Starfieldis a completionst’s nightmare, or dream come true, depending on your perspective. I’m more than 192 hours into my main campaign, I’m nowhere near ready to enter The Unity and start my first New Game Plus (the system that the game’s longevity is built around), and I’ve only been to about half of the solar systems in the galaxy. I just can’t help myself. Criticize the game for its big, empty worlds all you want — and I know plenty of people do — but I just can’t bring myself to fly by a new planet or moon without checking out just what it looks like down there.
But my completionist mentality also means I’ve pretty overleveled everywhere I go. I’ve rarely died or even experienced the need for a health pack (aside from that little mishapon The Legacy). There’s a handful of Level 75 star systems at the far-right edge of the Star Map, and I wonder how tough it’d be if I were to go there as soon as I’d gained full control of my starting ship, The Frontier. So let’s start a brand-new character and find out.
Setting The Stakes
Before I dive into the deepest depths of the galaxy, there’s a little housekeeping to do. First, and most obviously, I’m going to need to create a new character and make it through the prologue, as Vasco isn’t keen on letting me take the Frontier on a joyride without meeting his meatbag friends first. I’ve set difficulty to Very Easy for this portion, because it’s not the interesting part of the experiment — think of it like that part of aPokemonnuzlocke before you get your first pokeballs, just way more drawn out.
After getting my freedom (well, kinda — I’m locked intohaving Sarah as a companion), I realize that my default grav drive is not going to be able to clear some of the larger distances between stars. I’d been planning on taking the factory-standard starter ship with me, but it’s become clear that I’mgoing to need a Class Bgrav drive, which means upgrading both the drive itself and getting a reactor that can support it. I also need to get my piloting skill to level 3, which means hunting down and destroying 20 ships. Since I don’t want to have beef with the United Colonies or the Freestar Collective, this is kind of a tedious process of flying around looking for pirates and Spacers and the like, but four hours after starting the new campaign, I finally arrive in the Bohr system.
Starfield: 15 Best Solar Systems, Ranked
While you’re casually exploring the hundred-plus solar systems in Starfield, don’t forget to visit these ones; they’re the best systems in the game.
So the last thing I need to do is set some ground rules. Difficulty is being switched back to Normal for the duration of the game, because this is probably going to be difficult enough as it is without going to Very Hard. I can pick up any weapons or gear I want, but no buying or selling anything. I can steal ships, but no more upgrading them, so the stock weapons and shields will have to suffice. I’ll only be spending skill points on my scanners, both handheld and ship-based, because unique elements are hard to track down (and writers have deadlines), but health and combat skills are a no-no, because I want to see just how tough a Level 75 system can be for a beginner. The mission only ends when I’ve scanned 100% of the resources, flora, fauna, and planetary qualities of every celestial body in the system. (By the way, after all the running around I had to do, I’m now Level 8. Wish me luck.)
Bohring My Own Path
It seems like the simplest way to set my course is by starting with the closest planet to this sun, Bohr I, and working my way outward, hitting every planet and moon along my path. Bohr I is a dead, scorched rock, so there’s not a whole lot I have to do here other than find four resources and a couple of planetary traits. The resources are easy enough to find — the rarest one is Mercury, and I’m lucky to stumble upon a patch of it right off. Still, it seems a waste to leave my first planet so early, and I’m probably going to need some better equipment than the random silenced Eon pistol and spacesuit I picked up in the prologue. Let’s raid a base and see how tough these pirates really are.
I Stalked 5 NPCs In Starfield To See What They Get Up To
Epic NPC Man and Women and a Child.
Pretty tough, as it turns out. Just sneaking in is a chore, since by my own self-imposed rules, I’m not allowed to give myself any sneak abilities, and drawing aggro outside the base will mean certain death, because there’s a lot of mean people with guns here. There’s only one entrance, and a Level 46 robo dog is waiting just outside. Even hacking my way into getting my own robotic bodyguard, this big pupper is tough enough to wipe out my hired mechanical muscle and take me down in two hits. Adding to that, I’ve got no energy weapons, aside from my cutter and, well, you can see how well that goes.
Eventually, I’m able to use my ace in the hole: Sarah Morgan. How’s she gonna solve this? Why, by using her unkillable status to draw the attention of every enemy outside the base, allowing me to slip inside undetected (although it didn’t feel too heroric hearing her pained cries for help as I waited for the airlock to open).
Once inside, it was a simple matter of isolating a pirate, blasting away at them, and sprinting back to the warm-and-cozy bed conveniently placed right by the entrance for a quick nappy-noo and a full helath restore. Surprisingly, you may sleep even when enemies are unloading their clips a few rooms away, so again, it felt like cheating, but my enemies outclassed me by 17 to 67 levels, so I think I earned that handicap.
The one with the shotgun, though, was a problem. It was a one-shot-and-you’re-dead situation, kinda like driving through the wrong mobster-infested area of Liberty City way back inGrand Theft Auto 3. That’s when I realized my spacesuit gave me a 5% chance to disarm enemies if I attacked at close range. I grabbed my common combat knife, and surprisingly, this worked on the first try, allowing me to just stab my unarmed Level 74 opponent ad nauseam (and getting me up to Level 9). It took several more attempts to get this to work on the base’s big bad, a Level 98 Pirate Legend who hadtwopowerful guns to take away, but after hacking away at the poor lady with a UC Naval Cutlass as she crawled around like a three-legged turtle for five minutes, I felt like a true hero of the stars.
Clever Girl …
After raiding the base, I was kitted out a little better, with a couple high-damage shotguns and an incendiary Grendel (which became my primary weapon, based on the amount of .777 ammo I had picked up for it). It had been in a glass case hidden behind a master lock at the end of the base, but it was also clippingthroughthe glass, so hey, free rifle. Thanks, devs!
I Picked The Wrong Time To Step Away From Starfield
Forgetting your way is annoying. Forgetting your way on a ship that’s self-destructing is deadly.
And it’s a good thing I had it, because Swarming Twistfins are no joke. Basically larger velociraptors that hunt in large packs, these things were tearing me to shreds when I was out in the open. Some of them had four health bars, and again, I could only withstand two hits at most from the higher-level ones. Oh, and they appear in multiple biomes too. In the frozen plains, fighting them was as simple as finding a raised, rocky platform and hoping they couldn’t jump up and chomp me. Most of the time, they couldn’t.Mostof the time.
The mission only ends when I’ve scanned 100% of the resources, flora, fauna, and planetary qualities of every celestial body in the system.
The forest was another matter entirely. Luckily, I had gunned down at least eight of them already in the tundra, so no need for scanning, but here, there was nowhere to hide. Beefy as they were, fighting one would have been a challenge, but they liked to move in packs of three to ten (just check out all those pips on my radar in the image at the top of this section). Putting a positive spin on it, every time one of these suckers burst out at me sideways through the trees and tore me to bits, it had a very 1993 Jurassic Park-esque feel to it, so at least I knew I was dying an epic warrior’s death.
The Rest Of The Journey
I’d like to tell you that I had several more thrilling adventures, but let me be honest: Bohr is a bore. Outside the second planet, not one of the celestial bodies had a single alien to scan or fight, so it was pretty easy going, just flying from landing point to landing point, picking up different resources as I went and seeking out natural points of interest. The only real challenge I faced was on take-off and arrival at new planets, as I’d foolishly chosen the Wanted perk and had bounty hunters blasting my ship to bits every so often.
But as I cycled back around to Bohr 5 and scanned that last elusive Europium deposit, completing my scan of the entire system, I felt a sense of accomplishment at my fool’s errand and a strong desire to never, ever do that again.
