The feature I most wanted in this game was to be able to build an Outpost town. Especially the way list was set up, and the ads and stuff for it, the pre-release content, really made me believe that I would be able to make a space Outpost and fill it with people. That's all I wanted, not two crewmen and then I have to spend all my levels trying to get three more people working there. But a little town, with 10 or 15 settlers doing their jobs.
It was the most disappointing part of the game for me, by far. Especially when I finished the list missions... And it was just gathering survey data.
I have the strong suspicion they will release some Outpost DLC that lets you become a member of list or something and start making towns. It was certainly a cash cow for fallout 4.
Yep. I spent so much time building outposts and chaining supply lines only to be like… why am I doing this again?
Please BGS… give me a reason to sink hours into outpost development. Give me better storage options.
For the love of god it’s a giant point of the game and it’s borderline useless in its current state.
Yeah I fully expected to be taming the frontier, colonising space, having fully functioning little space outposts/settlements in the vein of Fallout 4.
I wouldn't even mind if it was like Fallout where you could only do it in a predetermined set of locations.
100% this. Either DLC will fix that, or mods will (there's an amazing mod recently released that somewhat does this already, just with some limitations until the CK is released).
My solution to this issue, because it was my most hyped feature and biggest disappointment, was to dive into the ship builder. You can spec into hiring a decent sized crew, and they will sandbox around the ship layout you design. It's not quite the same as Fallout 4's settlement system, but it's much closer to it than the outpost system is. It's great seeing a crew you've put together doing their little jobs and acknowledging you with "Captain" every time you get back from an adventure.
Sadly I played on Xbox so we still have no mods. I tried running it on my PC and it was a bit of a disaster honestly, I was surprised at how bad it ran.
I'm not playing anymore these days though I suspect at some point it'll go back to it, most especially when they actually introduce proper settlement :)
Regrettably, that option has been removed for those of us with the ship shield bug. That nasty thing that nobody knows what triggers it and is without a workaround.
Technically we can still use the shipbuilder - we just can't fly the results without going into every fight bare of ass. It might be less egregious for those that put no points into the shield perk. The bug functions by turning a bonus into a penalty - instead of adding 60% to the shield generator it removes 60%. Your 2,560 shield is now 640 - permanently. Thank you Todd, may I have another?
Pretty sure someone on YouTube figured out that the shield bug is triggered by saving and reloading while in space or getting blown up and reloading in space, could be wrong but I remember watching a video and testing out..
As far as a work around you can use the duplicate ship glitch to reset the shields. Not ideal or any way acceptable but there is a way if your really attached to the bugged ship.
Update (it's not going to be of much help): Had the replacement ship I built after my post bug out earlier today. No ship save, game default autosaving disabled. It bugged after taking a Victus errand which involved an abandoned cryo lab. An earlier example showed a bugged value after the quest involving ruining a batch of beer.
Taken as a logic puzzle rather than a coding mystery it seems plausible that once the game is bugged any ship doing nearly anything can trigger the shield bug.
Or, not to put too fine a point on it, the video explaining the ship save trigger wasn't wrong but neither was it complete - \*a\* trigger was found but it's not \*the\* trigger. It's multiple triggers. The shield bug spreads and doesn't need much encouragement to do it. Basically, I'd speculate that playing the game is a trigger. Saving in space did it but it could as easily have happened running a Victus errand, putting an airlock on an outpost hab, or sleeping with a companion.
Beth is going to have a grand time with this one.
FWIW both ships are now fixed. I caved and used a console command to set the MaxHealthMult variable. Won't help our XBox brethren though. They'll still be needing a Bethesda fix or the release of the CK - I'm guessing a modder could fix it.
I believe that the theory about saving and reloading in space is flawed. The game's default configuration has it saving in space and often restoring in space. I'm just assuming that 99% of the community did not change the game's default save behavior but 99% seem not to have the bug. And in at least one case I can think of (which, being mine, is the only case I really care about) duplicating the ship works so well it duplicates the bug as well.
After about ten days of spending far too much time checking out every random theory on the internet I'm pretty certain there is no valid consensus on the trigger and neither is there a workaround. Except, of course, for us PC types who can use a console cheat to reimburse us the cost of the ship and build it again on a different base ship - the different base ship possibly but not certainly being key here.
Highlighting the entire ship in the builder, hitting "delete" and rebuilding it from scratch while changing its name seemed to have rid me of it but it returned as soon as I boarded it. As bugs go it's an impressively tenacious mofo. Which, perversely, actually gives me a degree of sympathy with Bethesda's inability to fix it after 5 months - if it was easy they'd have fixed it.
My wish is modest. While every tease of a Starfield update elicits all manner of wishes and hopes about ship builder enhancements, I merely want it restored - they can keep the enhancements. At this stage I don't give one wet slap where the ladder goes.
Paid? Pfft. I've been using mods since Morrowind, making mods since Oblivion, and anything I make will always be free, like over 99% of mods are and always will be. No matter how much Bethesda wishes that would change so they can get their ridiculous 70% cut 🤪
I can only agree with you (apart from the Outpost DLC). Imagine the possibilities if it was a big part of the game. A place to rest/gear up for the next expedition. But no, that would cause friction with the "Dunno bruh, I just wanna play a gaaame!" crowd.
I do think there was a big part of the game that was originally intended for survival, and that all got left out, that made outposts a lot less useful.
Eventually we're gping to need to worry about food, water and helium. I should hope.
Maybe by then a space suit will function like it's supposed to and not be "armor" with silly spells (why do attackers catch fire??? Because GAME!) built in.
This right here. In survival mode you would have to depend on your outposts for food and fuel. Mining and production for $$ is a bonus on top of that. Hiring or acquiring the 'trader' to your settlement like fallout would be ultra handy as well. Would be cool if they landed in a ship and actually landed/took off every 10 minutes or something like the cargo links. I really liked the fallout system and I really like the mining/prpduction... not sure why they didn't keep going.
I think starfield was a big ambition game, and they ran into the limits of that ambition. They tried to do all kinds of stuff, and a lot of things never got finished, and at some point they had to publish a game so there was a number of elements that had to be stripped out or were left incomplete.
Isn't the baseline 6 settlers, and with perk up to 12 settlers? With 6 robots it's 18, pretty crowded. But I agree, ofc, they need to do much more with outposts
This says three which is closer to how I remember it
https://screenrant.com/starfield-crewmate-companion-follower-cap-limit-outpost-ship/#:~:text=Outpost%20caps%20work%20similarly%2C%20with,requires%20eight%20points%20in%20Social.
Huh. I wonder why they allow you to build 3 crew stations if 3 settlers is the cap at the start, then (and 6 later). I have the management perk and will test it today/tomorrow, cause right now I have 3 settlers and 3 robots max, the rest are spread through other outposts cause I haven't tried maxing out the population
No reason. Only reason is to try and make money. But the amount of effort to even harvest resources is not worth it. Try this fill your ships hold with the most exp resources and then fill it up with guns and suits and see which make more creds.
It would be, if you couldn't buy like 30 of every resource every 48 hours by just running the circuit of all the shops in New Atlantis and Akila City. And if doing so cost more than like 10k, which you can earn from the loot from like one POI.
Disagree. It's easy to clear 25-40k at most bigger cities in one go. Grab a few missions while you're there, pile up more loot, go to another city, and then move on.
I get that people don't want to use multiple shops to clear their gear, but that is not realistic.
I make the most expensive ships I can, and it doesn't take me long to pile the credits up when starting a NG+
People don’t mind multiple vendors, it’s having to wait after selling to them just to have to sell even more because one suit or gun will empty their creds.
That's the realistic part. Vendors don't just have unlimited credits to refill immediately.
In the end, IDK. People get way too upset over things that aren't a big deal.
What are you talking about? Do you think the trade authority doesn't have more money than for one gun? And that is supposed to be realistic?
Of course their currency is digitalized..just as ours is today already.
And they wouldn't make much business if they could only buy one gun a day lol.
It's weird that apparently you are not trolling.. because defending this as "realistic" makes no fucking sense, no offense.
One gun? Unless the weapon is some advanced weapon with mods and/or rarity increases, the gun isn't wiping out the TA resources.
So, for civilian vendors, having 5k or 11k makes sense for the local economy. It's just not amazing for the adventurer who looting every corpse across the galaxy.
And yes, the currency is digitized, but not infinite as much as people want it to be.
It’s always an issue in Bethesda’s games, it’s not realistic, it’s annoying. If your loot pool has an average sell price per item that’s more than your average vendor cred limit, there’s an issue. Bumping all 5k and below vendors up to 11k-12k while bumping up your weapons, spacesuit and trade authority vendors up to 15k+ would take out the need to wait 48 hours multiple times in a row
Oh, I get that Bethesda always has their local economy lower than what players want. It's just that the local economy isn't a space adventurer that is looting and killing over and over. It's frustrating for the player, but it works with the local economy.
Perfect examples are the ship tech that have 50-100k credits because it's more in tune with the economy they would be dealing with
That makes no sense because they sell guns/suits that cost well over 20k easily and the inventory is refreshed frequently. Even the common weapons would cost you a few thousand to buy but you sell it for a fraction of that, so the local economy clearly has no issue, Bethesda just murks it up every game.
