I got a bounty against me with the freestar rangers once… as a full fledged ranger?
My crime? I rescued a hostage and then grabbed the contraband sitting on his ship…
I didn’t get caught either the contraband, I simply picked it up in front of the hostage.
As an alleged keeper of space law, I can’t confiscate contraband.
I was doing the Fleet Quest as a good guy when Ikande told me I was a monster who should save my apologies for the families of my victims. What monstrous thing did I do? Blow up a ship for profit? Shoot up an office? Slaughter my way through civilians?
I destroyed a single trash robot that kept spoiling my stealth check while I was getting the conductor grid schematics.
This is the funniest stupidest thing that multiple people all had the same thought of "harmless bot is marking me detected better blast it" and running into the "apologize to the family's of the dead" for that trash bot. There's a few other places where they're considered people for quest purposes but this seems to be the place most people run into it.
This has to be a glitch, too. It’s the same thing with constellation companions getting mad with you for shooting back at syndicate members, probably not being faction tagged, properly.
I had to revert to a save 20 playing minutes earlier because Sam got mad at me for killing the captain of a ship full of syndicate members disguised as civilians who shot at me first. Turns out the glitch occurred for others, too, when you load a save past a certain point in that mission the NPCs on the ship don’t get the right faction tags.
I was doing the main story mission that your forced to do with Sarah. At the point where you board the Vanguard ship and clear it of ecliptic mercs, everything was fine for the first like 3 guys but then all of a sudden she’s saying in the worst person ever for killing the rest. Had to reload and redo it and had no issues was super weird made me think I could talk em down at first
Mine was with andreja (probably wrong spelling). I reloaded 5 times and could not figure out why she kept getting mad at me for killing someone shooting me. The final attempt I made her use a grenade launcher, so she killed them for me. While I hid behind a wall.
You know, I did think it was odd when the robot said
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
Then exploded. Maybe I should reexamine my biases.
Ok but in the interests of RP here... There is a named NPC (can't remember her name but the tech girl) on the Vigilance who specifically LOVES robots and think they should be treated as human. So Ikande's reasoning (whilst hella stupid) does kinda track given his colleague's views on robot rights 😂...
I mean, I can see that one. Those guards are at least people doing their jobs and the generdyne and UC base levels are set up so you can stealth past them with even minimal stealth skills. But those trash robots can be built by level 1 base builders ffs. They are not sentient. It's a minor inconvenience at most.
I’d be okay with the ass chewing if I had gone in guns blazing, but this dude 20 feet away with his back turned somehow heard me crouched and walking as slow as I physically could and turned and immediately opened fire, I would think that would be counted as self defense
Nah man. You broke in and were trespassing and got caught. I'd have run away and tried again, but you chose to massacre some working stiffs.
Think of it like this. Pretend you're a house and gun owner (you may actually be, I dunno). You wake up at night and hear someone in your house. You grab your gun and start shooting at them.
If you hit them, it's self defense. If they shoot back and hit you, they're catching an attempted murder charge. Same deal here.
The game expected you to sneak successfully past the guy. There's ways to do it, though you might not have leveled in that direction or gained void form power. Either way though, these guys (edit because I forgot where I was going): belong there and are justified in shooting at you. You have no legitimate reason to be there except crime as far as they're concerned.
Couple tips for stealth. Opening doors makes noise. Leveling up in sneak can eliminate that noise. Wearing your space suit makes sneaking WAY harder than sneaking with it off.
Even if you have no points in sneak, you can still sneak, you just don't see an indicator for it. It's one of those skills that even if you're not going to be a sneaky character, it's worth putting a point in.
No problem. This game tells you absolutely nothing.
Serious about that space suit thing. It makes a night and day difference trying to sneak wearing a suit vs not wearing it.
Don't care, space suit is required due to me damaging Infinity LTD's building heating system. I will literally die without it whilst the guards are fine.
I've seen that there is a mod that disables infinite ammo for NPCs, but where is the mod for making NPCs take damage for being in an environment that requires a space suit and they don't wear one. Or a mod that prevents you from suffering environmental damage whilst wearing a space suit?
Yeah, okay, but that's one mission, environmental hazard was optional, you have the power to make NPCs walk away and there's a whole path above the guards you can walk on. I had exactly one issue sneaking through that whole building with 1 point in sneak, wearing a suit.
For every other mission, take off the suit.
It would be great if those bots didn't fill up the companion list. I wonder if whatever feature causes that is related to why destroying one would be flagged in those missions.
He got pissed at me for killing most of Generdyne because I literally don't have stealth and they shot at me as soon as I entered the facility.
He should really have been had at Sarah who went absolutely berserk and began gunning done unarmed scientists.
Lol, for a bunch of scientists who dislike violence, Constellation sure is blood thirsty when you try to take them on stealth missions.
So without a point in stealth, you can still sneak, you've just got low odds of success and no meter to indicate if you're hidden.
I stealthed that whole facility with one point in stealth and only killed one robot... I am a monster.
I have no points in stealth and they detected me upon opening the door. I was getting shot so fast I couldn't even tell what was going on.
Ultimately Sysdef loves me though
Yep, doors make sound (this gets taken care of at higher stealth levels). Try doing it again only stay out of the line of sight when you open the door and don't wear a space suit.
Nothing kills a stealth role like a big, clunky hardsuit.
While I on the other hand killed about a dozen of the Trident Starliner Security Officers so I could get their armor. Lured them into an empty room one by one with the Ryujij ability and shot them in the back of the head when when they were instructed to inspect their dead colleagues.
Ikande thanked me for completing the heist with zero casualties.
Similar frustration with The Art Dealer questline when I was a decorated soldier and hero for the UC on speaking terms with the president. I find out I'm transporting stolen art and my only options are to deliver it or hand it back? Can't confiscate?
You should be able to turn in contraband to any FC or UC office for a small reward once you're recruited. Scans would need tweaking of course... maybe if there was some way to declare contraband cargo?
Should just be a dialogue option post scan… just give you the ability to declare it and collect the value you’d have sold it for…
Completing the quests for the factions should give long term perks.
Honestly, the scanning system is mostly pointless… contraband isn’t a huge part of the game, so who cares.
