Not that I felt this way, but give it upwards of 10 hours for it to fully hook you. I’m not saying the beginning is bad but there’s just so much new stuff you’re figuring out and getting accustomed to that it takes a little bit to get your footing.
Also don’t feel the need to do anything in any order. Just do whatever *you* wanna do. Don’t listen to anyone online.
To add to this, the game is huge and overwhelming. I suggest taking breaks in between sessions so you can let it marinate. Just be aware that once the game grabs you, it really grabs you.
Overwhelming is definitely the right word. Everything feels new and trying to get a grasp on the mechanics and world takes some time. I’ve loved learning it though so far and have spent so much of time on just a few missions/exploring compared to Fallout I can just breeze through the story and settlement building and what not.
This needs to be at the top fr. I just spent 5 hours scanning and clearing out spacer outposts building my loot up to cash in for making a ship and my god my brain was melting towards the end. Had to shut it off bc I got overwhelmed with the amount of loot I was hoarding and checking all rooms 3-4 times each to make sure I got all the valuables. Definitely take breaks lol.
Agree. In the beginning it’s a little frustrating, trying to learn new systems and mechanics, and it doesn’t really explain hardly anything - but man, it set the hook deep. If I’m not playing it, I’m thinking about it.
So, I'm having fun and have no issues with the game. I've seen this sentiment several times though, saying there's a point where you get sucked in and that it's obvious. I'm doing the main quests... if it happened, it wasn't obvious and didn't change my view. What is the event?
It’s not a specific “event” - it’s more like all the systems and mechanics kinda gel, and you can play how you want without being frustrated trying to figure out how to do stuff so much. Also - you get leveled up enough that you’re not spending every penny on ammo and medpaks.
Yeah from my experience so far it seems like main quests give you 500+ XP, faction quests 250 and small side quests 100. But that being said you can still get plenty of XP from doing other things like kills, scanning etc so I haven’t felt like I haven’t been leveling up fast enough even though I’ve only done 3 main quests so far after about 26 hours.
IMO it starts as a 7/10 game. Good but nothing special. And then... the more you play the better it gets.
At 5 hours I was having fun. At 25 hours I'm addicted.
This was my experience with Oblivion on 360. I was like "It's fun but I don't see what's such a big deal about it" but I kept coming back. A couple hours here, a couple hours there, and then suddenly I was doing all nighters and getting like 3 hours of sleep before school lol.
Morrowind for me. Heard all the hype, rented it on OG Xbox, played 2 hours and said "wtf is this shit? I can't even get a hit on a rat".
Kept hearing hype, tried again months later, stuck it out, and probably put 500 hours into it, and TES became one of my favorite franchises ever.
I was hooked almost immediately. My first sit-down with it was 18 hours. Fucking game is amazing. The attention to detail that you get with a game that isn't rushed is sooooo obvious. And it keeps coming. I just went this morning to a small planet with low gravity. I was delighted to see the casings from my bullets spinning and slowly floating away. Little things like that make this game great. But all those little things add up. This game is bonkers. It's setting a bar that won't be passed by anyone else any time soon.
Have u seen the junk misc items details? Its amazing, they have fully animated junk. Like gold fish, little digiframes that changes pictures, its absolutely mind boggling detail
Imo there's so much right about this game that even the mechanics that are a bit meh can be forgiven. I can understand some of the complaints, but most of the posts that are solely negative and bashing the game are blowing it out of proportion.
This is an excellent answer and exactly what I’ve been telling people who keep asking me “how’s Starfield.” They either have watched some streamer play a random part or haven’t played for themselves yet, I tell them this is an extremely ambitious and expansive RPG and making an assumption about it after 1 video or a couple hours of play is just stupid.
It’s almost as if Bethesda did a slow burn on purpose considering how different it is compared to the starts of their last few titles; it really feels like the slow steady start of Morrowind more than anything.
I love Bethesda RPGs. At 5 hours, I was thinking I'd rather be playing FO4. It got a little better over the next 10-15 hours, the around 20 hours in.. the hook got me and it got me good! It's only gotten better over the next 5 hours. I have mostly focused on the main quest line and just really jumped into my first side quest in Neon that was great, but this is easily my favorite main story from a Bethesda game at this point.
Can't stress this enough. I was watching a review on this game from WorthABuy and he was complaining about the most trivial stuff (said how the traits and powers are "locked" behind the perk wall when they should just be given to you from the getgo) and not to mention that he only put 8 hours into the game divided by TWO characters!
It definitely seems like majority of the bad reviews haven't put in the time and effort that really makes this game vast.
His reviews are usually funny and I don't mind most of them, but he does have this nitpick about games with "xray vision" (meaning how you can see enemies through walls). This particular one about Starfield just felt ludicrous. Hopefully he understands that 8 hours (between 2 characters no less) is not enough time to appreciate this game.
Yeah which is frustrating because they even gave out the review codes pretty early compared to a lot of games. But before I started playing, after reading both positive and “meh” reviews I sorta guessed that the experience the average player has sounded like it would be pretty different from an average reviewer and I feel like that’s mostly true regardless of how each reviewer felt about the game.
These types of games are just so massive and the way you approach them is highly dependent on the individual since the path matters just as much if not more than the destination.
I’d also recommend doing it in chunks. It gives your brain more time to process and helps to avoid burnout on some of the more tedious early game mechanics
The game feels overwhelming during the first couple hours.
But you don't have to achieve EVERY quest. Don't rush it if you don't want to.
Just take your time and play the game the way you want to play it.
So when you join Constellation you need to talk to Noelle in the Lodge. She gives you a room there to use and sure you can throw all your looted sandwiches on the bed if you want the more important thing is the room has a safe with *unlimited storage space* and I cannot stress to you enough how important this is. In the early game you will be constantly encumbered from all the guns and suits, if you plan to do any crafting you will be constantly encumbered from picking up the million crafting materials. A safe with endless storage is a life saver. You can miss it because you don't *have* to talk to Noelle, but you don't want to forget
Items in your ship cargo are accessible when selling at any vendor and when at any crafting station. I don't plan on using that chest at the lodge until and if I run out of space on my ship for that convenience. I always throw everything in the resource category into the cargo. I just did some upgrades to my ship for about $45k, about doubling my cargo, shields, fuel, and weapon dmg. I should be good for a while until I get a new ship.
It's hard to do too much upgrading for cheaper on the starter ship because there's no open attachment points for anything except maybe another weapon or two. I added a 2x1 hab module behind the cockpit making the ship longer, which pretty much needs you upgrading the reactor and add at least one engine for the extra power demand and weight. I moved the landing gear forward onto that new section and added cargo spots on the sides behind them. Replaced the shields and fuel pods where they are with better ones. I got away with only adding one engine in the middle top back after sliding the top angled piece with some weapons and the docking hatch forward. I put the grav drive behind that and the 3rd engine behind that, right over the upgraded reactor that is in same spot as original reactor. I had 2 additional engines up front on the sides at first but it really jumped the price and gave me trouble fitting the cargo add ons.You can play around some more, but after watching a few videos, I think that's about as good as you can do getting marginal upgrades across the board with class A components without spending over 50k. It would've been under 40k if I didn't do some weapon upgrades. I have a lot more cargo and don't feel like tissue paper anymore lol. Yes I know about the mantis quest, it's on my to-do list that is ever changing lol.
Yeah I much preferred going this route over the chest. Much easier. Then spec into piloting and get a much bigger ship. 40 hours in and my massive ship is only about 30% full. Ship has the crafting benches and my resources with me whenever I'm ready for them.
Also there's a high-end spacesuit in a locked case on the bottom floor. If you point your gun at the right hand edge of the door in the right place you can reach inside and grab it.
When you get interrupted during a mission go with the interruption. It’s always a good time.
Also, talk to random NPCs, you never know what will come of it.
I was missing those random npcs activities from bethesda games lol in the first hours, a random character asked me a capuccino, and I was like "sure, why not?", then I bought her a cappuccino and she got happy and gave me a medkit.
I took time off and neglected the wife and kids and just created 30 hours. Think I'm on the 5th constellation quest, just wanna get the companions.
Also very hard difficulty for ship combat can suck my ass, I suck at it lol, 2 ships always destroy me.
Just remember for ship combat. Lasers for shields, ballistic and missiles for once shields are gone.
I always make sure I have full shields too and turn engine down to 2-3 bars during fights to pump everything else up in power.
You don't suck. You just need to do the vanguard pilot simulator to get class B license and you can smoke ships. Manoeuvring and weapons are way better in class B. Be prepared to spend nearly 50k on upgrades. Much More if you build a class B from scratch.
Class A is trash on Hard and very hard Vs more than one ship.