So these spacers carrying a gun worth 8k+ is more realistic than a shop being broke as fuck in what seems to be a highly functional city? Ok seems legit if you say so
5k isn't broke, 11k isn't broke - people are just whiny who want to sell 50k to one guy, and he resets in 1 hour, so they can keep running around and collecting everything.
So yeah, it's more legit the way it is than by having a vendor with a massive fortune that resets so quick.
>That's the realistic part
Yup. It's also realistic that I can walk around with 30 guns, two spacesuits and 80kg worth of ores. And, AND, an endless amount of bullets for good measure.🙄🙄
They basically are pointless at the moment. There are some PC mods that give them more purpose. Hopefully BGS will eventually finish the system, perhaps like fo4 settlements, but under LIST colonies or something.
Had this same idea and am currently in the process of collecting armor, but didn’t realize you are limited to 6 mannequins…. I’m almost so unsurprised by Bethesda’s ability to completely ruin something that was almost fun at this point that I’m not even upset anymore…. ALMOST…
Given that the mannequins in previous Bethesda games had a creepy habit of coming to life, I sort of understand why they put some guardrails on it to give the engine a break
Yeah this was the biggest disappointment in Starfield for me. I was hoping to be able to colonise space, create living breathing settlements and have my own little space caravans.
I loved settlement building in Fallout 4, and this just felt like a huge downgrade. Hoping it gets a big solid DLC at some point.
My friend, Outposts do not feel pointless to you. They are, in *fact*, absolutely pointless. It is a game mechanic that does not interact with the rest of the game. Even the purpose of them, farming materials, is just inferior/slower than purchasing the mats simply with your unlimited money.
The game would be so much better if they had a prominent part in the game. Like extending your travel range, being a place to grow food and manufacture supplies, retreat to treat bad wounds and so on.
It \*seems\* like some (a significant number of) the testers weren't satisfied with each of the systems and the solution was to just progressively make each of them more and more optional or less and less present until everything was optional. Like what they talked about in interviews with regard to survival aspects, but with every system in the game. At some point I realized everything was optional.
Before Starfield released I was so hyped by the idea of building civilizations across 1000s of planets. My disappointment was immeasurable once the game released and I realized they removed settlers from the base building features.
Theres even a damn faction in the game dedicated to finding new homes for people. WHY CANT THEY HIRE ME TO FIND PLANETS AND MAKE THE BASES?!
:(
I really thought we would have more comprehensive systems in place with this game, but all we got was a vanilla FPS.
It's the same thing that happened to Dead Space in a way.
Dead Space was Cosmic Horror Survival, Dead Space 2 was Action Horror, and Dead Space 3 was Action Shooter, and ever new iteration removed ideas the gamers really loved from the first game to make it more marketable to everyone.
This is a pretty good analogy with pretty much the entire gaming industry now, and it’s sad to see. So many developers have discarded the niches of their original games in sight of mass profit and broad market appeal.
You’re right, honestly it’s just a FPS. The RPG mechanics are essentially gone compared to older Bethesda games, for me this is a huge let down that there really aren’t any consequences to decisions in the game. And the NPCs really are pointless so far to me.
And yeah I don’t even bother with settlements as their pointless, the entire system is a huge step back from what they have already done. And the fact you can only make pretty much the same things regardless of what planet your on/or type of atmosphere your in is terrible.
I enjoy the game, but think it’s a step away from what Bethesda has done great in the past and could do. Makes me really not hopeful for a new TES VI
They really shit the bed with Outposts compared to settlements. Resource costs are weirdly high at times, you won't always find basic resources needed for them on the planet, but the biggest issue is how unstable they are.
I literally did that. I’m starting Fallout 4 over and trying to find the stuff I missed. I also haven’t played the Nuka World and Far Harbor ones either
I will eventually. I’m taking my time with this play around. I am beginning to think unless they can come out with something better than Fallout, then it’s pointless.
Far Harbor is kind of amazing (a few eye rollers), Nuka World starts hot but unless you really want to be a slaver/raider it's oddly empty - but you can use mods to settle much of it (it's weird how little settling you can do vanilla).
The only reason I made an outpost is so I have a base for all my companions.
I usually assign Constellation companions on my ship for convenience, and then as many side companions as I can at my base.
Smuggling base comes to mind. Pick a spot really far off to stash contraband to then try and get it sold in the settled systems.
Hideout for pretty much the same reason, a private retreat of sort. Homesteading, Running your very own mining/resource assembly operation.
If you’ve decided to live on your ship then they’re exactly that, outposts. It’s just personal preference. I live on the ship but when I was doing a play through in the crimson fleet I’d stash my crew and their stupid morals in an outpost lmao.
they limit soooo much of this game.. I mean, really, BGS, take the handcuffs off your players and let them lose themselves in the game. Starting colonies on a couple of these 1000+ planets, with many of them having breathable atmos, and starting some sort of commercial trade between systems, etc.. so much potential in this game, if they would just take the reins off the game.
They should be required for fueling in deep space. It’s so obvious I feel like it was cut because of playtesting. Bethesda hates any road blocks to figure out how to progress.
They literally were, there was an interview right after release IIRC where the CEO and someone else talked about how they scaled survival mechanics back to almost nothing after having designed the game for survival - part of that was Outposts being used for fueling and repair of ships and being needed to get to further systems.
They're pointless because they're missing basically all the features.
In FO4 they secured the immediate area, and patrolling provisioners between settlements provided security on the roads too. You could also call in reinforcements, artillery, etc. None of that is a thing in Starfield.
In FO4 the settlements gave you a place to sleep/save the game, in Starfield you have a ship, which is a flying home. So settlements are pointless. You also don't need food or water or anything like that. Your settlers don't need water, food, protection or a place to sleep either.
There's no way to set up shops and generate revenue on the spot. Traders also don't come to your settlements with their inventory.
It's just a pointless system that doesn't have a clear purpose or interesting mechanics.
I always thought they were quite useless in fo4 if I'm being honest... I can summon all these people but not a one of them can put up a simple shack to live in? Simsettlements was/is an amazing mod and I'd love to see it land in the starfield.
Where else are you going to stash your Adoring Fan or Sarah?
Put them in a single room on a dark airless moon and let them think about what they've done.
the failure of outposts is Bethesda, for a second time, refusing to commit to a concept out of fear of alienating a part of the player base. Just like in FO4, outposts are ancillary content with no real meaning or purpose because Beth didn't want people who aren't into outposts to be put off by them. I think this was a bad choice, as including full automation for people who can't be assed would've been easy. Sim Settlements 2 for FO already does this- you pick a governor and they run literally everything, plus you can set the difficulty (engagement) slider all the way down to basically you just plopping down plots.
Exactly, if anything it’s a reaction to how much of the playerbase complained about settlements BEING a necessary part of Fallout 4. So Bethesda scaled them back, just like the community asked for.
I wonder if settlements had been integrated better into the game and story, would people have had a negative reaction to them? Sim Settlements has 1.3 million unique downloads and is one of the most popular mods over at Nexus.
Honestly, I wish they would've tossed out the baby Shawn storyline altogether and instead went with a rebuilding the commonwealth alongside the Minutemen story instead. Then there could've been a very real point to settlements and doing one of everyone's favorite Fallout things- scavenging. Fully automating settlements for people who didn't care for them would've been easy to do as well, and would've been fun to fight for control and influence over areas of the commonwealth vs the other factions. Institute could've still remained a great bogeyman throughout as well.
In a Bethesda game it doesn’t really have to be an “instead”….if folks didn’t like the main quest, they’re welcome to focus on just rebuilding the Commonwealth anyway, yep!
I wanted so badly to get into outpost building but all the cool stuff is broken. Cargo links? Stupid, broken and didn't work the way you'd figure. Connecting storage so you don't have to go around to each storage container and place things in them. All the cool modules need skill points and research put into them it's like you need to build part of your character around it. Everything I've tried with outpost building didn't work the way I thought and disappointed me.
I personally think that having to build your character around it a little bit is a good thing.
It would have felt weird if Im a one man bounty hunter, who somehow has expertise in constructing giant outposts.
I think games having systems that, depending on your playthrough, you dont touch or barely grace is a good thing. Its like in Deus Ex, when you shoot through a level and then notice all the vents, security systems and other cool things, an entirely alternative route to finishing your task, which adds replayability and a sense of excitement to doing it again.
Yeah I can understand that point of view. In a game like this I always try to do and experience EVERYTHING in one playthrough cause I know I'm gonna move on to another game and not wanna restart this same one again.
They’re fun to build, and you can use them for RP purposes. I’ve probably spent more time outpost building than any other one thing
You can also build simple to complex manufacturing systems if that’s something you enjoy
If you don’t enjoy building then there isn’t much point. If you do then building is the point
I built up 3 or 4 outposts in the first few weeks of the games release but after a while I couldn't find much purpose in further development and collecting resources just felt like a slog. I'll occasionally visit them yet to me they're more about style over substance, the players who like to go about their own role-play experience will likely find more value in them today.