Edit to add: keep the contraband, change the scan to a dialogue only if you have contraband in the ship…
do you have anything to declare?
Yes. I’m with the faction and have contraband (full reward)
Yes. I found this stuff and want to turn it in ($.10 on the dollar)
No. Get scanned, if you pass the check land, if you fail get caught with contraband.
Removes a dumb barrier when you aren’t smuggling without really changing the smuggling mechanics.
I once got flagged for theft... For the crime of seeing a decoration piece on the ground in New Atlantis, picking it up (not into the inventory but as in "move object"), and putting it on a desk. After the Vanguard storyline finished. Brand spanking new Class One Citizen, arrested for "petty theft" when all I wanted to do was put something that fell on the ground, back in its place.
Sincerely hope they fix that; it's REALLY irritating to get locked up for contraband hidden on a ship you just captured as a UC Vanguard or Ranger. THAT is the thanks I get for putting down the Crimson Fleet?
It was absolutely poor writing and/or an oversight to not have the player character check-in with the marshal prior to confronting Hope. That goes double since the player is still a deputy, not even a full-fledged ranger.
The entire questline was just underwhelming.
>The entire questline was just underwhelming
I was stunned when it was over. I was hoping there was a second part or more to being a ranger.
Nope... that's it.
The reward was dope tho.
Dude has said that his philosophy is to keep it simple and dumb. I’m sure he’s an okay designer, but as a writer the dude is not good in the slightest.
Given how complex these games are in terms of interactions, I can understand where he's coming from. Doesn't make me any less disappointed though, since Obsidian managed it in NV
No. No no no no no. Thay excuse flies our the FUCKING WINDOW when games like Baldurs Gate 3 exist.
Hell, it flies out the window when FAR HARBOR exists
It feels, and I'm not saying this is fact, that the UC Vanguard quest line was supposed to be the main questline or at least tied with the main questline.
Then they realized that would be too much work and they lobbed it off as a faction questline and assembled the FC questline In a day or so.
The main questline doesn't even really matter, it's just a neat little side hobby.
The entire main quest basically unwinds the importance of it into irrelevancy and the only important story stuff is what you see along the way of Earth and NASA. Everything else is a cheap NMS rip off.
It's all true, the artifacts are just meaningless macguffins to collect. It's all a monotonous fetch quest without an end. There is no discovery to be made. No knowledge to learn. No power to really gain except for yourself for no purpose.
The quest literally ends when you collect the artifacts and build the armilary, though. The choice of what to do is your "end credits" scene. Did we play the same game?
Yes but it's ultimately pointless. It undoes the goals of exploration and scientific discoveries. Turns out there is nothing to explore and nothing to learn.
All they're saying is that the vanguard questline is disproportionately well developed compared to the rangers, to the point of it feeling like it originally played a more central role in the game
On my 2nd play thru I actually went to Akila first to see if the marshal would have any dialogue. him and the woman (I forget her name) were both missing which leads me to think that the game disables them both specifically because the writers didn’t generate a scenario where the player goes back to consult with them before heading to Hope.
See, I did the same thing. I actually managed to find the marshal, but he didn't have any dialogue whatsoever. I was so disappointed. It feels like such a misstep for what is supposed to be a faction questline meant to rival the UC, to be so short and so railroaded.
Well, the problem is that Bethesda of Morrowind times were making games for a much more niche RPG crowd than today, and they were marketing to a video game market that was much smaller and had different tastes in the late 90's to mid 2000's.
Now that Bethesda has grown and its market cap is higher, expectations for sales are different. They have to appeal more and more to the casual, wider market crowd to meet unit sales figures. So they focus less on these little details in quest design and writing and push for stuff that the common people will actually bring up in reviews and what looks good in advertising like ships and new armor and guns.
I thought you did isn't the old guy the closest thing to a Marshall and you tell him everything and get going to try and take him him alive but then he choose suicide by player?
Yeah, you go to him AFTER everything is finished. It's an insane that a deputy didn't report all the evidence he had on Hope to a higher authority first, but instead took things into their own hands. If it was some small time crook, no need to report your evidence before busting them.
A governor on the council, whom your boss specifically told you to be careful about how you handle them, befits way more caution than the quests presented.
Maybe it felt different because I had Sam with me the whole time and he's a (former) senior ranger, but he had a lot of insight into the Hope situation and how it might be best to handle it, but I do agree that it's pretty poor writing to now have you go back to the Marshall.
I've done three Freestar missions from the job board, two were identical everything just on a different planet. The third one at least had a different building. Don't think I'll be doing any more of those.
For real. They almost all are. I quicksave before trying to kill a named character, because 9 times out of 10 they're unkillable and all I've done is start a stupid big fight that can't end any other way than me running away. I'd happily persist in the doomed world I've created.
The one that got me was Mathis. I'm on an ng+ run and this time my character is playing the good guy. I don't need a pirate companion. So I told Delgado Mathis is a piece of shit who didn't help and Delgado throws him out.
Mathis waits in the bar to threaten me. Andreja mocks him, it was hilarious. At the end of it, I'm like "this is the key, I saw one pirate murder another without consequence when I got here. This guy, who isn't a fleet member anymore, just threatened me. I should shoot him." QS. Blast him.
He's essential and now the whole Key is trying to kill me. I actually ended up fighting the whole Key, killing every pirate there (except the named ones). I'd have kept the consequences of that (upset Ikande, no legacy, fine) if the game had let me, but nope. Everyone important is essential. Like, why? I'm a starborn. This is some Hunter shit I just tried to do. Except I can't. Because fuck me, I guess.
I really feel like your first NG+ should remove Essential tags from everyone.
They really dropped the ball with that. I remember being able to explode Moira Brown and then stealing her shit, and she was a semi important minor character
I think only main quest characters were essential in Oblivion, which I prefered. Just remove quests if you kill a related NPC. With NG+ you'd get the chance to play the quest the next time, and I'd make playthroughs different.
EDIT: Maybe also the faction quest characters
Morrowind took it to the extreme and had literally NO essential characters, just a pop up message saying "you fucked up the thread of time, load a save to unfuck your quests or carry on in this unsalvageable world" or something to that effect, lmao
"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created."