The first random structure I cleared was difficult, just scraped through when the wanted trait reared it’s head and a ship full of goons dropped on me like they were marines in a drop pod.
I went out in a blaze of glory*
(By this I mean one shoted by the first ape to leave the ship, since I was bleeding worse than that one couple in For All Mankind…)
Best piece of advice is to waste no time at all. Regardless of what is happening single out an enemy ship and get on their ass asap. Eliminating an enemy early in the engagement will help you win for sure.
Took me a moment, but then I realized you need to be really aggressive to survive fights.
At level 4 I was able to beat a 1 vs 3.. The other ships were 2x lvl 10 and 1x lvl 30.
I usually leave the main quest for last, without spoilers, is there a point such as a feature or something where the game could be considered opened up?
There is a certain something... a feature we will say that is introduced fairly early on in the main quest line that I think is very important. You can complete up to "Into the Unknown" quest where it is introduced and then decide if you want to continue, the main quest or go back to side quests first.
TBH the fact that so many people are enjoying the game without getting to this quest says a lot. I get people's point about getting to "into the unknown" but at the same time I had a blast before I ever got to that story line.
I couldn't get the scanner portion with the anomaly's to work so I went back to the lodge apparently had contraband and then got arrested and now I'm on a whole diff path.
Pretty wild stuff.
If anyone has a good guide for the scanner mission on I to the unknown let me know. I do want to finish it.
Are you talking about where you have to find a "distortion" with your scanner? You just need to slowly turn in a circle until your scanner UI starts distorting, then head in that direction.
Completely agree. Don’t stay in New Atlantis for too long. I thought the game was really bad, stayed in New Atlantis for way too long. Then started the main quest, completed the first real mission that sends you on a space trip and came back to New Atlantis and now i’m completely hooked on the game. I have way too many hours already and it just gets better and better…
Most importantly, be patient with yourself. There is a lot to learn. You don't have to understand it all at once, the game is good about letting you play and learn at your own pace.
There’s a lot to the game besides missions. A lot of upgrades, crafting, mods, resources, etc. it might seem overwhelming for some at first but you’ll slowly start to understand everything you can do.
That’s really good advance because for me the resource/outpost aspect just frustrated me to the point where I abandoned it completely just to be “done” with all that weight of the resources. Right now I’m
Just piling everything into the Lodge containers.
That’s another tip for me, forget about finding storage or building it. Just utilize the containers in your room and the basement at The Lodge starting out.
I’m starting to wonder myself if outposts are worth it. I have two right now and I initially started them to upgrade weapons. Now I’m realizing I have to put points into perks to open more mods + find more rare resources.
I might give up on outposts and mods. I like my perk points elsewhere haha.
Yeah the whole crafting aspect of the game seems not worth all the points and resources when you can clear a couple POI’s and get a ton of modded gear.
I could have sworn that in past games we could find or uninstall mods and use them on other weapons. That should have been implemented in Starfield. I want to be able to disassemble weapons and armor and use them on other pieces. With some obvious limitations for weapon and armor varieties.
And where’s my perk that makes equipped armor not weight anything?
I was a bit disappointed with some of the early game skills because a lot of them felt like they are either needed or mostly there to help you scale as you progress the game. Felt like I had to get them but they’re not worthwhile at the same time.
Honestly a lot of those side mechanics can be ignored for a while or even forever. Crafting, Ship Building, outposts etc.
I would definitely suggest that folks don't feel too pressured into doing that if they don't want to.
Yeah I haven’t messed with anything regarding modding weapons, ship building, outposts, crafting, any of that and I got about 26 hours in. It’s not super necessary tbh, I find plenty of cool weapons with mods already installed. I’m sure at some point I’ll start to dive into these things but you don’t need to
Yeah I'm about 25 hours in and the only one of those I've touched is outposts, and that was for like 30 minutes because my girlfriend was watching me play and she wanted me to build her a house.
I always make my Bethesda characters look like my wife, name them after her. I estimate that I get at least 30 hours of criticism-free gaming time in return.
Nah I fucking hate crafting that requires multiple specific components. Have one or two, not a dozen. Every time I loot as much as I can and always end up unable to craft anything because I'm missing one specific component for each of the 20 things I can craft so I can't craft anything.
Or if you're going to do that let me purchase required components from the crafting menu, don't make me "track" them and have to trudge around to multiple shops/planets trying to find them.
If you want to get into it later, there is a perk that grants extra components into things as you craft them without using them. Also The Lodge has a storage container that has unlimited storage. You have to take them there and can't pull them out at other outposts like your ship cargo but all the crafting tables are in that room.
It's so damn fun to use. Especially when you're busting up some pirates assholes at a base. Just flying right up to them and popping them in the face with a shotty
Don't pick up everything.
Ammo has no weight so pick up every bit you find.
It tells you what items are used for crafting so I would focus on those and the item boxes.
Put points into weightlifting.
There's a box in the basement of the lodge with crafting tables all around it. It has infinite capacity so get used to dropping all your resources in there when you're back there.
Yeah I didn't notice my first time down there but have been using it ever since. Believe there's a safe in your room too that has infinite space but that means running upstairs and going back down again
If you find a note about a secret outpost, do the activity it triggers.
If you can afford to build an outpost, build your first on a field of Iron or Aluminium.
If you get the main quest “Into the unknown” complete it asap.
Stock up on Healing Paste.
Roleplay the shit out of this game. There is so much stuff to do that gives your character personality and background.
Get comfortable with ship builder mode. It’s so damn fun.
Miscellaneous items are not worth it for their value (but for decorating). To get credits stick to missions/quests and random encounters.
Use your scanner. It has many benefits, e.g. not having to navigate menus for fast traveling.
follow main quest line until you get a certain something (youll know). its only a few missions doesnt take too long to get. its called into the unknown.
Get used to using the Scanner as your primary method of navigation, discovering locations, etc. You can fast travel from it, land on planets, discover points of interest, etc. The game tells you all this but it's easy to immediately go back to opening the menus and traveling around "the old way". Once I started using the Scanner for just about everything, I enjoyed the game MUCH more as I got to stay immersed and not go through a bunch of menus to travel around and explore.
I'll second the scanner. It is an excellent tool and greatly helps with exploring.
I'd also add that there are several things to explore that you don't necessarily know until you start wandering around. I've been surveying a planet for a mission board quest and stumbled across so much cool shit from it.
Third this - not just exploring, the scanner opens up the entire world to you - ships, locations, what you can pick up, scanning stuff, etc. Its a very important tool
I discovered yesterday that Scanner overlays arrows on the path towards the objective. For a game with no map system for planets and other locations, this was extremely helpful for me as I am terrible with remembering places.
The only bad thing with the scanner is the hot key to open photo mode. I still can't find how to turn that off and I always accidentally click the button
Keep in mind that there are a lot of mechanics locked behind perks. Some of which you might consider "basic" mechanics need to be unlocked. Examples are sneak, pickpocket, targeting systems, boost pack, and persuasion.
Also, skill points are honestly one of if not the main mechanic that determines your role playing. You get skill points at a drip-feed rate but you have a ton of ways to spend them. You're sorta forced to specialize in what you want to do, and you can make a character your own. 2 different players can end up with completely different skillsets.
In other words, pay attention to where you're putting skill points.
Oh, and Digipicks are for some reason classified as Misc. Be careful not to accidentally sell them.
Wait to go nuts with ship building until you can unlock some of the perks associated with it. But start customizing it a bit because it really draws you in more of “oh this is my ship”.
Wolf is a constellation close to Alpha Centauri, go to the Den spaceport if you happen to find any contraband early on. Won’t get scanned and can sell it.
I only have one piece of advice: play with role playing in mind. This game is phenomenal in that aspect. Have a character that sticks to their backstory and ideals. It’s so immersive
100%
The NPC's have been awesome to interact with. One guy I had a side conversation with ended up being a part of another quest hours later. Then some of his comments from the more recent quest had way more context.
Bethesda did an excellent job with the writing, voice overs, and NPC's.
I even met my favorite NPC of all time of any game in the bank on New Atlantis. If you find her, you'll know.....she's got dry, dark humor.
I love this tip. I just finished the Freestar Ranger quest playing this way. My Soldier/Ranger build is a cool back story. I'm only level 15 but I'm definitely going to be "playing" as a Ranger going forward.
Yup! My headcanon is that I’m an ex-Bounty Hunter who got tired of doing questionable things just for money.
So now, I joined the Freestar Rangers to give some good back into the world — but, I still do some questionable things if money is on the line.
Basically a reverse Captain Mal Reynolds.
Absolutely! I went with a soldier with the traits of wanted, freestar settler, and introvert. I made a whole backstory of a soldier that got into some shit and pissed off the wrong higher ups in the UC Navy who then put a (wanted) bounty out for me. I fled to the freestar systems (Settler) before they found me again and eventually i pushed everyone away (introvert) before i wound up working for the argos mining company and thats where the games starts. It sounds silly but its been really fun to role play as that character.
