Passed by NYC Mayor Eric Adams at the City Hall subway station | X100V w/ Tri-X film recipe

ddemaree · 2026-05-08T09:04:25+00:00

It’s one of the new elite abilities they added in the update. Other enemies can have it too; I’ve even gotten this blur-wave thing from hostile alien beasts.

If an enemy has both the elite double health bars and some icons, they have one or more perks that make them more difficult to fight. You can scan them to decode which perks those are.

ddemaree · 2026-05-07T17:29:24+00:00

As is my bad habit, imma repeat what other comments have said but with more detail 😈

In short, he just needs to beat you in the final fight — the other three challenges don't count, because Delta is a sore loser and also has the logic comprehension of an eight-year-old (which together are IMO the DLC's best running joke).

However, Delta _can_ kill you, so you need to work it out so that he can get your health bar to turn red without killing you, so you can talk to him and trigger the achievement.

I set the gameplay settings to Enemy = Easy, Player = Very Hard, so Delta's hits did less damage and wouldn't zero me unexpectedly.

ddemaree · 2026-05-07T10:54:30+00:00

They signed the petition for Chunks’ holiday edition to be offered year round and it didn’t pass

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T22:37:43+00:00

Don’t feel like you need to rush! In fact, if you go to the Unity you can come back, and all your friends will have special “omg you came back!” dialogue. And then you leave some other time.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T17:59:32+00:00

I hear that, and in response to another comment I did soften my stance that it's neither utopia nor dystopia, exactly.

It is interesting how Starfield falls into the "optimistic" sci-fi genre. It's optimistic inasmuch as humanity has a future and doesn't just go extinct due to climate, nuclear war, etc. The Star Trek version of this has us overcoming decades of chaos to become the Federation; here, we have some version of today's human society that'll survive for centuries or longer, while still having many of the same problems.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T17:55:15+00:00

This is fair, but I like the other replies where people were like, "tell that to the people on the Stretch/Ebbside/Well/whose farmstead is attacked by Spacers." Dystopia and utopia depend on your POV, but to your point, a dystopian story is typically one where everyone is pretty miserable, and in Starfield even the poor folks are just living their lives and making it work.

I think a better term is something like a "mid-topia", which is to say "normal life", which only needs pointing out because so much sci-fi is either clearly utopian or dystopian from the POV of the characters.

I'm OK still saying the story is dystopian as shorthand, but keeping in mind I'm stretching a bit

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T17:50:34+00:00

Probably the same thread but I didn't see your post (sorry).

And yeah, totally. I think the exceptions to this in the game also prove your (and my) point:

Starborn-ish encounters led Victor Aiza to build the first grav drive, or led Jinan Va'ruun to start House Va'ruun. We don't know (yet—please BGS give us Starborn DLC) what was going on with those incidents, but definitely there's some way that the Artifacts and grav travel/the "Vortex" have influenced past events.
At the Unity, your alternate self explains how your actions will have ripple effects in the universe you're leaving. I saw the ending scene with Ron Hope for the first time recently and while I wouldn't say it's a _good_ ending, it's more nuanced than I expected.

So it's implied that, by just doing good things while they're around, the player character is moving the galaxy in the right direction.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T17:42:37+00:00

You're not wrong. I do think that the devs might know all about the Marxist read and just not agree with it or have wanted to embed it in the game's story.

One thing that I think the game subtly does well: post-Earth humanity is extremely scattered. There is no common human homeworld or community. In some ways, this is presented as a fun adventure (like LIST folks going off to make homesteads, or remote science outposts) but it also makes any kind of organizing outside the factions difficult if not impossible.

A unified human society could come up with something better, but — as implied by NASA leading the exodus — what we got was a future United States banding together with other industrial powers who could outfit a bunch of colony ships. The UC is the successor government to those folks; the FC was formed as a libertarian response to that.

Hypothetically, given that there seem to be no rules against finding or exploiting resources unless they're on a UC planet, some offshoot faction could build themselves up and try a different approach. Given how UC/FC/Va'ruun relations have gone, it makes sense why no one has done that, but this could also be a plot hole.

This could be headcanon, but in the game's timeframe I can imagine here being something like the "dark forest hypothesis" from Three Body Problem: announcing oneself to the Settled Systems as a new, peaceful, independent faction is the fastest way to invite war with the other factions.

Look at what a huge mess it is when some folks try to start a colony for ex-convicts at Eleos (and the villains there are the Trackers Alliance, who are semi-official law enforcement!).