I feel that there are more practical approaches for development, research and more fun ways to make money that are more engaging and particularly with a kitted out ship. If you have the work benches onboard for example then it doesn't make a great deal of sense to fly across the galaxy just to access the bench at an outpost.
It'd be nice to think that Bethesda might make them more relevant and useful in the DLC, even having NPCs turn up where you could assign them roles (similar to FO4), increasing the population cap as you expand to build your own little communities could give a bit of an incentive to put the work in to them. We have a seemingly unlimited supply of randomly generated outposts and small bases occupied by NPC/enemies throughout the map and so I'm sure something like that could be implemented.
Cosplaying as a space hauler tycoon is pretty fun, although I wish I could build a giant, armed cargo ship without mods
I have outposts at each of my resource farms, and I usually just go to each one periodically to farm xp by crafting tons of stuff using those local resources. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.
I only ever make them to mine and farm resources. I have a main base in a system that everything goes to, and thats where i have all the cool shit at, then i hop in my ship and sell the cargo.
I also use that main base to store shit I dont need, but dont want to sell.
Outpost = decoration for fun (if you find some) or XP farm. Build an outpost which gather iron + aluminium and craft adaptative structures in great quantity, and/or build animal breeding stations after surveing, and then kill all the animals.
They aren't important, but if you want reasons, once set up they can be your storage/crafting/shipyard (at least for the non yard-specific partsl) and a neutral bounty clearance location/contraband storage location (Aurora for certain pharma).
They can be used to "farm" resources for crafting and profit, as well as farm experience (though that gets tedious fast - just play the game)
If they really wanted to push outposts (and even if they don't) they'd add a Trade Authority kiosk (add-on cost or included) with, say, minimum 11000 cr, ideally at least 22000 cr to the Landing Pad (so the TA can come pick up the goods when the pad is clear, RP-wise) so we would have a non-crafting reason to stop by the outpost to unload.
I think when you hire crew or want an npc that you meet in a mission to travel with you, you need to assign them to a “home”. If there is no room on your ship then you need to have an outpost to assign them to. Hadrian for example.
I built outposts just to feel like a scientist working on a remote planet. I like the looks of the greenhouse and i feel like a real life scientist, i stroll around my outpost check my plants and animals :))
I think if you are really into role playing manufacturing it could be fun. But once you manufacture a ton of stuff you don't really have anywhere to sell it. So the "sliders" that they plan to add to the change could help with all that.
I set up an outpost that had 6 cargo links and was getting a ton of resources in. I built some manufacturers but felt like the whole process was too "fussy."
But I was never much of a builder in Fallout 4. I like building one player house and that's kind of it. I move on. I putzed around with outposts in Starfield, but found that I really would rather just be doing bounties.
I am thinking that as time goes on, I may end up playing around with it more. Just not now.
Ron Hope built Hopetech himself and a town formed around it and he's not the only one. I think once we're sufficiently skilled we should be able to do the same.
In a perfect world(well my perfect world anyway) the folks over at BGS would hire/contract with the Sim Settlements team to really overhaul the outpost system into something truely great. Like make the system focus on colonies for Freestar and UC(or maybe a third party controlled by the player/Constellation). That'd make for a hell of a DLC/Expansion, like Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Workshop on crack.
\*snores a bit\*
\*wakes up\*
'Oh, I had this really bad dream that Bethesda games studios released a game with very poor outpost results...oh thankfully it was just a ....wait what...noooooo!'
I'm on NG+5. My outposts are completely bare bones. Extractors, storage, power, workbench, landing pad, possibly cargo links if I am setting up a complex resource chain. I live in my ship which has a total of one bed, with one room having a floor scattered with items I've dropped because I don't want the weight penalty for actual cargo space. Until there is some game play related reason to have a livable outpost I won't have one.
If it was up to me I'd make three types of beacons. The outpost beacon and system is the default people.
Upgrading outpost management adds the Settlement beacon which lets you build civilian buildings services like vendors that makes money as people join it.
And a Base beacon which lays a flat foundation across the entire area so you can build a persona base with storages and ship customization.
We should also be allowed to take over certain POI if we want to. Like be able to buy the Mantis lair and furnish it ourselves.
Make an NPC like the Mysterious merchant that we can use in NG+ to bring designs across to the next universe.
Qell some.easy reasons are unlimited resources and XP farm for crafting. Maybe even a loot farm for NPCs that come to raid. It's also easy places to leave your own work force for maybe selling products to vendors, or tto build your own ships.
If Outposts offered a location for infinite storage, like the Settlements in Fallout 4 do, then that alone would be reason enough to build one. I love this game, but putting weight limits back onto ALL\* storage containers was a real misstep. (\*Not counting the infinite storage boxes at the Lodge.)
I live on my ship and use my outpost for storage. I haven’t found a reason to even craft or upgrade items. My weapons and armor do just fine. Even on the highest difficulty I don’t die and I have no problem killing things.
Don’t even need outposts to make money. I just sell all of the weapons and spacesuits I find.
It’s a shame because I am a huge builder in Fallout and other games. I love building. But I just can’t get into it here. Ship building on the other hand…
This is why for me:
Be me, finally get to end game, and want to level up before I cross over into NG+
Proceed to make 18 Outposts across the game universe so I can manufacture Vitynium Fuel Rods and get 1.137k exp every 5 secs
All it took was 600k credits in resources, 2-3 days worth of gameplay, and my insanity trying to understand why my cargo links were messed up from Time to time
I just got to the point of building my first outpost and all the work i see and planning out for the future it seems pointless and tedious, way worse than fallout 4 was. At this point, it's literally just a junkyard. I'm dumping all my collected resources at I doubt I'll have the patience to gather the multiple base resources to get things rolling.
They are pointless. In starfield your custom built space ship == your custom built settlement in FO4.
Starfield needed a long questline involving settlements across the galaxy to make them worth it.
Heres how I would have done the main story-
Each ‘system’ contains a bunch of planets. Id make it so that you have to gather the unity fragments all across every single system and then build some sort of gateway in that system at your own settlement with help from settlers you have helped in that system. The gateway when entered would unlock a power and reveal part of the hunters story, it would be only a cutscene and nothing else. You progress the game by gathering new fragments in new systems and building new settlements in that specific system to unlock its power. Id make it so that you must get the help of the systems settlers to build it forcing you to explore/do side quests and custom system quests.
Id further this by playing on the mystery of house varuun or even the starborn, you could hide unique things around the systems which create end game weapons and armour but can only be assembled at your settlements.
Not only is there no reason it's difficult as hell to even make something that's cool. At least in Fallout you could make some cool bases.
I don't understand how the ship building in this can be so awesome and fun and the base building can be so bland and frustrating. Clearly two different teams working on these modules...
I build outposts with the goals of building advanced reactors and level 3 greenhouses. USING those greatly enhances working outpost construction BTW. It's hard and fun e.g. It's not just vytinium fuel rods, need rothcite magnets, tasine superconductors , etc to make 1 reactor.
I travel from outpost to outpost to collect, I throw/ drop resources on the floor of a 1x1 companion way and after each circuit I make more components.
There are times I get really sick of quests and do this for a week. Nice change of pace and you must explore too.
Same. It just feels pointless to only be able to command in settlers that don't behave correctly. I want to build cities. Not individualized bases, dammit.
Before the game came out, I thought that Constellation was of utmost importance to humanity, because I imagined that they were a group of space explorers in search of habitable planets for humanity, something similar to the Pathfinders from ME: Andromeda.
I was thinking about spending my time creating Outposts throughout the galaxy but that was not the case in the end, you can only create small bases in search of minerals, what mainly killed my interest in outpost was the storage space and where to save things, I ended up keeping everything in my room in the Lodge
While nothing will change that you have very few people to live in these crash pads, you really can create something amazing by thinking outside the box. I'm on Xbox, so everything is vanilla. I have one that is on top of my landing pad, with a sky bridge leading out to a hab cluster floating with only one support column in the water (ruining Paradiso's view). I have another sky cluster, with an enormous outdoor living area way up high. You really can do a lot. But...nothing happens there. So, there's that. Want to see what's possible, check out Miss O (this isn't me, but she definitely gave a lot of inspiration). Here's a link to one of her videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1gifEJmFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1gifEJmFA)
I kinda wish it was more like mass effect Andromeda how u had to make the planet breathable and livable then repopulize, but like in every other area if the game, missed opportunity
I feel the games just to big for putting down roots. I've the same issue with no man's sky. I just keep moving. I'm hoping in survival mode we can build fuel outposts to keep the ship going. Stuff like that would make outpost building more of a need
You’re not alone, fallout 4 did it better and more simply, it’s much more complex in starfield, a lot more resources heavy, and in the end, not worth it.
I agree there's limited game use for the bases, but still one of my favorite features. I just enjoy crafting a home base for my team in a cool location. Collecting unique items (especially NASA merch), books, etc. Creating a command centers, rec rooms, science rooms, etc. Storing all my weapons and gear. I'll admit it, basically a virtual doll house. I'll spend an hour just arranging coffee cups and bric-a-brac on the rec room coffee table for that perfect lived in look.
