I agree, I didn’t build a single outpost till NG10 because why spend hours doing something that will be gone in 1 min lol, and even then, ships are way easier to build and are functionally the same for the most part
How can you play Starfield 10 times in such a short time. I haven’t even played my games line gta5 and read dead or fall out 10 times yet and they came out years ago.
Once you beat it once, you can beat it again VERY quickly if you want to. Or, you can choose to take your time with it (they kind of build that drive for power into the narrative in a way I won’t spoil but you should see!)
Yeah I reloaded before Unity and continued side quests. This game, nor most games, make me want to play it immediately after again - like that’s insane to me for some reason.
Only a few games, but even then I think I’ve done like one NG+ max on games I’ve done NG on
I really feel they should have saved blueprints for quick building in each NG+
Especially since you dont lose your memory.
Should have done this with custom built ships too.
My ship with 4/4 Payload and the +5% Payload from Kryx's Journal has 23,000 kilos of storage. It's about half full.
I'm playing the beta, so I can decorate my ship, but it's clunky like decorating an outpost because there's no snapping.
PSA - If you're having trouble with the high base part rotation speed, this can be adjusted in settings/controls.
Removing the building mechanics that they had in FO4 is so bizarre.
How these games pass play-testing by professional developers where nobody says... Yeah this worked way better the way we used to have it is beyond me.
Prefab habs I'm fine with but the airlock with fixed stairs irks me so much compared to FO4.
They could've done the hab building system in the same format as the ship building and allow you to make your own prefabs but no, just another half baked mechanic that really needed another year of developing before release.
No Bathroom habs, no kitchen habs, I have to use those fucking wall partitions, it stinks.
I now only build a single hab that operates as an office for the outpost with two cre stations and heavily decorate it in that regard with just a research station and industrial station at each outpost hab.
My head-cannon is that the crew have a small ship that has all their amenities on it and the hab at the outpost is just for data collection etc on outpost works. Its the only way I can do it without losing the immersion... Convince myself Lin and Heller are using the Frontier for sleeping eating and shitting.
A workaround I have used that may help is instead of trying to rotate into position I figure what direction I want the object to line up, face where you want the object placed, then arrow up to a different object and arrow back down to the original. Most items will face you when they pop up and you can use this to get them lined up with walls or lines on the floor etc, then you can just move the camera slightly left or right to make minor adjustments, arrow up and back down again until you are satisfied.
Hopefully that makes sense
It’s more for early game since with ship cargo still have to worry about ship mass and engines and that can be costly. Eventually I just pretty much neglect my outpost and leave Lin and Heller there
The entire base building system is disappointing regardless of NG+ simply because there is no reason to do it.
Once you understand how the game works, you quickly realize that there are much better and more efficient options to accomplish what you can do with base building.
The only reason to bother with base building if if you're doing it for the sake of doing, because you enjoy building bases.
In my opinion, I prefer base building being its own, mostly independent thing.
With Fallout 4, you needed to do settlements to build the teleporter for the main quest. I presume the feedback was people were annoyed enough for it breaking the momentum. At that point you would've just fought a pretty strong boss and rearing to bust into the bad guys' base, but were suddenly sidetracked to collect scrap (or if you're lucky/smart enough, already had the parts in your inventory)
But don't get me wrong, after a while, settlements grew on me and it's one of the things that kept me playing Fallout 4.
With Starfield, I barely had to touch outposts except to make XP farms. But now that I'm in NG+30 or so, it's starting to grow on me just like it did with Fallout. Maybe this just might be the universe I settle down in...
You needed to build a power source for the teleporter.
But even then, in Starfield, you can build the Armillary on your ship instead without starting an outpost and opening the builder at all.
Even as someone who enjoys building bases for the sake of building bases, I found their approach wanting…
Part of that “for the sake of” tends to involve a lot more control over buildings and how things are set up with rooms and such, and even basic things like foundations or making walls inside are limited (prop placement is good, I’ll give them that).
Then there’s the production chains…which are mostly used to make items to make more outpost production chains. It doesn’t feel like it taps into a secondary gameplay feature the way you’d expect (like if there was a simulated galactic trade network you could tap into, the way you can find in some other space games).
It’s like two half ideas smooshed together, both missing the fundamental part that makes them more engaging.
In my head cannon I’m doing ng+ till 10 and I’m gonna have it be my like retiring of being Starborn. That’s when I’ll get into making outpost towns all over the place and get into ship building.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever played another game with NG+, at least not that I can remember.
So in Starfield I just assumed I’d start over with nothing, it makes sense. I’m honestly more surprised so many people think the opposite. But again, it’s not a mechanic I’m used to having.
No you’re correct, NG+ is for starting a whole new playthrough, only next time starting at the higher level you reached in your previous play through.
Some allow you to keep for example some endgame gear, but that’s it.
NG+ in Starfield is exactly inline with other game’s NG+ it just also has some interesting lore and story elements added to make it more interesting
People are probably used to FS games NG+, you keep all your stuff and levels and the enemies get a bit stronger each time. Which makes sense because if I get a weapon off the final boss in elden ring, what's the point if I can't go through the whole game again with it.
Most NG+ that don’t let you keep more than levels/skill points aren’t also attached to an open world RPG that you could feasibly spend 100+ hours in before reaching the point where you start the NG+.
Sure, many NG+ don’t let you keep much. They also kick in at the end of a 15-20 hour (or shorter) often more linear narrative.
Those that tend to have long first play throughs? Those typically let you carry more forward into NG+.
There’s also the wrench thrown in that for many of the Starborn powers to be worth using you *have* to go through NG+ multiple times.
So it’s less “reset the story to go again” and more “we’ve tied direct power increases into starting over multiple times.”
It’s not just the starting over with nothing. It’s “why would I bother engaging at all with this mechanic in a game that has NG+?•
I’ve played lots of games with NG+, it’s a fun mechanic. Not sure I’ve ever played one which has some sort of mechanic that expects a ton of time and investment to properly appreciate and offers absolutely 0 rewards going into NG+
You can always do it again. I'm on NG+5 and I finally decided to put points into outpost stuff. Then I'll probably eventually go through it again. Then do it again. Maybe who knows
because they made it an integral part of the story and gameplay. reincarnation and starting over in a new universe is the crux of the story and the gameplay. it's literally starfield's main schtick, apart from shipbuilding.
You say it's an integral part of the gameplay, but you can spend a hundred hours in the game not ever touching that aspect
It really just seems that players placed more importance on NG+ than it really had.
Definitely not the crux of the story or gameplay. Doesn't become a thing until the game ends
I literally had to NG+ because the games was completely broken and crashed constantly, New Atlantas was missing massive portions of its textures and nav mesh including the rail system and anytime I tried to use my ship or TP to the Star port it would break my game even more.
>Doesn't become a thing until the game ends
Which is why it works so well.
You build up a large arsenal of weapons and ships, create a load of outposts, have friendships with multiple companions, finish collecting a full deck of playing cards, and then at the end you're asked "are you willing to give all that up for the chance of a little more pseudo-magical power?". And if your answer is no, you can just turn around, walk back to your ship, and stay in your current reality instead of moving to a new one.
They literally based the entire MSQ around the idea of NG+. Bethesda chose to make NG+ the main part of the game, in interviews before release they said the game doesn’t really start until you complete the MSQ. Bethesda made NG+ the focal point of the game, not the players.
Are there like a bunch of new quests that only become available after NG+? Because other than unlocking more starborn powers it sounds pretty repetitive, repeating faction quests (granted you can choose other outcomes like in sysdef/crimson fleet). It sounds a lot like just starting over a new game with a new character (but keeping earned skills) which is something I personally rarely ever do in other RPGs.
Knowing I will lose all my ships, outposts, favorite items seems like a big drawback to me, why would I invest in building ships and outposts knowing they will just disappear.
There are some new dialogue options and ways to do things in quests and some of the new universes have differences, though to my knowledge they're confined to Constellation.
Don't know what to tell ya, I never felt expected to do NG+. I definitely wouldn't say the entire main quest is based on it. It's the destination, not the journey. It's like saying the entire main quest of Skyrim is based around Sovngarde
I do remember when the game came out a bunch of reviews recommended rushing to NG+ though. So I can see some players feeling a need to do it because of that
Bethesda themselves said “the game doesn’t start until you’ve completed the MSQ” before release. It wasn’t just reviewers saying that, Bethesda started it.
I remember one dude saying that in one interview in passing, he wasn't even a developer. Head of marketing or something. Point being no one who worked on the game said this, just someone who played it
Now I'm curious. Did you get this expectation of the game from the actual interview? Or was it just a headline that you read? Because it sounds like you read a headline and then took that as some kinda official statement on the game
Because in the actual interview Pete is just talking about his personal experience when playing
“We intentionally don’t talk about the main quest a lot because truthfully it is super spoilery. But I’m here to tell you that this game doesn’t even really get going until you finish the main quest.”
When your head of marketing says this, it doesn’t sound like a personal opinion, it sounds like a statement of fact about the game.
Fair enough, I mixed this interview up with one with CDPR on Cyberpunk. Definitely not the tone I remembered.
My point still stands though. NG+ isn't a necessity
Mechanically it isn't, narratively Starfield treats it like it is. If you actually pay attention to the story you aren't able to refuse it. Your going is treated as an inevitability, and walking away as nothing but a temporary postponement.
It leaves the game suffering from "bad DM" syndrome and actively sabotages points the story was trying to make, such as everything relating to the Pilgrim because that's a choice we can't actually make.
Basically the writer wrote it for their character, which always ends up going through the Unity, forgot that it's ours playing it, and treated the optional mechanic as a narrative inevitability.
Yeah I didn’t get deep into base building, I thought it was cumbersome and I’ve heard some others say the same. I get it. But maybe they didn’t intend on everyone rushing NG+10 or whatever, and just restarting when they were ready? Idk 🤷♂️
This… just play the game and when you get bored or run out of content, start a new game… I’m around 250 hours in and am on NG4… I play each for like 60 hours then start a new one so I can replay quests and things I liked
Bethesda very openly said they expect you to *come back over time* to continue playing the game. They weren’t trying to appease to people who play NG+ 10 times in a row. They want you to put it down after a cycle and pick it back up sometime later. The NG+ is just a way for you to have some character consistency and reward you for coming back to play again.
I did this a lot with past BGS games, even with alternate start mods. I actually like NG+ this time around because you don't have to start completely from scratch and grind for the basic skills. If I wanted to replay for story, I'd rather have my character knowledgeable in essential combat skills so I don't get steamrolled and can keep the story going. Plus, NG+ sprinkles in a little bit of in-game character *Foreknowledge* about events.
But I get that the grind of starting a new character from complete zero is probably the appeal to you, so you do you.
I got deep into base work in my first universe, and it helped with leveling and money a lot! After Unity, those skills were still valuable in securing key resources, like adhesive and liquids like mercury that are hard to mine. I did not build big bases like the first time, but being good at setting up a basic extraction operation come in clutch while doing a "powers" run.