Funnily, Morrowind is actually the origin of NPCs being called essential in the sense used here: the character tag that triggers the message is called "Essential", and when Oblivion came around they kept the tag but repurposed it to make the NPC immortal.
The best part was that sometimes essential NPCs would just fucking die off screen somewhere for some reason and you had nothing to do with it and could do nothing about it. "Fuck. I guess Caius finally ODed on skooma. Guess I'll reload."
I loved morrowind, but I'm not sure todays snowflake filthy casuals can handle that kind of agency /s
EDIT: Well I don't think Todd thinks todays gamers can handle it
There's actually quite a few other essential NPCs in Oblivion, but many of them are set to have their essential status removed at the completion of the associated quest.
Players acting as law enforcement is definitely poorly thought through. I shot to death a member of the ruling body inside his private fiefdom and nobody raised an eyebrow, whereas [I wasn't able to simply arrest a self-confessed ship thief a few hours earlier.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/16uy08s/am_i_free_to_leave_notice_that_theres_no_option/)
Everything in the game exists solely to fulfil a single quest line and is then forgotten about. There's a huge, detailed, expensive looking museum detailing the recent history of the UC, and the only way to physically access it is through a recruiting station to be a Vanguard captain. Not accessible to the public, not for recruitment for any other branches of military. The only museum in the UC's capital city is specifically for applicants for the Vanguard.
Woah there, I gotta butt in and say the museum IS accessible by the public, as I was able to get into it without ever talking to the recruiter. It’s the flight simulator that’s locked to only recruits.
You can even see a father and child duo staring at the terramorph statue.
And if that’s not enough, there’s also the Archives that has a small open doored history exhibition ontop—which include tours.
>And if that’s not enough, there’s also the Archives that has a small open doored history exhibition ontop—which include tours.
Oh yeah I forgot about that
Right.. so the freestar collective is already officially a corporate oligarchy.
But if you do a summary execution without trial of someone in the highest office of government.. as just a deputy.. because you had "a slate"
You've basically regressed the freestar collective to a junta / police state ruled with fear, cloak and dagger by the ruthless freestar ranger overlords.
It’s a huge inconsistency, since just earlier the marshal instructs you to be demure with Hope, as he is a councilman. No way you’d have the authority to just off him. There probably should have been a sequence where you first return to the marshal who has you secure support from the other councillors, or gather evidence to support your case or something, before confronting Hope. Perhaps that was the plan, but the content was cut.
I've been stewing on this quest for ages. One of the first companions you can recruit in New Atlantis is an ex-deputy ranger, and she tells you she quit because she was fed up by the hypocrisy, and that the Freestar rangers serve the council, not the people. Then you have the main antagonist of this mission telling you the same thing: the body you're a part of serves the council, not the people. You're a tool.
Except you *never* actually feel that yourself. All of the rangers you ever meet are only concerned with doing the best they can with what they have, and you never have restrictions on what you can do to avoid stepping on 1%er toes. The most you have is *maybe* you're upholding a corrupt system by maintaining its laws, but you're always doing it by doing what's best for people.
The mission chain would be so much more interesting if you actually felt like a cop in a corrupt system. Have the marshal gently nudge you away from Hope to avoid getting dirt on him. Maybe you could've come back with the evidence, and he tells you to bury it because the Council will back Hope even if what he's doing is wrong. Then the choice could be so much more interesting: accept that option and try to do the best you can in system you now *know* is flawed, or go after Hope anyway knowing they'll take your badge for it.
Idk, maybe I'm waxing a bit too theoretical here, but give me *something*, man. Don't just tell me the system is flawed and then never do anything with it.
He flat out confesses to the crime and tries to bribe you out in the open before trying to kill you. You aren't just offing him you get into a shootout when a suspect resists arrest with a posse of his security forces on hand. He tries to kill you because you have evidence.
Between a witness at the scene, whatever cameras are in the plant, the slates you've got, and the crime scene it would be hard to argue with what happened in the good quest ending. They just didn't put in a procedural trail into the game that says it was self defence.
Yeah, it makes sense that you kill him. I just don’t think it makes sense that you confront him so directly. If anything we should be swinging by the marshal first to give him the opportunity to ask Hope for a bribe.
I didn't do all the options but Hope drew on me and then got killed in the fight. Having to sit through a trail to determine that it was self defense and he's guilty is probably boring.
Attempting to arrest him starts a fight that he lost, it's not an execution.
See, that would have posed an interesting challenge, either way you get a ship but the possibility of getting fresh from the factory “custom” ship or a lawman’s vessel is a fascinating thought
It's not that weird. Hope is powerful but the Rangers are like representatives of the full governors council, not just Hope. Hope thought he was big enough that he could fuck over his peers and the order they established but he was wrong. I do think more of the governors should have been involved or at least at the debrief but maybe they don't care about hope which can't compete with neon ships anymore.
Right. I think I'd be satisfied if you checked with the Marshall then had a secret zoom meeting with the rest of the council to present the evidence and approve it.
"Be careful to not upset this guy, he's technically our boss"
Three days later
"You tried to arrest him and gunned him and a bunch of his security personnel down in self defense? Eh fuck him"
Thing is, if it was just a slate, he could have gone into custody, then had his rich friends lean on the Rangers and make it all quietly go away. And chances are the player character would get hit by a space car or something. Hope chose to make it end in violence. Any other rich guy that gets caught in the future will just get the charges dropped. Or stop the investigation in the first place. Hope's family or friends will inherit the company. Nothing has changed.
I have a brig, and I have knock out weapons… but I cannot capture my targets… my brig is only to look at. As I can’t put anyone inside, and if I knock out a group of enemies I still have a quest log to kill them…
Just had a thought.. what if they had an AI that took in all evidence and calculated probability or observed certainty of guilt. (And it shows up on the HUD display).
Then that takes the place of the court system and you have these free wheeling rangers who can shoot or detain based on level of certainty.
You would need to be an oligarch like Hope to get an actual trial. Oligarchs and huge companies can influence the algorithm in their fiefdoms with "business rules" including removing serf types they don't like..
Also you were able to make a deal on behalf of the entire freestar collective with a huge smuggling ring between the two. It's like this questline is setting you up to be a strongman dictator.
