Modded Starfield: Mr Tesla's Ambition | A Thread on Roleplay & Modding

[kamyFC]

I got Starfield at last, in August 2024 , as there is a steam sale going on. All the hate, and negativity did not affect me.
I love sandbox RPGs, and I have followed the Starfield modding community for the past 4 months with incredible excitement. The stuff they were creating was unbelievable. With a DLC, a fifth faction and a ground vehicle on the way, the time is now.

I spent around 8 hours carefully selecting and installing mods from the wonderful Nexus Mods community.

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Modding Objectives

• Enhance the inventory, crafting, and research UI for PC gameplay. The base game UI was designed for consoles and controllers, which was unacceptable for PC gamers.
  
  
• Enhance the Galactic Star Map, Add New and Improved HD Textures.
  
  
• Get rid of time-consuming Loading screens, lengthy Grav Jump waits, and increasing animation speeds. Make things snappy!
  
  
• Ensure your spaceship needs ammunition and fuel for more realistic space travel and increased immersion.
  
  
• Add a system where our character will need to manage oxygen depletion and restoration.
  
  
• Add systems that will monitor every planet's atmosphere, pressure, temperature, weather, radiaton and more. This will improve immersion, as our character will need to prepare every time they visit a moon or a planet.
  
  
• Make space mining, asteroid mining and salvage more interesting.
  
  
• Overhaul the main quest. Get rid of mindless artifact fetching and temples. Enjoy a streamlined and more fun experience.
  
  
• Get rid of NPC level scaling and ensure horizontal progression. No wild HP increases, which results in spammy combat. No more enemy bullet sponges. This makes combat tactical in nature, no matter how long you play.
  
  
• Update Skills. Away with your boring Bethesda skill/perk upgrades! No more "20% more damage with X" upgrades. This has to be replaced with more gameplay-oriented upgrades.
  
  
• Add new systems to update weapons, armor, and pack manufacturing/crafting/upgrades for mid- and late-gameplay.
  
  
• Add two or more laser weapons, five or more EM weapons, and one or two sci-fi weapons. Bethesda just gave in to the 'gun' crowd and added more ballistic weapons while totally ignoring energy and electromagnet weapons. They never even bothered to be creative by offering sci-fi weapons.
  
  
• My character lives in the 2300s and now happily wields lasers, EM and Sci-Fi weapons and won't touch two hundred year old tech - 9mm pistols, rifles and shotguns.
  
  
• Update the POI generation logic, which ensures you don't see the same POIs again and again.
  
  
• Add more dynamic random encounters when exploring planets.

Let's be honest. Bethesda won't give us all of this. Nowadays, they are into making sandboxes while leaving the rest to modders. That is their new strategy. Which is a shame. But it is what it is.

The Creation Kit has been around for only two months, and by the eight divines and the serpent god, our modding community has delivered.

They have managed to change the game to such an extent, that I can now say, modded Starfield is a phenomenal Sandbox RPG. You can get creative, make all sorts of builds, and spend hundreds of hours in this game.

Gamers who prefer stories, mind-blowing quests and cutscenes may not enjoy modded Starfield as there are only 4 faction questlines and one main questline, which is, in my opinion, a flawed masterpiece. Also Bethesda is not known for their writing quality. Nevertheless, the improved gameplay, combat may help them while doing quests. But story gamers need to understand that Starfield is not a narrative RPG.

On the other hand, gamers who have an interest in playing around with gameplay systems, work on manufacturing, crafting, enjoy developing the skills of your character, like to observe the small stories, do minor town quests for minor characters, and enjoy exploration, surveying will love modded Starfield.

For roleplayers, character build creators, sandbox RPG lovers and gameplay system enthusiasts - modded Starfield is incredible.

The sky is the limit with such an amazing modding community. Thanks to them.

[kamyFC]

My first eight hours of gameplay

I started a new game. I played for 8 hours nonstop, and what joy! I absolutely loved it!

• Ideally, I would not want to have a scripted intro like what we have here. I wish we were just a nobody in this universe, and we sort of stumble into the Main Quest like in Morrowind. But Bethesda does not do that anymore. You are the Hero of Kvatch, the Dragonborn and now the Starborn! It is what it is.
  
  
• Visiting Kreet at the start was awesome. I did not even enter the Kreet Research Lab. I just started exploring the planet and started surveying by looking for flora, fauna and resources.
  I found surveying so enjoyable! Trying to get close to an aggressive predator to scan it, saying hello to an insect and strange plants in an alien world, and observing the dynamic AI was so good! I had to visit multiple biomes on the planet to find all the unique flora and fauna.
  
  
• As I was surveying, there was a random encounter. Ecliptic Mercenaries showed up. A group of heavy armored enemies with laser weapons. As there is no level scaling, these guys were high level enemies, with the leader at Level 85 (see screenshot below) and my character at Level 2! This shows level scaling has been totally removed! Amazing!
  Even though the commander was at a high level, the difficulty depends on their weapons and armor. The beauty of this system is that both of us were deadly to each other. I died three times. One headshot, and you are toast. You really have to be tactical when taking on high-level enemies in the open and use the terrain to your advantage. What an epic battle it was with a Level 85 commander! A battle of patience and constant movement! But I could get him with the equinox laser rifle after somehow getting few shots in. The loot was worth it too!
  