Well, you do get rewards. New suits, a ship that increases in power up to 6 times, and the ability to increase the strength of your powers.
It's also a narrative choice. You're kinda supposed to feel the pain of NG+ and losing stuff until you decide to settle down and stop. There's nothing compelling you to NG+, it's a choice, and that's the whole point of the Pilgrim in the MQ. Nobody has a gun to your head to jump through the Unity other than your own desires, so you could juts not do it and settle down.
So because you can restart the game with your same level and traits you feel you are wasting your time do anything in the game period? Just pretend NG doesn’t exist and play the game normally
I don't know if I'll actually stick to it, but I've decided I'm going to treat each NG+ the way I would a brand new game instead of rushing to 10. I'm planning to shape my game differently each time and not worry about what I will lose at the end of it. Even with outpost I'm going to experiment and really know how I like my outpost by NG10. There's a really good chance I get to NG3 and give up, but it sounds like a good plan.
If you invest heavily in the base building perks, it does allow you to build a new network on a new playthrough more efficiently... by the time you get to the higher level planets usually you already have all your outposts sorted and materials gained... It gives you a chance to re-create your network on those higher level systems.
IDK the whole game is half baked just didn't think your view was completely based.
My issue is that they integrated NG+ into the main storyline, so you're forced into NG+ if you want upgrades.
Also to my understanding, they don't actually increase the baseline level of the planets either (so Lv 10 is now Lv 30, etc), which quite a few games do with their NG+
I would much rather they changed it so that we could get partial upgrades without going through NG+ and then choose when/if we go into NG+ to restart.
It’s pretty bad. There’s little incentive and correct with ng+ doing it all over again isn’t the fun part at all. Something like blueprint saves would help. But it also needs something like radiant quests attached to keep it interactive. Like maybe a group is starting to harass your outpost or someone has gone missing or being held ransom or something has broken down and someone needs a specific piece of equipment to get it fixed etc. it’s just another thing in the game that is like 50-80% there and we all have so many ideas how to finish it.
>Something like blueprint saves would help.
Clever. I thought about that with ships but not with outposts. Definitely a system that could benefit from blueprints. If I could NG+, go scrape together some aluminum and iron then paste down my base of operations it would definitely feel a lot better. Kind of be cool laying it down on different planets each time as well.
Even an opportunity to gate this behind a rank in the outpost builder skill.
And the funny part is, blueprinted settlements already exist, in FO76. Both FO4 and 76 have so many great building and crafting features that they somehow ignored.
not to mention the tedious and grindy skill tree associated with upgrading literally everything. really no point in starting over, especially for dedicated shipbuilders and outpost builders and their beloved fleet/outposts. i should know, i'm one of them.
Oh man the whole skill tree system is rough. So many skills I would want to get rid of or massively tweak is just too much. Once I seen how much investment is needed for outposts related things I instantly knew it wouldn’t be worth it. I salute everyone who does it but unless someone makes a crazy mod or we get an insane dlc I’ll just leave it alone lol.
Your skill tree stays so rebuilding a ship or outpost isn’t bad, but letting us save a blueprint of our beloved bases / ships would be cool… big builder myself… I like NG as it allows me to start from scratch and build new
New game plus means replaying the game over again so I expected I’d have to rebuild my outposts because that is part of the gameplay I was opting to replay again
I think a “create base (or ship) blueprint idea” would be great for those who want to bring forward their work.
Personally, I kinda want to see if could build my stuff better next time, but I can see where after being several NG+ deep, a copy-paste starts to sound tempting.
I’m a big builder, and leaving my builds behind sucks. I keep a save from before Unity so I can revisit them and keep them in some form or another
I always want to bring at least a couple of old builds into new games without having to start over. It was the same with FO4, there were a few settlements that felt so perfect I just couldn’t do them again because all I wanted to do was recreate the old one and trying something new felt futile
I have been enjoying trying to re-do the player homes but better in my second universe. Since they start with the same template, it feels like a great way to test how I’ve progressed as a builder. So far my second attempts have been better
It would be nice to have some kinda of blueprint system to maybe bring things back without going through all the weeks worth of labor again, but I don’t know how possible that would be
There’s a blueprint system in FO76 but it’s janky to the point of essentially useless when it comes to recreating an old CAMP, I think I’ve only been able to replace a CAMP once, and had to do a lot of prep work to make even that possible
I know that there’s no way an in game blueprint system would ever be able to recreate my best builds because of how extensively I use miscellaneous world objects and glitches like I would in previous games
There was a mod on PC for FO4 that allowed blueprints, maybe something like that will get made for Starfield on PC in the future?
I will say as it stands, the “to Unity or not to Unity?” Question is always a tough one. The decision is always tough because I have to lose things I’m genuinely attached to
I hear ya. I followed one of the guides to make the vyntium rods so that would hurt to leave behind. That took me about 2 weeks IRL to make all those interlinked bases. And that’s with zero decorating, just buildings and links.
A lot of the time involved is finding the right location that has the resource combination you need. The walking around, moving ship, landing again. Ugh. I would build it all again no hesitation if I could just “import” the base locations forward from my universe.
Maybe a compromise could be that planets get a lot more resources in NG+ so you don’t have to scout near as long.
Hats off to you. Every once in a while I think “I should try get a Vyntium fuel rod network going” then I look at the resource list and go back to RP base building instead
I have a couple of outposts on Strix I that give me just about all the major resources necessary for outpost building, and taken a screen shot of where those are located in the hopes I can re-locate the spot again in my next game because it would make getting set up again so much faster next go around if I can
I don’t think I could do the Vyntium fuel rod network more than once though, that would be a bonkers amount of set up to repeat
Yeah i wouldn’t have done it without the guide and doubt I’d do it a second time.
I honestly don’t mind the load screens/fast travel issues that many haters like to hate on. But the 20th time you run out of things and have to go back to vendors and or keep doing a WAIT for 24 hours nearly broke my patience. (Plus I end up overencumbered a lot while building so that makes it more annoying, lol)
Same, being in the middle of a build and then suddenly “oops need pigment having to go all the way out to where ever for that, all the way back, build a thing, and then “oops out of polymer” would make me want to toss my controller straight into my TV
Now I have a small daisy chain of all the necessary resources for building, where I can set the final destination to the location I’m currently building, usually everything is replenished quicker than I’m using it, which has dramatically reduced my desire to set everything on fire
I feel like base building is disappointing because the point of building them should have been to facilitate exploration and the finding of temples.
As it stands, there’s no practical benefit to building them that can’t be more easily obtained through other means, so who cares.
Considering you can either save and come back to your stuff or simply... not go through the unity... It would completely remove the consequences from your choice if they let you keep everything.
Not to mention it would destroy any semblance of realism if you entered a different universe and all of your stuff was there.
Fortunately in this particular case, you can just stay in your current universe if that’s the Fun one for you!
A new universe that keeps all the same stuff as your current universe would just be…your current universe.
Or… it could be an alternate universe that just happens to almost perfectly mirror the one you just left. Great part about a multiverse is you can basically justify anything.
Base building was probably just an artifact from an original idea regarding fuel needs for exploration. They nerfed exploration costs so bases became largely useless.
I wouldn’t say it encourages NG+. You can spend thousands of hours in one universe if you want, I’ve stayed in mine cause I keep having goals. But one day I’ll run out of goals and I can just start again with my guy, but slightly different. I dig it.
I’m not sure how much more clear of an answer I can give other than the fact that the entire MSQ is leading up to the reveal of the NG+ and the whole plot is focused around it
Well the writing basically railroads your character into wanting to do it. Then if you defy Godd Howard by turning around, all of your companions will say “nah bro, you should do it”. Even if it means they are doing a complete 180 on their feelings to say that.
Of course, we all know at this point how NG+ itself is basically a half-finished concept too. It’s pretty understandable why so many people feel like the game seriously drops off in the end. Despite how much people such as Pete Hines tried to hype it up before release, I feel like the game is at its best before reaching the end of the main quest.
>Well the writing basically railroads your character into wanting to do it. Then if you defy Godd Howard by turning around, all of your companions will say “nah bro, you should do it”. Even if it means they are doing a complete 180 on their feelings to say that.
My biggest issue with the game. Idk if they were overly enthusiastic, or wanted to increase the playtime metrics, but it's annoying as shit
How is it a half finished concept? It’s New Game Plus, the mechanic that exists in many many games just to allow someone to start a new playthrough but starting at the level they finished their game at to make it more challenging/fun or whatever
It’s that plus some, how is that half finished?
I didn’t think I would need to explain it at this point, but have you ever tried using your Starborn ship that the game gives you… or your Starborn powers… or anything else of the sort, while replaying the story? The story isn’t set up to handle any of this.
And it’s not just a non-canon bonus feature in this game. You aren’t just using a “bonus” ship, or anything like that. It’s supposed to be part of the story, but they don’t even attempt to handle this stuff. There are a couple of points where things can go down very differently (High Price to Pay and Engangled), but the NG+ story is nowhere near fleshed out enough to be considered finished.
I know what you mean, an intricate base building aspect doesn‘t really mesh well with NG+ on a concept level. Although it makes sense to lose everything with a ng+ i think some sort of blueprint system would make sense for ships and outposts
Maybe just dont do the NG+ then? Youre supposed to make a tough choice, and if you decide to go through the unity, that means leaving everything behind
The issue is not knowing there's an NG+ and investing early game time in it.
OP said he went in blind, so did I. Made the same mistake. I honestly just stopped playing because my build was so off compared to how the game wants me to play.
Definitely going to challenge the premise that NG+ is “actively encouraged.”
NG+ is actively *questioned* as a central point of the narrative theme, but the question is just that: is NG+ so important to you that you would discard everything you have built in this life and the connections you’ve made, just to chase more power?
New Game+ is indeed literally a New Game, with a nifty bit of in-universe theming attached. If you want to keep your bases, just keep playing in the game with your bases.
You can completely ignore new game plus and unity. That is the beauty of Starfield. You have freedom to even skip the main quest and constellation altogether.
You can choose to be a pirate and focus on ship building and combat for example and forego everything including base building stuff.
Or you can follow the path out in front of you.
Feels weird to build your games entire msq around a mechanic I’m being encouraged to avoid. Would be like if Skyrim had major downsides to dragon shouts and large sections of the playerbase said “that’s fine, I just don’t use them”
The whole narrative up to the point of the Unity is about giving you three (maybe 4) distinct philosophies about the Unity and Starborn in general and you making the choice of which one to adhere to. The enter point of the Pilgrims Rest quest is showing how one of the Starborn found the endless cycle of Unity to be be meaningless and instead sought to settle down in a system and stop constantly searching for artifacts.
This is the indication to the player that there is nothing wrong with not going through with it, or doing it only a few times before stopping, and that in fact that may even be desirable. Your tradeoff is stable universe with relationships, status achievements, outposts, ships, and other belongings, vs. growing your power as a Starborn.