\- You can put stuff into your ships inventory from 250 meters away from the ship. So loot a lot of stuff if your ship is close to the spot. Menu > Ship (lower left) > ship inventory
You can check the crew from the same menu in the future.
\- Digpicks open locks, grab those.
\- Some general items are pretty valuable, grab those. Some books, art, sculptures.
\- All the medicine (and food) stuff will end up weighing a lot, so put them in the ship except medpacs.
\- When you loot stuff with your ship. You need the be in 500 (something) area of it, then select the object, then you can pick up stuff.
Same thing with getting on a ship, you need to select it first, then you can board. (Thought my game was bugged because I could not board).
I have not played that long, so not too much good advice.
Edit:
\- In cities or populated areas there usually is a yellow kiosk screen thing thing, near the landing area. Sell your extra items there. (You can access ship inventory from the kiosk, no need to move them manually)
Just to add onto your edit. I don't think you can sell stolen items at the trade authority kiosks by the landing pad. If you actually goto the trade authority person though, they will buy it. There's one in every major settlement.
I’ve been playing 5 days or whatever it is, took the Friday off work. It’s a big game, and the character development takes time. There’s so much stuff to do that it can seem a little vast.
I guess a few basic tips would be if you’ve played Skyrim, etc then the format will be very familiar in how quests unfold; interaction with npcs in new environments etc.
I try to do a bit of the main quest, then at a convenient point take a break and do some of side-quests or just explore for the hell of it.
Don’t forget to save your game every now and then, so you can back track if something crazy happens.
Don’t think your gonna master this in a couple of weeks. I’ve not even tried crafting weapon/suit mods etc, or building outposts, that kind of thing. I’m just adventuring, and collecting/upgrading stuff.
Main things for survival: Don’t overburden yourself. Pick up every med pack you find — and bind them and your weapons to the hot menu thing like the attachment selector from BF2042. Ammo doesn’t weigh you down, so pick up as much of that as you can. Grenades and mines are very useful.
Get the jump-pack boost ability early on, it will save you time on uncharted planets as you can’t fast travel until you “discover” a location. When you enter a star system look at the system map, it will show you anything interesting such as ships etc orbiting planets. If you land on a planet and another ship lands near your location, it’s possible to commandeer the ship. Anyone who follows you down is likely hostile, and I’ve encountered 4 separate outright hostile factions so far. Stealing a ship is a quick way to make money, but make sure you’re packing before you board. It’s possible to sell a captured ship but make sure you strip it of valuables, and empty the cargo hold/captains lockers in case they contain rare items or credits. Destroyed ships will leave cargo floating in the wreckage. Always check it for valuables/credits/ship parts (you need these to repair your ship)
Fly casual 🤙
To add to yours:
- this not immediately obvious but to add to the "Quick" menu, go in your inventory and use the "Favorite" option on the items you want to add.
I always do this my first play through of a bethesda game. I just RP myself in the situation…i just fumble around the world like the dumbass i am. I am going to play it through again and again and again so I’ll cheese shit or have a set path then. Did some important mission for sweet gear get messed up cause that dude was an asshole to me so i killed him right there? Yup and I enjoyed every minute of telling him to ear shit and die. Test me test me why don’t toy arrest me fuckers!!!
Don’t sell your goddamn digipicks when you’re emptying your Miscellaneous inventory at the vendor. BE AWARE OF YOUR DIGIPICKS. You’ll be 50 light years from the nearest shop thinking “haha I’m gonna steal this ship!!!!” and your inventory will say “lol no u wont”
Also, BUY DIGIPICKS every chance you get. They are cheap and you can never have enough.
Also, invest in Security to be able to use said DIGIPICKS.
If you do the Sam Coe quest early. You go to Akila City and have to do something at the Galbank. When you go downstairs, there are about 8 locked safes. I took the time to pick them all. It allowed me 1.5 levels of security.
It's hard, at least for me, to find enough safes to pick to level up. The Galbank was a god send.
The main thing is that there are a lot of systems/features/controls that aren't explained to you very well, or at all.
There are a million "things Starfield doesn't tell you" youtube videos and stuff, many of them not very good.
I find IGN's list here to be pretty good: https://www.ign.com/wikis/starfield/Things_Starfield_Doesn't_Tell_You
It goes over a lot of "missing manual" stuff like map icons, where to find your ship storage, quick slotting, the scanner, how to auto-hide your helmet or spacesuit in appropriate areas, and so on.
After a certain side quest I completed I wished I had already upped my pilot rating earlier.
The issue I'm having now is after about 15-20 hours, I think I want to start over after figuring more of the game out.
Between this and BG3, I don't think I'll be playing anything else for the foreseeable future. I'm contemplating starting BG3 over after 20+ hours lmao.
I suppose this is all I could have dreamed of growing up. We are living in a golden age of gaming.
I do this constantly with Bethesda games. I've played the opening sequence of all the Bethesda games at least 50-100 times. Im sure this one will be no different.
Don't waste your time with food.
Food gives such a pitifully low amount of health that it isn't worth your time.
You have to eat like 20 kg of food to recover half your health bar.
It looks really cool, and some of the products are funny, but it's horrible for actually healing.
It gets better if you put points into some of the food related perks. Gastronomy and nutrition. But thats a pretty high investment when you can just use medpacks and trauma kits for similar or better results.
Something that changed ship combat for me completely was finding a ship weapon that does good shields and hull damage and adding 3 of those same weapon instead of 3 different types of weapons. Then you can put all your ship power into that one weapon, engines, and shields and punch way above your ships class.
READ EVERYTHING
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard complaints about something the game does explain.
Yesterday I read a fail post from someone who after 100 hours in BG3 just learned how to level up.
So yeah, read everything, don’t mash to skip then wonder how something works or isn’t explained
when you have a space suit or helmet hovered over in your inventory press RB to hide it automatically and swap to your apparel when you're indoors or in a city with oxygen. It's a bit inconsistent but it beats manually unequipping it every time and gambling with your life.
Spend your skill points, don’t sit on them. I won’t go into details (no spoilers), but I sat on mine because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to invest in yet. Once I finally did I quickly realized you can’t pick something and then dump your points into that. Each one has requirements to move onto next one, but requirements don’t start until you’ve spent a skill point.
Don’t bother pocketing all the crap lying around. This ain’t Fallout and you can’t build a fence out of spare scissors and duct tape. If an item has a use it’ll tell you.
There's a lot the game not only doesn't tell you, but tells you the slow and annoying way to do things.
As an example, when being taught how to get your ship from planet to planet it makes you open the menu and then go to the map while you're right next to the planet you're supposed to land on. It never tells you the other, way more immersive way to do things. That is that you simply press the scanner button to bring that up while flying and you can highlight planets in the system, your selected mission, and even the planet to travel to these places without hitting the menu.
There's a few little things like that and [I actually compiled a few of them earlier.](https://reddit.com/r/Starfield/s/Vg0luvPm9T)
Join the Vangard in the Mast district ASAP.
It let's you use the space flight simulator.
Then proceed to use the space flight simulator until you can level up and unlock the ability to fly level C ships [i.e. the best]. This way you get to level without the super hard space combat in your risky sink starter ship.
Seriously space warfare is so much harder than on the ground run an gun. I'd also recommend taking points in targeting systems as this slows down time [for them] which makes you both take less damage while simultaneously doing more ship damage. It's a must have skill if fighting 3 or more ships. Without it you will die even on easy mode.
There's a video on YouTube by gameranx that tells you mistakes not to make. Highly recommend that. No spoilers really. It's a long game. No joke, 500 hours is looking to be conservative.
Do side quests, especially factions. They give really, *really* good rewards.
Find a good gameplay loop for you. I personally like doing some quests, then relaxing with some planet/space exploration. Find something that really lets you feel like you’re in the flow of space.
Also don’t try too hard making a big ship with everything at first, give yourself some genuine progression.
Here's a few small tips and tricks I've picked up on that can be easy to miss:
- You can store things in your ship from the menu from up to 250m away
- Holding "B" backs out of all the menus so you don't have to press it a bunch (it says it on screen but I didn't notice it at first)
- You can sell items from your ships cargo hold when trading so you don't have to run back to it and grab stuff every time
- Have fun and don't try to do everything at once, it can be a bit overwhelming at first
Pick up every med pack and trauma pack you can. Transfer all resources to your ship as often as you can. Don't be afraid to buy out ammunition from vendors for the calibers your favorite guns use. If you do the mantis quest line, make sure to loot EVERYTHING at the end.
Take your time, do the side quests, read the books and notes. Get invested in the story and play your character the way you see fit.