  
• Once I surveyed the planet, I visited Kreet Research Lab. There was lots of environmental storytelling about what happened there. A fun 'dungeon' with great combat, amazing loot, small stories and no bullet sponge frustration. Superb!
  
  
• I then visited the polar region of the moon and enjoyed the peace and quiet. The visuals are incredible. Especially as we have HD textures in 4K now installed.
  
  
• Finally, I jumped to Jemison and New Atlantis and purchased Nuclear Rods and Helium 3 and topped up the fuel in my ship. Purchased Oxygen cannisters so I could explore planets without worrying about O2 depletion.
  
  
• I sold all the loot. Had around 40,000 credits.

Our character will go and say hello to Constellation. He will then say goodbye to them forever.
Because my guy needs to do lots of surveying and exploring. He wants to setup Water Vapor Extractors, setup Greenhouses and Animal Husbandry farms with the goal of manufacturing textiles. With all the work he will do, he will take vacations in Paradiso.
He has no time for those snobs at Constellation!

I totally recommend modded Starfield. Here is the mod list, if anyone is interested. https://loadorderlibrary.com/lists/starfield-gameplay-combat-systems-overhaul
Special mention to 'agd25' [www.nexusmods.com]. His mods are literal game changers!

Signing off. I would love to read up on your modded Starfield experiences!

[kamyFC]

My Requests & Wishlists

• While the addition of ground vehicles will make exploring fun, I wish we had in-atmosphere flight. When I played Empyrion Galactic Survival (https://store.steampowered.com/app/383120/Empyrion__Galactic_Survival/),
  flying a ship on beautiful planets was one of the greatest joys of gaming. I doubt the creation engine can give us that, sadly. 
  
  
• I wish we can atleast fly to a moon from the orbit of a planet. I understand there are mods like Astroneer. But they are in the early stages of development. 
  
  
• I wish there are EVA missions. I can't believe there is no EVA in this game. It is a space game. All the great Space TV series, Movies have lots of EVA - which adds tons of dramatic and tension filled moments.
  
  
• I wish we had realistic travel between planets and solar systems. Allow us to walk inside the ship and do stuff when the ship is in Hyperdrive. Add random events when u are in Hyperdrive. Get hailed by allies, Get SOS calls that let you get out of hyperdrive and alter the course to the new objective. Let your 'science officer' do long distance scans and find interesting stuff which may change your plans. Star Trek memories. Will make inter-system or intra-system travel more unpredictable.

But even if we don't get all of the above, as of now modded Starfield is an incredible experience. I wonder what this game will become in 1-2 years!

[major tom]

i like your enthusiasm! i missed a topic like this one and hope for you it works out for you and maybe others.

[kamyFC]

Some Images

Mr Tesla, travels to the polar orbit and enjoys the sunset after spending few hours, surveying the moon - Kreet

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3307917756

Dynamic encounter with Ecliptic Mercenaries when Mr Tesla was surveying Kreet.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3307917444

Have you seen a Level 85 enemy at Level 2? The beauty of no-level scaling!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3307917629

Mr Tesla - Chilling at New Atlantis

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3307917890

Stun Baton - Reminds me of the original Deus Ex Riot Prod! Perfect for my EM weapon-loving character!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3307923603

[Vlad 254]

Just saw this thread as I'm turning in for the day. Subscribed.

[kamyFC]

Originally posted by Vlad 254:

Just saw this thread as I'm turning in for the day. Subscribed.

Thank you. Will update the thread every week. Let's see where Mr Tesla's journey takes him.

[NO STANDARDS]

smr1957 made a alt to post this thread.
looks like his other thread.

[Langkard]

Nice thread. It might be helpful to save your screenshots on Steam so you can put them in your posts with thumbnails.

[JacEEEBABY]

Originally posted by Emmanuel Musa:

smr1957 made a alt to post this thread.
looks like his other thread.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Joseph The Space Nord]

Yes, indeed, Starfield is a great game. And the modders are hard at work and dedicated towards what they're doing. The potential for starfield is through the roof compared to any other games bethesda has made. If you actually go in wanting to have a good time and not knit picking at the few things, the game doesn't do well. Starfield is in amazing experience and a lot of fun. With the land vehicle, hopefully right around the corner and the first story DLC rumored to be released next month. There is a definitely a lot to be excited about within the starfield community.

[kamyFC]

Originally posted by Langkard:

Nice thread. It might be helpful to save your screenshots on Steam so you can put them in your posts with thumbnails.

Thanks. I uploaded them to Steam and added a few more screenshots.

[Odd fella]

I think a lot of us believe the modding community is Bethesda's last hope of saving Starfield. These posts seems to reinforce that point.

[Perky]

Bethesda have increasingly made a larger platform with more complex characters and more complex skills, inventory etc. - Then they leave it to mod authors and when they see what direction it goes in they put out the odd DLC

[momodave]

Oh sure, your character might be cool, but can he defeat Beelzebub in a death match?

[CurrySpirals]

“Let's be honest. Bethesda won't give us all of this. Nowadays, they are into making sandboxes while leaving the rest to modders. That is their new strategy. Which is a shame. But it is what it is.”

I honestly like this strategy. No matter what they make, it won’t be for everyone. However, by making something so mod friendly, they give gamers the power to tailor make their own experiences. It’s pretty awesome.