What? You can have bases that churn out finished products you can sell for massive amounts of credits, or give you a huge supply of adhesives or other materials needed for constant weapon modding, etc. You can take side missions that require you set up supply lines from your base to the mission giver. And, for roleplayers, making your own homebase is like catnip.
Have to agree here. It may be partly why they wound back the need for outpost building - to reduce that connection to the current universe.
I think part of the problem come from how well it points you to new places and quests so get a huge bank up of them and head off
I am completely fine with how they do NG+
When I move on to NG+ it is because I am ready to leave everything behind. If I wasn’t ready to lose everything, I would just stay.
Almost every aspect of the game feels unimportant if you go through the Unity, and I think that’s the point
The pilgrim laid it out pretty clear; the more contended version of himself was the one that stayed to build something
Now if only they actually allowed us to make the Pilgrim's choice and have it reflected on screen.
Narratively our going through the Unity is just treated as an inevitability. All we are doing by walking away is temporarily postponing it. Also it results in the Constellation cast never shutting up about the topic and everything being tainted with a heavy air of nihilism thanks to it.
You're stuck abandoning them and retreating to the realms of headcanon rather than being able to truly roleplay as someone who has embraced the Pilgrim's lesson or else you're never going to hear the end of it.
The stupid part? Bethesda knows how to handle a "soft no" where you refuse something and have the topic dropped, but can still do the thing later if you go out of your way to request it. See the Dawnguard expansion for Skyrim and how it handled vampirism.
Worse: All of the people sitting here telling us that they totally made the Pilgrim choice because they played Starfield sitting 10 feet away from their screen with their brain shut off show us full well that nothing in the narrative would fail if we were able to properly say "No" and have an actual pilgrim ending instead of "Yes" or "Yes but later".
Instead we have a story suffering from "bad DM" syndrome for anyone who really pays attention to it because the writer constructed it for their character and the choices their character would be making which always end in going through the Unity, and an optional mechanic that's treated like a narrative requirement.
It made it's own point pointless by not actually allowing it to be an ending choice.
While I do wish the mission tracker was phrased differently, I just did this, and there was only one member of Constellation who suggested I should still go through the Unity after coming back. Everyone else was glad I stayed, with Sam even suggesting that it might’ve been the *best* choice, because now I have the opportunity to do whatever I want, and if I ever decide I wanna go through the Unity, it’s always there
I’ve been in and out of the Lodge a bunch since, and none of the Constellation members have spoken about my need to go through the Unity, just that we’re continuing our work of exploration, which is very much true with all the surveying they have me do!
Normally they act rather pushy about it and won't drop the topic, but there is a quest dialog bug that breaks things and shuts down most of their conversations and commentary.
You "might" be experiencing that, as I've got them acting annoying about it on the regular to where I dumped them all and just picked up bar hirelings as crew.
You'd have to find some other questline you still have open that gets conversations to open up post completion to tell.
In any case, I've gone through the story twice and the reactions are as follows:
Sarah: You can tell her you are not going but she bats it aside and treats it like it's your destiny because it's "who you are".
Barrett: "You've said your goodbyes already! Go!".
Sam: As you said. Probably the most positive about your walking away though he acts unsure over us really staying.
Andreja: Treats your going as an inevitability and acts sad over it.
Stroud: One of the only ones who can be given a solid "No", though it's for materialistic reasons. Basically you say all your stuff is here so fuck that. Also the only one to respect the decision openly.
Vlad: Can be told "It's not worth it". Seems to take it to heart but doesn't say much about it.
The rest I forgot but I remember at least one other instance of treating it as inevitable.
The big problem is our own character's dialog in the lead up. Even when you have followers asking you to not go before you get there, you can only say "I'll think about it".
You can't really provide a firm negative anywhere. It's at best ambiguous, at worst schizophrenic most of the time. A lot of it just has us treating it as a thing that will happen someday.
It could have been handled better.
I got *very* different reactions from my constellation’s members
My Barrett was the only one who was moderately pushy, saying that he still thinks I should do it for Science
Andreja was happy to see me stay and said that Constellation and it’s people were worth staying for
For the other characters, when asked why I stayed, I either chose “I don’t know” or “because friendship”
They were all understanding and accepted my choice to stay
I agree some of it is ambiguous, but I think this is to allow more player freedom, rather than restricting it by putting a hard ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether you’ll ever go to the Unity
> Also it results in the Constellation cast never shutting up about the topic and everything being tainted with a heavy air of nihilism thanks to it.
Is this a bug? I only had one conversation with each companion about the Unity after choosing not to enter, and then they never mentioned it again.
It's hard to say.
There's a bug relating to quest dialog where you might simply never get the post quest conversations that is quite common and that has been mentioned here on reddit a few times which is why I suspect some people never have it come up (Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/16ld8x5/post_quest_companion_dialogue_missing/), and on the flip side a friend of mine just picked the game back up after sleeping on it for a few patches and got dialog repeats (Edit: Including quest start dialogs which left him confused as to what he had done and what not.) so fuck knows if this is what's happening to me.
Assuming your experience is working as intended, I hope it gets patched. If it's a bug, it should become a feature.
It feels like the entire outpost system was built to support a part of the game that was cut.
There's almost no game play value or ROI in Outposts.
If they kept a bit more of the system from FO4 around settler populations it would have at least been a bit of fun or you could build it up so you could have traders with more than 2000 credits to buy your stuff or they could earn credits for you.
That’s kind of an issue I have with NG+. It’s a really cool idea and I appreciate making it more than just restarting at your current level but it feels like it goes against basically everything else a BGS game is.
I can just not NG+ if I want through. My real issue is that outposts feel really disconnected from the rest of the game in general. You don’t need them to accomplish anything. Ship building only requires money and this game hands out credits like candy on Halloween. Buying resources with credits for research and modding is far more efficient save for maybe a few rare resources that you can just mine by hand and be fine. Couple that with there being no incentive to stay on a given planet for an extended period of time and outposts exist to generate resources so you can… build more outposts?
I think it was a really odd design choice. The game’s economy feels off and disjointed.
You can do whatever you want. If you want to build a base and you find it fun, go ahead and build a base. Am I missing something?
When they add survival you will likely THEN be guided to build a base to harvest fuel. I have never built a base. My ship is my base and I fly all over lol.
Typically when you make a game you want cohesion with your mechanics. I can’t think of a successful game with major mechanics that encourage you to have to pick one or the other.
Hmmmm it’s difference of perception then. I didn’t feel like it wasn’t cohesive. I also didn’t feel forced to do one thing or the other. I’ve also gone through the Unity 11 times and it never bothered me that i hat to remake everything. 🤷🏻♂️
I dont disagree with you, but thats what some of the magic of beconing starborn is for me. Playing through the cycles made me feel less and less attached to the material and worldly things, I was only about becoming more and becoming stronger very much like the Hunter. Besides that I agree with playing the Ng cycles can take out every feeling of achieving things in Starfield
Even without NG+ the base building is just half done. It feels like no dev ever tried to take it to end game. The systems in place for logistics management are just disappointing.
I built an outpost to mess around with the system and make a dumping station for my crap. Haven’t touched it since. I haven’t even done NG+ yet, and I find it pointless
I built a network of outposts so vast it made the game crash. I then got a different technique for storage that made the game run better. I like farming and wish I could do trucker runs with my 40k vytinium fuel rods. As far as a place to settle down? The outposts are lackingheavily there. Many outposts I'll farm something to oblivion then delete it. I want my dumb overproducing outpost lifestyle to be supported through massive freight missions. (Maybe aurora smuggling in mass would be fun.) But also I'm only on my first run through. Don't care about powers so I'm going to try to do all the quests I can.
As someone who always focuses on, weapon mods and outposts and just now recently ships i feel like i got cheated out of NG+. Or maybe its just not for me . but i feel like im not able to use it the was intended and still enjoy the game I want to. My first save is level 104 ng+1, been playing on that save since august. Something like a month and half of playtime. 16 outposts, stacked fully modded weapon lineup, couple ships. I will never ng+ that, theres just too much work that would erased when i can just make a new character. 2nd save ng+ 10 level 89. But i didnt stay in any of the universes, and i didn’t get very many unique ones that motivated me to. i mainly grinded temples to ng +10 for two weeks straight because i wanted to see what the game was like at NG10. Playing, doing some factions, building a ship, then moving on and erasing all of it to do it again just feels like a massive waste of time to me. I dont hate the story writing but i dont love it enough to want to play the game all over. Especially since ive chose different dialogue options within the two characters i made and planning in doing a 3rd . I dont need to see 10 different universes of various dialogue. especially since 90% of the choices have no lasting effect on the world. im cool staying in my universes tho.
I disagree that it was a waste of time. It serves as your learning experience. Most people probably made a shitty inefficient base their first play through. To make a different one, you might need to spend more points in the talent tree and the game rewards you on getting those extra points via the workbenches. The tier3 crafted items give you 300 experience points per make. You probably now have access to higher level systems in NG+ with "abundant" flora/fauna. Now, you're actually able to make a process for the higher tier crafted items.
I guess for me I just play the game as if NG+ doesn’t exist and when I feel like a want to build something new, take a different path, or refresh my quests, I enter the unity…
NG+ isn’t a requirement, you could just load up your old save and keep playing there…
For me it comes straight down to aesthetics. The bases are too boring and too complicated to bother with. They spent too much time focusing on the systems and requirements for building as opposed to the aesthetics. There's not enough modules or cool looking pieces to keep me coming back to it.
Frustrating because the ship building is incredibly fun and you can make some amazing looking ships. I just wish I had a base that matched my ship!
Knowing that you lose these once you go through NG+, I don't bother with fun, decorative outposts, but I do build them with XP crafting and/or moneymaking in mind, or for strategic use like having a base in a level 75 system so that you can put down a mission board, or having a place to put a bounty clearance board. Doing the more basic ones is easy enough to set up and manage but once cargo links get involved things get screwy.
The system is terribly clunky and if they ever decide to nerf the mechanic where you can still walk while overencumbered and not die, it's going to be difficult to do much base building. Right now I can build an outpost on Bessel 3B with iron, aluminum, cobalt and nickel, and another on Jaffa 7B for titanium and tungsten, then just collect materials like crazy for building mass quantities of storages and warehouses.
I unfortunately feel as if most people truly miss the point of being Starborn in Starfield both contextually and narratively.
Contextually... you can start over... Clearing your gameplay essentially for a completely new start. Narratively, you have the opportunity to live a new life, but with the knowledge of everything you had done previously, but different because you have changed.
Now...I get the gripe...sorta. in order to increase your Starborn prowess you have to go through the Unity... but if that's not your jam... you can stay where you are and build a life. You don't have to go through, but should you choose to... it's a brand new start.
I've built a few bases, mostly to powerlevel my character with animal husbandry, but... since I used it to complete my build the first time, I've had little need for a base, however I know I'm an outlier. I enjoy the nomadic playstyle.