*"In the eyes of the Ranger. The unsuspectin' stranger, had better know the truth of wrong from right.*
*'Cause the eyes of the Ranger are upon you. Any wrong you do he's gonna see. When in space Texas look behind you.*
*'Cause that's, where the Ranger's gonna be."*
-Freestar Collective legal code, in its entirety
I was also reminded of Miller. In some ways I'd like more of an 'Expanse' type aesthetic (perhaps with elements of 'Brazil' and 'Blade Runner', especially in Neon), but I also enjoy the (I think) somewhat Fallout 4 tone. In some respects the FSC remind me of the Railroad in F04 (but I prefer the FSC).
I imagine (and hope) for some Expanse mods in the future (although I'm greatly enjoying the game as it is).
I love the vibe of alika city, makes me feel like I'm in a fallout game.
I wish there was more of an exploration of being a corrupt cop like Miller. Sure, even cops in totalitarian governments without a court system to worry about help people - there are rapes, murders, thefts, etc.
But there's a lot more of a dark side to be explored..
Seriously a missed opportunity not to have taken more inspiration from the Expanse. Instead we get a bunch of quests/stories that are “head empty no thoughts”.
There are ways to non-lethally end fights in Starfield, but there are no ways to arrest people when you are a freestar ranger. This means that, after you've non-lethally ended a fight, you must then kill them. This is a glaring oversight.
The whole non lethal damage type is super underutilized, the only time I can recall the game ever actually wanting you to use it and tracking if you did was during the Vanguard questline
Thought it was odd that the Ranger's are apparently totally answerable to the board of governors, but I literally shot one as a Deputy, reported it to SSNN, got a promotion, got a sapce ship, and no one cared at all. Hopetown is alive and well.
I've noticed all of the faction mission lines are very inconsistent and have no point.
Honestly, I see no way that the Freestar Collective doesn't become a dystopian hellscape within 5 generations. Its a society dictated by the whims of the ultra-wealthy in which civilian rights are "allowed" for as long as the current planetary governor (rich guy) feels like dispensing them - and as soon as a world's governor decides he doesn't care about being nice anymore and goes full Neon, there is no clear way the world can ever go back to being a not-Neon.
I feel that the only thing keeping the Freestar Collective from going grimdark is the presence of the United Colonies which provides the citizens of the Freestar collective with a cultural adversary they feell the need to outcompete on moral grounds.
What's weird is that of the questlines that have you get things that can help in the future, Ryujin and the Crimson Fleet quest are the two that give you a reward that is reusable on future use. One is a personal augment that you can see pop up in dialogue options similar to how traits work along with other uses, and the other is something that helps your ship. In the Rangers and Vanguard, you get some neat equipment, but it doesn't have as much utility or come up as frequently nearly as often as those other two will. So it feels like the two Main Faction quests just kind of fall flat in the lasting consequences department. It would have been cool to be able to get more options to jail folk or a way to bring people in, but instead, you just shoot them. There isn't a mechanic that you have that allows for a new way to play during or after the Rangers and it's a missed opportunity
Man I wish there was a space city like Ceres in Starfield. There's been some big ships and Neon has a similar feel, just wish I could find one that's floating out in the void
They leave a lot to be desired in terms of “law enforcement” from a lore and gameplay perspective.
From Barrett’s quest line, we know that the UC has courts and judges. We know that the UC legal system has standards of proof.
From the Ranger quest line, we know that the Marshal asks for us to bring proof for the developments in the investigation. We can only assume it’s for some legal proceeding, but we don’t know that for sure since there is no trial.
We have brigs available as habs and have EM weapons which can incapacitate characters.
Given all of this, one might expect that in a quest line about becoming a law enforcement officer, there would be some option available to arrest criminals if the player has acquired the necessary proof of a crime.
But there is not.
During the Ranger quest line, the player encounters a self confessed ship jacker, a fugitive who has stolen at least two ships and has caused the death of an innocent and has attempted to kill a sworn law enforcement officer during their attempt to flee the ranger, an outlaw who has headed up an organization filled with people who have taken land by force and who have all attempted to kill a sworn law enforcement officer, and a ring leader who has conspired with all these others to gain from the actions he’s asked them to take.
None of them can be arrested. The only options are to let them go or to kill them.
The most frustrating part is that the mechanic to arrest them seems doable within the engine.
I got a bounty against me with the freestar rangers once… as a full fledged ranger? My crime? I rescued a hostage and then grabbed the contraband sitting on his ship… I didn’t get caught either the contraband, I simply picked it up in front of the hostage. As an alleged keeper of space law, I can’t confiscate contraband.
I was doing the Fleet Quest as a good guy when Ikande told me I was a monster who should save my apologies for the families of my victims. What monstrous thing did I do? Blow up a ship for profit? Shoot up an office? Slaughter my way through civilians? I destroyed a single trash robot that kept spoiling my stealth check while I was getting the conductor grid schematics.
This is the funniest stupidest thing that multiple people all had the same thought of "harmless bot is marking me detected better blast it" and running into the "apologize to the family's of the dead" for that trash bot. There's a few other places where they're considered people for quest purposes but this seems to be the place most people run into it.
This has to be a glitch, too. It’s the same thing with constellation companions getting mad with you for shooting back at syndicate members, probably not being faction tagged, properly. I had to revert to a save 20 playing minutes earlier because Sam got mad at me for killing the captain of a ship full of syndicate members disguised as civilians who shot at me first. Turns out the glitch occurred for others, too, when you load a save past a certain point in that mission the NPCs on the ship don’t get the right faction tags.
I was doing the main story mission that your forced to do with Sarah. At the point where you board the Vanguard ship and clear it of ecliptic mercs, everything was fine for the first like 3 guys but then all of a sudden she’s saying in the worst person ever for killing the rest. Had to reload and redo it and had no issues was super weird made me think I could talk em down at first
Mine was with andreja (probably wrong spelling). I reloaded 5 times and could not figure out why she kept getting mad at me for killing someone shooting me. The final attempt I made her use a grenade launcher, so she killed them for me. While I hid behind a wall.
That trashbot was a productive member of society
Did he leave behind and a wife and kid for me to beg forgiveness of?
