Bethesda's Starfield

[Blackhawk]

I was enjoying it. The bugs just got to be too much. And I'm not talking quest bugs, either - I'm talking general bugs.

[Grifman]

Hah, I can’t resist myself, I have already started modding Starfield.

[Blackhawk]

Hah, I can’t resist myself, I have already started modding Starfield.

I was running with ~25 or 30.

I don't know your Bethesda modding background, so I'll repost a couple of comments from earlier in the thread. If you know ES/FO modding, feel free to ignore it. If it's too long, here's the short version: If the mod has a .esp or .esm file, do not install it, and if you did, disable it and return to a pre-modded save. It's almost guaranteed to corrupt your save.

And to repeat my earlier warning: If a Starfield mod includes a .esp or .esm file, stay far, far away. Until the mod tools are released, there is no way to make these stable. They're hacked together by using the other games' systems, but there's no way to correctly set things like headers. Even a minor tweak (like a cool one I saw that gives you more landing cinematics) are likely to permanently corrupt your saves. But as long as they don't use .esp or .esm files, you're fine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Short explanation of why some are safe and others are not, for those who care:

Spoiler:

Bethesda has all of their files in archives (.ba2 files.) The way Bethesda game/mods work is this: when you load an area, it collects all of the sounds, models, and textures from the .ba2 archives. If there are any loose files with the same name (like "HatTexture.dds") in the folders, it then loads those, overriding the ones in the archive.

So, if you install a mod that changes a UC cap into a Make Earth Great Again cap, the mod will place a file called "HatTexture.dds" into the /data/textures directory. When you launch the game, it first sees you have the cap, and loads the "HatTexture.dds" from Bethesda's own archive. It then checks the /data/textures director, sees another file called "HatTexture.dds", and uses that one instead. That's it. The fact that you have the cap is in your save file - the textures for the cap are not. Delete the mod, and it will load the file from the archive, not see anything in the /data/textures directory, and just display the default cap.

This is how mods that replace sounds, textures, models, and interfaces (which are just .swf - Shockwave Flash - files.) You can replace them and remove them all day. You can go convert the infamous ass banjo image to a .dds file, name it "adtrident02_color.dds", and place it in /data/textures/setdressing/advertisements, and you'll see an ass banjo on the billboards around New Atlantis. That's all there is to it.

Other mods work by changing settings in the .ini files (which are loaded when you launch - change them back, and it loads the default values), by entering console commands to tell the engine to do things that its already designed to do (often as a .bat file run through the in-game console), or by hooking into the .exe and tweaking the engine itself (this is how the Achievement Enabler works.) Again, very few are going to change anything that affects your saves (there is only one mod that I avoided out of caution this way - one that lets you give outposts and ships longer names - it's probably safe, but I can't be sure.)

There is another way to mod - the system that they originally called 'plugins.' This is instructions to the game to change what is loaded, or to load something new. Adding a new structure or item, adding a quest, changing what's in a box, changing how containers work (like making them infinite, or by linking all player storage to share contents), that sort of thing. These are the things that are done with the editor or via a tool called xEdit (FO4Edit, SSEEdit, etc.), and results in a .esp (Elder Scrolls Plugin) or .esm (Elder Scrolls Master) file. They are new or altered instructions to the game itself, and, unlike changes to the engine, interface, or textures, those changes are generally included in your save file.

The tools for doing this safely do not exist yet.

Mods with these cannot sneak up on you. Any mod that uses those files will include instructions on adding the name of the .esp/.esm file to your .ini files, since the 'addons' menu doesn't exist yet (which is where you'd normally activate them.)

And again, any mod I recommend here is going to be a simple replacer, ini tweak, SFSE utility, etc. that should be safe.

No. No, no, no, and also fuck no. Do not install this mod, or any other mod that uses an .esp file (or an .esm), until after either the official mod tools or a stable version of xEdit has been released. And if there is a YouTuber suggesting these mods, I'd stay just as far away from his videos - he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Go watch Gopher instead.