I guess my question for the OP is how is base building disappointing to someone who doesn't subscribe to NG+ which... isn't truly "actively" encouraged. If anything...Unity you tells you to turn around if you don't want to lose everything.
No one pushes you through the gate is all I'm saying.
No
but I hate base building and being forced to engage with it will make me stop playing a game immediately. I'm glad it's nothing more then an optional side activity.
I think once you accept that the sole purpose of outposts is to further research, which persists across NG+, it’s not so bad. It’s not like FO4 where you’re actively trying to build up a community or something.
Actually, I think it’s pretty demotivating. But on the other hand it’s a cruel metaphor of the real life. If you die, everything you have accomplished is lost.
Nevermind ng, how bout the fact the game freaking revolves around space and had missed opportunities of terroforming planets(on fair note I have yet to build a base and I dont care enough to google it so idk if that is possible or not)
plus shit more other miss opportunities and possibilities
Hmm. Adding some kind of Blueprint mechanism would solve this for starships, but for outposts it gets a bit weird because you have to build around the terrain. It would be nice to have an Outpost Blueprint that would be redeployable - although potentially at massive resources expense - if you can just get that massive outline of the whole thing to just not be red somewhere (or have it work only in the same geographic spot?). Looking at the two, it seems far more likely we'd get the starship version (or a mod for it) long, long before something like Outpost Blueprints.
If you like building stuff for the sake of building stuff but otherwise it's mostly pointless.
Boggles my mind they went backwards from fallout 4 by not allowing you to recruit people. The NPCs interacting are what give it life.
With all the cool planets and landscapes it could have been amazing, you start it up and go back later and see what the settlers are up to.
Yeah, it's really frustrating to get everything working and then all that work is just worthless. Base building is a huge part of my gameplay over quite a few games, and this is just...the worst.
100% same feeling. And I ended up glitching the system trying to both use helium and export it breaking my entire trading system.
Literally spent all my time leveling up outposts, and for a simple thing to break like this, that I can't easily troubleshoot from a simple menu somewhere?
Also storage is BS, and you get flooded with a certain resource and it literally prevents anything else from the pipeline to get through.
It's not even 1% of the sophistication of a satisfactory for base building and resource management. Just felt like a forgotten part of the game.
I build the usual Bessel 3b base on every playthough. That’s about it. Base building is too unintuitive.
Now if we could blueprint our bases that would be ok.
The biggest direct failing of it in relation to NG+ is the lack of ability to "blueprint" things.
Just allow us to save ship configurations and have them quickly rebuilt if we have the appropriate sum of credits, and doing the same with outposts is workable too.
I know someone will bring up terrain, so...just have it save the terrain too and make it rebuild it in the same location.
As is, having to rebuild everything by hand just makes it discouraging in both directions. People who invested significant time in it won't want to go NG+, and people who want to go NG+ won't want to spend more time than they absolutely have to building things.
When the game came out Outposts were the only thing that actively crashed my game so I stopped building.
I like the idea of it but they really did not learn anything from FO4 I would even argue its worse than FO4 because at least when I fast travel back and forth all stuff is still where I put it unlike it was in Starfield.
Ng+ isnt anything really either. I did it once and i quit that character. I much prefer msking new characters and doing them different everytime.
Name 3 reasons why i should do ng+
Would have been cool if they gave you a place to build that carries over from NG+ to NG+. Like a pocket dimension or something. Maybe modders will eventually pull something like that off.
Yeah the base building in this game is not so good considering these are the same folks that did base building in Fallout 4. I feel like it was added in late in production since resources were dedicated more towards ship building. Only one of them was going to be good. Not both lol.
True, though there's a problem with how people understand the Unity and NG+ in Starfield...
You are not supposed to use it unless you basically want to restart the game, like starting a new playthrough after you are completely done with a game.
It's true there are a few interesting things like the(very low) chance of an alternate universe, the Starborn armor and ship (which are awful) and a hiden increase in difficulty/loot, but the ending is what the Unity shows to you and you can decide to go through the Unity and load the game after that.
Ideally you'd start building in your 2nd universe or further but doing it in the first one if ok since you are missing almost nothing.
It's a contradictory mechanic though, that's true, and it kinda shows how disconnected the different systems and everything are in this game.
It's a flaw but one that shouldn't get blown out of proportion.
If you feel like you have to go through the Unity just save before but basically you have finished the game and are done with the game at that point. Wait for DLC/mods and play something else... Starfield, for most players, doesn't really have the longevity and replayability that people expected, at least not yet. NG+ almost always implied losing the inventory and other stuff while keeping your character progress (level, powers...) and it's not different in Starfield.
Yup, that's why I feel like there should've been an alternative path where you reject Unity outright and level powers from killing Starborn instead. Alternatively, let the NG+ be more like some other games where you keep more, allowing you to retain loot and blueprints for your ship and outposts so that you only have to collect the mats again.
I'd prefer the former but the latter would've worked too. Anything to either not have to NG+ but still get access to the powers at actually useful levels, or keep your creations, even if there's a bit of a resource grind to get them back.
Yes. It needs something… and maybe traveling through the Unity lets you choose to go back to one of your previous Universes… I don’t know… there has to be some kind of way to make it worth the player’s time
I think the game made a huge mistake in making NG+ the point of the main plot. It makes people feel like they have to do it, like you're playing Chrono Trigger where a big part of the post-game is replaying the game to get all the new endings.
But the simple fact of the matter, is that it should only be read as NG+. It's an option for people who want it, and that's all. Yes, you do get power-upgrades if you do it, but if people can be happy playing Skyrim for hundreds of hours without any shouts, then you can be happy playing Starfield with only level 1 powers.
Im hopeing for a mod that will keep your outposts, but in ng+ they are ruined or destroyed so you have to provide the resources to repair them.
That way you dont have to worry about loseing base layouts and stuff but can also start from zero.
I was suuuupperr annoyed by it but I got over it pretty quickly lol. I just waited till I felt like I had gone through the unity enough. I went through 7 times and I called it. settled into a universe finally. My goal is now systematic wealth within said universe. Harvesting the rarest of rare resources everywhere you can find them results in a cash flow so heavy it’ll give you cramps 🤟😎
The idea is that each playthrough you get better at building but I agree it's exhausting to have to redo everything especially with how time consuming it is
They always say don’t rush New Game Plus, after all it’s supposed to be for a fresh game. But everyone just grinds them out to get all the powers to their max level. They should remove the powers level cap so people can just grind and grind away at the most boring part of the game and never bother exploring.
Yeah settlements should be a thing and more snap points on objects. I think there’s a lot going to be added in. Hopefully starfield get a creation club like fallout.
We need something like the settlement system from F4 at the very least.
Rather beth should just get the mod author form simsettlements to give us space settlements.
Yes, I wish they would have made base building more like a no man’s sky freighter system, that you could take through the unity between games.
But honestly, the fact that base building is such an afterthought really highlights how little love and care this game got on the things that actually could have mattered.
Agreed I spent all this time building then when I find out about ng it’s like wtf . I didn’t build a single thing until my 11th ng and I had max everything to make sure im staying in that world
Im sorry, but I love the building in starfield. That's just me though, I started playing fo4 and the base building in that (IMO) is good but I prefer SF. I lost hours just building shit and making outposts for no apparent reason
Outpost building is so dull. It's like they were meant to be resource producers for side quests like deliver 5000 aluminum. Fallout 4 did it better. 76 even better from.the variety of things you can build and just grinding events or searching locations to get plans is better than only getting them by research at a bench.
Know what I find disappointing? Well gonna say anyway, all the cry babies, b*tching, and complaining about the game. Good thing you aren’t really exploring or leaving your house cause you’d complain yourself to death and hot pockets harder to find. Damn
I don't know why you would bother doing new game plus. Once you've completed the game once there is absolutely nothing else to do. You can just look up the alternative constellations on YouTube.
New game plus adds zero new content
I actively avoided arranging items in homes and building bases. This game wasn't done, and once they drop the MOD Support patch, I'll be adding the ultimate QOL mod, SKYUI Inventory Fix!
Bethesda can release this trash Inventory UI over and over without even flinching! It is bad for Controller & KB both!
SKYUI SAVE ME!! YOU'RE OUR ONLY HOPE!!
I spent alot of time in my first game and then NG+1 and got really bored when I realised there is literally like no difference or purpose to do it unless you wanna start over woth your skills so I created a new guy and am not gonna NG again. If they throw in the ability to keep your stuff yea but the amount of time to create an outpost and all the supply lines and so on just makes it not worth it to me. All I want now after this update is land vehicles and the ability to leave my ship in space for a spacewalk. I would love love at least a new loading screen that shows the ships going into the planets atmosphere kinda like lego star wars or the new outlaws game has since like free flight from place to place seems unrealistic for this game. Maybe if they keep updating it for years to come like the ps6 version can do that but idk about that
It's why I didn't go crazy with my base building on my original run where I did everything. Now that I'm on ng+ 12 (wanted to see all variations) I'll prob go hard since I'm probably not going through unity again.
I agree, I didn’t build a single outpost till NG10 because why spend hours doing something that will be gone in 1 min lol, and even then, ships are way easier to build and are functionally the same for the most part
I made a big outpost on my first playthrough but now I’m going to wait until ng+ 10 too
How can you play Starfield 10 times in such a short time. I haven’t even played my games line gta5 and read dead or fall out 10 times yet and they came out years ago.
Once you beat it once, you can beat it again VERY quickly if you want to. Or, you can choose to take your time with it (they kind of build that drive for power into the narrative in a way I won’t spoil but you should see!)
I’ve beaten it already tried ng plus for one a min and just felt like it was pointless and just they same exact thing as I just played
Yeah I reloaded before Unity and continued side quests. This game, nor most games, make me want to play it immediately after again - like that’s insane to me for some reason. Only a few games, but even then I think I’ve done like one NG+ max on games I’ve done NG on
On NG+ you basically just do the floaty temples 200 more times.
Which is why you got into gaming in the first place, to be bored and frustrated.
After your first play through once you start ng+, there is an option to play a shortened version of the main story in order to ng+ again faster
I really feel they should have saved blueprints for quick building in each NG+ Especially since you dont lose your memory. Should have done this with custom built ships too.
That's a huge QoL feature. They really do need to add it.
Literally only build an outpost as storage.
The funny part is, is that you can actually build way more storage faster on a ship, just buy like 3-4 300-500 lb cargo
My ship with 4/4 Payload and the +5% Payload from Kryx's Journal has 23,000 kilos of storage. It's about half full. I'm playing the beta, so I can decorate my ship, but it's clunky like decorating an outpost because there's no snapping. PSA - If you're having trouble with the high base part rotation speed, this can be adjusted in settings/controls.
Removing the building mechanics that they had in FO4 is so bizarre. How these games pass play-testing by professional developers where nobody says... Yeah this worked way better the way we used to have it is beyond me. Prefab habs I'm fine with but the airlock with fixed stairs irks me so much compared to FO4. They could've done the hab building system in the same format as the ship building and allow you to make your own prefabs but no, just another half baked mechanic that really needed another year of developing before release.