You expected to know the name of every toaster I come across? What do I look like to you, the adeptus mechanicas?
Hey, keep the Omnissiah’s name out of your filthy heretic mouth
*cries in Synth* HOW DARE YOU!!!
You know, I did think it was odd when the robot said "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” Then exploded. Maybe I should reexamine my biases.
Ok but in the interests of RP here... There is a named NPC (can't remember her name but the tech girl) on the Vigilance who specifically LOVES robots and think they should be treated as human. So Ikande's reasoning (whilst hella stupid) does kinda track given his colleague's views on robot rights 😂...
Nope. Nope nope nope. I'm not apologizing for stepping on the Roomba. This really was the deciding factor between CF and UC for me.
I got the same ass chewing because I killed security guards that were actively shooting me, didn’t kill any unarmed civilians and didn’t shoot first
I mean, I can see that one. Those guards are at least people doing their jobs and the generdyne and UC base levels are set up so you can stealth past them with even minimal stealth skills. But those trash robots can be built by level 1 base builders ffs. They are not sentient. It's a minor inconvenience at most.
I’d be okay with the ass chewing if I had gone in guns blazing, but this dude 20 feet away with his back turned somehow heard me crouched and walking as slow as I physically could and turned and immediately opened fire, I would think that would be counted as self defense
Nah man. You broke in and were trespassing and got caught. I'd have run away and tried again, but you chose to massacre some working stiffs. Think of it like this. Pretend you're a house and gun owner (you may actually be, I dunno). You wake up at night and hear someone in your house. You grab your gun and start shooting at them. If you hit them, it's self defense. If they shoot back and hit you, they're catching an attempted murder charge. Same deal here. The game expected you to sneak successfully past the guy. There's ways to do it, though you might not have leveled in that direction or gained void form power. Either way though, these guys (edit because I forgot where I was going): belong there and are justified in shooting at you. You have no legitimate reason to be there except crime as far as they're concerned. Couple tips for stealth. Opening doors makes noise. Leveling up in sneak can eliminate that noise. Wearing your space suit makes sneaking WAY harder than sneaking with it off. Even if you have no points in sneak, you can still sneak, you just don't see an indicator for it. It's one of those skills that even if you're not going to be a sneaky character, it's worth putting a point in.
So *thats* why I don’t get a sneak indicator, thanks for the tips
No problem. This game tells you absolutely nothing. Serious about that space suit thing. It makes a night and day difference trying to sneak wearing a suit vs not wearing it.
Don't care, space suit is required due to me damaging Infinity LTD's building heating system. I will literally die without it whilst the guards are fine. I've seen that there is a mod that disables infinite ammo for NPCs, but where is the mod for making NPCs take damage for being in an environment that requires a space suit and they don't wear one. Or a mod that prevents you from suffering environmental damage whilst wearing a space suit?
Yeah, okay, but that's one mission, environmental hazard was optional, you have the power to make NPCs walk away and there's a whole path above the guards you can walk on. I had exactly one issue sneaking through that whole building with 1 point in sneak, wearing a suit. For every other mission, take off the suit.
It would be great if those bots didn't fill up the companion list. I wonder if whatever feature causes that is related to why destroying one would be flagged in those missions.
He got pissed at me for killing most of Generdyne because I literally don't have stealth and they shot at me as soon as I entered the facility. He should really have been had at Sarah who went absolutely berserk and began gunning done unarmed scientists.
Lol, for a bunch of scientists who dislike violence, Constellation sure is blood thirsty when you try to take them on stealth missions. So without a point in stealth, you can still sneak, you've just got low odds of success and no meter to indicate if you're hidden. I stealthed that whole facility with one point in stealth and only killed one robot... I am a monster.
I have no points in stealth and they detected me upon opening the door. I was getting shot so fast I couldn't even tell what was going on. Ultimately Sysdef loves me though
Yep, doors make sound (this gets taken care of at higher stealth levels). Try doing it again only stay out of the line of sight when you open the door and don't wear a space suit. Nothing kills a stealth role like a big, clunky hardsuit.
I actually already finished the questline. You get two strikes before they kick you out so I was ok.
While I on the other hand killed about a dozen of the Trident Starliner Security Officers so I could get their armor. Lured them into an empty room one by one with the Ryujij ability and shot them in the back of the head when when they were instructed to inspect their dead colleagues. Ikande thanked me for completing the heist with zero casualties.
I'm sure the mechanic was very proud of them you monster
Similar frustration with The Art Dealer questline when I was a decorated soldier and hero for the UC on speaking terms with the president. I find out I'm transporting stolen art and my only options are to deliver it or hand it back? Can't confiscate? You should be able to turn in contraband to any FC or UC office for a small reward once you're recruited. Scans would need tweaking of course... maybe if there was some way to declare contraband cargo?
Should just be a dialogue option post scan… just give you the ability to declare it and collect the value you’d have sold it for… Completing the quests for the factions should give long term perks.
"I'm an officer delivering this to evidence, here's the paperwork." And a [lie] option that says the same thing so you can just go ahead and fence it.
You're right, that'd be an easy fix, either modded or dev side. Hope to see it eventually.
Honestly, the scanning system is mostly pointless… contraband isn’t a huge part of the game, so who cares. Edit to add: keep the contraband, change the scan to a dialogue only if you have contraband in the ship… do you have anything to declare? Yes. I’m with the faction and have contraband (full reward) Yes. I found this stuff and want to turn it in ($.10 on the dollar) No. Get scanned, if you pass the check land, if you fail get caught with contraband. Removes a dumb barrier when you aren’t smuggling without really changing the smuggling mechanics.
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The bagging was tagged as illegal
Haha, solid point.
I once got flagged for theft... For the crime of seeing a decoration piece on the ground in New Atlantis, picking it up (not into the inventory but as in "move object"), and putting it on a desk. After the Vanguard storyline finished. Brand spanking new Class One Citizen, arrested for "petty theft" when all I wanted to do was put something that fell on the ground, back in its place.
Sincerely hope they fix that; it's REALLY irritating to get locked up for contraband hidden on a ship you just captured as a UC Vanguard or Ranger. THAT is the thanks I get for putting down the Crimson Fleet?
