irongamer

Laser brother fist bump

Bethesda did a good job. I have played SC and SB2 and while I like how they do space travel, the rest of their game sucks by comparison. Bethesda really knocked it out of the park.

This. Just exploring the first POI after leaving the tutorial I thought to myself, "This is how SC, NMS, and ED should have done their ground FPS exploration and combat." The FPS gameplay is much better than Fallout 4/76, Bethesda improved that aspect a good amount. And with any Fallout/Scoll game, I love the clutter loot. I'm now 42 hours into the game, lots of new Bethesda style detailed POIs to discover and explore. People complaining about empty moons/planets are ignoring the hand crafted content and focusing on the unpainted mod canvas... or to give them a bit of a pass they have never played ED, NMS, or SC as those have lots of empty moons as well.

Here are some numbers. I’m at 42 hours played. Resolution 2k, settings are on High. Ryzen 5800x and a Radeon RX 6800xt. The last session of ~5 hours had an average FPS of 108, Starfield is more optimized than BG:3 and Remnant 2.. at least for AMD. I had to lower a lot of Remnant 2 settings and it still averages around 55.

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It's a space clutter looter

Played 8 hours last night so this is a very early impression. I love clutter looters and didn't expect much else from Bethesda's Fallout/Scrolls main studio. The Bethesda crafted areas are excellent if you are looking for what I call a Fallout / Elder Scrolls clutter looter. Lots of stuff to loot, the FPS combat is much better than Fallout 4 or 76. Don't expect a space sim like SC or NMS this is a Bethesda Fallout/Scrolls style game with a bunch of additional systems on top of it.

First person combat

I've played both SC and NMS. While exploring a station in Starfield I thought to myself... this is what SC should have been for their foot exploration. The derelict stations in NMS are rather static environments and never cared for them much. What surprised me about the Starfield AI is they will "flee" or "flank" by running past you at times. I've lost track of enemies at times because of this and have had to go hunting for them.

Ship travel

There is fast travel. If you are looking for a space flight sim this is not for you. I don't have an issue with fast travel as I get no thrills from traveling in space 1:1. There is simulation and there is stupid... SC leans a bit too heavy into the latter. Don't expect 1:1 space travel in Starfield, it isn't made for that.

Ship combat

Again this is not a space flight sim. Most recently coming off Everspace 2 I do miss the strafing controls and pedal usage, but that game is star fighter like combat. Starfield does have a ship editor and seems to be more about load out than fighter style combat. Think a bit more like Expanse style combat. I don't have much time in this area of the game so I can't say a whole lot more about it.

Initial impression

I love Bethesda clutter looters and this one is in space. Going to eat up the Bethesda crafted clutter looter areas. The 1,000 worlds will likely function as a massive canvas for future mods.

Lab cotton could, hopefully, be efficiently grown

While there are not many details this is hopefully a great step toward more efficient cotton production. There are a number of possible reductions from this method (hard to know without full details though), that being lower usage of land, water, pesticides, herbicides, and shipping.

Longer term what I find exciting is the some of these lab grown systems may work well "closed loop" which mean they might work off planet at some capacity or another. That is a much longer term vision though and we have a long way to go before we master that aspect.

It's stealth all the way down.

Thief Deus ex (you can choose stealth in this game but it isn’t specifically a stealth game imo) Dishonored (superb)

Was surprised to not find these games in the main list. Thief and Deus Ex (I play it stealthy as much as possible) have been my go to stealth games. And no matter how you try to play Skyrim it always ends with stealth archer. 😅

Naturally.

While I do not use tenting or physically split keyboards, I have been using ergonomic split keyboards for ~16 years. Not sure if that exactly fits the category you are looking at.

The specific keyboards have been the Microsoft natural ergonomic keyboard 4000, Microsoft Sculpt, and Logitech ERGO K860. I've been gaming on the PC since the early 90s and have been in IT and software development for ~26 years.

I have had no issues with carpal tunnel or RSI. While I obviously cannot say it was 100% due to the split keyboard design I believe it has likely helped to keep those issues at bay. Once you are used to a split keyboard design you can feel the pitch and stress on your wrists when using a standard keyboard. I have also always used the riser that rises the wrist end of the keyboard so you fingers are sort of "falling" down toward the keys.

I used that Microsoft 4000 keyboard for years, cleaned out the membrane on it 2 or 3 times before I had to replace the entire keyboard. Then was left hunting for something to replace it; I tried a lot of keyboards. In the end I've settled on the Logitech K860.