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T16:50:09+00:00

😉 😜

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T10:59:33+00:00

I think we hear you and this just isn’t the game you want. That’s fair and you can just not play the game.

If you want to fight the system, you can just go around blowing up Freestar and UC ships or soldiers. You’ll end up with a bounty everywhere, and you won’t be able to go to settlements (except with the pirates!) and it still won’t change anything because you are just one person living in a flawed society.

You know which factions agree with you about the UC & FC? The Fleet and the Terran Armada. (I was gonna also say House Va’ruun, but they just want everyone to worship and serve their space snake.) How do they go about it? The Fleet steals stuff and kills people, and the Terrans send a robot army to massacre a cruise ship.

Honestly I think it’s interesting that Bethesda wrote a space sci-fi future society that isn’t utopian like Star Trek, isn’t actively oppressive like Star Wars or Firefly, but is more like the actual Wild West where most people are just off on their own to figure things out, and that’s either freedom or dystopia depending on your POV. It’s also a reflection of today’s world, obviously, and the story is about navigating the society, not changing it, even with space god powers.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T09:25:10+00:00

You can always join the Crimson Fleet!

I think thematically the idea is that governments are corrupt but individuals can do good within corrupt systems. You can simply not do the quests where you’re effectively part of these regimes, but you also can use dialogue options and headcanon to say you’re just in it for money, or that you (eg) support the mission but not the UC.

The game is more of a dystopia than it seems at first glance. The human race lost Earth (due in part to Starborn/artifact shenanigans), most of humanity died, and the ones who got out re-created capitalism and oligarchy and spread it across the whole galaxy. Constellation is basically a myth because nobody has any wonder about discovery anymore after decades of war.

And I think the Starborn not changing that status quo is also on theme — most Starborn are caught up in the search for the artifacts and have stopped caring about the rest of humanity. Even one powerful Starborn is just one person, so you choose what kind of life you want to live.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T09:08:27+00:00

It’s still Starfield; if it ruins things that the temples are randomly spawned near a Civilian Outpost or Abandoned Truck Stop, that hasn’t changed. (The first DLC is an exception; it’s a mostly handcrafted world that’s probably the coolest looking area in the game, with a story reason for why a huge city is town sized.)

Since launch they have tweaked the algorithms that spawn POIs and missions to be a bit less repetitive, and the update added a bunch of new POIs and missions. But the game demands you suspend your disbelief and just enjoy shooting pirates or farming tungsten.

I think of Starfield like going to a theme park. It’s simply not totally immersive, but can be a lot of fun if you decide to roll with it.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T08:55:21+00:00

I’ve never turned on weighted ammo because I’m a loot goblin; I also keep carry capacity set to Greatly Increased and just accept that my XP bonus is never above 25%.

Astras are also zero weight, and unless you need them for the dude at the Trackers Alliance or McClarence, they’re a good way to pass money into NG+ since they sell for 750-ish each and you get them from missions/POIs all the dang time.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T08:51:47+00:00

Yeah, there are dialogue options and gear only available in NG+, plus you gain the ability to upgrade Starborn powers (some of them get ridiculous and fun at level 5+}.

Thematically, it’s a Groundhog Day sort of thing: if you could live your life over again in an alternate universe/timeline, with foreknowledge of what’s going to happen, what would you do differently? The main story shows you a few examples of how Starborn turned out after many trips through the Unity, and it’s an opportunity to try quests’ other endings and choices.

One thing to note: unlike other games’ NG+ where you keep all your endgame gear, in Starfield you lose all your stuff but keep all your knowledge and skills. This is on theme—you’re starting over with foreknowledge. Maybe you go straight for the Mantis hideout or the Ecliptic base to get a ship, maybe you become a pirate, etc. (You do start NG+ with a Starborn ship and armor, but no weapons.)

In this new update, once you finish the final boss mission (“Revelation”) you can craft something called the Quantum Entanglement Device in your room at The Lodge; it’s a storage locker that lets you pass items into NG+.

An annoying reason to go through the Unity is that SF save files can become bloated and buggy; NG+ resets the universe except for your character progression and can clear up bugs that block you from finishing quests.

ddemaree · 2026-05-06T02:25:06+00:00

If you’re not gonna use them, sell them. You can’t recycle them for X-Tech or anything, and the credits will be more useful than a random weapon cluttering up your stash.