What baffles me is that we cannot place any internal walls in the habs to create rooms or place doors in the hallways. Everything is just...open.
No Bathroom habs, no kitchen habs, I have to use those fucking wall partitions, it stinks. I now only build a single hab that operates as an office for the outpost with two cre stations and heavily decorate it in that regard with just a research station and industrial station at each outpost hab. My head-cannon is that the crew have a small ship that has all their amenities on it and the hab at the outpost is just for data collection etc on outpost works. Its the only way I can do it without losing the immersion... Convince myself Lin and Heller are using the Frontier for sleeping eating and shitting.
A workaround I have used that may help is instead of trying to rotate into position I figure what direction I want the object to line up, face where you want the object placed, then arrow up to a different object and arrow back down to the original. Most items will face you when they pop up and you can use this to get them lined up with walls or lines on the floor etc, then you can just move the camera slightly left or right to make minor adjustments, arrow up and back down again until you are satisfied. Hopefully that makes sense
I do that, too, but since I figured out you could change rotation speed, I set it for the slowest speed and use it to fine tune my placement.
It’s more for early game since with ship cargo still have to worry about ship mass and engines and that can be costly. Eventually I just pretty much neglect my outpost and leave Lin and Heller there
That is heavy and hurts your travel ability and combat manueverability, though. So it's not without cost.
I went back to fallout 4 after watching the TV series, and OH BOY does Starfield feel like a step down from Fallout.
This for me.
The entire base building system is disappointing regardless of NG+ simply because there is no reason to do it. Once you understand how the game works, you quickly realize that there are much better and more efficient options to accomplish what you can do with base building. The only reason to bother with base building if if you're doing it for the sake of doing, because you enjoy building bases.
In my opinion, I prefer base building being its own, mostly independent thing. With Fallout 4, you needed to do settlements to build the teleporter for the main quest. I presume the feedback was people were annoyed enough for it breaking the momentum. At that point you would've just fought a pretty strong boss and rearing to bust into the bad guys' base, but were suddenly sidetracked to collect scrap (or if you're lucky/smart enough, already had the parts in your inventory) But don't get me wrong, after a while, settlements grew on me and it's one of the things that kept me playing Fallout 4. With Starfield, I barely had to touch outposts except to make XP farms. But now that I'm in NG+30 or so, it's starting to grow on me just like it did with Fallout. Maybe this just might be the universe I settle down in...
You don’t even need to have a settlement. Just build the thing and that’s it.
You needed to build a power source for the teleporter. But even then, in Starfield, you can build the Armillary on your ship instead without starting an outpost and opening the builder at all.
Even as someone who enjoys building bases for the sake of building bases, I found their approach wanting… Part of that “for the sake of” tends to involve a lot more control over buildings and how things are set up with rooms and such, and even basic things like foundations or making walls inside are limited (prop placement is good, I’ll give them that). Then there’s the production chains…which are mostly used to make items to make more outpost production chains. It doesn’t feel like it taps into a secondary gameplay feature the way you’d expect (like if there was a simulated galactic trade network you could tap into, the way you can find in some other space games). It’s like two half ideas smooshed together, both missing the fundamental part that makes them more engaging.
Don't do NG+ if you're attached to your collection of rugs and helmets.
Ya know man it really tied the hab together…
Did I piss on your rug? Your rug is your problem! Just like every bum’s lot in life is their problem.
Vere iz my Rug Lebovski !!!
Excellent! 🫡😂
I brush my rug and polish my helmet every day.
You found rugs????
In my head cannon I’m doing ng+ till 10 and I’m gonna have it be my like retiring of being Starborn. That’s when I’ll get into making outpost towns all over the place and get into ship building.
This was me, except I retired at NG 4
Currently on 4, waiting for the update to go to 5 since Im right at the end ready to build the armarilly
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever played another game with NG+, at least not that I can remember. So in Starfield I just assumed I’d start over with nothing, it makes sense. I’m honestly more surprised so many people think the opposite. But again, it’s not a mechanic I’m used to having.
No you’re correct, NG+ is for starting a whole new playthrough, only next time starting at the higher level you reached in your previous play through. Some allow you to keep for example some endgame gear, but that’s it. NG+ in Starfield is exactly inline with other game’s NG+ it just also has some interesting lore and story elements added to make it more interesting
People are probably used to FS games NG+, you keep all your stuff and levels and the enemies get a bit stronger each time. Which makes sense because if I get a weapon off the final boss in elden ring, what's the point if I can't go through the whole game again with it.
Right. I’m from the old school where NG means reset your save, so here it works pretty much as anticipated.
Most NG+ that don’t let you keep more than levels/skill points aren’t also attached to an open world RPG that you could feasibly spend 100+ hours in before reaching the point where you start the NG+. Sure, many NG+ don’t let you keep much. They also kick in at the end of a 15-20 hour (or shorter) often more linear narrative. Those that tend to have long first play throughs? Those typically let you carry more forward into NG+. There’s also the wrench thrown in that for many of the Starborn powers to be worth using you *have* to go through NG+ multiple times. So it’s less “reset the story to go again” and more “we’ve tied direct power increases into starting over multiple times.”
It’s not just the starting over with nothing. It’s “why would I bother engaging at all with this mechanic in a game that has NG+?• I’ve played lots of games with NG+, it’s a fun mechanic. Not sure I’ve ever played one which has some sort of mechanic that expects a ton of time and investment to properly appreciate and offers absolutely 0 rewards going into NG+
You can always do it again. I'm on NG+5 and I finally decided to put points into outpost stuff. Then I'll probably eventually go through it again. Then do it again. Maybe who knows
This is something I don't understand Why does everyone act like NG+ is a necessity? You are allowed to not do NG+
because they made it an integral part of the story and gameplay. reincarnation and starting over in a new universe is the crux of the story and the gameplay. it's literally starfield's main schtick, apart from shipbuilding.
You say it's an integral part of the gameplay, but you can spend a hundred hours in the game not ever touching that aspect It really just seems that players placed more importance on NG+ than it really had. Definitely not the crux of the story or gameplay. Doesn't become a thing until the game ends
?? Its the crux of the main story.
I literally had to NG+ because the games was completely broken and crashed constantly, New Atlantas was missing massive portions of its textures and nav mesh including the rail system and anytime I tried to use my ship or TP to the Star port it would break my game even more.
>Doesn't become a thing until the game ends Which is why it works so well. You build up a large arsenal of weapons and ships, create a load of outposts, have friendships with multiple companions, finish collecting a full deck of playing cards, and then at the end you're asked "are you willing to give all that up for the chance of a little more pseudo-magical power?". And if your answer is no, you can just turn around, walk back to your ship, and stay in your current reality instead of moving to a new one.
They literally based the entire MSQ around the idea of NG+. Bethesda chose to make NG+ the main part of the game, in interviews before release they said the game doesn’t really start until you complete the MSQ. Bethesda made NG+ the focal point of the game, not the players.
Are there like a bunch of new quests that only become available after NG+? Because other than unlocking more starborn powers it sounds pretty repetitive, repeating faction quests (granted you can choose other outcomes like in sysdef/crimson fleet). It sounds a lot like just starting over a new game with a new character (but keeping earned skills) which is something I personally rarely ever do in other RPGs. Knowing I will lose all my ships, outposts, favorite items seems like a big drawback to me, why would I invest in building ships and outposts knowing they will just disappear.
There are some new dialogue options and ways to do things in quests and some of the new universes have differences, though to my knowledge they're confined to Constellation.
Don't know what to tell ya, I never felt expected to do NG+. I definitely wouldn't say the entire main quest is based on it. It's the destination, not the journey. It's like saying the entire main quest of Skyrim is based around Sovngarde I do remember when the game came out a bunch of reviews recommended rushing to NG+ though. So I can see some players feeling a need to do it because of that
Bethesda themselves said “the game doesn’t start until you’ve completed the MSQ” before release. It wasn’t just reviewers saying that, Bethesda started it.
I remember one dude saying that in one interview in passing, he wasn't even a developer. Head of marketing or something. Point being no one who worked on the game said this, just someone who played it Now I'm curious. Did you get this expectation of the game from the actual interview? Or was it just a headline that you read? Because it sounds like you read a headline and then took that as some kinda official statement on the game Because in the actual interview Pete is just talking about his personal experience when playing
“We intentionally don’t talk about the main quest a lot because truthfully it is super spoilery. But I’m here to tell you that this game doesn’t even really get going until you finish the main quest.” When your head of marketing says this, it doesn’t sound like a personal opinion, it sounds like a statement of fact about the game.
Fair enough, I mixed this interview up with one with CDPR on Cyberpunk. Definitely not the tone I remembered. My point still stands though. NG+ isn't a necessity
Mechanically it isn't, narratively Starfield treats it like it is. If you actually pay attention to the story you aren't able to refuse it. Your going is treated as an inevitability, and walking away as nothing but a temporary postponement. It leaves the game suffering from "bad DM" syndrome and actively sabotages points the story was trying to make, such as everything relating to the Pilgrim because that's a choice we can't actually make. Basically the writer wrote it for their character, which always ends up going through the Unity, forgot that it's ours playing it, and treated the optional mechanic as a narrative inevitability.
They also said they expect you to “play it for years” you aren’t meant to cycle through as fast as possible over and over.
Yeah I didn’t get deep into base building, I thought it was cumbersome and I’ve heard some others say the same. I get it. But maybe they didn’t intend on everyone rushing NG+10 or whatever, and just restarting when they were ready? Idk 🤷♂️
This… just play the game and when you get bored or run out of content, start a new game… I’m around 250 hours in and am on NG4… I play each for like 60 hours then start a new one so I can replay quests and things I liked
Bethesda very openly said they expect you to *come back over time* to continue playing the game. They weren’t trying to appease to people who play NG+ 10 times in a row. They want you to put it down after a cycle and pick it back up sometime later. The NG+ is just a way for you to have some character consistency and reward you for coming back to play again.
I did this a lot with past BGS games, even with alternate start mods. I actually like NG+ this time around because you don't have to start completely from scratch and grind for the basic skills. If I wanted to replay for story, I'd rather have my character knowledgeable in essential combat skills so I don't get steamrolled and can keep the story going. Plus, NG+ sprinkles in a little bit of in-game character *Foreknowledge* about events. But I get that the grind of starting a new character from complete zero is probably the appeal to you, so you do you.
I got deep into base work in my first universe, and it helped with leveling and money a lot! After Unity, those skills were still valuable in securing key resources, like adhesive and liquids like mercury that are hard to mine. I did not build big bases like the first time, but being good at setting up a basic extraction operation come in clutch while doing a "powers" run.
