potatojohn
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 2,646
Is Starfield the best space sim ever made?
There's certainly a lot to think about:
- You can switch between the arcade and newtonian flight models. The latter feels very similar to Independence War, except for the speed limit. Once there's a mod to remove the arcade flight model and up the speed limit (iirc in IWar it was 2km/s?), it will truly be great
- Ships have FTL like power allocation to subsystems, which you have to manage
- There's stealth, where you power down your systems to avoid detection
- There's crew, and their perks give you bonuses on the ship
- The ships are made out of parts and take individual damage, which then damages subsystems. Ship subsystems only repair out of combat.
- You can build your own ships, and it's extensive and rewarding
- You can flee combat, as long as your grav drive is working
- There's no sound in space - you only hear your own ship
- There's a bunch of weapon types, including turrets, and they're good at different things
- On very hard difficulty you need clever ship design to survive
- You can destroy enemy ships' engines and board them and take them over
- There's a bunch of random encounters, both hostile and friendly
- You can be a pirate
- You can land on planets
- You can walk around your ship while in orbit
- Planets have "areas" where you fly to and is most busy, kind of like IWar's Lagrange points. In fact I don't know they didn't call them Lagrange points.
- Technically you can fly around the star systems freely, but due to the speed limit and vast distances, it will have to wait for mods
- The graphics, especially the ship interior aesthetics and ship-mounted weapons, are outstanding
I can't think of a game that offers even half of what's in Starfield, and that's just the space sim part.
Some improvements that could be made in the future:
- Turn off the arcade flight model
- Zero-g in space ships and space stations. There are already zero-g space stations, and the in-game explanation is that the grav drive creates a local gravity, but I think it would be fun if all the ships and space stations were zero-g.
- EVA. It would be nice to be able to get out of your ship in space. Maybe to repair it, or just to look at it.
There's certainly a lot to think about:
- You can switch between the arcade and newtonian flight models. The latter feels very similar to Independence War, except for the speed limit. Once there's a mod to remove the arcade flight model and up the speed limit (iirc in IWar it was 2km/s?), it will truly be great
- Ships have FTL like power allocation to subsystems, which you have to manage
- There's stealth, where you power down your systems to avoid detection
- There's crew, and their perks give you bonuses on the ship
- The ships are made out of parts and take individual damage, which then damages subsystems. Ship subsystems only repair out of combat.
- You can build your own ships, and it's extensive and rewarding
- You can flee combat, as long as your grav drive is working
- There's no sound in space - you only hear your own ship
- There's a bunch of weapon types, including turrets, and they're good at different things
- On very hard difficulty you need clever ship design to survive
- You can destroy enemy ships' engines and board them and take them over
- There's a bunch of random encounters, both hostile and friendly
- You can be a pirate
- You can land on planets
- You can walk around your ship while in orbit
- Planets have "areas" where you fly to and is most busy, kind of like IWar's Lagrange points. In fact I don't know they didn't call them Lagrange points.
- Technically you can fly around the star systems freely, but due to the speed limit and vast distances, it will have to wait for mods
- The graphics, especially the ship interior aesthetics and ship-mounted weapons, are outstanding
I can't think of a game that offers even half of what's in Starfield, and that's just the space sim part.
Some improvements that could be made in the future:
- Turn off the arcade flight model
- Zero-g in space ships and space stations. There are already zero-g space stations, and the in-game explanation is that the grav drive creates a local gravity, but I think it would be fun if all the ships and space stations were zero-g.
- EVA. It would be nice to be able to get out of your ship in space. Maybe to repair it, or just to look at it.