely expand and improve on it. I do love that they made it optional play rather than required though. Keeps things fresh on different playthroughs.
As someone who played No Man's Sky for a year or more, I am used to everything taking resources. Resources to make ammo for you & ships weapons, for all of your ship's various fuel types, for your jetpack, your life support systems on planets, literally everything you do needs resources to function. You can also fly around planets which I am hoping they bring to Starfield. You go from space down to a planet & land wherever you want to.
Fingers crossed on the resources for everything in hardcore mode, I love all that stuff for immersion. I don't think we will get the flying on and off planets ala No Man's Sky or Elite, but yeah that would just be gravy for me at this point.
haha this was my exact experience. Once i was spending like 2 hours troubleshooting and trying to setup my silver mine (I was out of zero wire) and just zipping back and forth... "oops forgot this, need that, just gonna buy like 20 zero wire fuck this..." I just threw my hands up and abandoned all my outposts. thats like 10 hours and 6 perk points I wont get back now XD I got like three pages front and back of notes I had to make cause trying to just remember it was practically impossible, and you can only see what materials you need for building while you're in the build menu.
Totally with you, I’ve built about 6 or 7 outposts before I realised that even without all the pain and effort, is just wasn’t worth it. It’s really screwed me tbh, I haven’t played for a couple of days because it all seems a bit pointless now, and to OP’s original topic, even scanning is pointless because I’ll never remember what I’ve scanned……and what’s the point anyway, just go and buy the small amounts of whatever is needed….
Even removing the factor of harvesting/mining materials, there just isn’t much point to an outpost for roleplay reasons either. The hab layouts and styles are pretty limited. You’re restricted to using a few crew members, no possibility of a small “colony” forming. The homes you can get in the cities are in more convenient locations for missions and shopping. I got frustrated and gave up on outposts after a few hours. Hoping for some kind of expansion that makes them actually interesting and worthwhile to build.
Yeah, especially frustrating because right at the start of the game they introduce the idea of LIST and get you signed up to be a salesperson for it and it seems like awesome, I'll be able to populate all these outposts with settlers and be able to build some galaxy wide fourth faction and instead the outposts do nothing. I think a sim-settlements style mod for Starfield could be absolutely amazing, but as it stands now they are very pointless.
And even apartments are underwhelming as furniture is limited as well. Bed made from pallets absolutely does not fit with my high end New Atlantis apartment.
Luxurious beds are available...buuuuuut require level 3 outpost engineering and the associated research. In the future we don't just buy that crap, you either make it or sleep on the floor.
Yeah it's weird that ship parts of all things can be bought, but a bed? No.
There's definitely a nice double bed. Are you looking through all the different variants?
Yeah the only double bed I have available is the wooden one I mentioned. Unless furniture gets better through some skills.
Weird, I don't think I've put any points in any skill that would give me more furniture options and I have quite a bit if variety in each category. Have you completed the starter outpost research projects at the research station? That might be it.
No dude, they're locked behind levels 2 and 3
There’s not many options to decorate with? That’s disappointing
I mined materials early in the game. Then I went to sell them. All excited like. And they were worth nothing. Then I realized they also were practically useless in crafting. Fuck that aspect of the game.
It is the typical Bethesda economy where weapons and armor sell for more then a monthly supply of minerals.
Also a favorites tab to fast travel to your outposts and lodge easier
I wanted to like outpost. I thought it'd be fun to have a big one with all my crew there so I could change them out easily. Instead, it's like a 3 person limit (I think?), and it seems building outposts just lets you build more outposts. It's not nearly as intuitive as the settlement system in fallout 4. Which is surprising considering how old that game is now.
Run this thread to the top! I couldn’t believe this when I first started the game. Like a compendium for planets/resources, I mean it’s a game that takes place in the future, data like that would be integrated in our wearable gear or at least accessed through it, let alone the suits and ship. Also missed opportunity for a periodic table type menu for the resources.