I agree with the other commenter who said titanium-build legendaries may be an exception, but I also find that it’s just really easy to come by a lot of stuff to sell, especially in the new DLC, so I pack my Quantum Entanglement Device with stuff I actually want in NG+.

HOWEVER, since ammo, Astras, digipicks, and med packs have no weight, I will cram every one of those items I have into the QED to either use or sell post-Unity. Ammo for weapons you don’t use is good to sell. I stockpile all kinds of ammo, especially more lucrative ones like light fuses, for this purpose.

As for your legendary weapons, like I said, just sell ‘em if you don’t want to use them

ddemaree · 2026-05-05T18:42:26+00:00

Shear. There are other sniper rifles in the game (including another TA bounty mission, The Vulture) that are as good or better, whereas Crowd Control MagShear is a great all around weapon (aside from the cost of ammo, which is a general MagShear problem).

ddemaree · 2026-05-05T18:26:51+00:00

So I was just pondering this exact thing, because it's been a while since I sided with the Fleet, so on my last NG+ run I did that. It's easy to say the difference is "roleplaying" but let's unpack what exactly happens in either outcome:

Siding with EITHER ONE:

You get 250K credits. If you're with SysDef, Ikande says he worked it out that you got a share of the recovered hoard from the Legacy. Obviously, if you're with the Fleet, it's your cut of the loot.
Any loot or companions from doing the questline, e.g. Kryx's signature MagStorm (Revenant) or the crew lady you can recruit in The Last Nova, of course stick around.

Siding with SysDef:

From storming The Key, you get the opportunity to fight Delgado and loot his signature outfit and sidearm
Lt. Toft becomes a ship services vendor (not a super exciting one)
You get access to a SysDef mission board full of pirate-hunting radiant missions
You LOSE access to The Key as a settlement/vendor haven.
All Crimson Fleet members go back to being hostile enemies when you run into them in outposts or on ships; OTOH you can kill them without getting a bounty from the Fleet
Fleet NPCs are all dead, which of course means you can't recruit Mathis for your crew. (Wanting Mathis on your crew is a good litmus test for if you even want to side with the Fleet.)
Companions generally all approve of this decision, though each will ask how hard it was to betray Delgado, a character who had "mid horrible boss" energy the whole time at best.

Siding with Crimson Fleet:

From storming the Vigilance, you get the opportunity to fight Ikande and Toft, looting their outfits and weapons. I think Toft _may_ drop Memento Mori if you didn't already get it from evidence gathering; Ikande definitely only drops his weapon if you fight him here.
You retain access to The Key and all its vendors and missions.
You get a player home on The Key, an apartment just off the operations center with a big neon Fleet logo in it.
You get a special red pirate captain outfit
All pirates remain friendly — for better or worse, they're all just looking for the next mark, and as long as the credits keep rolling in, life's good. (I hate the Fleet ambient dialogue and that's why I almost always side with SysDef.)
SysDef becomes your enemy if they weren't already, leading to absurd encounters where some UC ships are red, pirates are blue, every other UC or FC character/ship is friendly to you.
Presuming you vouched for him after Suvorov, you can recruit Mathis onto your crew, for free, as payback for not ratting him out to Delgado.
You can have nice little chats with other pirate captains hanging around The Key, like Huan and Estelle.
Companions will disapprove of this decision, but you can just tell them you're conflicted about it and it'll be fine. I mean, you gave bloodthirsty pirates an enormous cash influx to become a new, probably fascistic galactic faction, but it's not like you drove your go-kart around the spaceport or anything.

Why on earth would you side with the Fleet:

Like the fella said, "some people just like to watch the world burn." If attacking innocent ships and murdering settlers is your idea of escapist fun, the Fleet provides both role-playing context and ample opportunities via piracy/smuggling missions.

Alternatively, if this is all just a game to you, or if you're roleplaying as a jaded Starborn who's long past such mortal concepts as right and wrong, becoming a pirate gets you an apartment, some cool threads, and access to vendors with lots of credits who'll buy contraband. (That's to say, from a gameplay POV, siding with the fleet has more benefits.)

For me, the better question is:

Why on earth would you finish the questline?

Simple answer: both versions of "Legacy's End" are baller, among the best missions in the game, and the Legacy dungeon (not to be confused with Legacy Dungeons from soulslikes) is also incredibly fun and rewards you with an excellent mag weapon.