If you installed it, I'd recommend switching to a save from before you did so. As of right now, modders cannot correctly set the headers in .esp/.esm files, as there is no way to do so, and no information on how to figure out how to do so. That means that the headers are almost certainly wrong, and that, in turn, means that that there is now bad data in your save. In the past games, the has - almost always - resulted in corrupted saves. In fact, since the tools aren't released, it means that other modders can't even look at the file to see if it's what's causing problems. The more reliable mod recommendation channels do exactly that - they examine the mod to make it safe before they recommend it.

And yes, corrupted saves will usually load and play normally.

For a while. Maybe.

Then, in 10 hours, or 30 hours, you'll be crashing, or things will start to go wrong, and you'll have no idea why. Or you may just suddenly find out you can't load your saves anymore.

Modding in Starfield is extremely limited right now, and will continue to be so until sometime next year. Don't try to bypass that with mods that take shortcuts, or you're taking a huge chance.

[Grifman]

Hmm, I knew that .esp files were bad and were avoiding them, but not .esm. I saw a number of these and thought people were using .esm to avoid the .esp problem. I'll have to reconsider some mods then. Thanks for the heads up.

[Blackhawk]

Hmm, I knew that .esp files were bad and were avoiding them, but not .esm. I saw a number of these and thought people were using .esm to avoid the .esp problem. I'll have to reconsider some mods then. Thanks for the heads up.

Doing some more digging, it looks like SF1Edit was released a couple of weeks ago (the Starfield version of xEdit.) This has the potential to allow the creation of safe plugin mods. It's too late to dig into it deeply, but the general gist seems to be that they're pushing to avoid the creation of .esp files at all in the future, and right now it only creates .esm files (and possibly .esl, a recent innovation that allows for longer load orders.)

I'd still be careful, but .esm mods may be safe at this point. I can still guarantee that anything with a .esp was made with cobbled together tools and is dangerous (since the only tool that exists right now doesn't make that type of file.)

Sorry, it's been a month or more since I decided to back-burner Starfield until the updates are in place, so I'm a little out of date.

[Blackhawk]

If you want to know more, this explains some of the issues, and this goes into detail about what's possible and what's not.

[Unagi]

I was running with ~25 or 30.

I apologize ahead of time, as I'm sure you will totally slam this question.

Any chance all the bugs you experienced had anything to do with you loading 25-30 mods on a brand-new game? I know you 'know what you are doing", and I'm sure a good number of the bugs you experienced were 'native', but I have to wonder.

The only mod I loaded was the one that let me keep getting Achievements even if you have run a console command. I ran a console command to get over a quest bug at one point.

[Grifman]

Hey, Blackhawk, I meant to say thanks for that long essay I knew some of it, I've run heavily modded Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV/4 for years so I feel I know a lot. But I did learn some new stuff, which is always good from your post. Again, thanks and have a great Thanksgiving.

[Blackhawk]

I was running with ~25 or 30.

I apologize ahead of time, as I'm sure you will totally slam this question.

Any chance all the bugs you experienced had anything to do with you loading 25-30 mods on a brand-new game? I know you 'know what you are doing", and I'm sure a good number of the bugs you experienced were 'native', but I have to wonder.

The only mod I loaded was the one that let me keep getting Achievements even if you have run a console command. I ran a console command to get over a quest bug at one point.

No, but it's a fair question. When I posted it I figured that someone would wonder that.

Everything I used was limited to either interface alterations (which change .swf files to move elements around/change colors/change how data is displayed), or simple replacers (swap one texture for another, etc.) None of those was in any way capable of altering the actual mechanics of the game, touching the AI, touching the scripts, or anything else that could cause problems.

And every single one I listed...

Vasco always spawned halfway through my deck.
Sara often floated out through the wall and off of the ship.
I had one NPC that was permanently hanging out on my ship and wouldn't leave, despite the quest associated with her being finished.
Sara got stuck in 'radio voice' mode, with whatever filter they use for voice comms being active in face-to-face conversations.
Environmental protection effectively didn't exist (it drained instantly.)
NPCs kept shooting at each other through bulletproof windows.
I was attacked (and repeatedly hit) through a wall by an enemy inside a building.
Enemies embedding themselves in ceilings.
I fell through the deck of my ship and ended up on a different deck.
A couple of NPCs vibrated during conversations.
Ship techs charged me for repairs, but didn't perform said repairs.