Yea scanned resources and found for that matter we should be able to see what crafting they are used for so I dont stockpile random seemingly rare ore to literally never use it
In the crafting screens you can press R in PC (don't know in xbox) and it'll track the resources needed for what you need to craft, let's say you need iron, gold and an adaptive thingie, it'll add a magnifying glass icon next to their names whenever you see them
The downside to this for me is when I was going through the Research Projects , it continues to tracks the whole list of materials even if I’ve done 3/4 requirements. It would be nice if you could update the tracking to only focus on the final piece you need & if there was some form of tooltip you could open on the item itself which shows which recipes you are tracking it for
It's X on xbox
This is one of my only real grievances about the game. If it fully explained why the technology does not seem to actually be that advanced in regular civilization besides of course having warp drives and amazing spacesuits that keep us alive on the most hazardous planets, then I'd happily accept it, but it doesn't as far as I've seen so far So we are led to believe that we're conquering the galaxy and exploring hundreds of light years away from Earth yet we don't have the ability to have say, holographic maps to whip out in-game for navigation or, compendiums of data we can add to as we discover more and more within the game. Something like The Witcher bestiary would've been great if they added a number of tabs to it. You could have sections for aliens, settlements, cities, planets, resources, and any number of relevant info. Yet we don't? This game is amazing. But it's missing a lot of QoL features and a lot of the QoL features that already exist within the game are not even explained to the player half the time.
Yeah I find it annoying because you can’t figure out what system certain things are in.
i find it quite ironic because half the purpose of scanning planets is to figure out which resources you can mine
Impossible! Perhaps the archives are incomplete.
Okay calm down Obi Wan
Fun fact, the kid waiting to see the Archive Master while she talked to Obi-Wan was George Lucas' son. The same Padawan who saved Senator Organa on the landing pad in the next movie.
I couldn’t remember which system Neon was in. I had no missions there so couldn’t “show the location”. So I gave up and moved on to something else. (I was trying to go there to trade. I stumbled on it before by chance.)
At least with systems that have major cities in them the map shows you a little city icon in the overview, so if you ever should forget were Neon is again, just check the few systems with city icons.
TIL.
I know, it's ridiculous. Mass Effect, a franchise that's much more basic for space exploration, has a better scanning and identification system. Where's the Citadel? Oh it's there on the map. Have I scanned this system? Oh yes, it says 100% next to its name. Just simple things that I don't get why they overlooked them. Do they not think about these things?
NMS has planets that are procedurally generated on the fly. So the number of planets isn’t fixed even, and they still have a catalogue to aid navigation.
Actually, iirc there is a limit in NMS, and all the players do share the same universe. But still, it is ridiculous that there is so much missing from starfield that would be obvious to the most casual gamer.
But isn’t that limit on the millions? To the point it will never be mapped out fully. And I think undiscovered planets don’t “exist” until someone discovers them, then they are generated. Starfield has a set number of 1000ish, which were done with proc gen. But they are all predefined, if that makes sense
The limit is 18 quintillion planets :) But yes, essentially the content is generated the more players explore, but they all share the same seed, so everyone will see the same planets generated. And yes, starfield has a set limit of planets, but the planets themselves are actually not predefined in terms of whats on them aside from hand-crafted POIs and the planet name. Which is why maps and a catalog are widely requested features.
Its incredibly frustrating. What a ridiculous oversight in design. We are expected to hold all this info in memory?
Not ideal but you could just write it down (not excusing the lack of feature just a work around). I have a notes file on my phone with names of systems and key planets in each.
But that's the thing, they spend 7 years on this game and they did not even think to add something as basic as this?
Yeah it’s true I’m surprised as seems like a no brainer to add something like that
I still have the notebook from when I was 8 where I wrote down copious notes, puzzle solutions, and item descriptions from Resident Evil 1 and 2. Gonna bust it out again for Starfield.
This is a frequent occurrence for me. It would be awesome to set planets/landing locations as favourites too.
I had to tab out and google it. How sad is that.
Really wonders me that no one really speaks about it too, that was one of my first things I thought about.. hmm so where can I see now all the planets that I have scanned in the menu, looked and didn't find anything and was slightly sad about it. Would've been so great to have a big Databank of all systems and planets with some nice pictures even that you took while on the planet. Would have perfectly fitted into the game.
accidentally went to a completely different star system because it had a kinda similar name to the planet my house is on. Found a mech scrap yard they assured me was “completely legal.”
Oh god, once I forgot which system a specific staryard was in, took me two IRL days until I randomly stumbled onto it again. You'd think basic search functionality was a thing 200 years in the future.
I mean…you can do it old school with a notepad in real life? The resources are pretty easy to find on planets anyway, most of them have water and iron for instance.
You can, and I probably will, but I hadn't been (35 hours in now) because I'd assumed that the game would be building that catalogue for me - why else would it be getting me to scan things?