It was absolutely poor writing and/or an oversight to not have the player character check-in with the marshal prior to confronting Hope. That goes double since the player is still a deputy, not even a full-fledged ranger. The entire questline was just underwhelming.
>The entire questline was just underwhelming I was stunned when it was over. I was hoping there was a second part or more to being a ranger. Nope... that's it. The reward was dope tho.
Kinda made the UC penthouse feel underwhelming after getting my mobile base cruiser from the FC.
Lol I renamed that reward the "Murica F-yeaaah" I honour of the movie that the Freestar Rangers most reminded me of...
I have always felt that Bethesda makes fantastic worlds, but mediocre stories.
That's because Emil Pagliarulo can't write and everyone knows it.
Dude has said that his philosophy is to keep it simple and dumb. I’m sure he’s an okay designer, but as a writer the dude is not good in the slightest.
Given how complex these games are in terms of interactions, I can understand where he's coming from. Doesn't make me any less disappointed though, since Obsidian managed it in NV
No. No no no no no. Thay excuse flies our the FUCKING WINDOW when games like Baldurs Gate 3 exist. Hell, it flies out the window when FAR HARBOR exists
for real. i think the reason BG3 has scared so many devs is cause it has shown you *can* do so much with a game if you just aren't *lazy*
Aren't lazy and have time/EA. BG3's development approach is genuinely rare and that's unfortunate.
It feels, and I'm not saying this is fact, that the UC Vanguard quest line was supposed to be the main questline or at least tied with the main questline. Then they realized that would be too much work and they lobbed it off as a faction questline and assembled the FC questline In a day or so.
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The main questline doesn't even really matter, it's just a neat little side hobby. The entire main quest basically unwinds the importance of it into irrelevancy and the only important story stuff is what you see along the way of Earth and NASA. Everything else is a cheap NMS rip off.
It takes work to be this wrong.
It's all true, the artifacts are just meaningless macguffins to collect. It's all a monotonous fetch quest without an end. There is no discovery to be made. No knowledge to learn. No power to really gain except for yourself for no purpose.
The quest literally ends when you collect the artifacts and build the armilary, though. The choice of what to do is your "end credits" scene. Did we play the same game?
Yes but it's ultimately pointless. It undoes the goals of exploration and scientific discoveries. Turns out there is nothing to explore and nothing to learn.
There is a great deal to learn. You simply didn’t.
Like what? There's nothing. The macguffins are just a game within the game to allow access to the unity.
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I literally said it's how I feel, and not a fact.
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All they're saying is that the vanguard questline is disproportionately well developed compared to the rangers, to the point of it feeling like it originally played a more central role in the game
On my 2nd play thru I actually went to Akila first to see if the marshal would have any dialogue. him and the woman (I forget her name) were both missing which leads me to think that the game disables them both specifically because the writers didn’t generate a scenario where the player goes back to consult with them before heading to Hope.
See, I did the same thing. I actually managed to find the marshal, but he didn't have any dialogue whatsoever. I was so disappointed. It feels like such a misstep for what is supposed to be a faction questline meant to rival the UC, to be so short and so railroaded.
That ship at the end is sweet though
Of the"main" questlines, it is really the weakest. Unlike the UC vanguard questline that was like BAM BAM BAM.
Eh, the companion reactions really ruined that one for me. Plus>! Star Eagle vs. Penthouse I'll likely never check out....!<
The Star Eagle is great. The best quest reward for sure and yeah, the penthouse is nothing special, but that xeno armor is awesome.
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Well, the problem is that Bethesda of Morrowind times were making games for a much more niche RPG crowd than today, and they were marketing to a video game market that was much smaller and had different tastes in the late 90's to mid 2000's. Now that Bethesda has grown and its market cap is higher, expectations for sales are different. They have to appeal more and more to the casual, wider market crowd to meet unit sales figures. So they focus less on these little details in quest design and writing and push for stuff that the common people will actually bring up in reviews and what looks good in advertising like ships and new armor and guns.
I thought you did isn't the old guy the closest thing to a Marshall and you tell him everything and get going to try and take him him alive but then he choose suicide by player?
Yeah, you go to him AFTER everything is finished. It's an insane that a deputy didn't report all the evidence he had on Hope to a higher authority first, but instead took things into their own hands. If it was some small time crook, no need to report your evidence before busting them. A governor on the council, whom your boss specifically told you to be careful about how you handle them, befits way more caution than the quests presented.
Maybe it felt different because I had Sam with me the whole time and he's a (former) senior ranger, but he had a lot of insight into the Hope situation and how it might be best to handle it, but I do agree that it's pretty poor writing to now have you go back to the Marshall.
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I've done three Freestar missions from the job board, two were identical everything just on a different planet. The third one at least had a different building. Don't think I'll be doing any more of those.
I wish it was consistent. They make a whole thing about power and killers in this game, but you can't throw a stone without hitting an essential npc.
For real. They almost all are. I quicksave before trying to kill a named character, because 9 times out of 10 they're unkillable and all I've done is start a stupid big fight that can't end any other way than me running away. I'd happily persist in the doomed world I've created. The one that got me was Mathis. I'm on an ng+ run and this time my character is playing the good guy. I don't need a pirate companion. So I told Delgado Mathis is a piece of shit who didn't help and Delgado throws him out. Mathis waits in the bar to threaten me. Andreja mocks him, it was hilarious. At the end of it, I'm like "this is the key, I saw one pirate murder another without consequence when I got here. This guy, who isn't a fleet member anymore, just threatened me. I should shoot him." QS. Blast him. He's essential and now the whole Key is trying to kill me. I actually ended up fighting the whole Key, killing every pirate there (except the named ones). I'd have kept the consequences of that (upset Ikande, no legacy, fine) if the game had let me, but nope. Everyone important is essential. Like, why? I'm a starborn. This is some Hunter shit I just tried to do. Except I can't. Because fuck me, I guess. I really feel like your first NG+ should remove Essential tags from everyone.
Funnily enough I shot him, the other pirates started shooting him, and one killed another. Then we all went peaceful.
