How do you find anything interesting exploring?

[bjorkwolf]

This is meant as an honest question. I've seen posts saying people are still finding new things. How? Do you just go to every planet, moon, etc until you find something? I've tried letting the quests lead me around and what you find then is fine, but limited, as is where they take you. I've tried surveying everything, and that is just boring as all get out after a while. Going to each and every planetary body just seems to lead to the same abandoned mine, science facility, etc, to explore, and outposts just give me the same go mine this or bring back our coworker, etc, and the 1000m trek across an empty planet begins. I'd really like to know the best tactic for exploring so it's not just mind numbing repetition. Thanks for any suggestions.

[Gravity 🌌]

Hopping from planet to planet is one. You'll get different encounters, some of them rare.
Surveying different planet types is the key to finding different POIs.

[ChalwaBechatex]

Jump to star systems that you didn’t visit yet. Check map. Rhombus on planet orbit show random encounters, sometimes it’s ship, junk, rarely mini mission. You can also click scan during flight. If you see planet name with pulsing circle it mean there is encounter not visible on map.

New POI sometimes show up on planets with (…) check name it there is something new.

[mrmarcus]

You don't really.
Those posts are from what I like to call 'Accountant type players' who seem to enjoy very basic entertainement, as in... none.

Sorry accountants, I had to use the cliché.

[pearsanity]

Originally posted by mrmarcus:

You don't really.
Those posts are from what I like to call 'Accountant type players' who seem to enjoy very basic entertainement, as in... none.

Sorry accountants, I had to use the cliché.

There really no need for that. They are just responding to a simple question.

[pearsanity]

Originally posted by Density:

Hopping from planet to planet is one. You'll get different encounters, some of them rare.
Surveying different planet types is the key to finding different

Originally posted by bjorkwolf:

This is meant as an honest question. I've seen posts saying people are still finding new things. How? Do you just go to every planet, moon, etc until you find something? I've tried letting the quests lead me around and what you find then is fine, but limited, as is where they take you. I've tried surveying everything, and that is just boring as all get out after a while. Going to each and every planetary body just seems to lead to the same abandoned mine, science facility, etc, to explore, and outposts just give me the same go mine this or bring back our coworker, etc, and the 1000m trek across an empty planet begins. I'd really like to know the best tactic for exploring so it's not just mind numbing repetition. Thanks for any suggestions.

Pretty much outline by @Density, also trying to get your Drive upgraded for better jumps will leading you to more interesting biomes to explore like Maal and further out.

[Starbug]

I've noticed the further you travel from the centre of the map, the less you see human built structures.

[Kriya Takagi]

Originally posted by bjorkwolf:

This is meant as an honest question. I've seen posts saying people are still finding new things. How? Do you just go to every planet, moon, etc until you find something? I've tried letting the quests lead me around and what you find then is fine, but limited, as is where they take you. I've tried surveying everything, and that is just boring as all get out after a while. Going to each and every planetary body just seems to lead to the same abandoned mine, science facility, etc, to explore, and outposts just give me the same go mine this or bring back our coworker, etc, and the 1000m trek across an empty planet begins. I'd really like to know the best tactic for exploring so it's not just mind numbing repetition. Thanks for any suggestions.

So it really it depends on your playstyle there no real tactic to it. You wander till you find something new. There are just some people who enjoy this kind of playstyles while it doesn't resonates with others. You'll come across something eventually but if the middle part is too much of a slog, then it could just be your personal play preference not really gelling well with the game. Which is fine, not all games will resonates with every player.

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

copypaste of my post in another thread:
for example, when you're on a moon of a ringed planet, you look up and see the moon orbiting the planet and the perspective of the rings changes. i think moments like that are great. seriously, you wonder what you're missing out on just because you live in an age that doesn't know space travel. but here you can at least get an impression, even if it's just a dream.
https://graslamaland.org/Starfield/Photo_2023-12-03-220437.png
https://graslamaland.org/Starfield/Photo_2023-12-03-222458.png
https://graslamaland.org/Starfield/Photo_2023-12-03-215817.png

[Biff]

You don't really. You'll see all the hand made POIs after a few hours of aimless exploring. And even then they aren't worth seeking out yourself since a quest will most likely have you go to them anyway.

Which is honestly the best way to enjoy this game. Stick to the quests because if you go off the beaten path the game quickly falls apart... A terrible quality for a Bethesda game but true none the less.

[jonnin]

the buildings / sites are all the same. The animals, unique resources, random unique encounters (like the traders), and some other bits vary dramatically.
Finding something cool is nice, but such moments are few and far between. Just keep looking, and see what you see.

[fizzbin]

when I scan and explore every planet and moon, then I will have completed the game. Every new system I go in, I do the moon and planetary scans. Every mission I go on, I always scan the planet I ended up on. I will look at the system and decide if I want to scan more or at least the moons around the planet I was on. Eventually I will be done. I have run into new structures here and there in my travels. Not all the structures are just cookie cutter.

[alanc9]

Originally posted by bjorkwolf:

Do you just go to every planet, moon, etc until you find something? I've tried letting the quests lead me around and what you find then is fine, but limited, as is where they take you.

Not every planet, but every system. A lot of stuff will show up on your ship's sensors, or you'll get a radio hail from somebody. Note that any planet or moon marked with three dots has a structure detectable from space. Some of those are from the repeatable list. Others are uniques.

My personal feeling is that the planetside randoms spawn too often, causing you to burn through them too fast. Here's a mod which attempts to fix it. Of course, using the mod will mean you'll either have to do more searching, or rely on mission boards and NPC-granted missions from Outpost-type structures.

Immersive Planet Density[www.nexusmods.com]

[alanc9]

Originally posted by Biff:

You don't really. You'll see all the hand made POIs after a few hours of aimless exploring. And even then they aren't worth seeking out yourself since a quest will most likely have you go to them anyway.

Which is honestly the best way to enjoy this game. Stick to the quests because if you go off the beaten path the game quickly falls apart... A terrible quality for a Bethesda game but true none the less.

I never did understand how landing on a random planet at a random place was supposed to make any kind of sense.

[bjorkwolf]

I was really hoping I was missing something. But about the only lasting enjoyment of any kind I've had was while doing quests, and I don't mean the procedural all from the same small pool of types you run into while wandering around. Landing on a random planet CAN be cool, but landing on a hundred of them isn't. There's just not enough there for my taste. I had a quest today I had to go and mine 12 minerals from a cave. The cave ended up being 1500m away. It was a convoluted mess inside, and it took about a half hour to find enough minerals. Then I ran back because I was trying not to use fast travel and be realistic. Overall, it took close to an hour just for that. And I did and saw literally nothing interesting the entire time. And that's how the game feels to me; there is some cool stuff to see and do, but it seems to add up to a game ratio of 80% running or listening to over inflated dialog, and 20% of fun cool things.

I think it just comes down to preference. Some people seem to enjoy just running around scanning and such. That's fine. If we had vehicles where it wouldn't take so long to say, find the coastline for that last elusive fauna, maybe I would, too. But it takes too long for it to stay fun for me. I tried it one game and did every body in 5 systems, but it felt like it took forever. I know Todd doesn't want us to miss anything (so no vehicles) but I hardly see how driving faster vs walking would cause that.

[convoy669]

well I found a hillside bunker - I think it was an easter egg for the fallout games