Starfield

[Grogan]

A "beta" update for Starfield, that mainly focuses on performance, stability and minor quest fixes, helped noticeably with the performance of this game. I've had it for a few days now and have been playing it. Other than the usual texture loading that goes on, I haven't had any performance spells.

Normally I'd have to have a hole in the head to want to install a beta game update, but I've done that before with this game with no issues and when the update is released it installs and takes you out of the beta thing.

[Grogan]

Starfield also benefits from disabling vkd3d-proton's pipeline cache, and using the game's own DX12 Pipeline.cache and the normal mesa shader backend. In Steam, that's

Code: Select all

VKD3D_SHADER_CACHE_PATH=0 %command%

This game doesn't cause a lot of large vulkan shaders to be compiled (it does build ~100 Mb Pipeline.cache though), but that vkd3d-proton pipeline library mechanism was gumming up the works. Once they are cached they are there and the game doesn't hitch when I leave an area and come back and pan around.

[Grogan]

I got an interesting "mod" (adds a quest and some gear) from the Workshop. I found out about it, because the latest patch notes have some fixes for bugs this mod caused in the game. That's pretty good for Bethesda to actually patch their game to accommodate a popular free mod.

It's called Hell's Gate, and it brings Doom 3 into the game. A mysterious broadcast override crackles through a SSNN (news network) speaker as you walk by it. This adds the quest to your inventory. You go find a derelict ship that the broadcast came from, and get the coordinates to another ship. There you find a mad, distraught merc with an artifact he was to bring to this facility on Mars (of course lol).

Of course, it opens an extra dimensional portal that lets a bunch of Doom Hell creatures through (they are called ??? lol). You get the Praetor suit (the soldier's suit from the Doom games), The Crucible melee weapon and a Super Shotgun (that I haven't looked at yet).

It's not a very long mission, but pretty cool. As soon as I grabbed the suit, it kind of went into berserker mode as the portal opened and I was left fighting with that Crucible sword which you can see:

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[Zema Bus]

I'll have to check what this game is going for now, or maybe see if it goes on sale when they have their summer sale.

[Grogan]

There's this giant crane overlooking the Mars Cydonia colony, I guess for hoisting large ship or construction parts. I figured that I needed to get up there for some fresh martian air, so I used my flying car and landed at the top of it, on the flat steel near the rear. I took a walk along the girders, it was almost vertigo'ish. I got almost all the way out to the front, but that's where I fucked up and "fell" (The low G made it easy to break my fall with my suit's boost jump... and I was in god mode anyway if it didn't )

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With this game engine, anywhere you can get to, you can go there. Where I landed was somewhere I'd not been before (ship repair yard with robots welding and stuff), but it was accessible on foot. I had to go a fair ways to my quest and wanted my vehicle back, so I pulled up the local map and fast traveled to it. It looks funny on the map, the vehicle symbol on top of the crane.

20250924030556_1.jpg

This little excursion was fun!

[Zema Bus]

I like games where you can do stuff like that, randomly explore around.

[Grogan]

This is probably the most "Do whatever you want" kind of game that I have. You have hundreds of star systems with planets you can land on. There will be installations you can go to, hopefully "deserted" ones, which means there will be pirates to kill and take their stuff

Also, at the end you can spawn in a new universe and skip most of the boring story line on your next playthrough and just do the quest lines you want. You can go to the final quest at any time too when you do that (as long as you collect the remaining few artifacts).

[Grogan]

You call me sweety one more time and I'll shove my knife so far up your ass people will think you turned into a unicorn - Naeva Mora, Crimson Fleet pirate captain

The threats and taunts in video games are funny

[Zema Bus]

lol!

[Grogan]

So this got a big update today (in addition to a new DLC, which I was entitled to with Premium/Deluxe Edition or whatever it was called)

https://steamcommunity.com/games/171674 ... 1218949084

The most significant thing to me, is that they made it so you can fly wherever you want in a star system. (Before, you could fly all you want, but you'd never reach your destination... it was just for very local maneuvers, like combat or docking with stations etc. and you had to fast travel to waypoints on your star system map to get to them). Now you can put your ship in Cruise Mode, and fly fast. You're in control, you can steer around planets and head for waypoints etc. OR you can set Autopilot and get up and walk around, and talk to your crew (if you have one) or passengers. I could have jumped to the waypoint I had to get to (a station I have to dock with) but I needed to smoke so I set it on autopilot and it was there when I got back

The DLC is called Terran Armada. A faction of military deserters has a robot army, and they are claiming to be the True legacy from Earth and think they are going to take over all the colonies by force and "unite" mankind.

It starts out investigating some luxury star liners that have gone missing and I encounter the robots and their human commanders for the first time. There's a voice on the coms that tells me to insert this chip into one of the defunct robots and it becomes my companion, with a mission to rescue the chip's programmer. It is INSUFFERABLE, always admonishing and telling me how inferior I am (meanwhile I could reduce it to scrap in milliseconds)

[Grogan]

Another significant thing for me that they added, is a stash container that's available in your room at the Lodge in the new Universe that you enter when you go through the Unity (hence, starting a New Game +). Before you started out with no gear. The first thing I'd do when starting a new one is go to some high level systems and kill pirates and take some guns to get a toe hold, until I can start getting legendaries etc. again.

It's called the "Quantum Entanglement Device"

You have to jump through a few hoops to get it though, first of all you have to collect all the artifacts and build the "Armillary" on the ship (the device that takes you to the Unity), then there will be a datapad in your room with the blueprints to craft it. It takes 10 Quantum Essence (you get those from killing other Starborn), an Adaptive Frame and a few other common crafting components. No big deal.

So I put my best guns in it, and went through the Unity. Once I got to the Lodge in my new Universe, I retrieved my guns and then started going to the quest locations to gather the Artifacts before starting my favourite quest lines. One of the DLC, Shattered Space, starts by boarding a space station that randomly appears in a system you go to (early in game it spawns). Well, this time it spawned in the very first system I went to, so I decided to go do that now, since I had all my guns. There are some high leveled, bullet sponge enemies there.

I brought all my guns across time and space, but I forgot to pack... ammo!

Just when the combat started I realized that I had 0 ammo for all my guns. I used Starborn powers (Supernova, Particle Beam) to kill the first and took a disruptor pistol, but it was still tedious. I'm in "tgm" god mode so I wasn't taking damage and it wouldn't consume ammo IF I had any, but it's still no fun with crappy cultist energy weapons so I found a corner to hide in and used the console to generate some ammo for each of my guns (from a list of item codes)

[Zema Bus]

Sounds like you got off to a good start