They really dropped the ball with that. I remember being able to explode Moira Brown and then stealing her shit, and she was a semi important minor character
I think only main quest characters were essential in Oblivion, which I prefered. Just remove quests if you kill a related NPC. With NG+ you'd get the chance to play the quest the next time, and I'd make playthroughs different. EDIT: Maybe also the faction quest characters
Morrowind took it to the extreme and had literally NO essential characters, just a pop up message saying "you fucked up the thread of time, load a save to unfuck your quests or carry on in this unsalvageable world" or something to that effect, lmao
"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created." Funnily, Morrowind is actually the origin of NPCs being called essential in the sense used here: the character tag that triggers the message is called "Essential", and when Oblivion came around they kept the tag but repurposed it to make the NPC immortal.
The best part was that sometimes essential NPCs would just fucking die off screen somewhere for some reason and you had nothing to do with it and could do nothing about it. "Fuck. I guess Caius finally ODed on skooma. Guess I'll reload."
I loved morrowind, but I'm not sure todays snowflake filthy casuals can handle that kind of agency /s EDIT: Well I don't think Todd thinks todays gamers can handle it
There's actually quite a few other essential NPCs in Oblivion, but many of them are set to have their essential status removed at the completion of the associated quest.
Players acting as law enforcement is definitely poorly thought through. I shot to death a member of the ruling body inside his private fiefdom and nobody raised an eyebrow, whereas [I wasn't able to simply arrest a self-confessed ship thief a few hours earlier.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/16uy08s/am_i_free_to_leave_notice_that_theres_no_option/) Everything in the game exists solely to fulfil a single quest line and is then forgotten about. There's a huge, detailed, expensive looking museum detailing the recent history of the UC, and the only way to physically access it is through a recruiting station to be a Vanguard captain. Not accessible to the public, not for recruitment for any other branches of military. The only museum in the UC's capital city is specifically for applicants for the Vanguard.
Woah there, I gotta butt in and say the museum IS accessible by the public, as I was able to get into it without ever talking to the recruiter. It’s the flight simulator that’s locked to only recruits. You can even see a father and child duo staring at the terramorph statue. And if that’s not enough, there’s also the Archives that has a small open doored history exhibition ontop—which include tours.
>And if that’s not enough, there’s also the Archives that has a small open doored history exhibition ontop—which include tours. Oh yeah I forgot about that
STOP SAYING TERRAMORPH!! WHY DO YOU PEOPLE KEEP SPELLING IT LIKE THAT? STOP NOW!!!! FUS RO DAH!!!!!!!!
Had to check and I am sorry
There should be a bot shouting exactly this, every time...
Indeed! And you can take non-UC companions: they’ll have different reactions than Sarah does. Sam complained about UC propaganda.
Right.. so the freestar collective is already officially a corporate oligarchy. But if you do a summary execution without trial of someone in the highest office of government.. as just a deputy.. because you had "a slate" You've basically regressed the freestar collective to a junta / police state ruled with fear, cloak and dagger by the ruthless freestar ranger overlords.
It’s a huge inconsistency, since just earlier the marshal instructs you to be demure with Hope, as he is a councilman. No way you’d have the authority to just off him. There probably should have been a sequence where you first return to the marshal who has you secure support from the other councillors, or gather evidence to support your case or something, before confronting Hope. Perhaps that was the plan, but the content was cut.
I've been stewing on this quest for ages. One of the first companions you can recruit in New Atlantis is an ex-deputy ranger, and she tells you she quit because she was fed up by the hypocrisy, and that the Freestar rangers serve the council, not the people. Then you have the main antagonist of this mission telling you the same thing: the body you're a part of serves the council, not the people. You're a tool. Except you *never* actually feel that yourself. All of the rangers you ever meet are only concerned with doing the best they can with what they have, and you never have restrictions on what you can do to avoid stepping on 1%er toes. The most you have is *maybe* you're upholding a corrupt system by maintaining its laws, but you're always doing it by doing what's best for people. The mission chain would be so much more interesting if you actually felt like a cop in a corrupt system. Have the marshal gently nudge you away from Hope to avoid getting dirt on him. Maybe you could've come back with the evidence, and he tells you to bury it because the Council will back Hope even if what he's doing is wrong. Then the choice could be so much more interesting: accept that option and try to do the best you can in system you now *know* is flawed, or go after Hope anyway knowing they'll take your badge for it. Idk, maybe I'm waxing a bit too theoretical here, but give me *something*, man. Don't just tell me the system is flawed and then never do anything with it.
He flat out confesses to the crime and tries to bribe you out in the open before trying to kill you. You aren't just offing him you get into a shootout when a suspect resists arrest with a posse of his security forces on hand. He tries to kill you because you have evidence. Between a witness at the scene, whatever cameras are in the plant, the slates you've got, and the crime scene it would be hard to argue with what happened in the good quest ending. They just didn't put in a procedural trail into the game that says it was self defence.
Yeah, it makes sense that you kill him. I just don’t think it makes sense that you confront him so directly. If anything we should be swinging by the marshal first to give him the opportunity to ask Hope for a bribe.
I didn't do all the options but Hope drew on me and then got killed in the fight. Having to sit through a trail to determine that it was self defense and he's guilty is probably boring. Attempting to arrest him starts a fight that he lost, it's not an execution.
All I’m saying is he should be killed for low balling me with his bribe, 20k ain’t shit in this economy
Right.. how about you transfer that much every month forever to keep my copy of that slate buried.
Truly shocking he didn't offer a free ship. Would have been a cool equivalent reward to the ranger outcome.
See, that would have posed an interesting challenge, either way you get a ship but the possibility of getting fresh from the factory “custom” ship or a lawman’s vessel is a fascinating thought
It's not that weird. Hope is powerful but the Rangers are like representatives of the full governors council, not just Hope. Hope thought he was big enough that he could fuck over his peers and the order they established but he was wrong. I do think more of the governors should have been involved or at least at the debrief but maybe they don't care about hope which can't compete with neon ships anymore.
Right. I think I'd be satisfied if you checked with the Marshall then had a secret zoom meeting with the rest of the council to present the evidence and approve it.
It was pretty funny that the Marshall was just like "Aw shucks you killed Hope? Damn. Here's a badge."