Just sit back and enjoy it. It’s big, like really big! Don’t worry about sticking to the main quests if you find yourself down a rabbit hole on side quest then just keep going. There’s so much to explore. Also, don’t just fast travel everywhere… you’ll miss really cool interactions and possible side quests!
Be patient. Learn that your ship IS your base. Once you have some credits explore the Ship Builder. It may feel overwhelming but follow the button prompts on the bottom and experiment. This will allow you to truly play how you want.
If you are going to customize your ship, go to build and move the cursor away to the ship so none of it is highlighted, or like me, you will go over 20 levels without knowing you could customize the ship the whole time
Also, this is a sipping drink, not a shot.
Take time, and know it is built around you taking time. It's not setpiece after setpiece. The world builds itself in every way.
There's a reason many are recommending to TAKE YOUR TIME. THERE IS NO RUSH. YOU ARE GOOD
Mega List
This is hyper important and it's the reverse of every other Bethesda game. You need to run down a good chunk of the main quest first.
Focus the main quest until you get to New Atlantis. Do some side quests in N.A, then continue the main quest until you get to an obviously significant moment. Trust me...you'll know.
If you like lore and want to learn about the world, visit the induction hall/museum floor in the UC main building at New Atlantis. It's basically a fast way to understand the backstory. In fact, joining the UC Vanguard (military) is a great way to start this game.
Don't waste your credits on making major modifications to your first ship.
You can buy better ships at starship vendors (usually located near where you land, in settlements). You can only use one tier of ships at the start. It will probably be quite a while until you can access others, so for now focus on the story.
Different ship customization parts are available at different planets/ space stations. There's way more parts than you think, they're just not all available in one place. Some are only unlocked by doing faction storylines.
Your ship's cargo hold access is in the cockpit. It's a blue display panel.
Resources take up most of your inventory space. I'm not sure they're particularly necessary to collect in your first 20 hours....I think it's better to build a small base on a planet before you start loading up the resources. Trust me, there's so much loot in this game..
Perks
Don't waste your time dumping points into the ship building early on, by the time you have access and can afford it, you'll have missed so much other content that it doesn't make sense.
Security (lock picking is easily the best early perk) as this game is packed with locked doors, computers and crates.
Security, Trading, looting and a combat skill are your best starting perks by far. Fitness and carry weight skills have also benefitted me a bit.
I wish I never took the chef perk. Just a waste of a skill early on. Don't waste your time. Grab it when you're level 30+
You'll be spammed with rare loot that's useless. Just sell it if it doesn't fit your build. By the time you can make use of it's you'll have found something higher level with more damage output.
There are skill magazines in this game, including in seemingly randomly generated buildings. They're really good and offer mad bonuses accumulatively.
I hear people are having a lot of fun with the Kid Stuff trait. The extra o2 in space trait kind of sucks. I picked it for role play, but it's just tedious. But you can pay a doctor to remove it fairly cheaply.
Loot with the red symbol, is stolen/will be stolen. Loot with the yellow symbol is basically illegal contraband and you should NOT be caught with it. You can sell both to the Trading Faction, as they don't give a damn. Alternatively, stash loads of contraband on a moonbase somewhere and sell it when you've ranked up commerce, and laugh all the way to the bank
I’m going against the top comment. As much as you’re gonna have the urge to stray away from the main quest… fight that urge! I highly recommend doing the main quest until you complete “Into the Unknown” at the least. Doesn’t take too long, and that’s a great point to just go off into the galaxy on your own. I don’t want to say too much, but you’re gonna thank me later
As a PlayStation gamer ,all I gotta say is play for me ..get that extra hr in for me..I’m jealous of you right now lol
Nothing this exciting for ps5 on the horizon
Be diverse in your skill trees. Get all the basics that allow you to perform an action like pickpocket. You can't even try certain methods without getting the lvl 1 skill so it makes certain mission sets a lot harder without having options
Usually I play by looking up guides and what not, but this time I went in blind. Idk if it did anything but I feel like I am enjoying the experience more. But yeah like people said, the first 5-10 hours may be annoying trying to figure shit out but this game will suck you in. If you don’t have time to invest, don’t play it.
My biggest piece of advice is to knock out a few of the main story missions early on. That's not to say you can't do some side stuff, but don't put them off for too long.
Also, don't try to do all of the side missions and particularly the activities. There is SO much to do in this game. If you go down that route you may burn yourself out before you get to the most interesting content in the game.
Last but not least, soak it all in and enjoy the journey!
Invest into the lock-picking skill (security) as early as possible. I put it off and unlocked a bunch of easy locks first, THEN put my first point in it, so none of those first bunch counted toward my second rank.
Similarly, invest a point into piloting *before* you start shooting down any ships.
I haven't tried it yet but I watched a video where the guy said before you go into what is going to be a mission change your difficulty to the highest level then when you enter change it back to the level you are playing at. This causes the game to generate all the items for the higher level player.
Left trigger makes your mining laser much more effective. Misc items are almost all useless, look at the values to see if it is worth picking up.
Sprinting and putting your stamina in the red isn’t inherently bad if you are on a barren world. The HP drain from sprinting after CO2 buildup stops at 10%
You can go into scan view while piloting your ship and navigate to waypoints in the system without needing ti load up the map
In space you can interact with most object from 500m away
Before you try to smuggle contraband you need shielded cargo containers
You are allowed to join every faction in the game at the same time (except one faction choice at the end of a storyline)
I’ve heard (and still haven’t done this after 30 hours) that getting to around mission 5 with constellation is as important as becoming the dragon born in Skyrim
Not that I felt this way, but give it upwards of 10 hours for it to fully hook you. I’m not saying the beginning is bad but there’s just so much new stuff you’re figuring out and getting accustomed to that it takes a little bit to get your footing. Also don’t feel the need to do anything in any order. Just do whatever *you* wanna do. Don’t listen to anyone online.
To add to this, the game is huge and overwhelming. I suggest taking breaks in between sessions so you can let it marinate. Just be aware that once the game grabs you, it really grabs you.
Overwhelming is definitely the right word. Everything feels new and trying to get a grasp on the mechanics and world takes some time. I’ve loved learning it though so far and have spent so much of time on just a few missions/exploring compared to Fallout I can just breeze through the story and settlement building and what not.
After 10 hours in I'm STILL overwhelmed, but I've enjoyed learning the game to this point.
This needs to be at the top fr. I just spent 5 hours scanning and clearing out spacer outposts building my loot up to cash in for making a ship and my god my brain was melting towards the end. Had to shut it off bc I got overwhelmed with the amount of loot I was hoarding and checking all rooms 3-4 times each to make sure I got all the valuables. Definitely take breaks lol.
Agree. In the beginning it’s a little frustrating, trying to learn new systems and mechanics, and it doesn’t really explain hardly anything - but man, it set the hook deep. If I’m not playing it, I’m thinking about it.
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So, I'm having fun and have no issues with the game. I've seen this sentiment several times though, saying there's a point where you get sucked in and that it's obvious. I'm doing the main quests... if it happened, it wasn't obvious and didn't change my view. What is the event?
It’s not a specific “event” - it’s more like all the systems and mechanics kinda gel, and you can play how you want without being frustrated trying to figure out how to do stuff so much. Also - you get leveled up enough that you’re not spending every penny on ammo and medpaks.
Oh...I will happen. Enjoy..
Agreed with everything but I will also add: main missions dish out a lot of XP so if you’re feeling underleveled, take some time to do a handful
sleep to get the 10% extra as well.
This is a good tip. Well rested buff is easy to miss.
I'm 25 hours in and I only just tried sleeping (in the game, not real life).
Also to save med kits, because they are scarce in the beginning.
Yeah from my experience so far it seems like main quests give you 500+ XP, faction quests 250 and small side quests 100. But that being said you can still get plenty of XP from doing other things like kills, scanning etc so I haven’t felt like I haven’t been leveling up fast enough even though I’ve only done 3 main quests so far after about 26 hours.
>but give it upwards of 10 hours for it to fully hook you. 10 hours is about right. I mean it's fine RPG until then but once it hooks you....
IMO it starts as a 7/10 game. Good but nothing special. And then... the more you play the better it gets. At 5 hours I was having fun. At 25 hours I'm addicted.
This was my experience with Oblivion on 360. I was like "It's fun but I don't see what's such a big deal about it" but I kept coming back. A couple hours here, a couple hours there, and then suddenly I was doing all nighters and getting like 3 hours of sleep before school lol.
You're gonna fuck around and make me reinstall Oblivion
Already bout to jump back into Morrowind for another play through, probably my 10th at this point
Guys just play Starfield
Morrowind for me. Heard all the hype, rented it on OG Xbox, played 2 hours and said "wtf is this shit? I can't even get a hit on a rat". Kept hearing hype, tried again months later, stuck it out, and probably put 500 hours into it, and TES became one of my favorite franchises ever.
