#threerings plays starfield

[three--rings]

Okay something I DEEPLY appreciate in Starfield is that female NPCs are allowed to...look like real people. They're allowed to be older, have facial lines, look tired. They aren't polished plastic Attractive People.

And this is true of all genders (yes there are nb NPCs). But you see it in video games sometimes where there are diverse facial characteristics on men but women come in two basic types: fuckable and old crone.

This is the NPC I'm currently looking at that brought this to mind. I could have chosen a lot of different examples.

And I'm not sitting here like "oh this NPC is ugly." She's not. She just looks like a slightly older woman who isn't dressed up. She looks a little like my mom.

Also there are overweight NPCs walking around everywhere. You rarely see that. I just appreciate the obvious effort Bethesda put in to both allowing and using a diverse character designer.

[three--rings]

Starfield Tips/Things I Wish I Knew Earlier

Starfield is honestly amazing if you like this kind of game, but it does seem to be pretty invested in letting you figure out how it works on your own by experimentation. And it's very easy to overlook features of the game.

So...

The traits that give you parents, a fan, and a house are really neat. You get some cool stuff from them. I only did the parents but damn I'm glad I did. So consider these.

You can make your spacesuit and helmet automatically disappear if you're in breathable atmosphere/in a settlement. This way you don't have to worry about taking them off and on and potentially leaving your ship without them. And you don't look like a dork in town. The option is in the inventory page for each of them.

You can boost/sprint when floating. This is important in the Certain Plot Relevant Places.

There is a part of New Atlantis called The Well with a bunch of people and shops and you get to it from an unmarked elevator behind Jemison Merchantile in the Spaceport (or the unmarked elevator in the MAST transit station.) I played 30 hours before I found this out.

Read the skills closely, including the locked ones. Multiple times I put points in the wrong thing, thinking it would let me do things, when that was actually a different skill elsewhere.

Don't avoid the UC Vanguard questline. A lot of people I think are avoiding it because it's joining the military on a side that is a little sketchy/sus, but there's a lot of reasons to do this EARLY.

There's a museum you go through that gives you the entire lore background and recent history of the world

There's a flight simulator "test" you can take as much as you want to practice the space combat.

The storyline is REALLY REALLY good. (um, warning for horror elements) There are two different quest lines it opens and one also opens access to joining the Crimson Fleet faction.

7. When you upgrade your pilot skill it unlocks using thrusters in space flight. These let you maneuver without moving forward, so you are way more agile in combat. Use RB with a controller, IDK what the keyboard thingy is. But they're actually great. You hold down the button and then move sideways or up and down. Makes moving to new targets much better.

8. Weapons have different levels. Base which just has the name and then Calibrated, Refined, and Advanced. So pay attention and pick up the higher level ones. If you get a good advanced gun early you can use it and upgrade it for EVER. There's also rarity levels, which is the colored things. But that's about bonus effects. So you might get a really shitty gun with a Legendary bonus effect and it's still trash. If you get a high level weapon with a good bonus effect TREASURE IT.

9. Certain quests give you really good items, including SHIPS. IMO the best ship to get is the one from the Freestar Rangers.

10. Once you get a house you can build in it just like in an outpost. Also you can drop things from your inventory into an outpost or a house and then in build mode move that item around onto shelves, etc.

11. There is Universal time and Planet time. So if you wait or sleep, depending on where you are that may count as more time passing than what you chose. All shops refresh their money and inventory in 48 hours UT, but on Jemison, for example, that's only 24 hours of planet time.

12. Ship building can be intense and intimidating but it's really really worth it. You can always cancel out and undo what you did, so experiment. And when in doubt, add more engines, lol. (But really you want to add cargo space ASAP and then you need more engines, and then you end up wanting whole new ships.) Different ports have different makers of parts, and the best items are in the home port for each brand.

13. Unlocking the Ship Targeting skill is a game changer for space combat. It lets you lock on and then slows down time while you pummel the enemy's ship systems. If you take our their engines, and they are alone you can then dock with them and fight them and take their ship. Space piracy FTW.

14. If you get contraband avoid cities. Go to the Wolf System to The Den to sell it. This is very lucrative. At the slight price of your personal integrity.

15. As a general rule if something is sucking, you need to find the skill for it and invest points in it. This is true for piloting, scanning, boost packs, etc. They really made the skill trees count and be necessary in this game. Also surveying planets is really good XP actually. To help you get those points.

16. Speaking of surveying, if you are trying to complete a planet you need to visit all the biomes. If you click on the planet it will tell you the percent complete of that biome before landing. If you have one lone fauna left that fucker is probably in the ocean so look for COAST.

17. When placing outposts make sure there's not a lot of annoying mountains in it, and also you really want to prioritize sites with He-3 because you need it to really do anything. (Helium, iron, aluminum are the most important to build with.) And you have a limited number of outposts without taking a high level skill to get more.

That's all I can think of for now.

[three--rings]

Okay so I have eight hours in Starfield.

Meet Raquel.

She's a sculptor. Or she was. But it didn't pay and she had to try mining. And then there was this whole thing and now she's an explorer.

Her parents are both worried and pleased that she's no longer a starving artist.

But she still gets space sick.

And she has a growing collection of stolen plants from every base she raids. (Mostly succulents, but any plant small enough to get in her pack.) (I just have a storage of plants right now, but eventually I will have a display of my stolen succulents.)

(Yes I'm having a good time. There's So Much!)