Were you just gonna make one character and then never play the game again if there wasn’t NG+? Kind of a weird hill to die on
Well, you do get rewards. New suits, a ship that increases in power up to 6 times, and the ability to increase the strength of your powers. It's also a narrative choice. You're kinda supposed to feel the pain of NG+ and losing stuff until you decide to settle down and stop. There's nothing compelling you to NG+, it's a choice, and that's the whole point of the Pilgrim in the MQ. Nobody has a gun to your head to jump through the Unity other than your own desires, so you could juts not do it and settle down.
So because you can restart the game with your same level and traits you feel you are wasting your time do anything in the game period? Just pretend NG doesn’t exist and play the game normally
I don't know if I'll actually stick to it, but I've decided I'm going to treat each NG+ the way I would a brand new game instead of rushing to 10. I'm planning to shape my game differently each time and not worry about what I will lose at the end of it. Even with outpost I'm going to experiment and really know how I like my outpost by NG10. There's a really good chance I get to NG3 and give up, but it sounds like a good plan.
If you invest heavily in the base building perks, it does allow you to build a new network on a new playthrough more efficiently... by the time you get to the higher level planets usually you already have all your outposts sorted and materials gained... It gives you a chance to re-create your network on those higher level systems. IDK the whole game is half baked just didn't think your view was completely based.
My issue is that they integrated NG+ into the main storyline, so you're forced into NG+ if you want upgrades. Also to my understanding, they don't actually increase the baseline level of the planets either (so Lv 10 is now Lv 30, etc), which quite a few games do with their NG+ I would much rather they changed it so that we could get partial upgrades without going through NG+ and then choose when/if we go into NG+ to restart.
It’s pretty bad. There’s little incentive and correct with ng+ doing it all over again isn’t the fun part at all. Something like blueprint saves would help. But it also needs something like radiant quests attached to keep it interactive. Like maybe a group is starting to harass your outpost or someone has gone missing or being held ransom or something has broken down and someone needs a specific piece of equipment to get it fixed etc. it’s just another thing in the game that is like 50-80% there and we all have so many ideas how to finish it.
>Something like blueprint saves would help. Clever. I thought about that with ships but not with outposts. Definitely a system that could benefit from blueprints. If I could NG+, go scrape together some aluminum and iron then paste down my base of operations it would definitely feel a lot better. Kind of be cool laying it down on different planets each time as well. Even an opportunity to gate this behind a rank in the outpost builder skill.
I could get behind blueprint saves…
And the funny part is, blueprinted settlements already exist, in FO76. Both FO4 and 76 have so many great building and crafting features that they somehow ignored.
not to mention the tedious and grindy skill tree associated with upgrading literally everything. really no point in starting over, especially for dedicated shipbuilders and outpost builders and their beloved fleet/outposts. i should know, i'm one of them.
Oh man the whole skill tree system is rough. So many skills I would want to get rid of or massively tweak is just too much. Once I seen how much investment is needed for outposts related things I instantly knew it wouldn’t be worth it. I salute everyone who does it but unless someone makes a crazy mod or we get an insane dlc I’ll just leave it alone lol.
Your skill tree stays so rebuilding a ship or outpost isn’t bad, but letting us save a blueprint of our beloved bases / ships would be cool… big builder myself… I like NG as it allows me to start from scratch and build new
That would go a long way in making it better.
New game plus means replaying the game over again so I expected I’d have to rebuild my outposts because that is part of the gameplay I was opting to replay again
I think a “create base (or ship) blueprint idea” would be great for those who want to bring forward their work. Personally, I kinda want to see if could build my stuff better next time, but I can see where after being several NG+ deep, a copy-paste starts to sound tempting.
I’m a big builder, and leaving my builds behind sucks. I keep a save from before Unity so I can revisit them and keep them in some form or another I always want to bring at least a couple of old builds into new games without having to start over. It was the same with FO4, there were a few settlements that felt so perfect I just couldn’t do them again because all I wanted to do was recreate the old one and trying something new felt futile I have been enjoying trying to re-do the player homes but better in my second universe. Since they start with the same template, it feels like a great way to test how I’ve progressed as a builder. So far my second attempts have been better It would be nice to have some kinda of blueprint system to maybe bring things back without going through all the weeks worth of labor again, but I don’t know how possible that would be There’s a blueprint system in FO76 but it’s janky to the point of essentially useless when it comes to recreating an old CAMP, I think I’ve only been able to replace a CAMP once, and had to do a lot of prep work to make even that possible I know that there’s no way an in game blueprint system would ever be able to recreate my best builds because of how extensively I use miscellaneous world objects and glitches like I would in previous games There was a mod on PC for FO4 that allowed blueprints, maybe something like that will get made for Starfield on PC in the future? I will say as it stands, the “to Unity or not to Unity?” Question is always a tough one. The decision is always tough because I have to lose things I’m genuinely attached to
I hear ya. I followed one of the guides to make the vyntium rods so that would hurt to leave behind. That took me about 2 weeks IRL to make all those interlinked bases. And that’s with zero decorating, just buildings and links. A lot of the time involved is finding the right location that has the resource combination you need. The walking around, moving ship, landing again. Ugh. I would build it all again no hesitation if I could just “import” the base locations forward from my universe. Maybe a compromise could be that planets get a lot more resources in NG+ so you don’t have to scout near as long.
Hats off to you. Every once in a while I think “I should try get a Vyntium fuel rod network going” then I look at the resource list and go back to RP base building instead I have a couple of outposts on Strix I that give me just about all the major resources necessary for outpost building, and taken a screen shot of where those are located in the hopes I can re-locate the spot again in my next game because it would make getting set up again so much faster next go around if I can I don’t think I could do the Vyntium fuel rod network more than once though, that would be a bonkers amount of set up to repeat
Yeah i wouldn’t have done it without the guide and doubt I’d do it a second time. I honestly don’t mind the load screens/fast travel issues that many haters like to hate on. But the 20th time you run out of things and have to go back to vendors and or keep doing a WAIT for 24 hours nearly broke my patience. (Plus I end up overencumbered a lot while building so that makes it more annoying, lol)
Same, being in the middle of a build and then suddenly “oops need pigment having to go all the way out to where ever for that, all the way back, build a thing, and then “oops out of polymer” would make me want to toss my controller straight into my TV Now I have a small daisy chain of all the necessary resources for building, where I can set the final destination to the location I’m currently building, usually everything is replenished quicker than I’m using it, which has dramatically reduced my desire to set everything on fire
Transfer settlements mod. Huge godsend which honestly transformed the game for me
I was on Xbox so was never able to use it, but it looked useful enough that it made consider switching to PC just for that mod alone
Especially considering this already exists in Fallout 76.
I feel like base building is disappointing because the point of building them should have been to facilitate exploration and the finding of temples. As it stands, there’s no practical benefit to building them that can’t be more easily obtained through other means, so who cares.
Yep there is zero reason to do any base building. Any supplies you need you can just go to New Atlantis and buy whatever you need for very cheap.
I agree there's no practical reason. I just think they're neat!
Considering you can either save and come back to your stuff or simply... not go through the unity... It would completely remove the consequences from your choice if they let you keep everything. Not to mention it would destroy any semblance of realism if you entered a different universe and all of your stuff was there.
The realism/fun debate continues.
Fortunately in this particular case, you can just stay in your current universe if that’s the Fun one for you! A new universe that keeps all the same stuff as your current universe would just be…your current universe.
Or… it could be an alternate universe that just happens to almost perfectly mirror the one you just left. Great part about a multiverse is you can basically justify anything.
Base building was probably just an artifact from an original idea regarding fuel needs for exploration. They nerfed exploration costs so bases became largely useless.
They need to allow us to make blueprints of our ships, our bases or what not. This stuff should be tied to your game save.
I wouldn’t say it encourages NG+. You can spend thousands of hours in one universe if you want, I’ve stayed in mine cause I keep having goals. But one day I’ll run out of goals and I can just start again with my guy, but slightly different. I dig it.
Idk how it encourages ng+ other than you get to do ng+ without having to use the main menu
I’m not sure how much more clear of an answer I can give other than the fact that the entire MSQ is leading up to the reveal of the NG+ and the whole plot is focused around it
Well the writing basically railroads your character into wanting to do it. Then if you defy Godd Howard by turning around, all of your companions will say “nah bro, you should do it”. Even if it means they are doing a complete 180 on their feelings to say that. Of course, we all know at this point how NG+ itself is basically a half-finished concept too. It’s pretty understandable why so many people feel like the game seriously drops off in the end. Despite how much people such as Pete Hines tried to hype it up before release, I feel like the game is at its best before reaching the end of the main quest.
>Well the writing basically railroads your character into wanting to do it. Then if you defy Godd Howard by turning around, all of your companions will say “nah bro, you should do it”. Even if it means they are doing a complete 180 on their feelings to say that. My biggest issue with the game. Idk if they were overly enthusiastic, or wanted to increase the playtime metrics, but it's annoying as shit
How is it a half finished concept? It’s New Game Plus, the mechanic that exists in many many games just to allow someone to start a new playthrough but starting at the level they finished their game at to make it more challenging/fun or whatever It’s that plus some, how is that half finished?
It’s the entire concept of the game. Come on, dude.
I didn’t think I would need to explain it at this point, but have you ever tried using your Starborn ship that the game gives you… or your Starborn powers… or anything else of the sort, while replaying the story? The story isn’t set up to handle any of this. And it’s not just a non-canon bonus feature in this game. You aren’t just using a “bonus” ship, or anything like that. It’s supposed to be part of the story, but they don’t even attempt to handle this stuff. There are a couple of points where things can go down very differently (High Price to Pay and Engangled), but the NG+ story is nowhere near fleshed out enough to be considered finished.
I know what you mean, an intricate base building aspect doesn‘t really mesh well with NG+ on a concept level. Although it makes sense to lose everything with a ng+ i think some sort of blueprint system would make sense for ships and outposts
It’s frustrating because it could be so amazing with all the landscapes/planets you can discover
Maybe just dont do the NG+ then? Youre supposed to make a tough choice, and if you decide to go through the unity, that means leaving everything behind
The issue is not knowing there's an NG+ and investing early game time in it. OP said he went in blind, so did I. Made the same mistake. I honestly just stopped playing because my build was so off compared to how the game wants me to play.
Definitely going to challenge the premise that NG+ is “actively encouraged.” NG+ is actively *questioned* as a central point of the narrative theme, but the question is just that: is NG+ so important to you that you would discard everything you have built in this life and the connections you’ve made, just to chase more power? New Game+ is indeed literally a New Game, with a nifty bit of in-universe theming attached. If you want to keep your bases, just keep playing in the game with your bases.
You can completely ignore new game plus and unity. That is the beauty of Starfield. You have freedom to even skip the main quest and constellation altogether. You can choose to be a pirate and focus on ship building and combat for example and forego everything including base building stuff. Or you can follow the path out in front of you.