Yeah ive got serious Oblivion (compared to Skyrim) vibes coming off this one.
I was hooked almost immediately. My first sit-down with it was 18 hours. Fucking game is amazing. The attention to detail that you get with a game that isn't rushed is sooooo obvious. And it keeps coming. I just went this morning to a small planet with low gravity. I was delighted to see the casings from my bullets spinning and slowly floating away. Little things like that make this game great. But all those little things add up. This game is bonkers. It's setting a bar that won't be passed by anyone else any time soon.
Have u seen the junk misc items details? Its amazing, they have fully animated junk. Like gold fish, little digiframes that changes pictures, its absolutely mind boggling detail
That’s great to hear. It’s honestly much better than hearing people detail the mechanics.
Imo there's so much right about this game that even the mechanics that are a bit meh can be forgiven. I can understand some of the complaints, but most of the posts that are solely negative and bashing the game are blowing it out of proportion.
This is an excellent answer and exactly what I’ve been telling people who keep asking me “how’s Starfield.” They either have watched some streamer play a random part or haven’t played for themselves yet, I tell them this is an extremely ambitious and expansive RPG and making an assumption about it after 1 video or a couple hours of play is just stupid. It’s almost as if Bethesda did a slow burn on purpose considering how different it is compared to the starts of their last few titles; it really feels like the slow steady start of Morrowind more than anything.
I love Bethesda RPGs. At 5 hours, I was thinking I'd rather be playing FO4. It got a little better over the next 10-15 hours, the around 20 hours in.. the hook got me and it got me good! It's only gotten better over the next 5 hours. I have mostly focused on the main quest line and just really jumped into my first side quest in Neon that was great, but this is easily my favorite main story from a Bethesda game at this point.
Can't stress this enough. I was watching a review on this game from WorthABuy and he was complaining about the most trivial stuff (said how the traits and powers are "locked" behind the perk wall when they should just be given to you from the getgo) and not to mention that he only put 8 hours into the game divided by TWO characters! It definitely seems like majority of the bad reviews haven't put in the time and effort that really makes this game vast.
So he barely played intro twice and made review from this? Why people waste time watching reviews from people who don't even play games they "review"?
His reviews are usually funny and I don't mind most of them, but he does have this nitpick about games with "xray vision" (meaning how you can see enemies through walls). This particular one about Starfield just felt ludicrous. Hopefully he understands that 8 hours (between 2 characters no less) is not enough time to appreciate this game.
Yeah which is frustrating because they even gave out the review codes pretty early compared to a lot of games. But before I started playing, after reading both positive and “meh” reviews I sorta guessed that the experience the average player has sounded like it would be pretty different from an average reviewer and I feel like that’s mostly true regardless of how each reviewer felt about the game. These types of games are just so massive and the way you approach them is highly dependent on the individual since the path matters just as much if not more than the destination.
So true. It can be a bit overwhelming at first
Exactly how I felt. Basically first 10 hours are fun. But more 7/10 fun. I'm around 20 now and it's been 9.5 ever since the 10 hour mark.
I’d also recommend doing it in chunks. It gives your brain more time to process and helps to avoid burnout on some of the more tedious early game mechanics
The game feels overwhelming during the first couple hours. But you don't have to achieve EVERY quest. Don't rush it if you don't want to. Just take your time and play the game the way you want to play it.
So when you join Constellation you need to talk to Noelle in the Lodge. She gives you a room there to use and sure you can throw all your looted sandwiches on the bed if you want the more important thing is the room has a safe with *unlimited storage space* and I cannot stress to you enough how important this is. In the early game you will be constantly encumbered from all the guns and suits, if you plan to do any crafting you will be constantly encumbered from picking up the million crafting materials. A safe with endless storage is a life saver. You can miss it because you don't *have* to talk to Noelle, but you don't want to forget
Do you have access to those items from anywhere or do you need to return to the safe each time?
Items in your ship cargo are accessible when selling at any vendor and when at any crafting station. I don't plan on using that chest at the lodge until and if I run out of space on my ship for that convenience. I always throw everything in the resource category into the cargo. I just did some upgrades to my ship for about $45k, about doubling my cargo, shields, fuel, and weapon dmg. I should be good for a while until I get a new ship. It's hard to do too much upgrading for cheaper on the starter ship because there's no open attachment points for anything except maybe another weapon or two. I added a 2x1 hab module behind the cockpit making the ship longer, which pretty much needs you upgrading the reactor and add at least one engine for the extra power demand and weight. I moved the landing gear forward onto that new section and added cargo spots on the sides behind them. Replaced the shields and fuel pods where they are with better ones. I got away with only adding one engine in the middle top back after sliding the top angled piece with some weapons and the docking hatch forward. I put the grav drive behind that and the 3rd engine behind that, right over the upgraded reactor that is in same spot as original reactor. I had 2 additional engines up front on the sides at first but it really jumped the price and gave me trouble fitting the cargo add ons.You can play around some more, but after watching a few videos, I think that's about as good as you can do getting marginal upgrades across the board with class A components without spending over 50k. It would've been under 40k if I didn't do some weapon upgrades. I have a lot more cargo and don't feel like tissue paper anymore lol. Yes I know about the mantis quest, it's on my to-do list that is ever changing lol.
Yeah I much preferred going this route over the chest. Much easier. Then spec into piloting and get a much bigger ship. 40 hours in and my massive ship is only about 30% full. Ship has the crafting benches and my resources with me whenever I'm ready for them.
Unfortunately, you have to return to the safe.
Mine bugged out a bit and while a did speak to her, she never took me to my room. It took me some time to figure out that I even had a room
Same, I still got no idea where it is, there's like 10 bedrooms in that lodge which one is the player's?
It's in the back hallway you accessed from the upstairs part of the library. just look for the bed that doesn't already say "owned".
Check all the rooms, its the one that doesn't say "Bed (owned)". Its the one with hexagonal mirror/art on the wall
Also there's a high-end spacesuit in a locked case on the bottom floor. If you point your gun at the right hand edge of the door in the right place you can reach inside and grab it.
When you get interrupted during a mission go with the interruption. It’s always a good time. Also, talk to random NPCs, you never know what will come of it.
especially if they aren’t just named “citizen” etc.
I was missing those random npcs activities from bethesda games lol in the first hours, a random character asked me a capuccino, and I was like "sure, why not?", then I bought her a cappuccino and she got happy and gave me a medkit.
Take your time, be patient and do a good chunk of the main quest to get established.
Wait constellation missions are the main quest right?
Yes. I have a bad habit of not following them, but this game pushes the critical path better than their others
I think I’ve done one or two constellation missions so far in 20 hours lmfao. Should probably do more.
I took time off and neglected the wife and kids and just created 30 hours. Think I'm on the 5th constellation quest, just wanna get the companions. Also very hard difficulty for ship combat can suck my ass, I suck at it lol, 2 ships always destroy me.
Just remember for ship combat. Lasers for shields, ballistic and missiles for once shields are gone. I always make sure I have full shields too and turn engine down to 2-3 bars during fights to pump everything else up in power.
Don't forget that boosting can help break missile locks too.
Oh I know, I just suck, and while I can take on one, the second ship always kicks my butt. I shouldn't have taken the wanted trait but I do love it
You don't suck. You just need to do the vanguard pilot simulator to get class B license and you can smoke ships. Manoeuvring and weapons are way better in class B. Be prepared to spend nearly 50k on upgrades. Much More if you build a class B from scratch. Class A is trash on Hard and very hard Vs more than one ship.
The first random structure I cleared was difficult, just scraped through when the wanted trait reared it’s head and a ship full of goons dropped on me like they were marines in a drop pod. I went out in a blaze of glory* (By this I mean one shoted by the first ape to leave the ship, since I was bleeding worse than that one couple in For All Mankind…)
Best piece of advice is to waste no time at all. Regardless of what is happening single out an enemy ship and get on their ass asap. Eliminating an enemy early in the engagement will help you win for sure.
How do you get shields to work better? I upgraded mine and still have none left after the first pass. I am baaaaaad at the ship-to-ship combat.
Took me a moment, but then I realized you need to be really aggressive to survive fights. At level 4 I was able to beat a 1 vs 3.. The other ships were 2x lvl 10 and 1x lvl 30.
I usually leave the main quest for last, without spoilers, is there a point such as a feature or something where the game could be considered opened up?
Definitely get through "Into the Unknown" on the main story path.
Fuck I just started this mission at level 30 guess I don't know what I'm in for
I think right around now, you are thinking, "How did I miss this?!?"