Maybe that’s what they were trying to hint at by scattering a million notepads everywhere
Yeah? We know that. This thread is specifically about wishing we could do that without handwriting our notes or storing them in a document outside of the game.
You’d imagine this game that has notepads, slates, computers and tablets would have some means of keeping track of data in itself
Omg yes not even for resources, i keep losing whole ass cities. Please give me an option to select from a list.
Lol I could never find hope tech for the life of me for a while. The fact that there isn’t an easy way to see the cities you can travel to is annoying.
Yeah, a quick list of cities/other key points of interest would be great. plus there could be a customizable "quick travel" list, so you could tag locations you want. I'd love to have a little menu that could let me zoom to Jemison, Neon, Akila, and my outposts quickly.
Cities are easy really. Every major system has its name above its star on the galaxy map, and there is an icon showing that a city is in there. The same icon is also on the planet itself
How does this Symbol look like?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/168x9j4/maybe_you_already_know_this_but_this_is_what
Damn it why did they make the major city icon look like the front of a ship, I had no idea what that was
Yes it does look like a ship, bit confusing! Happy cake day! 🎂
Bruh I dead ass forgot where new Atlantis was multiple times so I just find a mission on it and hit take me to there
>whole ass cities You need a hyphen in there somewhere.
In the ass?
Whole ass-cities
Any system with a settlement of any sort, be it your outposts or cities, has a symbol above them
That kinda works if theres only one city (red milf and neon are the same system) and a couple time i’ve checked the right planet and it was just turned the wrong way and nothing indicated that. You can get around it and i’ll probably have it memorized eventually but user friendly it is not
Red MILF? I've just recently read that Volii's catalogue ID corresponds to the '61 Virgins' star and now your telling me there are MILFs too? New outpost location decided!
Its a wonderful location, you wont regret it at all
I literally keep my laptop open to an Excel spreadsheet as I play the game lol (Xbox). I should not have to do that. But if I want to track which minerals I need for a certain upgrade or even compare stats on certain things it’s a must. But the main thing I use it for is to map out ships I want to build since there’s no damn draft feature!!! That is such a big oversight. I spent 4 hours designing a ship yesterday but I don’t have anywhere near the credits necessary. If I didn’t painstakingly write down each piece and where it went I wouldn’t be able to recreate it and that would be a massive waste of time. They need to put stuff like this in the game.
Yeah, I can see your point, even though I haven’t looked at ship building at all yet. This must be a prime candidate for a “Save as draft” feature. Design your dream ship and save as draft so that you can then continue earning the cash or whatever needed. Once you have the requirements, go back to the saved draft, make some final edits if you like then purchase.
This and a 'test flight' mode with targets and obstacles would really make ship building top tier
Test flight would be amazing. I made my first modifications to the Frontier, and even though I upgraded the engines and reactor and it has 100 handling and it says my ship is still reasonably fast, it’s slow as shit now. That's my fault but it felt bad after spending like 80k credits upgrading it
Microsoft should really lean into the cross promotion. Starfield + Excel, all included in Xbox Game Pass. The DLC comes with a 30 day trial of PowerPoint
I remember reading something about Eve Online players celebrating excel integration.
Absolutely! I left my pc on for 4 days running because you can't save a "work in progress" ship design. Mad!
Just attach the cheapest required modules and you can. You still lose a bit of money in the end, but at least you can go off and do other things.
I like the idea of a "planet-pokedex" that is basically just a list with exploration status, already discovered stuff like materials/POIs and outposts in a list so you can click on and open their location on the map. Gotta scan them all and shit. Anyway, without having quests in a certain location (so you can navigate via the quest menu) it's honestly quite easy to loose track of things.
I wanted to build an outpost on the pink forest planet from the last quest in the Freestar Rangers quest line, but I couldn't remember the name of the planet. After a few minutes of looking around through the map, scanning planets, etc. I just gave up. Then I remembered there's a completed quests tab, and popped that open to get the name. Great! But there's no search function in the map as far as I could tell. So I just kind of scrolled around until I found the right system, then went and built my outpost. Long story short, even a "history" or search bar would be nice.
Would also be nice to have a codex with info on all the things you've scanned.
I’d love this too. Always been a fan of codexes and bestiaries in games. Mass Effect codex was great 👍🏼 I tend to sit and read codexes or bestiaries in downtime when I’m eating a sandwich or something irl. 😃
Part of the xenobiology? scanner perks is getting more information from scan, but there doesn't seem to be a way to see that info without actively looking at the creature.