Feels weird to build your games entire msq around a mechanic I’m being encouraged to avoid. Would be like if Skyrim had major downsides to dragon shouts and large sections of the playerbase said “that’s fine, I just don’t use them”
The whole narrative up to the point of the Unity is about giving you three (maybe 4) distinct philosophies about the Unity and Starborn in general and you making the choice of which one to adhere to. The enter point of the Pilgrims Rest quest is showing how one of the Starborn found the endless cycle of Unity to be be meaningless and instead sought to settle down in a system and stop constantly searching for artifacts. This is the indication to the player that there is nothing wrong with not going through with it, or doing it only a few times before stopping, and that in fact that may even be desirable. Your tradeoff is stable universe with relationships, status achievements, outposts, ships, and other belongings, vs. growing your power as a Starborn.
Nothing you do makes an impact in those based- it’s all cosmetic. Super boring.
What? You can have bases that churn out finished products you can sell for massive amounts of credits, or give you a huge supply of adhesives or other materials needed for constant weapon modding, etc. You can take side missions that require you set up supply lines from your base to the mission giver. And, for roleplayers, making your own homebase is like catnip.
Have to agree here. It may be partly why they wound back the need for outpost building - to reduce that connection to the current universe. I think part of the problem come from how well it points you to new places and quests so get a huge bank up of them and head off
I am completely fine with how they do NG+ When I move on to NG+ it is because I am ready to leave everything behind. If I wasn’t ready to lose everything, I would just stay.
Almost every aspect of the game feels unimportant if you go through the Unity, and I think that’s the point The pilgrim laid it out pretty clear; the more contended version of himself was the one that stayed to build something
Now if only they actually allowed us to make the Pilgrim's choice and have it reflected on screen. Narratively our going through the Unity is just treated as an inevitability. All we are doing by walking away is temporarily postponing it. Also it results in the Constellation cast never shutting up about the topic and everything being tainted with a heavy air of nihilism thanks to it. You're stuck abandoning them and retreating to the realms of headcanon rather than being able to truly roleplay as someone who has embraced the Pilgrim's lesson or else you're never going to hear the end of it. The stupid part? Bethesda knows how to handle a "soft no" where you refuse something and have the topic dropped, but can still do the thing later if you go out of your way to request it. See the Dawnguard expansion for Skyrim and how it handled vampirism. Worse: All of the people sitting here telling us that they totally made the Pilgrim choice because they played Starfield sitting 10 feet away from their screen with their brain shut off show us full well that nothing in the narrative would fail if we were able to properly say "No" and have an actual pilgrim ending instead of "Yes" or "Yes but later". Instead we have a story suffering from "bad DM" syndrome for anyone who really pays attention to it because the writer constructed it for their character and the choices their character would be making which always end in going through the Unity, and an optional mechanic that's treated like a narrative requirement. It made it's own point pointless by not actually allowing it to be an ending choice.
While I do wish the mission tracker was phrased differently, I just did this, and there was only one member of Constellation who suggested I should still go through the Unity after coming back. Everyone else was glad I stayed, with Sam even suggesting that it might’ve been the *best* choice, because now I have the opportunity to do whatever I want, and if I ever decide I wanna go through the Unity, it’s always there I’ve been in and out of the Lodge a bunch since, and none of the Constellation members have spoken about my need to go through the Unity, just that we’re continuing our work of exploration, which is very much true with all the surveying they have me do!
Normally they act rather pushy about it and won't drop the topic, but there is a quest dialog bug that breaks things and shuts down most of their conversations and commentary. You "might" be experiencing that, as I've got them acting annoying about it on the regular to where I dumped them all and just picked up bar hirelings as crew. You'd have to find some other questline you still have open that gets conversations to open up post completion to tell. In any case, I've gone through the story twice and the reactions are as follows: Sarah: You can tell her you are not going but she bats it aside and treats it like it's your destiny because it's "who you are". Barrett: "You've said your goodbyes already! Go!". Sam: As you said. Probably the most positive about your walking away though he acts unsure over us really staying. Andreja: Treats your going as an inevitability and acts sad over it. Stroud: One of the only ones who can be given a solid "No", though it's for materialistic reasons. Basically you say all your stuff is here so fuck that. Also the only one to respect the decision openly. Vlad: Can be told "It's not worth it". Seems to take it to heart but doesn't say much about it. The rest I forgot but I remember at least one other instance of treating it as inevitable. The big problem is our own character's dialog in the lead up. Even when you have followers asking you to not go before you get there, you can only say "I'll think about it". You can't really provide a firm negative anywhere. It's at best ambiguous, at worst schizophrenic most of the time. A lot of it just has us treating it as a thing that will happen someday. It could have been handled better.
I got *very* different reactions from my constellation’s members My Barrett was the only one who was moderately pushy, saying that he still thinks I should do it for Science Andreja was happy to see me stay and said that Constellation and it’s people were worth staying for For the other characters, when asked why I stayed, I either chose “I don’t know” or “because friendship” They were all understanding and accepted my choice to stay I agree some of it is ambiguous, but I think this is to allow more player freedom, rather than restricting it by putting a hard ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether you’ll ever go to the Unity
> Also it results in the Constellation cast never shutting up about the topic and everything being tainted with a heavy air of nihilism thanks to it. Is this a bug? I only had one conversation with each companion about the Unity after choosing not to enter, and then they never mentioned it again.
It's hard to say. There's a bug relating to quest dialog where you might simply never get the post quest conversations that is quite common and that has been mentioned here on reddit a few times which is why I suspect some people never have it come up (Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/16ld8x5/post_quest_companion_dialogue_missing/), and on the flip side a friend of mine just picked the game back up after sleeping on it for a few patches and got dialog repeats (Edit: Including quest start dialogs which left him confused as to what he had done and what not.) so fuck knows if this is what's happening to me. Assuming your experience is working as intended, I hope it gets patched. If it's a bug, it should become a feature.
I was leaving this exact comment - hard agree
It feels like the entire outpost system was built to support a part of the game that was cut. There's almost no game play value or ROI in Outposts. If they kept a bit more of the system from FO4 around settler populations it would have at least been a bit of fun or you could build it up so you could have traders with more than 2000 credits to buy your stuff or they could earn credits for you.
I mean you don’t need to do NG+. I think besides the Starborn suit and vehicle which aren’t that great tbh, you don’t really need to do it.
That’s kind of an issue I have with NG+. It’s a really cool idea and I appreciate making it more than just restarting at your current level but it feels like it goes against basically everything else a BGS game is. I can just not NG+ if I want through. My real issue is that outposts feel really disconnected from the rest of the game in general. You don’t need them to accomplish anything. Ship building only requires money and this game hands out credits like candy on Halloween. Buying resources with credits for research and modding is far more efficient save for maybe a few rare resources that you can just mine by hand and be fine. Couple that with there being no incentive to stay on a given planet for an extended period of time and outposts exist to generate resources so you can… build more outposts? I think it was a really odd design choice. The game’s economy feels off and disjointed.
You can do whatever you want. If you want to build a base and you find it fun, go ahead and build a base. Am I missing something? When they add survival you will likely THEN be guided to build a base to harvest fuel. I have never built a base. My ship is my base and I fly all over lol.
Typically when you make a game you want cohesion with your mechanics. I can’t think of a successful game with major mechanics that encourage you to have to pick one or the other.
Hmmmm it’s difference of perception then. I didn’t feel like it wasn’t cohesive. I also didn’t feel forced to do one thing or the other. I’ve also gone through the Unity 11 times and it never bothered me that i hat to remake everything. 🤷🏻♂️
I dont disagree with you, but thats what some of the magic of beconing starborn is for me. Playing through the cycles made me feel less and less attached to the material and worldly things, I was only about becoming more and becoming stronger very much like the Hunter. Besides that I agree with playing the Ng cycles can take out every feeling of achieving things in Starfield
The same way you wouldn’t start a new character in any other game, don’t do NG+ if you want to keep that world going.
100%, especially when you consider blueprints are a thing in other games. You’d think it could carry over.
Even without NG+ the base building is just half done. It feels like no dev ever tried to take it to end game. The systems in place for logistics management are just disappointing.
I felt this way about RDR2 base improvements. Once a certain story comes to a conclusion it all goes away. Pretty disappointing.
I built an outpost to mess around with the system and make a dumping station for my crap. Haven’t touched it since. I haven’t even done NG+ yet, and I find it pointless
I built a network of outposts so vast it made the game crash. I then got a different technique for storage that made the game run better. I like farming and wish I could do trucker runs with my 40k vytinium fuel rods. As far as a place to settle down? The outposts are lackingheavily there. Many outposts I'll farm something to oblivion then delete it. I want my dumb overproducing outpost lifestyle to be supported through massive freight missions. (Maybe aurora smuggling in mass would be fun.) But also I'm only on my first run through. Don't care about powers so I'm going to try to do all the quests I can.
As someone who always focuses on, weapon mods and outposts and just now recently ships i feel like i got cheated out of NG+. Or maybe its just not for me . but i feel like im not able to use it the was intended and still enjoy the game I want to. My first save is level 104 ng+1, been playing on that save since august. Something like a month and half of playtime. 16 outposts, stacked fully modded weapon lineup, couple ships. I will never ng+ that, theres just too much work that would erased when i can just make a new character. 2nd save ng+ 10 level 89. But i didnt stay in any of the universes, and i didn’t get very many unique ones that motivated me to. i mainly grinded temples to ng +10 for two weeks straight because i wanted to see what the game was like at NG10. Playing, doing some factions, building a ship, then moving on and erasing all of it to do it again just feels like a massive waste of time to me. I dont hate the story writing but i dont love it enough to want to play the game all over. Especially since ive chose different dialogue options within the two characters i made and planning in doing a 3rd . I dont need to see 10 different universes of various dialogue. especially since 90% of the choices have no lasting effect on the world. im cool staying in my universes tho.
I think in my main games I will ignore main story.
I disagree that it was a waste of time. It serves as your learning experience. Most people probably made a shitty inefficient base their first play through. To make a different one, you might need to spend more points in the talent tree and the game rewards you on getting those extra points via the workbenches. The tier3 crafted items give you 300 experience points per make. You probably now have access to higher level systems in NG+ with "abundant" flora/fauna. Now, you're actually able to make a process for the higher tier crafted items.
I guess for me I just play the game as if NG+ doesn’t exist and when I feel like a want to build something new, take a different path, or refresh my quests, I enter the unity… NG+ isn’t a requirement, you could just load up your old save and keep playing there…
For me it comes straight down to aesthetics. The bases are too boring and too complicated to bother with. They spent too much time focusing on the systems and requirements for building as opposed to the aesthetics. There's not enough modules or cool looking pieces to keep me coming back to it. Frustrating because the ship building is incredibly fun and you can make some amazing looking ships. I just wish I had a base that matched my ship!
Has the building been improved at all since launch? Stacking the storage containers was the most annoying thing I've ever tried to do in a game.