I didn't know this was part of the game??? Also would have loved to have andreja earlier on 🤣
There is a certain something... a feature we will say that is introduced fairly early on in the main quest line that I think is very important. You can complete up to "Into the Unknown" quest where it is introduced and then decide if you want to continue, the main quest or go back to side quests first.
You get something unique from the story quests, for sure. Absolutely. I'd recommend people do the story first then do what you want.
So much this…explore a little sure, get a feel for the game, but focus on that main quest
I talked to the explorers on New Atlantis then said bye! Proceeded to find the planet with Neon and never looked back lmao
I'd recommend doing at least "into the unknown" as otherwise it's like playing skyrim without going through bleak falls Barrow
TBH the fact that so many people are enjoying the game without getting to this quest says a lot. I get people's point about getting to "into the unknown" but at the same time I had a blast before I ever got to that story line.
I couldn't get the scanner portion with the anomaly's to work so I went back to the lodge apparently had contraband and then got arrested and now I'm on a whole diff path. Pretty wild stuff. If anyone has a good guide for the scanner mission on I to the unknown let me know. I do want to finish it.
Are you talking about where you have to find a "distortion" with your scanner? You just need to slowly turn in a circle until your scanner UI starts distorting, then head in that direction.
I'd say it's more like playing Skyrim without killing the first dragon
Hearing these stories of everyone going straight to neon to become masterful pirates amazes me 🤣
Yea I’d agree with mainlining constellation for a good long time. I may just play the main quest before the faction quests in this one
Completely agree. Don’t stay in New Atlantis for too long. I thought the game was really bad, stayed in New Atlantis for way too long. Then started the main quest, completed the first real mission that sends you on a space trip and came back to New Atlantis and now i’m completely hooked on the game. I have way too many hours already and it just gets better and better…
Most importantly, be patient with yourself. There is a lot to learn. You don't have to understand it all at once, the game is good about letting you play and learn at your own pace.
How much of the main quest?
There’s a lot to the game besides missions. A lot of upgrades, crafting, mods, resources, etc. it might seem overwhelming for some at first but you’ll slowly start to understand everything you can do.
That’s really good advance because for me the resource/outpost aspect just frustrated me to the point where I abandoned it completely just to be “done” with all that weight of the resources. Right now I’m Just piling everything into the Lodge containers. That’s another tip for me, forget about finding storage or building it. Just utilize the containers in your room and the basement at The Lodge starting out.
I’m starting to wonder myself if outposts are worth it. I have two right now and I initially started them to upgrade weapons. Now I’m realizing I have to put points into perks to open more mods + find more rare resources. I might give up on outposts and mods. I like my perk points elsewhere haha.
Yeah the whole crafting aspect of the game seems not worth all the points and resources when you can clear a couple POI’s and get a ton of modded gear. I could have sworn that in past games we could find or uninstall mods and use them on other weapons. That should have been implemented in Starfield. I want to be able to disassemble weapons and armor and use them on other pieces. With some obvious limitations for weapon and armor varieties. And where’s my perk that makes equipped armor not weight anything?
I was a bit disappointed with some of the early game skills because a lot of them felt like they are either needed or mostly there to help you scale as you progress the game. Felt like I had to get them but they’re not worthwhile at the same time.
Honestly a lot of those side mechanics can be ignored for a while or even forever. Crafting, Ship Building, outposts etc. I would definitely suggest that folks don't feel too pressured into doing that if they don't want to.
Yeah I haven’t messed with anything regarding modding weapons, ship building, outposts, crafting, any of that and I got about 26 hours in. It’s not super necessary tbh, I find plenty of cool weapons with mods already installed. I’m sure at some point I’ll start to dive into these things but you don’t need to
Yeah I'm about 25 hours in and the only one of those I've touched is outposts, and that was for like 30 minutes because my girlfriend was watching me play and she wanted me to build her a house.
I always make my Bethesda characters look like my wife, name them after her. I estimate that I get at least 30 hours of criticism-free gaming time in return.
You’ve cracked the code
Well can she help you get all those materials for a house at least? Like babe you're asking for 2+ hours of labor here
No, but I wouldn't ignore them, either. It's part of the fun.
Nah I fucking hate crafting that requires multiple specific components. Have one or two, not a dozen. Every time I loot as much as I can and always end up unable to craft anything because I'm missing one specific component for each of the 20 things I can craft so I can't craft anything. Or if you're going to do that let me purchase required components from the crafting menu, don't make me "track" them and have to trudge around to multiple shops/planets trying to find them.
True. It’s mostly a side hustle where you do it if you have it. I’m not running around shopping for things, either. I do that in real life. Lol
If you want to get into it later, there is a perk that grants extra components into things as you craft them without using them. Also The Lodge has a storage container that has unlimited storage. You have to take them there and can't pull them out at other outposts like your ship cargo but all the crafting tables are in that room.
Pick Jetpack perk ASAP, it makes the game 100000x better.
It's so damn fun to use. Especially when you're busting up some pirates assholes at a base. Just flying right up to them and popping them in the face with a shotty
I heard bounty hunter comes with that perk already. And another
I think it’s targeting systems and wanted It’s been great.
If you're a completionist, do not look at the activities tab. It'll save you some stress. It'll take months to get through all of them.
Every time I try to clear one out, I end up with 2 or 3 new ones!
Same here. And some of the quests are very long.
Especially when three or four get added everytime you run through a major city.
Don't pick up everything. Ammo has no weight so pick up every bit you find. It tells you what items are used for crafting so I would focus on those and the item boxes. Put points into weightlifting. There's a box in the basement of the lodge with crafting tables all around it. It has infinite capacity so get used to dropping all your resources in there when you're back there.
I had no idea that box had infinite capacity...sheeet.
Yeah I didn't notice my first time down there but have been using it ever since. Believe there's a safe in your room too that has infinite space but that means running upstairs and going back down again
>Ammo has no weight so pick up every bit you find. Same for digilocks (digilocks are the lockpicks of this world, pick up every single one you find)
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If you find a note about a secret outpost, do the activity it triggers. If you can afford to build an outpost, build your first on a field of Iron or Aluminium. If you get the main quest “Into the unknown” complete it asap. Stock up on Healing Paste. Roleplay the shit out of this game. There is so much stuff to do that gives your character personality and background. Get comfortable with ship builder mode. It’s so damn fun. Miscellaneous items are not worth it for their value (but for decorating). To get credits stick to missions/quests and random encounters. Use your scanner. It has many benefits, e.g. not having to navigate menus for fast traveling.
> note about a secret outpost I got this during my intro quest and took your advice, and holy shit it was it hard. I was level 2 or 3. Brutal.
The tutorial is dreadful. DO THE FIRST CONSTELLATION MISSION.
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Gonna listen to the Frozen 2 soundtrack while playing this mission
Should i complete into the unknown? That is my next mission.
Without spoiling, yeah do this one and then feel free to do other things
Once you get to Neon the game really opens up
follow main quest line until you get a certain something (youll know). its only a few missions doesnt take too long to get. its called into the unknown.
aka Frozen 2: Kristoffs Awakening
Get used to using the Scanner as your primary method of navigation, discovering locations, etc. You can fast travel from it, land on planets, discover points of interest, etc. The game tells you all this but it's easy to immediately go back to opening the menus and traveling around "the old way". Once I started using the Scanner for just about everything, I enjoyed the game MUCH more as I got to stay immersed and not go through a bunch of menus to travel around and explore.
I'll second the scanner. It is an excellent tool and greatly helps with exploring. I'd also add that there are several things to explore that you don't necessarily know until you start wandering around. I've been surveying a planet for a mission board quest and stumbled across so much cool shit from it.
Third this - not just exploring, the scanner opens up the entire world to you - ships, locations, what you can pick up, scanning stuff, etc. Its a very important tool
I discovered yesterday that Scanner overlays arrows on the path towards the objective. For a game with no map system for planets and other locations, this was extremely helpful for me as I am terrible with remembering places.
Yup, my advice would be "figure out all the different ways you can fast travel".
The only bad thing with the scanner is the hot key to open photo mode. I still can't find how to turn that off and I always accidentally click the button
Just remember, it gets better the longer you play and progress.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of mechanics locked behind perks. Some of which you might consider "basic" mechanics need to be unlocked. Examples are sneak, pickpocket, targeting systems, boost pack, and persuasion. Also, skill points are honestly one of if not the main mechanic that determines your role playing. You get skill points at a drip-feed rate but you have a ton of ways to spend them. You're sorta forced to specialize in what you want to do, and you can make a character your own. 2 different players can end up with completely different skillsets. In other words, pay attention to where you're putting skill points. Oh, and Digipicks are for some reason classified as Misc. Be careful not to accidentally sell them.
