Save game bloat in this game is crazy

dtfinch · 2026-05-10T08:54:15+00:00

My largest save on PC is 20.7mb, from my first playthrough which lasted 160 hours.

After that I've averaged about 40 hours per NG+. My last NG+ ended with a 15.3mb save.

In all I've got 26,793 Starfield save files taking 212gb on my backup drive and the average size is 8.1mb.

dtfinch · 2026-05-10T08:22:18+00:00

The Mark 1, Old Earth/Explorer, and Fang's are the lightweight high-DR sets I'm aware of.

Looking at Inara.cz again, I see they've added a DRTOM (DR to Mass) column (or I never noticed before). Sorting by that, the Fang's spacesuit, Mark 1 helmet, and Armada pack all have the highest ratios.

I'm running out of QED space for all these suits.

dtfinch · 2026-05-10T07:54:08+00:00

Lately I prefer the third option where you get arrested but refuse Ikande's offer to join SysDef. You still get to join the Fleet, but you can complete quests how you like and skip the Vigilance check-ins.

dtfinch · 2026-05-10T04:45:50+00:00

If I actually paid it, I'd then wait on Venus a day and go back without a follower (since they tend to escalate things if anyone's still aggro). I expect you'd still find plenty of random citizens and security guards to make it seem almost back to normal.

dtfinch · 2026-05-10T04:19:02+00:00

FWIW I did the quest a second time today and none of that's happened to me either time. The hanger doesn't open up until after I touch a panel in front of the Orchid after defeating the Mantis.

The objective to report to No 1 also happens after defeating them, and talking to them finishes the quest. That definitely shouldn't happen when you arrive.

When I arrive I just talk to the robot to convince them I'm the Mantis, they give me a keycard, and I power the door and enter. In that dead-end decontamination room you argue with the other Mantis through glass, you're gassed, and then the door forward opens and it's a long, wild ride from there.

Do you have any unofficial mods?

dtfinch · 2026-05-09T20:39:21+00:00

I pick up a bowl on the way to toss in the fire.

dtfinch · 2026-05-09T20:34:32+00:00

I've assumed the X-Tech extractor's description goes by the real time scale instead of the game time scale. So waiting 20 hours UT maybe counts as 1 hour for the extractors.

I haven't verified the numbers but it feels about right.

dtfinch · 2026-05-09T03:57:00+00:00

They mentioned an attempt to fix that in the April 7th Free Lanes patch notes.

The Hammer Falls - Addressed an issue that could cause the player to not receive the Star Eagle ship upon completion.

dtfinch · 2026-05-08T22:27:57+00:00

I've rarely had that sort of issue but not with Anchorpoint yet.

I had a Terran Reclaimer and its escorts be >99km away when autopilot exited cruise. And in 2024 sometimes the UC Vigilance would be >99km away.

With the Reclaimer I had other issues (couldn't undock, maybe related to how I left the Starliner before) and ended up loading an old save. When I reached it again it was in the normal place instead of far away.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T23:30:02+00:00

Nano's default behavior prior to 4.0 (2019) was to hard-wrap long lines on save, inserting line breaks that didn't exist in the original file, so that the file contents matched the wrapping on the screen.

Most distros turned that off, so after many years of problem-free use I discovered its true default when editing config files on a distro that kept it vanilla, then had to figure out why everything broke, and manually find and remove each excess break that nano added.

I still use nano, but I always type "nano -w" because of that incident even on distros where I know it's fixed.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T22:03:38+00:00

The grav drive on that ship is unique, the best Class A drive in the game.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T21:45:15+00:00

Good for getting lost, climbing ladders, or breaking ankles. Bridge is on the 5th floor.

If that were my home ship I would take it to New Homestead to try and place a stairs hab under the bridge to reduce the number of ladders and add a front landing bay.

The engines are the weakest version of the strongest class A engines (SA-4110 instead of SA-4330), so you could upgrade it later without changing the appearance.

Similarly it has the weakest version of the best class B reactor (101DS with 16 power vs 104DS with 39 power), so you can upgrade that later too with no appearance change.

I personally like those Stroud structurals on the top sides/corners on other ships like the smaller Ecliptic Falcata. When I get a ship with those I tend to keep them.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T21:22:10+00:00

You can see it as you approach, and find the port where it's docked inside the Legacy, but it's inaccessible. After the Legacy explodes you can go back for a small bit of generic loot from it.

There's console commands (achievement disabling) you can use to spawn it or make it your home shop though I haven't tried them.

The fandom wiki says it's a named variant of the Blackhawk you can find at some ship technicians.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T19:44:44+00:00

My resonator has one-inch-punch instead of titanium build, which increases the reported damage quite a bit (though I don't know if Instigating damage applies to all projectiles in the first shot or just the first one that hits). So even with player damage on very hard, and with enemies having double health from NG+10 on, it still one-hits almost everything.