And then there's the generic jank (just weird microbugs, physics oddities, design decisions that apparently were never really thought through - like every NPC staring at you with bug-eyes if you were anywhere near them, or features being implemented incorrectly, like the sharpening that caused all textures to be unnecessarily blurry.)

...was widely reported by other players, including on consoles where even that level of modding was impossible.

[Grifman]

Wow, the “Elegance” pistol, which you can get fairly early on in Akila is a beast. It just melts bosses.

https://www.pcgamer.com/this-starfield- ... -early-on/

[Daehawk]

This is Fanatical's STAR Deal right now.

https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/starfield

[Grifman]

I am really loving this game right now, everything started clicking around level 15. I love jumping into a system, checking out sensor contacts to investigate, running into broadcasts leading to various quests, exploring planetary surfaces, the faction quests, helping various people/groups along the way, upgrading my weapons, spacesuit, and ship (just got started on this). The game really has its hooks in me now.

[Zarathud]

Just built out my Class C freighter with turrets last night. So fun to put my companions to work.

[Grifman]

Official update from Bethesda, some cool stuff coming:

Hey everyone, first, we read all the feedback here and greatly appreciate it and all the time and thought you put into the game. This small update was to mostly address the “pet-asteroid" so many asked about following our last larger update, and we wanted to get that out before the holiday.

We’ve been hard at work on many of the issues you’ve posted, and expect an update early next year that will include a large number of “in-progress” quest fixes as well as FSR3 and XeSS. Though we fixed several quest issues from occurring, in-progress quest fixes are much harder to fix and we’ve built a new system to correct those without you having to roll back your save.

We’re also hard at work on many of new features you asked for, from city maps, to mod support, to all new ways of traveling (stay tuned!). These will be rolling out with a regular cadence of fixes and updates we expect to have roughly every six weeks. If something can be done in a smaller hotfix in between (like the asteroid), and we feel it’s safe, we’ll get one of those out as well. Safe is the key here. We do take a lot of time to test even the smallest change in a game this large and dynamic.

Hope this information helps. If there are items you want more info on, or issues to make us aware of, keep posting here or our official Discord. Thanks again for all your support of us and the game.

[Blackhawk]

The link to the actual info, including the source and actual patch notes.

How about fixing the fundamental bugs with AI, scripting, graphics glitches, and physics glitches before you start adding new features?

Also, this has to be my favorite patch note ever, emphasis mine:

Addressed an issue that would cause space matter to become stuck to player's ship during space travel. Loading a save will now remove the space clingon. Please note: This fix should address any space matter being stuck in your travels, but not in instances where player ships have New Atlantis attached. A fix for that will be released in a later update.

So, uh, yeah - I looked that up. It wasn't a joke:

Spoiler:

A video of a similar issue:

[jztemple2]

I feel left out! I played for 155 hours and never saw anything like that!

I did have Vasco stuck on the outside a few times, but I just figured he was like a dog who wanted to stick his head out a window

[Blackhawk]

If Vasco was inside my ship, he was embedded in the floor at the top of the entrance ladder, halfway between decks. He was there 100% of the time. Sarah, on the other hand, often went outside via the wall. The NPC trapped in the cargo hold who griped at me for not finishing her quest (despite me finishing it and her failing to leave), however, was always safe.

[Grifman]

If Vasco was inside my ship, he was embedded in the floor at the top of the entrance ladder, halfway between decks. He was there 100% of the time. Sarah, on the other hand, often went outside via the wall. The NPC trapped in the cargo hold who griped at me for not finishing her quest (despite me finishing it and her failing to leave), however, was always safe.

Man, I feel for you, never had any of these bugs. Did run across one where I fast traveled to my ship after modifying it and another ship, and I was hung in the air, as if I was in the ship but it was invisible, and I was unable to do anything. It seems this occurs if you modify more than one ship in the ship builder in certain obscure circumstances. Luckily I save very often (it's Bugthesda, after all) and was able to go back to prior save and use the ship builder differently.

By the way, the game is extremely stable, I've had only one crash in 150+ hours.