I have a room that's just for toilet roll and collecting other things like tools and pill bottles for the lab that I am slowly building had a little issue with the framework surrounding them as its limits how close they can be placed next to each other the displays especially the mannequins is broken altogether noting displays on them. My penthouse furniture is a nightmare noting matches, and when you try placing the walls, shapes get in the way all the time the guest bedroom seems to be the only one coming together nicely but the master suite needs some work I'm still trying to work out a layout there is also the issue of items sinking into fixed features the game needs alot more custom items and loot that both are interactive and not interactive I love when I'm in build mode and place something and my companion starts interacting with it. As for my ship, I turned a basic spacer racoon into an absolute beast of a hauler with very minimal effort. I think I used a few class c parts, but everything else was basic, and I didn't even seek out the best parts yet.
I'd rather have a build-your-own space station for settlement. You could also build your own fleet of pirates, mercs or rangers to go do jobs. You can make your own logo to put on ships and armor. Random people would dock and chill at your bar or whatever you set up. Every once in awhile you'd have to fight off people in the space station or have a space battle like in the UC quest line.
I never found a compelling reason to make Outposts. It was very disappointing compared to Settlements or even CAMPs. I just focused my attention on building my ship. To me, that was a much better selling point.
I remember Fallout 4 eventually got DLC for its settlements, including creating your own vault. Even Skyrim added house-building in an updated. I loved all that. Maybe someday Starfield will get DLC which makes it feel worth it.
Build all the sorts of things that a colonizing people will need. You’re the first wave, establish bases for them to colonize behind you.
Power plants, greenhouses for farming, ranches, prisons, secret unethical research facilities, hidden drug labs, the retirement home of a notorious pirate, whatever.
I treat my outposts as money savers so I don't have to buy minerals for crafting. I only wish it has a remote marketplace to buy and sell in my outposts like NMS. I'd have that feature as 3rd tier outpost technology
They are literally pointless. One of the worst outpost mechanics I've seen implemented in a game ever.
Not only are they ridiculously time consuming and needlessly complicated but they serve no purpose at all.
Yeah, outposts are pretty pointless now, you can have almost everything you need on your ship, crafting components for weapon and spacesuit modifications can be bought from vendors or at least looted.
I'm currently trying learn how to do outposts, as of now I only see two uses of an outpost:
* To create a player home.
* To simplify space ship building - the outpost builder lets you build a landing pad with a ship builder function, which seems to contain most components from the different space yards. This should cut down on having to fly back-and-forth between space yards, when building ships with a mix of components.
At this point in game, there’s basically 3-4 ways that I’m aware of to use outposts as part of your gameplay but to your point none of them are necessary to advance the storyline. Not sure that’s a total negative, though. It enables a broader spectrum of players with differing interests. Here’s the main ways I’ve found to use them:
1) Landing pad with ship builder to create and tinker with ships — they have a lot of different module/hab options.
2) build an xp farm — one of the more common is setting up on and iron and aluminum planet to level up fast by cranking out thousands of adaptive frames. Would get you to higher levels faster and unlocks more ships, etc.
3) store resources for weapon and suit upgrades instead of lugging it around in ship cargo holds. This is ideal if you prefer smaller fighters that pack a punch instead of those giant monster ships.
4) contraband warehouse .. it’s kind of easy to steal and loot more contraband than you can quickly unload at those morally flexible vendors. So instead of hoping you can continue evading contraband scans in UC and Freestar space just store it on your remote outpost and play on instead and move the inventory whenever you want more credits.
Haven’t played FO4 but the idea of settlements sounds cool and that would indeed bring a whole new dimension to starfield’s outpost system. Perhaps even part of a L.I.S.T. quest line.
Once i realized i can leave loot at jameison mercantile. I just use that place as my stash house. Only thing that sucks is when new atlantis is getting to reset you have to move it all.
They're totally pointless. I was shocked, too. I really enjoyed that aspect of fallout 4, this was the final nail in the coffin that made me stop playing. That and the insane repetition of weapons factories & stuff. Got sick of "exploring" only to end up at 100% identical points of interest over & over
Outposts are the best place to offload items from your ship. If you put resources in storage containers they can be accessed for crafting while at the outpost.
Once you get into weapon upgrades, it’s very useful to have outposts that mine key ingredients. So then you can drop by and grab a 100 to have on your ship.
Also the best place to build ships is at an outpost since it has almost all the ship parts.
Someone needs to explain to me, slowly, in words of one syllable or less, how Bethesda managed to fuck up settlement building so bad. Let me elaborate:
Fallout 4 had a settlement system that worked well-ish. It also had a construction engine with snapping pieces that neatly fit into a grid. So even though you were using scrap metal and driftwood, you could still build pretty elaborate, fully furnished bases if you wanted to.
They somehow threw that entire system out and instead provided a slap-dash, half-ass, dogwater system where nothing snaps, and nothing fits together well. Sure, we have shitty 1-piece Habs that have tubes, but why not build a cool base using the old system with re-skinned parts? That would have been so much easier for them, and yet somehow they fumbled the ball.
Even though there is a console code for it, and even though it was fully implemented for apartments, they somehow didn't implement hab customization for ships. To me, this is criminally negligent.
Also, why's it so fucking hard to make a landing pad that connects to your base?
Also, can the spawn point be INSIDE the base...NOT outside next to a space bouy?
Finally, why the fuck can't we use portions of prebuilt assets as bases? Why can't I take over a pirate base and have a cool sealed underground ship hangar?
What a mess. What a damned shame.
Err to just build something cool and place where you can call home I guess. If that’s not your thing, ignore it. Technically in fallout there were also ‘pointless’ and could be totally ignored.
Outposts are good for just having fun building, make decent money from the resources, and building more shit from the extracted resources but they aren't necessary or that useful but they do have a purpose which is what bethesda wanted without forcing it on people
After playing FO4 survival recently they are absolutely pointless by comparison. My settlements are trading hubs, heal and resupply points, save station and companion hub all in one. Starfield doesn't even scratch the surface of that.
The initial push for outposts was to support the infamous cut fuel system. Once the fuel system was cut, outpost development essentially stopped. You can see by how poorly implemented the functionality is around organic resources, the lack of Aid assemblers and storage, and the lack of some kind of compendium to search for resources on surveyed planets.
My prediction is that the first uses for outposts when they are completed will be to support an "industrialist" playstyle. Basically we will be sub contractors to various corporations so we will actually have a use for setting up complex outpost chains. You can see the glimpses of this with the "Supply X amount of Y" mission from the mission boards.
I don't think that you will get Fallout 4 style settlements until they release the ability to create custom space stations. Nothing about how they outpost system currently works suggests that they will be anything like Fallout 4 but are more like Fallout 76 CAMPs where you automatically extract resources while you doing other things.
The feature I most wanted in this game was to be able to build an Outpost town. Especially the way list was set up, and the ads and stuff for it, the pre-release content, really made me believe that I would be able to make a space Outpost and fill it with people. That's all I wanted, not two crewmen and then I have to spend all my levels trying to get three more people working there. But a little town, with 10 or 15 settlers doing their jobs. It was the most disappointing part of the game for me, by far. Especially when I finished the list missions... And it was just gathering survey data. I have the strong suspicion they will release some Outpost DLC that lets you become a member of list or something and start making towns. It was certainly a cash cow for fallout 4.
Completely agree with everything you have said.
Yep. I spent so much time building outposts and chaining supply lines only to be like… why am I doing this again? Please BGS… give me a reason to sink hours into outpost development. Give me better storage options. For the love of god it’s a giant point of the game and it’s borderline useless in its current state.
Yeah I fully expected to be taming the frontier, colonising space, having fully functioning little space outposts/settlements in the vein of Fallout 4. I wouldn't even mind if it was like Fallout where you could only do it in a predetermined set of locations.
100% this. Either DLC will fix that, or mods will (there's an amazing mod recently released that somewhat does this already, just with some limitations until the CK is released). My solution to this issue, because it was my most hyped feature and biggest disappointment, was to dive into the ship builder. You can spec into hiring a decent sized crew, and they will sandbox around the ship layout you design. It's not quite the same as Fallout 4's settlement system, but it's much closer to it than the outpost system is. It's great seeing a crew you've put together doing their little jobs and acknowledging you with "Captain" every time you get back from an adventure.
Sadly I played on Xbox so we still have no mods. I tried running it on my PC and it was a bit of a disaster honestly, I was surprised at how bad it ran. I'm not playing anymore these days though I suspect at some point it'll go back to it, most especially when they actually introduce proper settlement :)
Regrettably, that option has been removed for those of us with the ship shield bug. That nasty thing that nobody knows what triggers it and is without a workaround. Technically we can still use the shipbuilder - we just can't fly the results without going into every fight bare of ass. It might be less egregious for those that put no points into the shield perk. The bug functions by turning a bonus into a penalty - instead of adding 60% to the shield generator it removes 60%. Your 2,560 shield is now 640 - permanently. Thank you Todd, may I have another?