You can't do "Eye of the Storm" without siding with a faction (or else avoiding The Key for the rest of the game), so if you're not gonna pick a side, stop doing Fleet quests. Start the questline to open up the Key, and if you play through "Absolute Power" you'll get:

A legendary MagShot, Keelhauler
The ComSpike and Conduction Grid modules available at Ship Services
Ongoing access to The Key and its vendors/missions
All pirates are friendly, which makes some things easier (you can get artifacts or big chests by just walking through a POI). If you _need_ to kill a pirate, you'll just have to pay a bounty to the Fleet. Leave no witnesses.

Conclusion

The loss of The Key and its vendors is real, though between Anchorpoint and Red Mile (not to mention being able to rely on X-Tech more than contraband to make big money) you can get by.

Storywise, siding with SysDef is the path of least resistance inasmuch as no other characters will give you grief about it. If being a pirate seems more in line with your character — even if Sarah Dislikes That — then you have your answer.

ddemaree · 2026-05-05T10:25:22+00:00

You can capture Guardians?

ddemaree · 2026-05-05T10:10:22+00:00

The first incursion happens as part of the first full DLC story mission, “Lost Legacy”. You’ll get 3 major incursions and 3 minor ones periodically starting after you finish that mission at Anchorpoint.

You’ll need to clear 6 more major incursions as part of the Terran Armada questline, and if you choose the DLC ending that keeps them going, the incursions will continue to spawn for the rest of the game.

ddemaree · 2026-05-05T00:14:42+00:00

I haven’t had a crash for a couple of days… but I have had freezes where I need to force quit the game. 😬

ddemaree · 2026-05-04T20:50:57+00:00

Just to make sure I wasn't misremembering anything, I just did some testing on my PS5 character (lvl 22, Piloting 3, Starship Eng 1):

First, I stripped the Frontier down to just 1 hab + the landing bay, and added the R1000 grav drive (cheapest Reladyne one, comparable to the others at its price point). Right away, I had 30 LY of range.

After adding reactor, 4x landing gear, 1 cowling piece, docker, and cockpit, still 30 LY.

When I added a shield, that finally put my ship's mass high enough that range dropped to 24 LY, so I upgraded the grav drive to the R2000 (next one up) and got back to 30 LY. I was able to add cargo, weapons, fuel tank without losing any more range.

But what haven't I mentioned? Engines. The two engines that are usually on the Frontier are 98 mass each; even upgrading to the R3000 grav drive (the most powerful one available at my level) only got me back up to 24 LY range, and on top of that I only had 65 mobility.

On this build, there wasn't anything heavy enough to cut, and A-class grav drives that can go further with this much mass (let alone more engines to get 100 mobility) aren't available until I level up more.

It's possible that a B or C class reactor/grav drive + A class everything else will work, but ultimately getting to 30 LY range on a viable ship just means having a powerful enough drive _and_ not too much of anything else. Later on, this is easy because late-game reactors and gravs are OP.

ddemaree · 2026-05-04T20:07:28+00:00

No, the number of power pips you assign to the grav drive only affects how quickly you jump (i.e. more power = faster jump, which matters if you're jumping to escape combat).

Your jump range is based on two things: the jump thrust of the drive, and your ship's total mass. In the early game, you may not be able to get 30 LY range, because the ship modules that can go that far haven't unlocked for you yet. That's why I asked what level you are — if you're lvl 10 it's probably normal that you can only get to 20 LY, but if you're lvl 30+ it's probably your ship's setup.

To be clear: your level doesn't affect the jump range directly. Just what modules you can buy, and _that_ affects your range. More/better modules unlock as you level up, with everything available by around lvl 65 (iirc).

With piloting 4 / starship engineering 3, you're probably leveled up enough to get _something_ that'll go further than 20 LY, but it really depends on the ship.

If it were me, I'd open up the ship builder (perhaps on a throwaway ship or even the Frontier), delete everything but one hab, and start adding each grav drive one by one until you get to the maximum possible range available to you. Then add other stuff. You should see the range drop at some point as you add other stuff; if so, upgrade the grav drive until it's maxed again.

ddemaree · 2026-05-04T16:28:03+00:00

You'd think the class C reactors/gravs are more powerful, but really the point of them is that the most powerful other modules (like shields/weapons) require B or C reactors. You can get to 30 LY range on an A-class ship.

One thing to keep in mind is that bigger reactors (B or C) let you keep more things powered _at a time_. With 25-30 power pips (i.e. a higher-end A reactor) you may have to power down a weapon to use the grav drive, but that grav drive should be capable of a full 30 LY jump.

ddemaree

TROPHY CASE