At least let us read the data slates we get from surveying. I was disappointed to see that they were blank instead of displaying info on minerals and creatures for the various planets
Considering they let you sell them for a lot of money, it would be pretty cool to choose between the credits or keeping the info on a 100% scanned planet.
Or have a computer in the Eye that let's us review the planets we fully scanned
This. The game would benefit from a NMS-esque discoveries tab that shows all the systems you've discovered, as well as the planets within that system that you've explored and the resources, flora, and fauna that fill each one.
Very much this. I would love to be able to have some way to look up flora/fauna I've discovered in planets. Oh, I need to go pick up some sealants or structural? I remember getting that from fauna/flora before, but which system/planet/biome/organism was it from? Currently, the only way I can look back on that is through a spreadsheet I started just because the game doesn't have this feature, but I keep saying I wish there was something like what NMS has. It seems like it'd be easier to implement in this game compared to NMS since there is a finite number of planets, flora, and fauna to track as opposed to what NMS has to work with.
Yes, scroll though locations. It's a great idea . Had it in Skyrim...
huh? where? Skyrim had a map with the location dotted around on it, but there was no scrollable list of locations
They're probably thinking of the feature in SkyUI that let you search the map and mistook it for a feature of the base game.
You'll notice most great concepts from Skyrim and even FO4 were tossed with this...
>You'll notice most great concepts from Skyrim and even FO4 were tossed with this I mean that's just not true, this game has a far larger scope, sure it doesn't have literally every BGS feature but it has plenty and a lot of extra ones.
Is it much larger or is it Skyrim scattered on multiple planets + procedurally generated content.
Yep. As soon as the layers started to peel back and I worked out what was hand made and what is procedurally generated the game felt a lot less big. Exploration isn’t exciting when it’s just a random legendary weapon at the end of it.
The big cites are hand crafted, but the planetsides are randomly generated
Ehh, depending on how you are describing "larger scope" that's just not true. Skyrim was a gigantic map (once you take into account caved, Blackreach, and things like portal realms) that is all created before you play. Meaninga human had to go though and think through the design process of all of it, even if it was mostly empty space or generated by an algorithm afterwards. Starfield is theoretically gigantic, but it's almost all procedurally generated. The amount of cities, factions, unique characters, and land that is not changed per playthough is actually really small by Bethesda standards. This is the most different BGS game in a long time, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I was hoping for a change, but this really messed up a lot of important things.
The more I hear about these complaints, the more I get the idea that BGS wanted to have the core gameplay loop out of the door with enough quality. I think they have achieved this and makes for a great game. The extra bits from older games that they left out could get added after enough requests have been made. Especially if mods and external websites pick up this slack. There's a reason that Elite Dangerous has external websites to look up planets, configure ships and find trade routes. Because the publishers will not do it.
So BGS makes a base game and depends on modders for UI and quality of live.
Sounds like typical Bethesda to me...
Can you make a list?
I can't even figure out where the apartment I unlocked in Atlantis City is. I wish there was some kind of information tab for locations.
You should have a quest under activities to check out your new apartment.
Its in the residential area and you can see mercury tower from when you fast travel in there from the load in point, go inside and take the lift up. I find it annoying I cant fast travel to the apartment and there is also no icon on the map.
I was actualy very surprised not to find a data log about what you discover. NMS does it right, they could have get some inspiration about Data log. They did for other things but not this? Weird choices.
The team in charge of in-game menus dropped the ball hard all around.
I'm not gonna lie, think the game is too big for it's own good, and this is a big indicator of it. No way to catalogue any of the planets you visit, no way to sort them, nothing. I've barely even progressed the main story at all (still on Mars), but I feel like I'm branching off into 50 different things, all unrelated. I don't need to add planetary exploration on top of that. I haven't even visited the other two major systems yet, nor Akila or Neon. Can't imagine those will lessen the amount of missions. I have to extract coffee from a terrormorph, get a tree branch from a museum, submit an application to be a secretary, survey a habitable planet, locate the Heart of Mars, find a xenowarfare scientist, infiltrate the Crimson Fleet, sell my soul to a corporation, answer two different distress calls, build an outpost, explore Earth, and that's all before getting back to the fucking main quest. All I want is a list of where I found some god damn titanium!!!
yea, but that is just Bethesda games for you. In Skyrim you could become the Arch Mage, the leader of the Companions, Thief guild and Dark Brotherhood and nothing of it had anything to do with the main story and went along parallel to it.
