September 12, 2023 (Originally posted on Cohost)
Starfield Play Journal #4 - Cowboy Up
I've still been playing Starfield over the weekend and then some. The picture is where I ended up last night because of some random tip to just go there and I said "sure why not" as I tend to in these games. And of course there's a sidequest there. As far as everything before that point...
I ended up going to the cyberpunk planet after a sidequest on Mars led me there. The sidequest turned out to be easy, but I also applied to a company that had a kiosk at the entrance. From the sound of it, it seems they specialize in stealth missions, so I'm thinking like Thieves' Guild whenever I get around to those.
While jumping around, I got a random tip from someone who called me Charlie to avoid a certain system. However that system was where the next part of the main quest was so I'd have to go there anyway. So I did and it turned out there was also some space raider attack on a base which became a long series of gunfights and then a couple space fights. Of course the space fights somehow tend to either go easily or nearly deadly, not really any in-between yet. I just had to make sure to ransack whatever stores I could find for ship parts, which are the spaceship version of medkits but they weigh something. Ship cargo space is becoming a premium, and the only options are to add more space which affects ship stats so that's a whole balancing act I didn't feel like redoing so soon, but I did find a better reactor.
Where did I find that reactor? The cowboy planet, another main quest destination. Started with a good old fashioned bank robbery and ended up with a bandit cave. My persuasion attempts seem to be about 50/50 since I haven't put points into it and even that success rate is surprising even without save scumming. Then I just got distracted with a bunch of cowboy planet sidequests after finishing the main quest there. They kept hyping up how tough these local beasts called Ashta I think were but I was able to take down a dozen at least. Probably helped having a laser rifle with a special effect that boosts damage against "aliens" but yeah, there may be slight hyperbole or this is just in comparison to an unarmed villager at level 1. Also it's weird the game insists on calling the native life forms "aliens" when the humans are the invaders.
I wandered in the direction of the next main quest and detoured to what turned out to be an abandoned meat processing facility, as in a bunch of people got murdered for trying to eat something that could probably eat them better, at least as far as I could tell. Wasn't a wacky cannibal adventure this time. However I didn't run into any monsters for some reason, but I did find neat weapons. Then I went to the resort planet pictured above to leave off for next time.
I've mainly been using the main quest as a general direction to look at more interesting things when they come up. I'm likely to postpone the main quest further as I find everything else to do as it is, and that's generally how I've played these kinds of games, provided this keeps my interest.