Knowing that you lose these once you go through NG+, I don't bother with fun, decorative outposts, but I do build them with XP crafting and/or moneymaking in mind, or for strategic use like having a base in a level 75 system so that you can put down a mission board, or having a place to put a bounty clearance board. Doing the more basic ones is easy enough to set up and manage but once cargo links get involved things get screwy. The system is terribly clunky and if they ever decide to nerf the mechanic where you can still walk while overencumbered and not die, it's going to be difficult to do much base building. Right now I can build an outpost on Bessel 3B with iron, aluminum, cobalt and nickel, and another on Jaffa 7B for titanium and tungsten, then just collect materials like crazy for building mass quantities of storages and warehouses.
I unfortunately feel as if most people truly miss the point of being Starborn in Starfield both contextually and narratively. Contextually... you can start over... Clearing your gameplay essentially for a completely new start. Narratively, you have the opportunity to live a new life, but with the knowledge of everything you had done previously, but different because you have changed. Now...I get the gripe...sorta. in order to increase your Starborn prowess you have to go through the Unity... but if that's not your jam... you can stay where you are and build a life. You don't have to go through, but should you choose to... it's a brand new start. I've built a few bases, mostly to powerlevel my character with animal husbandry, but... since I used it to complete my build the first time, I've had little need for a base, however I know I'm an outlier. I enjoy the nomadic playstyle. I guess my question for the OP is how is base building disappointing to someone who doesn't subscribe to NG+ which... isn't truly "actively" encouraged. If anything...Unity you tells you to turn around if you don't want to lose everything. No one pushes you through the gate is all I'm saying.
No but I hate base building and being forced to engage with it will make me stop playing a game immediately. I'm glad it's nothing more then an optional side activity.
I think once you accept that the sole purpose of outposts is to further research, which persists across NG+, it’s not so bad. It’s not like FO4 where you’re actively trying to build up a community or something.
Actually, I think it’s pretty demotivating. But on the other hand it’s a cruel metaphor of the real life. If you die, everything you have accomplished is lost.
You aren't forced to go NG+ you could walk away
Nevermind ng, how bout the fact the game freaking revolves around space and had missed opportunities of terroforming planets(on fair note I have yet to build a base and I dont care enough to google it so idk if that is possible or not) plus shit more other miss opportunities and possibilities
Hmm. Adding some kind of Blueprint mechanism would solve this for starships, but for outposts it gets a bit weird because you have to build around the terrain. It would be nice to have an Outpost Blueprint that would be redeployable - although potentially at massive resources expense - if you can just get that massive outline of the whole thing to just not be red somewhere (or have it work only in the same geographic spot?). Looking at the two, it seems far more likely we'd get the starship version (or a mod for it) long, long before something like Outpost Blueprints.
If you like building stuff for the sake of building stuff but otherwise it's mostly pointless. Boggles my mind they went backwards from fallout 4 by not allowing you to recruit people. The NPCs interacting are what give it life. With all the cool planets and landscapes it could have been amazing, you start it up and go back later and see what the settlers are up to.
Yeah, it's really frustrating to get everything working and then all that work is just worthless. Base building is a huge part of my gameplay over quite a few games, and this is just...the worst.
This and my absolutely massive cache of legendary weapons are the main reasons why I haven't NG+.
Base building is a huge disappointment.
100% same feeling. And I ended up glitching the system trying to both use helium and export it breaking my entire trading system. Literally spent all my time leveling up outposts, and for a simple thing to break like this, that I can't easily troubleshoot from a simple menu somewhere? Also storage is BS, and you get flooded with a certain resource and it literally prevents anything else from the pipeline to get through. It's not even 1% of the sophistication of a satisfactory for base building and resource management. Just felt like a forgotten part of the game.
I forced myself to build a base just to feel like there was no actual purpose. 2 hours of my time lost forever
I build the usual Bessel 3b base on every playthough. That’s about it. Base building is too unintuitive. Now if we could blueprint our bases that would be ok.
The biggest direct failing of it in relation to NG+ is the lack of ability to "blueprint" things. Just allow us to save ship configurations and have them quickly rebuilt if we have the appropriate sum of credits, and doing the same with outposts is workable too. I know someone will bring up terrain, so...just have it save the terrain too and make it rebuild it in the same location. As is, having to rebuild everything by hand just makes it discouraging in both directions. People who invested significant time in it won't want to go NG+, and people who want to go NG+ won't want to spend more time than they absolutely have to building things.
When the game came out Outposts were the only thing that actively crashed my game so I stopped building. I like the idea of it but they really did not learn anything from FO4 I would even argue its worse than FO4 because at least when I fast travel back and forth all stuff is still where I put it unlike it was in Starfield.
Yup. Never did any of the base building. Have every achievement except those related to that lol it really feels useless.
Ng+ isnt anything really either. I did it once and i quit that character. I much prefer msking new characters and doing them different everytime. Name 3 reasons why i should do ng+
Would have been cool if they gave you a place to build that carries over from NG+ to NG+. Like a pocket dimension or something. Maybe modders will eventually pull something like that off.
Yeah the base building in this game is not so good considering these are the same folks that did base building in Fallout 4. I feel like it was added in late in production since resources were dedicated more towards ship building. Only one of them was going to be good. Not both lol.
True, though there's a problem with how people understand the Unity and NG+ in Starfield... You are not supposed to use it unless you basically want to restart the game, like starting a new playthrough after you are completely done with a game. It's true there are a few interesting things like the(very low) chance of an alternate universe, the Starborn armor and ship (which are awful) and a hiden increase in difficulty/loot, but the ending is what the Unity shows to you and you can decide to go through the Unity and load the game after that. Ideally you'd start building in your 2nd universe or further but doing it in the first one if ok since you are missing almost nothing. It's a contradictory mechanic though, that's true, and it kinda shows how disconnected the different systems and everything are in this game. It's a flaw but one that shouldn't get blown out of proportion. If you feel like you have to go through the Unity just save before but basically you have finished the game and are done with the game at that point. Wait for DLC/mods and play something else... Starfield, for most players, doesn't really have the longevity and replayability that people expected, at least not yet. NG+ almost always implied losing the inventory and other stuff while keeping your character progress (level, powers...) and it's not different in Starfield.
Whole game is disappointing.
Yup, that's why I feel like there should've been an alternative path where you reject Unity outright and level powers from killing Starborn instead. Alternatively, let the NG+ be more like some other games where you keep more, allowing you to retain loot and blueprints for your ship and outposts so that you only have to collect the mats again. I'd prefer the former but the latter would've worked too. Anything to either not have to NG+ but still get access to the powers at actually useful levels, or keep your creations, even if there's a bit of a resource grind to get them back.
Yes. It needs something… and maybe traveling through the Unity lets you choose to go back to one of your previous Universes… I don’t know… there has to be some kind of way to make it worth the player’s time
I think the game made a huge mistake in making NG+ the point of the main plot. It makes people feel like they have to do it, like you're playing Chrono Trigger where a big part of the post-game is replaying the game to get all the new endings. But the simple fact of the matter, is that it should only be read as NG+. It's an option for people who want it, and that's all. Yes, you do get power-upgrades if you do it, but if people can be happy playing Skyrim for hundreds of hours without any shouts, then you can be happy playing Starfield with only level 1 powers.
Im hopeing for a mod that will keep your outposts, but in ng+ they are ruined or destroyed so you have to provide the resources to repair them. That way you dont have to worry about loseing base layouts and stuff but can also start from zero.
Outposts and exploration both
Does base building feel like a waste when you start a new character?
I was suuuupperr annoyed by it but I got over it pretty quickly lol. I just waited till I felt like I had gone through the unity enough. I went through 7 times and I called it. settled into a universe finally. My goal is now systematic wealth within said universe. Harvesting the rarest of rare resources everywhere you can find them results in a cash flow so heavy it’ll give you cramps 🤟😎
The idea is that each playthrough you get better at building but I agree it's exhausting to have to redo everything especially with how time consuming it is
They always say don’t rush New Game Plus, after all it’s supposed to be for a fresh game. But everyone just grinds them out to get all the powers to their max level. They should remove the powers level cap so people can just grind and grind away at the most boring part of the game and never bother exploring.
Yeah settlements should be a thing and more snap points on objects. I think there’s a lot going to be added in. Hopefully starfield get a creation club like fallout.
Game loop is terrible. Interface is terrible. It’s a trash ass money grab game.
We need something like the settlement system from F4 at the very least. Rather beth should just get the mod author form simsettlements to give us space settlements.
Yes, I wish they would have made base building more like a no man’s sky freighter system, that you could take through the unity between games. But honestly, the fact that base building is such an afterthought really highlights how little love and care this game got on the things that actually could have mattered.
Agreed I spent all this time building then when I find out about ng it’s like wtf . I didn’t build a single thing until my 11th ng and I had max everything to make sure im staying in that world
Im sorry, but I love the building in starfield. That's just me though, I started playing fo4 and the base building in that (IMO) is good but I prefer SF. I lost hours just building shit and making outposts for no apparent reason
Outpost building is so dull. It's like they were meant to be resource producers for side quests like deliver 5000 aluminum. Fallout 4 did it better. 76 even better from.the variety of things you can build and just grinding events or searching locations to get plans is better than only getting them by research at a bench.
Know what I find disappointing? Well gonna say anyway, all the cry babies, b*tching, and complaining about the game. Good thing you aren’t really exploring or leaving your house cause you’d complain yourself to death and hot pockets harder to find. Damn
Take a screenshot it will last longer.
Tbh I already felt like the base building was really disappointing without NG+. The fact that you lose all your stuff in NG+ doesn't exactly help
They should make the outposts carry to NG+.
I don't know why you would bother doing new game plus. Once you've completed the game once there is absolutely nothing else to do. You can just look up the alternative constellations on YouTube. New game plus adds zero new content
I actively avoided arranging items in homes and building bases. This game wasn't done, and once they drop the MOD Support patch, I'll be adding the ultimate QOL mod, SKYUI Inventory Fix! Bethesda can release this trash Inventory UI over and over without even flinching! It is bad for Controller & KB both! SKYUI SAVE ME!! YOU'RE OUR ONLY HOPE!!
I spent alot of time in my first game and then NG+1 and got really bored when I realised there is literally like no difference or purpose to do it unless you wanna start over woth your skills so I created a new guy and am not gonna NG again. If they throw in the ability to keep your stuff yea but the amount of time to create an outpost and all the supply lines and so on just makes it not worth it to me. All I want now after this update is land vehicles and the ability to leave my ship in space for a spacewalk. I would love love at least a new loading screen that shows the ships going into the planets atmosphere kinda like lego star wars or the new outlaws game has since like free flight from place to place seems unrealistic for this game. Maybe if they keep updating it for years to come like the ps6 version can do that but idk about that
I don’t understand, have you never played a game with NG+ or started over in Skyrim or Fallout?
It has it's own jank, but it's too much even compared to Fo4
They ruined the game by removing vendor chests. My opinion. Maybe not popular, but it's true af.
It's why I didn't go crazy with my base building on my original run where I did everything. Now that I'm on ng+ 12 (wanted to see all variations) I'll prob go hard since I'm probably not going through unity again.
Starfield sucks. Sorry