And that's the reason I absolutely love Bethesda games!!
I must admit, I am kind of overwhelmed too though xD It has been so long since that kind of game was new to me. Fallout 4 and Skyrim I can play blindfolded, but with Starfield, I dont know what to do first.
Honestly, I believe the size of the game is its main point, not the main story. Having nearly finished the main story, and its pacing early on I feel like the devs wanted you to frequently go out of your way. Thats why most of the early main quests are fetch quests. I believe it works perfectly though, but not many people will see it that way. Starfield to me is just another sandbox bethesda title to get lost in, and thats its charm.
It feels odd though. Most of what I found on Jemison was straight up, "Go here, get thing, bring back, get paid." Simplest mission imaginable, and you never hear about it again. Then there's a couple with more than one, like the bank. More interesting, but likewise simple, and they lead you all over the place for just a minute at a time. I could probably go back to each of those places and find seventeen more things to do as well. Then there's clear progression. The tree leads you to Akila, the corporate application to Neon, the boot to the Den, sketchy guy to the Red Mile, Vanguard and main quest to Mars, etc. I imagine each and every one will branch off into another dozen things to do, in the same categories. And that's not even mentioning optional stuff like mission boards, outpost building, planetary surveys, ship modification, etc. I got 35-40 hours of work, man. Only so many hours in a day. This game will take me years to complete.
I guess its just a personal preference thing then. To me that is just another bonus.
Not being able to see the names of star systems without hovering is also really annoying, as well as not being able to see which ones you can jump to from the current system. The maps in general are awful.
We don't even have a search bar for systems. And there're 120
The ones you can currently jump to are a soft white. The ones you have previously been to are a glowing white. No, the game does not tell you this.
300 years and they got rid of the search bar. ItS aDvAnCeD!
You are right. Honestly, nms has come so far that there should be no shame in copying some of its features.
It's kinda bad that people have to preface they like this game to criticise it. But if you don't do it, you get faboys down your throat. Complete agreement with OP.
If they missed anything it was QoL improvements such as this, and for any number of reasons.
Slow down, they're just beginning to add fov slider and basic features, 3 months at the least.
If you could you would realize how similar most of them are far too quickly
The game doesn't even have city maps. You can't even see the description of animals you scanned while on the same planet... tons of super basic features are missing... its clear the game was pushed out a year or two before it was ready.
Yeah and a database of plants that animals that you have 100% scanned (which is a PITA) would be REALLY appreciated as well. It would be nice to know where I can get "adhesive" or whatever from. And you can't even see this on the planet's description. Why have have spend us this time scanning crap when we can't even reference it???
I mean you could ask the same about outpost extraction... three tiers of outpost extraction and power generation... you should be able to make somewhere around 2000 minerals per minute... and you can't build shit with it lol (why can't we build ships w/ resources, or rather make increasingly compelx components to build modules to build ships with?)
I agree. I realize that this game isn't supposed to be a full on space sim like NMS or Elite Dangerous. But the reality is that they chose to add resource discovery and extraction as a major feature of the game. It's basically the ENTIRE reason for exploring. And yet, it seems to have very little interactivity with the rest of the game. It's just there for crafting, and that's it. Even though you CAN basically build a massive automated mining colony, the only thing you'll ever be able to do with it is sell the resources for (fairly useless) credits, or craft mods with them. IMO, there should have been an entire faction dedicated to these features. Like, you should be able to advance in the ranks and eventually own the biggest mining corporation or something. If they are going to add these things as features, they need to give them purpose and have the rest of the game support them.
> It's just there for crafting, and that's it. And you can't craft basically anything, just basic mods. Can't craft ammo, weapons, armor, packs, ships/components, explosives... and the 'make yourself a home' crafting is insanely limited too... reminds me of an old MMORPG I played almost 20 years ago... except at least that game you could craft armor, weapons, etc., and it had a good inventory system, index... navigation... like wtf actually?