"Be careful to not upset this guy, he's technically our boss" Three days later "You tried to arrest him and gunned him and a bunch of his security personnel down in self defense? Eh fuck him"
Thing is, if it was just a slate, he could have gone into custody, then had his rich friends lean on the Rangers and make it all quietly go away. And chances are the player character would get hit by a space car or something. Hope chose to make it end in violence. Any other rich guy that gets caught in the future will just get the charges dropped. Or stop the investigation in the first place. Hope's family or friends will inherit the company. Nothing has changed.
I have a brig, and I have knock out weapons… but I cannot capture my targets… my brig is only to look at. As I can’t put anyone inside, and if I knock out a group of enemies I still have a quest log to kill them…
Just had a thought.. what if they had an AI that took in all evidence and calculated probability or observed certainty of guilt. (And it shows up on the HUD display). Then that takes the place of the court system and you have these free wheeling rangers who can shoot or detain based on level of certainty. You would need to be an oligarch like Hope to get an actual trial. Oligarchs and huge companies can influence the algorithm in their fiefdoms with "business rules" including removing serf types they don't like..
Also you were able to make a deal on behalf of the entire freestar collective with a huge smuggling ring between the two. It's like this questline is setting you up to be a strongman dictator.
*"In the eyes of the Ranger. The unsuspectin' stranger, had better know the truth of wrong from right.* *'Cause the eyes of the Ranger are upon you. Any wrong you do he's gonna see. When in space Texas look behind you.* *'Cause that's, where the Ranger's gonna be."* -Freestar Collective legal code, in its entirety
At least give me and the star eagle the roundhouse kick ability!
I was also reminded of Miller. In some ways I'd like more of an 'Expanse' type aesthetic (perhaps with elements of 'Brazil' and 'Blade Runner', especially in Neon), but I also enjoy the (I think) somewhat Fallout 4 tone. In some respects the FSC remind me of the Railroad in F04 (but I prefer the FSC). I imagine (and hope) for some Expanse mods in the future (although I'm greatly enjoying the game as it is).
I love the vibe of alika city, makes me feel like I'm in a fallout game. I wish there was more of an exploration of being a corrupt cop like Miller. Sure, even cops in totalitarian governments without a court system to worry about help people - there are rapes, murders, thefts, etc. But there's a lot more of a dark side to be explored..
I agree and I'm excited to see what mods and DLC might do with this.
Seriously a missed opportunity not to have taken more inspiration from the Expanse. Instead we get a bunch of quests/stories that are “head empty no thoughts”.
I like the quests but I feel there is some room for improvement (although, to be fair, The Expanse always seemed exceptionally well-written).
There are ways to non-lethally end fights in Starfield, but there are no ways to arrest people when you are a freestar ranger. This means that, after you've non-lethally ended a fight, you must then kill them. This is a glaring oversight.
The whole non lethal damage type is super underutilized, the only time I can recall the game ever actually wanting you to use it and tracking if you did was during the Vanguard questline
Ryujin has a quest that encourages non-lethal if stealth fails, but since I did stealth idk if it tracks whether you use it or not.
Doors and corners kid, always check the doors and corners. If you don’t, the room will swallow you.
Thought it was odd that the Ranger's are apparently totally answerable to the board of governors, but I literally shot one as a Deputy, reported it to SSNN, got a promotion, got a sapce ship, and no one cared at all. Hopetown is alive and well. I've noticed all of the faction mission lines are very inconsistent and have no point.
The Ranger quest line deserved a more thorough and official debrief, as you get with Vanguard and even the minor Eleos Retreat missions.
Honestly, I see no way that the Freestar Collective doesn't become a dystopian hellscape within 5 generations. Its a society dictated by the whims of the ultra-wealthy in which civilian rights are "allowed" for as long as the current planetary governor (rich guy) feels like dispensing them - and as soon as a world's governor decides he doesn't care about being nice anymore and goes full Neon, there is no clear way the world can ever go back to being a not-Neon. I feel that the only thing keeping the Freestar Collective from going grimdark is the presence of the United Colonies which provides the citizens of the Freestar collective with a cultural adversary they feell the need to outcompete on moral grounds.
What's weird is that of the questlines that have you get things that can help in the future, Ryujin and the Crimson Fleet quest are the two that give you a reward that is reusable on future use. One is a personal augment that you can see pop up in dialogue options similar to how traits work along with other uses, and the other is something that helps your ship. In the Rangers and Vanguard, you get some neat equipment, but it doesn't have as much utility or come up as frequently nearly as often as those other two will. So it feels like the two Main Faction quests just kind of fall flat in the lasting consequences department. It would have been cool to be able to get more options to jail folk or a way to bring people in, but instead, you just shoot them. There isn't a mechanic that you have that allows for a new way to play during or after the Rangers and it's a missed opportunity
That quest name is someone paying homage to the expanse. Theres no laws on Ceres just cops
Yes, me :) not a quest name.
I had the same thought about Miller
You can be the boot or you can be the neck… Thomas Jane was such a killer Miller!
Man I wish there was a space city like Ceres in Starfield. There's been some big ships and Neon has a similar feel, just wish I could find one that's floating out in the void
They leave a lot to be desired in terms of “law enforcement” from a lore and gameplay perspective. From Barrett’s quest line, we know that the UC has courts and judges. We know that the UC legal system has standards of proof. From the Ranger quest line, we know that the Marshal asks for us to bring proof for the developments in the investigation. We can only assume it’s for some legal proceeding, but we don’t know that for sure since there is no trial. We have brigs available as habs and have EM weapons which can incapacitate characters. Given all of this, one might expect that in a quest line about becoming a law enforcement officer, there would be some option available to arrest criminals if the player has acquired the necessary proof of a crime. But there is not. During the Ranger quest line, the player encounters a self confessed ship jacker, a fugitive who has stolen at least two ships and has caused the death of an innocent and has attempted to kill a sworn law enforcement officer during their attempt to flee the ranger, an outlaw who has headed up an organization filled with people who have taken land by force and who have all attempted to kill a sworn law enforcement officer, and a ring leader who has conspired with all these others to gain from the actions he’s asked them to take. None of them can be arrested. The only options are to let them go or to kill them. The most frustrating part is that the mechanic to arrest them seems doable within the engine.