[Grifman]

Hah, just shot a spacer's jetpack on an extremely low gravity world, and it exploded and he almost went into orbit. He got so high I could not seem him with the naked eye, I had to pull out my sniper rifle and even then I could barely see his body. Took him about 5 minutes to hit the ground. Best combat moment yet!

[Unagi]

Hah, just shot a spacer's jetpack on an extremely low gravity world, and it exploded and he almost went into orbit. He got so high I could not seem him with the naked eye, I had to pull out my sniper rifle and even then I could barely see his body. Took him about 5 minutes to hit the ground. Best combat moment yet!

Only to be beaten by a 'double launch' some day.

[Grifman]

Bethesda end of year update, looks like a lot of good stuff is coming down the road:

https://bethesda.net/en/game/starfield/ ... pdate-2023

But we’re not just here to say goodbye to 2023. We’ve been hard at work on everything coming to Starfield in 2024. While we’re not ready to go into all the details just yet, here’s a glimpse at some of the things we’re cooking up.
First, we’re targeting updates roughly every six weeks starting in February. These updates will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates. Join our Steam Beta branch to be the first to try these updates as they begin rolling out.

We've been reading all your feedback and are excited to start launching these new features. We'll be adding new ways to travel and you’ll now be able to access city maps while exploring the major cities. For those of you who love ship building, we'll also be expanding on ship customization with ship decorations, new ship building options, and more.
We're also excited to be adding all new Gameplay options. With these new settings you'll be able to alter your gameplay to allow for an easier or more challenging experience that will expand beyond our normal "Difficulty" setting. These will allow you to easily customize carry capacity, cargo access distance, ship damage, vendor credits, how you suffer afflictions, new survival mechanics, and more.

Next, official mod support will be coming to Starfield with the launch of Creations. Beginning early next year, Starfield will be getting its own exporter and you’ll have access to a new Creation Kit. Modding has always been an enormous part of our games, with incredible community-made content constantly bringing fresh new experiences. With the scale and systems in Starfield, we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

And lastly, the team is hard at work on the development of Shattered Space, our first major expansion coming next year. You’ll have new story content, new locations, new gear, and much more. We can’t wait to share more with you next year.

[Unagi]

Sounds good, I'm officially just a total fanboy at this point.

[Grifman]

Sounds good, I'm officially just a total fanboy at this point.

I loved all the prior games from Skyrim to Fallout 4, but this is my favorite BGS game to date. I know it has its critics and some of that criticism is justified (and some isn't) but I love sci-fi, and that along with the open world is just great. I'm about half way through, and after I'm finished, I'll put it away for a couple of years, wait for all the DLC and see what modders come up with (they have already done some amazing stuff without the Creation Kit), and give it another go.

[Blackhawk]

Ok, I get that I'm harsh on Bethesda (prior to Starfield even releasing, I'd been burned by them on three games in a row, and I don't really appreciate the way they handle their old content in a way that hurts the players for a buck.)

And yeah, Starfield has its issues, and I'm probably less forgiving than most, but it's also got a lot of strengths and some great content.

But in what world is it a finalist for Steam's GOTY award for "Most Innovative Gameplay?" Of all of the Starfield's strengths, it was not, in any way, shape, or form, innovative.

[Isgrimnur]

[Blackhawk]

You're right! 95% of the gameplay may not have changed since Oblivion, but, dammit, it's in space now! I'm off to vote!

[coopasonic]

But in what world is it a finalist for Steam's GOTY award for "Most Innovative Gameplay?" Of all of the Starfield's strengths, it was not, in any way, shape, or form, innovative.

Don't forget important innovations like endless loading screens. That's a meaningful achievement in a 2023 triple-A release! How about a ship builder that doesn't let you actually build a ship?

Oh, I mean I am pretty sure they invented NG+ with this game... actually story-integrated NG+ might actually be innovative.

[Grifman]

I think I am close to entering the homestretch. Found all the artifact parts/powers, have one more faction quest line and then I enter the end game quests. I'm at level 57 but I have done very little grinding - a couple of bounty quests, a couple of GalBank quests, and maybe half a dozen random POI's. Everything has really just been quests and activities and my character stat sheet says I have done about 150 each of those. One thing that probably boosted my level a little bit is that I used a mod that doubles the number of enemies at POI. Even on hard, the game's been pretty easy but VH would just turn everyone int bullet sponges and I didn't want that. I found this mod to add challenge without that downside. I'm guessing I'll hit 60+ before I'm finished.

