Which New Settings Make Starfield More Immersive? 

This game definitely should've launched with a survival mode, needing to sleep would instantly turn your ship into a mobile home instead of a mobile storage crate. I would also love for fuel to actually matter again as well, having to plot out your route between cities and space stations would be a lot more interesting than "oh you can't reach this far cuz reasons". Also when you run out of fuel could be interesting as well, you could send out a distress signal but you don't know who could pick it up, maybe a UC Vanguard, or a trader who happened by, or Crimson Fleet who threaten to blow you up if you don't pay. You could also make fuel kinda pricey (like it is in real life 😭) so players have something to actually spend their money on and not be stupid rich all the time. I also want them to add more reason to build outpost, like setting up a fuel mining outpost, or maybe you can build outpost for factions which gives you more variety of quest. For example, you can set up a Crimson Fleet outpost which scans the local system and gives you quest like outpost raids, cargo ships passing by, and what not. I know you can already take missions like this from the computers at The Key, but it would make it feel more immersive imo, like You're actually hunting for jobs to pull Edit because I've thought of more things lol: it'd be cool if we could hire recruit crew members and build up their stats the way we want them instead of going to random bars and hoping people there have the perks I'm looking for, and have us pay them a weekly wage like Mount and Blade, so again, we have something to spend our money on.

I feel like the mod Functional Ship Infirmaries would be a good match with the reduced treatment setting. The idea being you use an item to get back to the ship, then a medical crew member and infirmary would be required to function as a doctor if you want to avoid a settlement visit. An infirmary would also be a good reason to visit a civilian or military outpost if you're aligned with that faction.

For additional immersion (& challenge): turn off the aim reticule - so that you have to use skill or iron sights to aim accurately

Between a shit ton of mods and now this last update, Starfield is getting really close to being absolute chef’s kiss for me

As a fan of survival/crafting games, I would love to see a proper merge with that genre with Starfield. Not just the survival aspect, but also the need to salvage, dismantle, mine, farm and craft all sort of things, even including our space ships and land vehicles. There are so many great survival/crafting games out there to take inspiration from, I hope one day we will see those ideas coming into Starfield.

The Doctor isn't the only way to heal afflictions. You can take perks that increase your chances of healing naturally and you can do so without these perks too. I love the mechanic. Great video, even though I don't necessarily agree with everything, but everyone should play the game exactly how they want to 👍

You do actually have to sleep. If you take enough environmental damage, for example if you are in the environmental DANGER ZONE for too long, you will have lower your max health until you sleep on your ship. This for me is a fun survival mechanic, because sometimes I get far out enough that I can't make it back to my ship easier and can't fast travel because of an injury, and I must be really careful to continue exploring or make my way back

Just wanted to say I’ve been listening to the podcast on Spotify because I wanted something as background while scanning planets and doing side content. I love it. You guys are so laid back and I appreciate how you cover lots of topics. I’ve learned a lot from your tips. Glad to see there are other people who love the game as much as I do. Joined the Discord a few days ago and it seems like a great place to be. Thanks for making me feel welcome! :) Keep up the awesome work

For combat affliction the infirmary hab should function as going to doctor. That way you can be out there surviving and recovering at ship.

One comment on the environmental settings. I almost died on the NASA Mission, not from combat but from the radiation. Lol it did make it seem real tense though.

I have my settings pretty similar. One thing I recommend if you’re a high level replaying the game is a mod to make every system be level 75. That way you don’t encounter entire star systems where everyone sucks, but has unique planets. This will maintain however you balance your game.

Great video, thank you Michael!

The healing afflictions makes sense, if you have the healing perks enabled they stabilize your conditions to excellent and you self heal randomly overtime, it still gets bad where you need to go to a doctor, it's balances out almost perfectly upgrade those perks.

The afflictions will heal eventually but it just takes time, I play with the afflictions amped up to the max so the meds do help in treating it and improving he condition faster but eventually they will heal on their own especially if you use the Aid items. At least for me. I really hope the game gets a true survival mode. This would be awesome and I can support fuel, just don't make it too annoying.

The affliction settings are really cool. I’ve been having fun again! Being burned by lasers, punctured by bullets. Actually taking max HP reduction and other nasty things when you’re on a dangerous planet has turned what would normally be a boring walk into a mad dash to get the poi before dying. It added some actual risk. Only thing that doesn’t make sense is why these mobs aren’t taking dmg in a storm too but cest la vie

The other great thing about having your damage output on very easy is most weapons are viable again and you can just use whatever you think is cool.

that environmental damage is crazy man i had to almost turn it down myself. i wonder if i got the perks where you can have better resistance and the one where your able to not catch a affliction and even heal from them. i want to make a new character and see how them perks actually work. i might try it on my higher level character and see how it holds up. good video man we have almost the same settings.

So I’ve just started a new game with all the difficulty settings cranked up and holy Jesus, the environmental afflictions are no joke. I barely make to a clinic to get cured. 🤣

Nice discussion on settings. Thanks!