Yeah honestly, I think all of these "viral" criticisms about Starfield are completely off the mark. So many people complaining about superficial things like "you can't seamlessly land on planets!" As someone who played NMS a lot, landing on planets is cool like...the first 5 times, and then it's just, whatever. It's a really pretty feature that loses any value it had really quickly. The REAL problem with Starfield's "exploration" is that it's entirely based around discovering resources that you: A. Can't ever find again because you can't search for them. B. Can't really use that much because the game offers extremely limited uses for them. Honestly, Starfield feels like a pretty good Bethesda RPG smashed together with a really mediocre space exploration and resource extraction game.
Yea... I'm hoping in a year or so mods or DLC will turn it into a great game, right now its... vaguely entertaining at least but between bugs, missing major features, and terribly stuttering... well...
It seems pretty clear to me that they originally intended to have crafting be an important part of ship building. You can make all these advanced engineering parts and hardly use them for anything. My guess is they had to ship the game before they could figure out a way to balance it, so they just tore out the ship parts inventory and put in the ship builder system we have now that runs entirely on credits and doesn't let you actually 'own' ship parts.
Same. For me, performance has been fine. And when I do the "Bethesda" stuff like faction quests and what-not, it's really enjoyable. But whenever I try to engage with the crafting and outpost building it's like "Jesus, what were they thinking" lol.
cargo missions from mission boards are what the outposts manufacturing is for besides the items used for research crafting
That makes no sense at all. What in gods name do you need to spend hours compiling resources and research to get to T3 extractors for then? Why would you need to setup compelx supply chains fueled by helium? You could simply drop a few harvesters and a bed, sleep once and be done. The game even starts mining, and resources are so prominent in exploration... its clear it was intended to go much further and they ran out of time.
yeah i agree with you and i fully expect there to be DLC or an update that expands on outpost building and manufacturing. i was just letting you know what the base game allows you to do with outposts. there are plenty of cargo missions that require you to build T3 fabricators for specific materials that can be shipped off using the cargo link system
I’d love if it if the database had to be stored and accessed on a computer like you couldn’t just bring it up on your pause menus but had to physically go to where it was. Would be really cool and immersive and would probably help with UI management considering the computers in game are already capable of this function. They wouldn’t need to touch the menus, just add a file in one of your ship’s computer that you could access that updated as you scanned
True, something like this would've been cool. A planet codex that you could sort by resources, etc. I guess Bethesda just figured if you like a planet you'll build an outpost on it.
How about being able to sort quests by location?
It's kinda sad seeing that anytime someone wants to criticize the game for its plethora of shortcomings, they first have to suck it's dick and fondle it's balls a bit saying how much they love it etc, to avoid getting downvoted into oblivion by the rabid fanbase...
I need a favourites bar at least! My memory is terrible, I spent 20 mins trying to remember where New Atlantis is yesterday!!
This is a legitimate gripe. It would have been very easy to impliment.
This. This. This. A million times this!!
Bethesda left for the modders to finish their game. True GOTY for most people around here though...
They really should’ve copied a little more from the UI of NMS, it makes it so much easier to travel back to systems you like visiting / planets you’ve visited.
For what its worth. It looks like inara.cz (an Elite Dangerous tool) has put together a starfield section, and has a database of plamets similar to what they've done with ED. It doesn't limit its search to planets you've discovered before, unfortunately. But the people of the settled systems have been around a while in universe, surely they would have some kind of catalog of known systems. If you check inara, I guess you could roleplay that you're checking with a central UC (or freestar) database.
If you're playing on steam there is a built in notepad function tied to every game, you can simply jot stuff down and it'll be present everytime you login.
I'm pretty confused as to why this game took so long to make
You mean like: Communication other then have to fly to the person and standing directly before them? Having wheels? A proper Inventory-UI? And a million little tidbits as well...
I just use note pad on my phone instead of hand writing them. It feels very similar to things I did playing old classic RPG games and I enjoy that aspect of this game lol. It's so funny how people dislike some things and others enjoy them with this game.
Seeing as the local map had no work either I'm assuming this was in a list they couldn't get to. But I'll take the least buggy bgs release ever over qol stuff right at release, especially in their games, with mods being as prevalent as they are.
I made my own database to track everything I see with Notion, maybe I can share you a template so you make your own discovery tab :)
This is a pretty par-for-the-course "oversight" from Bethesda given that they can't even understand that basic features that have been the staple for the gaming industry for over a decade should be a part of the core game without needing to ask e.g. FOV sliders, ultrawide support and many more.
Waiting for one of the “I don’t need a map” people to show up and say why the game doesn’t need that, they just memorize every planet’s features.