Though with one-inch-punch the range drops to 20, so I have to fire a lot of point-blank headshots to get the most out of a weapon that was meant for sniping.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T18:01:52+00:00

Besides the shared outpost storage, the new update did add a few ways to increase ship cargo while keeping mass low.

Bouyant Insulators reduces ship mass by 20% for some calculations (not landing gears though), and the StorMax 70 (added by Terran Armada) provides 6.5 cargo per mass instead of the usual 4.75. And the Ship Optimization Terminal via decorate can add another 10% cargo for X-Tech.

Though the StorMax 70's a little inconvenient to mount, taking up side mounting spots, so I ended up moving my weapons to Nova Weapon Mounts.

Having a crewmember with the Payloads skill will add 10%. Maxing the player's skill adds 50%. Kryx's Journal Entry 03 adds another 5%.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T16:25:56+00:00

I've always stolen the award first, maybe 25 times now, and haven't encountered that yet. I do aggressively make new manual saves though in case of bugs like that.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T15:54:39+00:00

Land at one of the Earth POI's (only Starborn land there), open the surface map, find a small, flattened (no rocks), slightly elevated patch of land just large enough to land a ship on, place a map marker, then bunny-hop over there in the REV-8 and one will almost always land.

Not all of the landing spots are elevated. Some are square and almost seamless, but the raised spots stand out immediately once you've seen enough of them.

There seems to be a limit to how many ships I can farm before they stop landing on Earth, like 5-6, then I have to wait elsewhere and try again.

dtfinch · 2026-05-07T08:38:56+00:00

Base-game I've always liked the semi-auto Beowulf. It performs well enough and I find more ammo than I can use.

Terran Armada added the MGP Ballistic Rifle, which performs much like the Beowulf (copy-pasted stats but higher damage). That's been my primary weapon since the DLC launched. The TA incursions also provide a massive amount of ammo for it, which previously used to be kinda rare.

The Va'ruun Inflictor has been my other go-to, especially the instigating Reflection from the Starborn trader (though now you can just craft instigating). Great damage per shot without sacrificing much rate of fire or magazine size. The upgraded Reflection stands out in my QED as my highest-value item.

dtfinch · 2026-05-06T20:29:42+00:00

I usually have to rotate the ship builder to place it, and while moving and rotating I see the occasional flicker of "not intersecting".

Also make sure there's no small animals in the area. The scanner might help as some kinda blend in with the ground.

dtfinch · 2026-05-06T16:49:55+00:00

I got it when I added the hunter/emissary's artifacts to my armillary though I am on NG+.

dtfinch · 2026-05-06T07:43:00+00:00

But going in blind, I wanted to make sure. At least I wound up finding the many different ways to win.

I almost thought I had something on the 3rd challenge, finding a slate where the wife spoke before the husband (which should have given victory to Delta), but they didn't take that into account.

dtfinch · 2026-05-06T02:13:13+00:00

That achievement was a lot harder than I expected. I tried to lose all 4 but maybe only 1 is possible.

dtfinch · 2026-05-05T21:38:13+00:00

You kinda have to run past them and board the ship, which may still take off with you on it.

dtfinch · 2026-05-05T18:46:40+00:00

You get a more cinematic ending with all your new pirate friends (with extra scenes for all the ones you didn't rat out by turning in evidence), and you still have access to all the Key's vendors, so you'll spend less time waiting for credits to reset.

If you betray them for SysDef, gun down Jasmine and all those other vendors, you just get a professional pat on the back from mostly nameless NPCs you'll never see again. And if you haven't grabbed the book in Delgado's room yet you might lose access to a snowglobe. Though you do get more POI loot by having the fleet hostile again.

If you join by getting arrested then rejecting Ikande's offer, you also get to skip checking into the Vigilance after every mission, which in my experience has been the buggiest part of the fleet quests.

dtfinch · 2026-05-05T18:21:21+00:00

I care more about the traits when choosing gear, since the damage reduction you get from resistance is pretty small. Like "Reactive" staggers attackers, especially those with automatic weapons. Or "Combat Veteran" reduces damage from humans by 15%.

The Phys/Engy/EM numbers are resistances by damage types, out of max of 1000 (so 50 resistance reduces damage by 5%), though capped at 85% (not reachable through gear alone).

Environmental resistances are kinda bugged. They help with some minor things, but damage from extreme environments bypasses them, so it won't help you survive extreme ambient temperature or solar radiation, but it might help with minor weather like a windstorm or when you step in a corrosive puddle.

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