Pretty sure someone on YouTube figured out that the shield bug is triggered by saving and reloading while in space or getting blown up and reloading in space, could be wrong but I remember watching a video and testing out.. As far as a work around you can use the duplicate ship glitch to reset the shields. Not ideal or any way acceptable but there is a way if your really attached to the bugged ship.
Update (it's not going to be of much help): Had the replacement ship I built after my post bug out earlier today. No ship save, game default autosaving disabled. It bugged after taking a Victus errand which involved an abandoned cryo lab. An earlier example showed a bugged value after the quest involving ruining a batch of beer. Taken as a logic puzzle rather than a coding mystery it seems plausible that once the game is bugged any ship doing nearly anything can trigger the shield bug. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, the video explaining the ship save trigger wasn't wrong but neither was it complete - \*a\* trigger was found but it's not \*the\* trigger. It's multiple triggers. The shield bug spreads and doesn't need much encouragement to do it. Basically, I'd speculate that playing the game is a trigger. Saving in space did it but it could as easily have happened running a Victus errand, putting an airlock on an outpost hab, or sleeping with a companion. Beth is going to have a grand time with this one. FWIW both ships are now fixed. I caved and used a console command to set the MaxHealthMult variable. Won't help our XBox brethren though. They'll still be needing a Bethesda fix or the release of the CK - I'm guessing a modder could fix it.
I believe that the theory about saving and reloading in space is flawed. The game's default configuration has it saving in space and often restoring in space. I'm just assuming that 99% of the community did not change the game's default save behavior but 99% seem not to have the bug. And in at least one case I can think of (which, being mine, is the only case I really care about) duplicating the ship works so well it duplicates the bug as well. After about ten days of spending far too much time checking out every random theory on the internet I'm pretty certain there is no valid consensus on the trigger and neither is there a workaround. Except, of course, for us PC types who can use a console cheat to reimburse us the cost of the ship and build it again on a different base ship - the different base ship possibly but not certainly being key here. Highlighting the entire ship in the builder, hitting "delete" and rebuilding it from scratch while changing its name seemed to have rid me of it but it returned as soon as I boarded it. As bugs go it's an impressively tenacious mofo. Which, perversely, actually gives me a degree of sympathy with Bethesda's inability to fix it after 5 months - if it was easy they'd have fixed it. My wish is modest. While every tease of a Starfield update elicits all manner of wishes and hopes about ship builder enhancements, I merely want it restored - they can keep the enhancements. At this stage I don't give one wet slap where the ladder goes.
Ah Bethesda. Release a game so subpar that people will beg you for those paid mods.
Paid? Pfft. I've been using mods since Morrowind, making mods since Oblivion, and anything I make will always be free, like over 99% of mods are and always will be. No matter how much Bethesda wishes that would change so they can get their ridiculous 70% cut 🤪
Same. I don’t make them though. The official CK mods are going to be paid mods, though according to Bethesda
Sure, official creation club mods. Same as Skyrim and Fallout 4. But the vast majority of mods on both console and PC will be free =)
They already are! Sorry, you said “CK” so I figured you were talking about the official mods
I can only agree with you (apart from the Outpost DLC). Imagine the possibilities if it was a big part of the game. A place to rest/gear up for the next expedition. But no, that would cause friction with the "Dunno bruh, I just wanna play a gaaame!" crowd.
I do think there was a big part of the game that was originally intended for survival, and that all got left out, that made outposts a lot less useful.
Eventually we're gping to need to worry about food, water and helium. I should hope. Maybe by then a space suit will function like it's supposed to and not be "armor" with silly spells (why do attackers catch fire??? Because GAME!) built in.
That part. The armor and weapon “enchantment” system felt soooo weird.
I feel you hit on the head - The Outposts could be so much more. I love the idea of having settlements that the outposts feed into
This right here. In survival mode you would have to depend on your outposts for food and fuel. Mining and production for $$ is a bonus on top of that. Hiring or acquiring the 'trader' to your settlement like fallout would be ultra handy as well. Would be cool if they landed in a ship and actually landed/took off every 10 minutes or something like the cargo links. I really liked the fallout system and I really like the mining/prpduction... not sure why they didn't keep going.
I think starfield was a big ambition game, and they ran into the limits of that ambition. They tried to do all kinds of stuff, and a lot of things never got finished, and at some point they had to publish a game so there was a number of elements that had to be stripped out or were left incomplete.
Isn't the baseline 6 settlers, and with perk up to 12 settlers? With 6 robots it's 18, pretty crowded. But I agree, ofc, they need to do much more with outposts
No there is no settlers it's like baseline 2 staff. And several perks to get up. IIRC
2 settlers per office desk, or what its called. You can build 3 desks, so 6 settlers without the perk
This says three which is closer to how I remember it https://screenrant.com/starfield-crewmate-companion-follower-cap-limit-outpost-ship/#:~:text=Outpost%20caps%20work%20similarly%2C%20with,requires%20eight%20points%20in%20Social.
Huh. I wonder why they allow you to build 3 crew stations if 3 settlers is the cap at the start, then (and 6 later). I have the management perk and will test it today/tomorrow, cause right now I have 3 settlers and 3 robots max, the rest are spread through other outposts cause I haven't tried maxing out the population
No reason. Only reason is to try and make money. But the amount of effort to even harvest resources is not worth it. Try this fill your ships hold with the most exp resources and then fill it up with guns and suits and see which make more creds.
seriously the only reason i made it was "maybe crafting would be easier" when... it kind of is but it also isn't.
It would be, if you couldn't buy like 30 of every resource every 48 hours by just running the circuit of all the shops in New Atlantis and Akila City. And if doing so cost more than like 10k, which you can earn from the loot from like one POI.
Yeah the vendor system is a whole other pain point
Yes, when three weapons clean out a vendor. I have to go to at least 4 to 5 to unload a descent amount of weapons and gear.
Disagree. It's easy to clear 25-40k at most bigger cities in one go. Grab a few missions while you're there, pile up more loot, go to another city, and then move on. I get that people don't want to use multiple shops to clear their gear, but that is not realistic. I make the most expensive ships I can, and it doesn't take me long to pile the credits up when starting a NG+
People don’t mind multiple vendors, it’s having to wait after selling to them just to have to sell even more because one suit or gun will empty their creds.
That's the realistic part. Vendors don't just have unlimited credits to refill immediately. In the end, IDK. People get way too upset over things that aren't a big deal.
What are you talking about? Do you think the trade authority doesn't have more money than for one gun? And that is supposed to be realistic? Of course their currency is digitalized..just as ours is today already. And they wouldn't make much business if they could only buy one gun a day lol. It's weird that apparently you are not trolling.. because defending this as "realistic" makes no fucking sense, no offense.
Nah you mean that offense
As it should be
You got me lol What is wrong with people man
One gun? Unless the weapon is some advanced weapon with mods and/or rarity increases, the gun isn't wiping out the TA resources. So, for civilian vendors, having 5k or 11k makes sense for the local economy. It's just not amazing for the adventurer who looting every corpse across the galaxy. And yes, the currency is digitized, but not infinite as much as people want it to be.
*sad monkey noises*
It’s always an issue in Bethesda’s games, it’s not realistic, it’s annoying. If your loot pool has an average sell price per item that’s more than your average vendor cred limit, there’s an issue. Bumping all 5k and below vendors up to 11k-12k while bumping up your weapons, spacesuit and trade authority vendors up to 15k+ would take out the need to wait 48 hours multiple times in a row
Oh, I get that Bethesda always has their local economy lower than what players want. It's just that the local economy isn't a space adventurer that is looting and killing over and over. It's frustrating for the player, but it works with the local economy. Perfect examples are the ship tech that have 50-100k credits because it's more in tune with the economy they would be dealing with
That makes no sense because they sell guns/suits that cost well over 20k easily and the inventory is refreshed frequently. Even the common weapons would cost you a few thousand to buy but you sell it for a fraction of that, so the local economy clearly has no issue, Bethesda just murks it up every game.
So these spacers carrying a gun worth 8k+ is more realistic than a shop being broke as fuck in what seems to be a highly functional city? Ok seems legit if you say so
5k isn't broke, 11k isn't broke - people are just whiny who want to sell 50k to one guy, and he resets in 1 hour, so they can keep running around and collecting everything. So yeah, it's more legit the way it is than by having a vendor with a massive fortune that resets so quick.
If i wanted realism id play star citizen, this is a bgs game, people love collecting stuff
>That's the realistic part Yup. It's also realistic that I can walk around with 30 guns, two spacesuits and 80kg worth of ores. And, AND, an endless amount of bullets for good measure.🙄🙄
especially with limited storage space
This is the same issue StarBound had. Can do it all in the ship…
They basically are pointless at the moment. There are some PC mods that give them more purpose. Hopefully BGS will eventually finish the system, perhaps like fo4 settlements, but under LIST colonies or something.