[Grifman]

Because beta patch incoming:

https://www.gamesradar.com/the-biggest- ... ghtseeing/

[Grifman]

Ugh, ran into my second almost quest stopping bug, that almost ended a faction quest chain. Was supposed to use a shuttle to escape from a certain location and the shuttle wouldn't open. Luckily, went online and found that if I could boostpack out of the shuttle bay, I could get on my own landed ship, take off and the game would move on with the quest. But that was a close one. Had another bug that stopped minor quest, irritating but not bad. But I would hae hated to have stopped this faction quest line.

[hepcat]

I wonder if they fixed the bugged quest I mentioned earlier? I’ll have to give it a go someday to see if that happened. Although I’m not in any particular rush to do so.

[Kurth]

Still playing. I keep intending to wrap it up, as I’m approaching the end game I think, but I keep finding other stuff to do. I’m also in the camp that puts this as my favorite BGS game to date.

[Kurth]

Something happened last night and now I’m thinking maybe I’m not as close to the end game as I thought.

Spoiler:

I just met the Starborn. Also, those fuckers killed off my romantic partner, Andreja. WTF is up with that???

[Hyena]

Something happened last night and now I’m thinking maybe I’m not as close to the end game as I thought.

Spoiler:

I just met the Starborn. Also, those fuckers killed off my romantic partner, Andreja. WTF is up with that???

Yeah, you got a while to go. But I think it's worth it. I really, really enjoyed this game. I only ran into a couple of minor bugs that were easily fixed with a simple search, and I'm gonna go back to it to try the game plus stuff.

[Kurth]

Something happened last night and now I’m thinking maybe I’m not as close to the end game as I thought.

Spoiler:

I just met the Starborn. Also, those fuckers killed off my romantic partner, Andreja. WTF is up with that???

Yeah, you got a while to go. But I think it's worth it. I really, really enjoyed this game. I only ran into a couple of minor bugs that were easily fixed with a simple search, and I'm gonna go back to it to try the game plus stuff.

It's funny. I've heard about lots of bugs and problems, but I haven't run into a single substantial bug playing on XBOX. Even the minor, janky stuff has been next to invisible for me. I have issues with some of the mechanics (inventory management and economy are broken), and the graphics/engine have some issues compared to current games, but overall, this has been a pretty polished experience for me right out of the box.

[Grifman]

Something happened last night and now I’m thinking maybe I’m not as close to the end game as I thought.

Spoiler:

I just met the Starborn. Also, those fuckers killed off my romantic partner, Andreja. WTF is up with that???

Hah, you're only half way through the main quest, still lots to do, depending upon what side quests you have done.

[Grifman]

I’m done with Starfield, but in a good way. Walked through the ****** at 333 hours and level 62 with 2.5 million credits in the bank. The 333 hours includes probably 50 hours of two aborted play throughs as I was trying to figure things out before I got comfortable with what I wanted to do (which isn’t unusual for me), and probably some time sitting at the menu when I left the game on while doing something else, so call it 250 hours for a run through. The level 62 was accomplished with very little grinding - I did three quests for a major financial institution, a few bounty missions, and visited probably two dozen POI that interested me. Captured about a dozen ships. Did every faction and companion quest, and almost every other quest, though I think I had half a dozen in my queue the end of the game when I was ready to push on to the end. I’ll discuss more details on my thoughts about the game, good and bad, later. But in the end, I loved it, was pretty much what I expected.

I will add that this was the most stable Bethesda game I’ve played. Only one crash and one game freeze the whole time, which to me was amazing given my past experience.

Looking forward to the DLC and mods. I'm certain I'll come back in a couple of years and replay it when there's more DLC and modded content to enjoy.

[Unagi]

Congrats on getting it completed. It's honestly quite an experience.

[coopasonic]

If you haven't gotten to at least NG+8 have you really even completed it?

[Unagi]

If you haven't gotten to at least NG+8 have you really even completed it?

What is funny, is I imagine you aren't joking.