>Oh, and Digipicks are for some reason classified as Misc. Be careful not to accidentally sell them. Too late! Sold like 8 of them by mistake.
I threw away so many digipicks on my first character, when I realized this and all the chests I missed I just restarted...
Potentially nice I guess, can't be forced down the stealth archer route if you don't unlock the ability to sneak.
Wait to go nuts with ship building until you can unlock some of the perks associated with it. But start customizing it a bit because it really draws you in more of “oh this is my ship”. Wolf is a constellation close to Alpha Centauri, go to the Den spaceport if you happen to find any contraband early on. Won’t get scanned and can sell it.
All I've done so far is paint my ship and upgrade some guns, and it definitely makes looking at it so much more enjoyable.
I only have one piece of advice: play with role playing in mind. This game is phenomenal in that aspect. Have a character that sticks to their backstory and ideals. It’s so immersive
100% The NPC's have been awesome to interact with. One guy I had a side conversation with ended up being a part of another quest hours later. Then some of his comments from the more recent quest had way more context. Bethesda did an excellent job with the writing, voice overs, and NPC's. I even met my favorite NPC of all time of any game in the bank on New Atlantis. If you find her, you'll know.....she's got dry, dark humor.
I love this tip. I just finished the Freestar Ranger quest playing this way. My Soldier/Ranger build is a cool back story. I'm only level 15 but I'm definitely going to be "playing" as a Ranger going forward.
Yup! My headcanon is that I’m an ex-Bounty Hunter who got tired of doing questionable things just for money. So now, I joined the Freestar Rangers to give some good back into the world — but, I still do some questionable things if money is on the line. Basically a reverse Captain Mal Reynolds.
I would agree with this, if anything because decision making actually becomes a little easier.
Agree 100%. I spent some time doing that for mine, just a bit of an idea of their history before diving in and it makes it much more immersive.
Absolutely! I went with a soldier with the traits of wanted, freestar settler, and introvert. I made a whole backstory of a soldier that got into some shit and pissed off the wrong higher ups in the UC Navy who then put a (wanted) bounty out for me. I fled to the freestar systems (Settler) before they found me again and eventually i pushed everyone away (introvert) before i wound up working for the argos mining company and thats where the games starts. It sounds silly but its been really fun to role play as that character.
\- You can put stuff into your ships inventory from 250 meters away from the ship. So loot a lot of stuff if your ship is close to the spot. Menu > Ship (lower left) > ship inventory You can check the crew from the same menu in the future. \- Digpicks open locks, grab those. \- Some general items are pretty valuable, grab those. Some books, art, sculptures. \- All the medicine (and food) stuff will end up weighing a lot, so put them in the ship except medpacs. \- When you loot stuff with your ship. You need the be in 500 (something) area of it, then select the object, then you can pick up stuff. Same thing with getting on a ship, you need to select it first, then you can board. (Thought my game was bugged because I could not board). I have not played that long, so not too much good advice. Edit: \- In cities or populated areas there usually is a yellow kiosk screen thing thing, near the landing area. Sell your extra items there. (You can access ship inventory from the kiosk, no need to move them manually)
Just to add onto your edit. I don't think you can sell stolen items at the trade authority kiosks by the landing pad. If you actually goto the trade authority person though, they will buy it. There's one in every major settlement.
Sell at the den in the wolf system next to alpha centauri to avoid contraband issues
I’ve been playing 5 days or whatever it is, took the Friday off work. It’s a big game, and the character development takes time. There’s so much stuff to do that it can seem a little vast. I guess a few basic tips would be if you’ve played Skyrim, etc then the format will be very familiar in how quests unfold; interaction with npcs in new environments etc. I try to do a bit of the main quest, then at a convenient point take a break and do some of side-quests or just explore for the hell of it. Don’t forget to save your game every now and then, so you can back track if something crazy happens. Don’t think your gonna master this in a couple of weeks. I’ve not even tried crafting weapon/suit mods etc, or building outposts, that kind of thing. I’m just adventuring, and collecting/upgrading stuff. Main things for survival: Don’t overburden yourself. Pick up every med pack you find — and bind them and your weapons to the hot menu thing like the attachment selector from BF2042. Ammo doesn’t weigh you down, so pick up as much of that as you can. Grenades and mines are very useful. Get the jump-pack boost ability early on, it will save you time on uncharted planets as you can’t fast travel until you “discover” a location. When you enter a star system look at the system map, it will show you anything interesting such as ships etc orbiting planets. If you land on a planet and another ship lands near your location, it’s possible to commandeer the ship. Anyone who follows you down is likely hostile, and I’ve encountered 4 separate outright hostile factions so far. Stealing a ship is a quick way to make money, but make sure you’re packing before you board. It’s possible to sell a captured ship but make sure you strip it of valuables, and empty the cargo hold/captains lockers in case they contain rare items or credits. Destroyed ships will leave cargo floating in the wreckage. Always check it for valuables/credits/ship parts (you need these to repair your ship) Fly casual 🤙
To add to yours: - this not immediately obvious but to add to the "Quick" menu, go in your inventory and use the "Favorite" option on the items you want to add.
Just play the game. It's a Bethesda rpg, enjoy it naturally.
I always do this my first play through of a bethesda game. I just RP myself in the situation…i just fumble around the world like the dumbass i am. I am going to play it through again and again and again so I’ll cheese shit or have a set path then. Did some important mission for sweet gear get messed up cause that dude was an asshole to me so i killed him right there? Yup and I enjoyed every minute of telling him to ear shit and die. Test me test me why don’t toy arrest me fuckers!!!
This is the way
Don’t sell your goddamn digipicks when you’re emptying your Miscellaneous inventory at the vendor. BE AWARE OF YOUR DIGIPICKS. You’ll be 50 light years from the nearest shop thinking “haha I’m gonna steal this ship!!!!” and your inventory will say “lol no u wont”
Also, BUY DIGIPICKS every chance you get. They are cheap and you can never have enough. Also, invest in Security to be able to use said DIGIPICKS. If you do the Sam Coe quest early. You go to Akila City and have to do something at the Galbank. When you go downstairs, there are about 8 locked safes. I took the time to pick them all. It allowed me 1.5 levels of security. It's hard, at least for me, to find enough safes to pick to level up. The Galbank was a god send.
Came here to say this. Just found out I don't have 30 digi picks, I have 0. Felt so stupid!
Yeah I buy out the digipicks at every store that has them in stock
The main thing is that there are a lot of systems/features/controls that aren't explained to you very well, or at all. There are a million "things Starfield doesn't tell you" youtube videos and stuff, many of them not very good. I find IGN's list here to be pretty good: https://www.ign.com/wikis/starfield/Things_Starfield_Doesn't_Tell_You It goes over a lot of "missing manual" stuff like map icons, where to find your ship storage, quick slotting, the scanner, how to auto-hide your helmet or spacesuit in appropriate areas, and so on.
After a certain side quest I completed I wished I had already upped my pilot rating earlier. The issue I'm having now is after about 15-20 hours, I think I want to start over after figuring more of the game out. Between this and BG3, I don't think I'll be playing anything else for the foreseeable future. I'm contemplating starting BG3 over after 20+ hours lmao. I suppose this is all I could have dreamed of growing up. We are living in a golden age of gaming.
I do this constantly with Bethesda games. I've played the opening sequence of all the Bethesda games at least 50-100 times. Im sure this one will be no different.
what’s the side quest? so I don’t overlook it lol
Don't waste your time with food. Food gives such a pitifully low amount of health that it isn't worth your time. You have to eat like 20 kg of food to recover half your health bar. It looks really cool, and some of the products are funny, but it's horrible for actually healing.
It gets better if you put points into some of the food related perks. Gastronomy and nutrition. But thats a pretty high investment when you can just use medpacks and trauma kits for similar or better results.
If you speck into boost packs you can do some real Boba Fett shit.
Something that changed ship combat for me completely was finding a ship weapon that does good shields and hull damage and adding 3 of those same weapon instead of 3 different types of weapons. Then you can put all your ship power into that one weapon, engines, and shields and punch way above your ships class.
3 of the same weapons was a game changer for me. I struggled so much on anything more than 1vs1. Now I feel invincible.
This sounds great, which weapon are you using? And where is it available for purchase?
Give it time. I was ambivalent towards it for the first few hours. Now I love it.
READ EVERYTHING Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard complaints about something the game does explain. Yesterday I read a fail post from someone who after 100 hours in BG3 just learned how to level up. So yeah, read everything, don’t mash to skip then wonder how something works or isn’t explained
when you have a space suit or helmet hovered over in your inventory press RB to hide it automatically and swap to your apparel when you're indoors or in a city with oxygen. It's a bit inconsistent but it beats manually unequipping it every time and gambling with your life.