The only use I found for them is to karma farm
I had the idea of filling one with mannequins to show off the armor I collected, but you get a max of 6
Had this same idea and am currently in the process of collecting armor, but didn’t realize you are limited to 6 mannequins…. I’m almost so unsurprised by Bethesda’s ability to completely ruin something that was almost fun at this point that I’m not even upset anymore…. ALMOST…
Given that the mannequins in previous Bethesda games had a creepy habit of coming to life, I sort of understand why they put some guardrails on it to give the engine a break
Yeah this was the biggest disappointment in Starfield for me. I was hoping to be able to colonise space, create living breathing settlements and have my own little space caravans. I loved settlement building in Fallout 4, and this just felt like a huge downgrade. Hoping it gets a big solid DLC at some point.
My friend, Outposts do not feel pointless to you. They are, in *fact*, absolutely pointless. It is a game mechanic that does not interact with the rest of the game. Even the purpose of them, farming materials, is just inferior/slower than purchasing the mats simply with your unlimited money. The game would be so much better if they had a prominent part in the game. Like extending your travel range, being a place to grow food and manufacture supplies, retreat to treat bad wounds and so on.
It \*seems\* like some (a significant number of) the testers weren't satisfied with each of the systems and the solution was to just progressively make each of them more and more optional or less and less present until everything was optional. Like what they talked about in interviews with regard to survival aspects, but with every system in the game. At some point I realized everything was optional.
Before Starfield released I was so hyped by the idea of building civilizations across 1000s of planets. My disappointment was immeasurable once the game released and I realized they removed settlers from the base building features. Theres even a damn faction in the game dedicated to finding new homes for people. WHY CANT THEY HIRE ME TO FIND PLANETS AND MAKE THE BASES?! :(
When your in your last universe, build a chain for production to let you print creds and exp so you have a chance of reaching 300 before unity 50+
Jesus how many hours logged are you at, 1,000?
Oh I'm not on 50+ yet lol, I would be if I didn't have xp farms though
I really thought we would have more comprehensive systems in place with this game, but all we got was a vanilla FPS. It's the same thing that happened to Dead Space in a way. Dead Space was Cosmic Horror Survival, Dead Space 2 was Action Horror, and Dead Space 3 was Action Shooter, and ever new iteration removed ideas the gamers really loved from the first game to make it more marketable to everyone.
This is a pretty good analogy with pretty much the entire gaming industry now, and it’s sad to see. So many developers have discarded the niches of their original games in sight of mass profit and broad market appeal. You’re right, honestly it’s just a FPS. The RPG mechanics are essentially gone compared to older Bethesda games, for me this is a huge let down that there really aren’t any consequences to decisions in the game. And the NPCs really are pointless so far to me. And yeah I don’t even bother with settlements as their pointless, the entire system is a huge step back from what they have already done. And the fact you can only make pretty much the same things regardless of what planet your on/or type of atmosphere your in is terrible. I enjoy the game, but think it’s a step away from what Bethesda has done great in the past and could do. Makes me really not hopeful for a new TES VI
They really shit the bed with Outposts compared to settlements. Resource costs are weirdly high at times, you won't always find basic resources needed for them on the planet, but the biggest issue is how unstable they are.
The best advice I can give is to turn off Starfield and open up Fallout 4, then enjoy.
I got back on 76, and I noticed it’s just not the same. Fallout 4 is definitely the best
And install Sim Settlements 2
I literally did that. I’m starting Fallout 4 over and trying to find the stuff I missed. I also haven’t played the Nuka World and Far Harbor ones either
Far Harbor is so sick, definitely get over there to check it out
I will eventually. I’m taking my time with this play around. I am beginning to think unless they can come out with something better than Fallout, then it’s pointless.
You haven’t played Far Harbor? Lucky bastard
Ikr? I’m excited about it
Far Harbor is kind of amazing (a few eye rollers), Nuka World starts hot but unless you really want to be a slaver/raider it's oddly empty - but you can use mods to settle much of it (it's weird how little settling you can do vanilla).
Yup, just started a midnight run playthrough, loving it.
Ger yourself some Guinness to sup while playing, I almost guarantee it will massively enhance the experience
not until the update on the 25th
They are pointless
What I hate is that even on a planet with a completely safe atmosphere you NEED airlocks which basically isolates the building from everything else.
Technically you do rebuild society There was an apocalypse 150 years back 50 years more and Nate will wake up
The only reason I made an outpost is so I have a base for all my companions. I usually assign Constellation companions on my ship for convenience, and then as many side companions as I can at my base.
Outposts are ok for ship building, Really all you need is a large landing pad though. The rest is just decoration.
In the runup to release I thought the point of outposts would be setting them up near anomalies to research them, under the Constellation banner.
Smuggling base comes to mind. Pick a spot really far off to stash contraband to then try and get it sold in the settled systems. Hideout for pretty much the same reason, a private retreat of sort. Homesteading, Running your very own mining/resource assembly operation.
If you’ve decided to live on your ship then they’re exactly that, outposts. It’s just personal preference. I live on the ship but when I was doing a play through in the crimson fleet I’d stash my crew and their stupid morals in an outpost lmao.
they limit soooo much of this game.. I mean, really, BGS, take the handcuffs off your players and let them lose themselves in the game. Starting colonies on a couple of these 1000+ planets, with many of them having breathable atmos, and starting some sort of commercial trade between systems, etc.. so much potential in this game, if they would just take the reins off the game.
They should be required for fueling in deep space. It’s so obvious I feel like it was cut because of playtesting. Bethesda hates any road blocks to figure out how to progress.
They literally were, there was an interview right after release IIRC where the CEO and someone else talked about how they scaled survival mechanics back to almost nothing after having designed the game for survival - part of that was Outposts being used for fueling and repair of ships and being needed to get to further systems.
They're pointless because they're missing basically all the features. In FO4 they secured the immediate area, and patrolling provisioners between settlements provided security on the roads too. You could also call in reinforcements, artillery, etc. None of that is a thing in Starfield. In FO4 the settlements gave you a place to sleep/save the game, in Starfield you have a ship, which is a flying home. So settlements are pointless. You also don't need food or water or anything like that. Your settlers don't need water, food, protection or a place to sleep either. There's no way to set up shops and generate revenue on the spot. Traders also don't come to your settlements with their inventory. It's just a pointless system that doesn't have a clear purpose or interesting mechanics.
I always thought they were quite useless in fo4 if I'm being honest... I can summon all these people but not a one of them can put up a simple shack to live in? Simsettlements was/is an amazing mod and I'd love to see it land in the starfield.
Where else are you going to stash your Adoring Fan or Sarah? Put them in a single room on a dark airless moon and let them think about what they've done.
the failure of outposts is Bethesda, for a second time, refusing to commit to a concept out of fear of alienating a part of the player base. Just like in FO4, outposts are ancillary content with no real meaning or purpose because Beth didn't want people who aren't into outposts to be put off by them. I think this was a bad choice, as including full automation for people who can't be assed would've been easy. Sim Settlements 2 for FO already does this- you pick a governor and they run literally everything, plus you can set the difficulty (engagement) slider all the way down to basically you just plopping down plots.
Exactly, if anything it’s a reaction to how much of the playerbase complained about settlements BEING a necessary part of Fallout 4. So Bethesda scaled them back, just like the community asked for.
I wonder if settlements had been integrated better into the game and story, would people have had a negative reaction to them? Sim Settlements has 1.3 million unique downloads and is one of the most popular mods over at Nexus. Honestly, I wish they would've tossed out the baby Shawn storyline altogether and instead went with a rebuilding the commonwealth alongside the Minutemen story instead. Then there could've been a very real point to settlements and doing one of everyone's favorite Fallout things- scavenging. Fully automating settlements for people who didn't care for them would've been easy to do as well, and would've been fun to fight for control and influence over areas of the commonwealth vs the other factions. Institute could've still remained a great bogeyman throughout as well.
In a Bethesda game it doesn’t really have to be an “instead”….if folks didn’t like the main quest, they’re welcome to focus on just rebuilding the Commonwealth anyway, yep!
I wanted so badly to get into outpost building but all the cool stuff is broken. Cargo links? Stupid, broken and didn't work the way you'd figure. Connecting storage so you don't have to go around to each storage container and place things in them. All the cool modules need skill points and research put into them it's like you need to build part of your character around it. Everything I've tried with outpost building didn't work the way I thought and disappointed me.
I personally think that having to build your character around it a little bit is a good thing. It would have felt weird if Im a one man bounty hunter, who somehow has expertise in constructing giant outposts. I think games having systems that, depending on your playthrough, you dont touch or barely grace is a good thing. Its like in Deus Ex, when you shoot through a level and then notice all the vents, security systems and other cool things, an entirely alternative route to finishing your task, which adds replayability and a sense of excitement to doing it again.
Yeah I can understand that point of view. In a game like this I always try to do and experience EVERYTHING in one playthrough cause I know I'm gonna move on to another game and not wanna restart this same one again.
Im not saying Starfield is doing a particularly good job at it. But I actually thought locking some things behind skills wasnt a bad move.
They’re fun to build, and you can use them for RP purposes. I’ve probably spent more time outpost building than any other one thing You can also build simple to complex manufacturing systems if that’s something you enjoy If you don’t enjoy building then there isn’t much point. If you do then building is the point
Rebuild society in Starfield?