Fully modded weapons shred through everything even on harder difficulty settings. I feel that specing into crafting is an important part of survival and I don't want to remove the motivation for it by making enemies too easy to kill

I use the same settings from the update, the game is so much better this way 😎

"Do you pet the neck hole" LOL LOL LOL

there also shhould be setting to reduce loot, im floating with meds of different kind, it is to easy to find sufficent meds

The most extreme of weather effects fade away if you take shelter near some rocks. The immersion is there, The Suit resistances are broken but I hope they get fixed (As to make the suit mods worth grinding for)

On advanced, if you stabilize the injury with the treatment item, it will heal over time on its own. You don’t have to go to the doctor

The setting affliction treatment to where the meds only stabilize you works pretty good if you have invested in the skill that helps you recover faster (naturally) from the afflictions. Then you need the meds to stabilize and increase the prognosis, so that the skill can get you cured after a time without needing to visit a doctor. I admit is it hard to justify investing in something like that before other things though. Speaking totally for myself, I find a lot of skills are suddenly more useful and make more sense once I started using outposts to craft up levels/skill points. Then, I'm not really playing the rest of the game for levels, but for the story, exploration and skill challenges.

My favorite thing for immersion is the separated difficulty settings, I set damage done to me on the highest difficulty and damage done to enemies on the lowest difficulty. We both take each other out in a few shots instead of tanking multiple bullets to the head

If you truly want an immersive experience, the first thing I like to do in any game is to remove all UI and HUD elements. Health bar, subtitles, floating quest markers, cross-hair, map/watch, etc - all of that has got to go.

I'm going to give your settings a try. I love the game but some tweaks should make it better.

I want a mode where I have no powers and it's just me, a normal human, vs the vastness of space. I don't even equip powers, but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of clever combat without them. If I wanted to be a Jedi, I'd go play a Star Wars game.

Starfighters is all i want

The modular difficulty settings are great, but not tough/realistic enough for me.... I jettison 1x He-3 every time i grav jump. When i run out i have to find a world with He-3 & land to capture some, so i can jump again. I play with sustenance positive & negative effects on, but i never eat or drink. This further nerfs stamina (O2), health, reload speed, carry weight, to the point where i actually feel like a human being instead of a superhero.

I agree with mostly everything, except the treatment of afflictions, curing a broken foot instantaniously after falling 20 feet and x2 gravity is not immersive for me, i like having to go to the doctors after getting too much radiation exposure, one small tip for those looking for an immersive challenge, every time you get shot and are bleedinv, dont heal right away, wait till the end of battle, i mean would you really apply 5 bandages in 3 mins of firefight, just heal after the fight and cure bullet holes and burns. It feels more real that if you get short during the fight you keep that wound till the end of the fight, kinda keeps you away from pausing the game too much also.

Fuel is essentially still in the game... its just that everyone goes the easy route with 28ly and over 400 fuel... it kinda of fun when you take a ship that has lower tier equipment back to register and you have to jump routes you haven't been before...

I like making some stuff harder but using logic on others. I played with the extreme environmental effects and it just pissed me off that going ‘inside’ didn’t help. Some planets you can only survive a short time outside your ship. But one that is weird is eating bug. If you put it on positive and negative, it will add a weird 34X damage multiplier when you shoot while sneaking. It makes you one shot anybody even a top boss. So I had to make myself not sneak to clear a facility if I’m using the food mode. I’m pretty sure they meant it to be a ‘percent’ but missed the decimal and made it a ‘multiplier’.

I like survival stuff but they need to overhaul suits or the environment damage system currently I won’t last 2 mins on tje moon with solar radiation damn thing beeping to no end

I would like to be able to switch shoulders in 3rd person. Currently, 3rd person combat is not viable to me until this is added.

With the combat damage, you are right on the money... like in a 'hardcore' fps mode, both parties do max damage...

I’m gonna try the extreme enemy damage and low player damage. What if I keep gone player damage on normal though????

What is that armor set used in the video?

immersive buckets :)

I wish they'd make like 10 more cities. There's only 4 right now. 1,000 planets and only 4 cities. Thats kinda pathetic.

Is that recolor of your gloves on the shock troop suit a mod?

Make Melee matter as much as in Skyrim😂

My character is still waay too tanky even with the enemy damage set to extreme. I can get shot 10 times at close range and I'll still be fine. They need to add yet another difficulty to ALL the settings (Brutal Difficulty) to make it more challenging. The game is still too easy even with almost everything set to extreme (minus player damage. Yeah, I don't like bullet spongey enemies..)

In the same vein of "immersion" changes I'd like to see, I want to see weapon and armor modification include the ability to upgrade and downgrade the "tier" of the item. I hate finding/buying gear I love and kitting it out to my preference, just to see a "refined" or "advanced" version an hour later that's dropped randomly that makes what I have obsolete.

yea... there is no reason... there is no reason... there is no reason...

Just a comment on your videos, really love your content but they are hard to watch sometimes - maybe a more focused script could help , the conversation style is great but hard to follow and kinda just want you to get to the point eventually. Keep up the good stuff.

I like the new settings options but I really don't understand how they want you to eat every 30 minutes. Drink makes sense, drink water every 30 minutes and you feel good. But eat every 30 minutes is definatly very detrimental to your health. Not that I'm a nutrition freak (I am), just saying.. .it's not healthy, don't do it, The gunfights in this game, well... like in any other game, very unrealistic. When you shoot someone in the face it's "man down", reagrdless. In the game most of these "elite" mobs or however you want to call them, are bullet sponges. Very unrealistic.

While it certainly helps, what really needs to be done to increase immersion is to rework the npcs from scratch

Quit... is that the option?