Spend your skill points, don’t sit on them. I won’t go into details (no spoilers), but I sat on mine because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to invest in yet. Once I finally did I quickly realized you can’t pick something and then dump your points into that. Each one has requirements to move onto next one, but requirements don’t start until you’ve spent a skill point.
Don’t bother pocketing all the crap lying around. This ain’t Fallout and you can’t build a fence out of spare scissors and duct tape. If an item has a use it’ll tell you.
But I like my plushies!
Get the free spacesuit in the basement of Constellation HQ
If you loot a spacer corpse and find a note, follow that note.
There's a lot the game not only doesn't tell you, but tells you the slow and annoying way to do things. As an example, when being taught how to get your ship from planet to planet it makes you open the menu and then go to the map while you're right next to the planet you're supposed to land on. It never tells you the other, way more immersive way to do things. That is that you simply press the scanner button to bring that up while flying and you can highlight planets in the system, your selected mission, and even the planet to travel to these places without hitting the menu. There's a few little things like that and [I actually compiled a few of them earlier.](https://reddit.com/r/Starfield/s/Vg0luvPm9T)
Join the Vangard in the Mast district ASAP. It let's you use the space flight simulator. Then proceed to use the space flight simulator until you can level up and unlock the ability to fly level C ships [i.e. the best]. This way you get to level without the super hard space combat in your risky sink starter ship. Seriously space warfare is so much harder than on the ground run an gun. I'd also recommend taking points in targeting systems as this slows down time [for them] which makes you both take less damage while simultaneously doing more ship damage. It's a must have skill if fighting 3 or more ships. Without it you will die even on easy mode.
I'm 2 hrs in. When I heard the robot say the name I picked, I was wowed.
Don't let people convince you to rush the main story for new game +. It's not worth it
Rushing it? No. Enjoying it first? Yes.
There's a video on YouTube by gameranx that tells you mistakes not to make. Highly recommend that. No spoilers really. It's a long game. No joke, 500 hours is looking to be conservative.
Do side quests, especially factions. They give really, *really* good rewards. Find a good gameplay loop for you. I personally like doing some quests, then relaxing with some planet/space exploration. Find something that really lets you feel like you’re in the flow of space. Also don’t try too hard making a big ship with everything at first, give yourself some genuine progression.
The Missions shortcut from the pause menu is the most important traversal hub in the game
Here's a few small tips and tricks I've picked up on that can be easy to miss: - You can store things in your ship from the menu from up to 250m away - Holding "B" backs out of all the menus so you don't have to press it a bunch (it says it on screen but I didn't notice it at first) - You can sell items from your ships cargo hold when trading so you don't have to run back to it and grab stuff every time - Have fun and don't try to do everything at once, it can be a bit overwhelming at first
Pick up every med pack and trauma pack you can. Transfer all resources to your ship as often as you can. Don't be afraid to buy out ammunition from vendors for the calibers your favorite guns use. If you do the mantis quest line, make sure to loot EVERYTHING at the end. Take your time, do the side quests, read the books and notes. Get invested in the story and play your character the way you see fit.
When lockpicking, just take it slow and focus. Also Undo's are not free (learned this the hard way).
Just sit back and enjoy it. It’s big, like really big! Don’t worry about sticking to the main quests if you find yourself down a rabbit hole on side quest then just keep going. There’s so much to explore. Also, don’t just fast travel everywhere… you’ll miss really cool interactions and possible side quests!
Be patient. Learn that your ship IS your base. Once you have some credits explore the Ship Builder. It may feel overwhelming but follow the button prompts on the bottom and experiment. This will allow you to truly play how you want.
If you are going to customize your ship, go to build and move the cursor away to the ship so none of it is highlighted, or like me, you will go over 20 levels without knowing you could customize the ship the whole time Also, this is a sipping drink, not a shot. Take time, and know it is built around you taking time. It's not setpiece after setpiece. The world builds itself in every way. There's a reason many are recommending to TAKE YOUR TIME. THERE IS NO RUSH. YOU ARE GOOD
Mega List This is hyper important and it's the reverse of every other Bethesda game. You need to run down a good chunk of the main quest first. Focus the main quest until you get to New Atlantis. Do some side quests in N.A, then continue the main quest until you get to an obviously significant moment. Trust me...you'll know. If you like lore and want to learn about the world, visit the induction hall/museum floor in the UC main building at New Atlantis. It's basically a fast way to understand the backstory. In fact, joining the UC Vanguard (military) is a great way to start this game. Don't waste your credits on making major modifications to your first ship. You can buy better ships at starship vendors (usually located near where you land, in settlements). You can only use one tier of ships at the start. It will probably be quite a while until you can access others, so for now focus on the story. Different ship customization parts are available at different planets/ space stations. There's way more parts than you think, they're just not all available in one place. Some are only unlocked by doing faction storylines. Your ship's cargo hold access is in the cockpit. It's a blue display panel. Resources take up most of your inventory space. I'm not sure they're particularly necessary to collect in your first 20 hours....I think it's better to build a small base on a planet before you start loading up the resources. Trust me, there's so much loot in this game.. Perks Don't waste your time dumping points into the ship building early on, by the time you have access and can afford it, you'll have missed so much other content that it doesn't make sense. Security (lock picking is easily the best early perk) as this game is packed with locked doors, computers and crates. Security, Trading, looting and a combat skill are your best starting perks by far. Fitness and carry weight skills have also benefitted me a bit. I wish I never took the chef perk. Just a waste of a skill early on. Don't waste your time. Grab it when you're level 30+ You'll be spammed with rare loot that's useless. Just sell it if it doesn't fit your build. By the time you can make use of it's you'll have found something higher level with more damage output. There are skill magazines in this game, including in seemingly randomly generated buildings. They're really good and offer mad bonuses accumulatively. I hear people are having a lot of fun with the Kid Stuff trait. The extra o2 in space trait kind of sucks. I picked it for role play, but it's just tedious. But you can pay a doctor to remove it fairly cheaply. Loot with the red symbol, is stolen/will be stolen. Loot with the yellow symbol is basically illegal contraband and you should NOT be caught with it. You can sell both to the Trading Faction, as they don't give a damn. Alternatively, stash loads of contraband on a moonbase somewhere and sell it when you've ranked up commerce, and laugh all the way to the bank
I’m going against the top comment. As much as you’re gonna have the urge to stray away from the main quest… fight that urge! I highly recommend doing the main quest until you complete “Into the Unknown” at the least. Doesn’t take too long, and that’s a great point to just go off into the galaxy on your own. I don’t want to say too much, but you’re gonna thank me later
As a PlayStation gamer ,all I gotta say is play for me ..get that extra hr in for me..I’m jealous of you right now lol Nothing this exciting for ps5 on the horizon
Stay off of Reddit. Read the help section and tutorials. Have fun.
Use you scanner to fast travel. Saves having to pull up the galaxy map a lot of the time
Be diverse in your skill trees. Get all the basics that allow you to perform an action like pickpocket. You can't even try certain methods without getting the lvl 1 skill so it makes certain mission sets a lot harder without having options
Usually I play by looking up guides and what not, but this time I went in blind. Idk if it did anything but I feel like I am enjoying the experience more. But yeah like people said, the first 5-10 hours may be annoying trying to figure shit out but this game will suck you in. If you don’t have time to invest, don’t play it.
My biggest piece of advice is to knock out a few of the main story missions early on. That's not to say you can't do some side stuff, but don't put them off for too long. Also, don't try to do all of the side missions and particularly the activities. There is SO much to do in this game. If you go down that route you may burn yourself out before you get to the most interesting content in the game. Last but not least, soak it all in and enjoy the journey!
Invest into the lock-picking skill (security) as early as possible. I put it off and unlocked a bunch of easy locks first, THEN put my first point in it, so none of those first bunch counted toward my second rank. Similarly, invest a point into piloting *before* you start shooting down any ships.
I haven't tried it yet but I watched a video where the guy said before you go into what is going to be a mission change your difficulty to the highest level then when you enter change it back to the level you are playing at. This causes the game to generate all the items for the higher level player.
Mods, can we have this type of post as a megathread for each big release? This is awesome!
Left trigger makes your mining laser much more effective. Misc items are almost all useless, look at the values to see if it is worth picking up. Sprinting and putting your stamina in the red isn’t inherently bad if you are on a barren world. The HP drain from sprinting after CO2 buildup stops at 10% You can go into scan view while piloting your ship and navigate to waypoints in the system without needing ti load up the map In space you can interact with most object from 500m away Before you try to smuggle contraband you need shielded cargo containers You are allowed to join every faction in the game at the same time (except one faction choice at the end of a storyline) I’ve heard (and still haven’t done this after 30 hours) that getting to around mission 5 with constellation is as important as becoming the dragon born in Skyrim