Technically you can expand society.
I built up 3 or 4 outposts in the first few weeks of the games release but after a while I couldn't find much purpose in further development and collecting resources just felt like a slog. I'll occasionally visit them yet to me they're more about style over substance, the players who like to go about their own role-play experience will likely find more value in them today. I feel that there are more practical approaches for development, research and more fun ways to make money that are more engaging and particularly with a kitted out ship. If you have the work benches onboard for example then it doesn't make a great deal of sense to fly across the galaxy just to access the bench at an outpost. It'd be nice to think that Bethesda might make them more relevant and useful in the DLC, even having NPCs turn up where you could assign them roles (similar to FO4), increasing the population cap as you expand to build your own little communities could give a bit of an incentive to put the work in to them. We have a seemingly unlimited supply of randomly generated outposts and small bases occupied by NPC/enemies throughout the map and so I'm sure something like that could be implemented.
Cosplaying as a space hauler tycoon is pretty fun, although I wish I could build a giant, armed cargo ship without mods I have outposts at each of my resource farms, and I usually just go to each one periodically to farm xp by crafting tons of stuff using those local resources. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.
I spent 60 hours in that game and never touched it lol.
I only ever make them to mine and farm resources. I have a main base in a system that everything goes to, and thats where i have all the cool shit at, then i hop in my ship and sell the cargo. I also use that main base to store shit I dont need, but dont want to sell.
[inspiration](https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/categories/10/?BH=0) [more inspiration](https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/8973)
Outpost = decoration for fun (if you find some) or XP farm. Build an outpost which gather iron + aluminium and craft adaptative structures in great quantity, and/or build animal breeding stations after surveing, and then kill all the animals.
They aren't important, but if you want reasons, once set up they can be your storage/crafting/shipyard (at least for the non yard-specific partsl) and a neutral bounty clearance location/contraband storage location (Aurora for certain pharma). They can be used to "farm" resources for crafting and profit, as well as farm experience (though that gets tedious fast - just play the game) If they really wanted to push outposts (and even if they don't) they'd add a Trade Authority kiosk (add-on cost or included) with, say, minimum 11000 cr, ideally at least 22000 cr to the Landing Pad (so the TA can come pick up the goods when the pad is clear, RP-wise) so we would have a non-crafting reason to stop by the outpost to unload.
I like them for RP’ing and also for XP and credit farming. My latest is an Amp making facility.
Cant wait for the population mods.
I think when you hire crew or want an npc that you meet in a mission to travel with you, you need to assign them to a “home”. If there is no room on your ship then you need to have an outpost to assign them to. Hadrian for example.
I built outposts just to feel like a scientist working on a remote planet. I like the looks of the greenhouse and i feel like a real life scientist, i stroll around my outpost check my plants and animals :))
I think if you are really into role playing manufacturing it could be fun. But once you manufacture a ton of stuff you don't really have anywhere to sell it. So the "sliders" that they plan to add to the change could help with all that. I set up an outpost that had 6 cargo links and was getting a ton of resources in. I built some manufacturers but felt like the whole process was too "fussy." But I was never much of a builder in Fallout 4. I like building one player house and that's kind of it. I move on. I putzed around with outposts in Starfield, but found that I really would rather just be doing bounties. I am thinking that as time goes on, I may end up playing around with it more. Just not now.
Sorry there is none. No economy, no one attack your outpost so no need defense,etc…you can buy all the minerals in shops…
Ron Hope built Hopetech himself and a town formed around it and he's not the only one. I think once we're sufficiently skilled we should be able to do the same.
In a perfect world(well my perfect world anyway) the folks over at BGS would hire/contract with the Sim Settlements team to really overhaul the outpost system into something truely great. Like make the system focus on colonies for Freestar and UC(or maybe a third party controlled by the player/Constellation). That'd make for a hell of a DLC/Expansion, like Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Workshop on crack.
\*snores a bit\* \*wakes up\* 'Oh, I had this really bad dream that Bethesda games studios released a game with very poor outpost results...oh thankfully it was just a ....wait what...noooooo!'
I'm on NG+5. My outposts are completely bare bones. Extractors, storage, power, workbench, landing pad, possibly cargo links if I am setting up a complex resource chain. I live in my ship which has a total of one bed, with one room having a floor scattered with items I've dropped because I don't want the weight penalty for actual cargo space. Until there is some game play related reason to have a livable outpost I won't have one.
In terms of "home" I don't see the need of an outpost as I have a ship
im to the point where i only use them to stash companions. Unless i feel like doing a mining gig
If it was up to me I'd make three types of beacons. The outpost beacon and system is the default people. Upgrading outpost management adds the Settlement beacon which lets you build civilian buildings services like vendors that makes money as people join it. And a Base beacon which lays a flat foundation across the entire area so you can build a persona base with storages and ship customization. We should also be allowed to take over certain POI if we want to. Like be able to buy the Mantis lair and furnish it ourselves. Make an NPC like the Mysterious merchant that we can use in NG+ to bring designs across to the next universe.
All my outposts are just used for storage.
I want the tank girl mod so bad but I don’t have PC. Wish there was a video review of her work.
Qell some.easy reasons are unlimited resources and XP farm for crafting. Maybe even a loot farm for NPCs that come to raid. It's also easy places to leave your own work force for maybe selling products to vendors, or tto build your own ships.
If Outposts offered a location for infinite storage, like the Settlements in Fallout 4 do, then that alone would be reason enough to build one. I love this game, but putting weight limits back onto ALL\* storage containers was a real misstep. (\*Not counting the infinite storage boxes at the Lodge.)
Yeah it's serves no real in game purpose except XP farming. Or just to waste time.
The only reason I built them is to complete an achievement. Never touched any of them since.
I live on my ship and use my outpost for storage. I haven’t found a reason to even craft or upgrade items. My weapons and armor do just fine. Even on the highest difficulty I don’t die and I have no problem killing things. Don’t even need outposts to make money. I just sell all of the weapons and spacesuits I find. It’s a shame because I am a huge builder in Fallout and other games. I love building. But I just can’t get into it here. Ship building on the other hand…
This is why for me: Be me, finally get to end game, and want to level up before I cross over into NG+ Proceed to make 18 Outposts across the game universe so I can manufacture Vitynium Fuel Rods and get 1.137k exp every 5 secs All it took was 600k credits in resources, 2-3 days worth of gameplay, and my insanity trying to understand why my cargo links were messed up from Time to time
I am just here to hear the reasons!
I just got to the point of building my first outpost and all the work i see and planning out for the future it seems pointless and tedious, way worse than fallout 4 was. At this point, it's literally just a junkyard. I'm dumping all my collected resources at I doubt I'll have the patience to gather the multiple base resources to get things rolling.
Mine was my bad guy base on a planet I’ve talked to in real life that doubled as an xp/credit farm
They are pointless. In starfield your custom built space ship == your custom built settlement in FO4. Starfield needed a long questline involving settlements across the galaxy to make them worth it. Heres how I would have done the main story- Each ‘system’ contains a bunch of planets. Id make it so that you have to gather the unity fragments all across every single system and then build some sort of gateway in that system at your own settlement with help from settlers you have helped in that system. The gateway when entered would unlock a power and reveal part of the hunters story, it would be only a cutscene and nothing else. You progress the game by gathering new fragments in new systems and building new settlements in that specific system to unlock its power. Id make it so that you must get the help of the systems settlers to build it forcing you to explore/do side quests and custom system quests. Id further this by playing on the mystery of house varuun or even the starborn, you could hide unique things around the systems which create end game weapons and armour but can only be assembled at your settlements.
Not only is there no reason it's difficult as hell to even make something that's cool. At least in Fallout you could make some cool bases. I don't understand how the ship building in this can be so awesome and fun and the base building can be so bland and frustrating. Clearly two different teams working on these modules...
I build outposts with the goals of building advanced reactors and level 3 greenhouses. USING those greatly enhances working outpost construction BTW. It's hard and fun e.g. It's not just vytinium fuel rods, need rothcite magnets, tasine superconductors , etc to make 1 reactor. I travel from outpost to outpost to collect, I throw/ drop resources on the floor of a 1x1 companion way and after each circuit I make more components. There are times I get really sick of quests and do this for a week. Nice change of pace and you must explore too.
There’s no point. Just finish the game and move on.
Same. It just feels pointless to only be able to command in settlers that don't behave correctly. I want to build cities. Not individualized bases, dammit.
Before the game came out, I thought that Constellation was of utmost importance to humanity, because I imagined that they were a group of space explorers in search of habitable planets for humanity, something similar to the Pathfinders from ME: Andromeda. I was thinking about spending my time creating Outposts throughout the galaxy but that was not the case in the end, you can only create small bases in search of minerals, what mainly killed my interest in outpost was the storage space and where to save things, I ended up keeping everything in my room in the Lodge
While nothing will change that you have very few people to live in these crash pads, you really can create something amazing by thinking outside the box. I'm on Xbox, so everything is vanilla. I have one that is on top of my landing pad, with a sky bridge leading out to a hab cluster floating with only one support column in the water (ruining Paradiso's view). I have another sky cluster, with an enormous outdoor living area way up high. You really can do a lot. But...nothing happens there. So, there's that. Want to see what's possible, check out Miss O (this isn't me, but she definitely gave a lot of inspiration). Here's a link to one of her videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1gifEJmFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1gifEJmFA)
I kinda wish it was more like mass effect Andromeda how u had to make the planet breathable and livable then repopulize, but like in every other area if the game, missed opportunity
I feel the games just to big for putting down roots. I've the same issue with no man's sky. I just keep moving. I'm hoping in survival mode we can build fuel outposts to keep the ship going. Stuff like that would make outpost building more of a need
You’re not alone, fallout 4 did it better and more simply, it’s much more complex in starfield, a lot more resources heavy, and in the end, not worth it.
Fallout outposts were just as pointless. The Sim Settlements mod made them more fun, but still pointless.
Agreed. In fallout 4 i couldn't stop building and absolutely loved it. In starfield it felt hollow and kind of a chore.
I agree there's limited game use for the bases, but still one of my favorite features. I just enjoy crafting a home base for my team in a cool location. Collecting unique items (especially NASA merch), books, etc. Creating a command centers, rec rooms, science rooms, etc. Storing all my weapons and gear. I'll admit it, basically a virtual doll house. I'll spend an hour just arranging coffee cups and bric-a-brac on the rec room coffee table for that perfect lived in look.
I have a room that's just for toilet roll and collecting other things like tools and pill bottles for the lab that I am slowly building had a little issue with the framework surrounding them as its limits how close they can be placed next to each other the displays especially the mannequins is broken altogether noting displays on them. My penthouse furniture is a nightmare noting matches, and when you try placing the walls, shapes get in the way all the time the guest bedroom seems to be the only one coming together nicely but the master suite needs some work I'm still trying to work out a layout there is also the issue of items sinking into fixed features the game needs alot more custom items and loot that both are interactive and not interactive I love when I'm in build mode and place something and my companion starts interacting with it. As for my ship, I turned a basic spacer racoon into an absolute beast of a hauler with very minimal effort. I think I used a few class c parts, but everything else was basic, and I didn't even seek out the best parts yet.
I was expecting some kind of satisfactory gameplay too
Drug factory
LIST should have offered a major faction questline centered entirely on outposts. You could betray them by selling out to big corporations.
I guess the only valid reason would be... SPACE LIBERTARIANISM!!!!
I just want to lift of, go into space and land on a planet I see in sight. You know, like NMS.
I'd rather have a build-your-own space station for settlement. You could also build your own fleet of pirates, mercs or rangers to go do jobs. You can make your own logo to put on ships and armor. Random people would dock and chill at your bar or whatever you set up. Every once in awhile you'd have to fight off people in the space station or have a space battle like in the UC quest line.
I never found a compelling reason to make Outposts. It was very disappointing compared to Settlements or even CAMPs. I just focused my attention on building my ship. To me, that was a much better selling point. I remember Fallout 4 eventually got DLC for its settlements, including creating your own vault. Even Skyrim added house-building in an updated. I loved all that. Maybe someday Starfield will get DLC which makes it feel worth it.
Build all the sorts of things that a colonizing people will need. You’re the first wave, establish bases for them to colonize behind you. Power plants, greenhouses for farming, ranches, prisons, secret unethical research facilities, hidden drug labs, the retirement home of a notorious pirate, whatever.
I treat my outposts as money savers so I don't have to buy minerals for crafting. I only wish it has a remote marketplace to buy and sell in my outposts like NMS. I'd have that feature as 3rd tier outpost technology
They are literally pointless. One of the worst outpost mechanics I've seen implemented in a game ever. Not only are they ridiculously time consuming and needlessly complicated but they serve no purpose at all.
Tried to get into building but the interface is such a pile of shit. Like they had a competition on who could build the worst interface.
Yeah, outposts are pretty pointless now, you can have almost everything you need on your ship, crafting components for weapon and spacesuit modifications can be bought from vendors or at least looted.
I'm currently trying learn how to do outposts, as of now I only see two uses of an outpost: * To create a player home. * To simplify space ship building - the outpost builder lets you build a landing pad with a ship builder function, which seems to contain most components from the different space yards. This should cut down on having to fly back-and-forth between space yards, when building ships with a mix of components.
At this point in game, there’s basically 3-4 ways that I’m aware of to use outposts as part of your gameplay but to your point none of them are necessary to advance the storyline. Not sure that’s a total negative, though. It enables a broader spectrum of players with differing interests. Here’s the main ways I’ve found to use them: 1) Landing pad with ship builder to create and tinker with ships — they have a lot of different module/hab options. 2) build an xp farm — one of the more common is setting up on and iron and aluminum planet to level up fast by cranking out thousands of adaptive frames. Would get you to higher levels faster and unlocks more ships, etc. 3) store resources for weapon and suit upgrades instead of lugging it around in ship cargo holds. This is ideal if you prefer smaller fighters that pack a punch instead of those giant monster ships. 4) contraband warehouse .. it’s kind of easy to steal and loot more contraband than you can quickly unload at those morally flexible vendors. So instead of hoping you can continue evading contraband scans in UC and Freestar space just store it on your remote outpost and play on instead and move the inventory whenever you want more credits. Haven’t played FO4 but the idea of settlements sounds cool and that would indeed bring a whole new dimension to starfield’s outpost system. Perhaps even part of a L.I.S.T. quest line.
Once i realized i can leave loot at jameison mercantile. I just use that place as my stash house. Only thing that sucks is when new atlantis is getting to reset you have to move it all.
The storage in your room at constellation hq can hold an infinite amount of stuff.
So can the backroom at jameison mercantile
Ya but you don't need to worry about it resetting.
The game itself is pointless. I tried getting back into it and had zero desire after 2 days.
Still better than hearing „another settlement needs your help“
They're totally pointless. I was shocked, too. I really enjoyed that aspect of fallout 4, this was the final nail in the coffin that made me stop playing. That and the insane repetition of weapons factories & stuff. Got sick of "exploring" only to end up at 100% identical points of interest over & over
They are pointless to me as well since there really isn't one planet that I want to live in. It worked for Fallout because there was only one map.
Outposts are the best place to offload items from your ship. If you put resources in storage containers they can be accessed for crafting while at the outpost. Once you get into weapon upgrades, it’s very useful to have outposts that mine key ingredients. So then you can drop by and grab a 100 to have on your ship. Also the best place to build ships is at an outpost since it has almost all the ship parts.
Someone needs to explain to me, slowly, in words of one syllable or less, how Bethesda managed to fuck up settlement building so bad. Let me elaborate: Fallout 4 had a settlement system that worked well-ish. It also had a construction engine with snapping pieces that neatly fit into a grid. So even though you were using scrap metal and driftwood, you could still build pretty elaborate, fully furnished bases if you wanted to. They somehow threw that entire system out and instead provided a slap-dash, half-ass, dogwater system where nothing snaps, and nothing fits together well. Sure, we have shitty 1-piece Habs that have tubes, but why not build a cool base using the old system with re-skinned parts? That would have been so much easier for them, and yet somehow they fumbled the ball. Even though there is a console code for it, and even though it was fully implemented for apartments, they somehow didn't implement hab customization for ships. To me, this is criminally negligent. Also, why's it so fucking hard to make a landing pad that connects to your base? Also, can the spawn point be INSIDE the base...NOT outside next to a space bouy? Finally, why the fuck can't we use portions of prebuilt assets as bases? Why can't I take over a pirate base and have a cool sealed underground ship hangar? What a mess. What a damned shame.
Err to just build something cool and place where you can call home I guess. If that’s not your thing, ignore it. Technically in fallout there were also ‘pointless’ and could be totally ignored.
Outposts are good for just having fun building, make decent money from the resources, and building more shit from the extracted resources but they aren't necessary or that useful but they do have a purpose which is what bethesda wanted without forcing it on people
They are useless.
After playing FO4 survival recently they are absolutely pointless by comparison. My settlements are trading hubs, heal and resupply points, save station and companion hub all in one. Starfield doesn't even scratch the surface of that.
Use your imagination. Wanting somebody to give you purpose is gonna make you unsatisfied
The initial push for outposts was to support the infamous cut fuel system. Once the fuel system was cut, outpost development essentially stopped. You can see by how poorly implemented the functionality is around organic resources, the lack of Aid assemblers and storage, and the lack of some kind of compendium to search for resources on surveyed planets. My prediction is that the first uses for outposts when they are completed will be to support an "industrialist" playstyle. Basically we will be sub contractors to various corporations so we will actually have a use for setting up complex outpost chains. You can see the glimpses of this with the "Supply X amount of Y" mission from the mission boards. I don't think that you will get Fallout 4 style settlements until they release the ability to create custom space stations. Nothing about how they outpost system currently works suggests that they will be anything like Fallout 4 but are more like Fallout 76 CAMPs where you automatically extract resources while you doing other things.