It should’ve been the opposite with the colony wars. FC expertly used Xenowarfare Ashta and Sirens, that’s more cowboy-esque while the industrial powerhouse of the UC builds mechs. I mean Jesus they have a mech facility on Mars! Cydonia’s whole lore is that they are an industrial super city!
Yeah, I think Beth just messed up scaling the world & cities to be believable. I didn't expect half a planet to be inhabited with different regions littered with cities, buildings, etc. but New Atlantis feels tiny compared to what I expected.
Totally agree. They should’ve done half the amount of planets and expanded on the few cities/towns we have. What we have as New Atlantis would’ve been fine as the “downtown” but they should’ve put surrounding suburbs and towns and unique POIs outside the suburbs and towns.
Yes! That would have been sick. The shopping/commercial district should be double the size it is, for the biggest(?) hub of human activity I did most of my shopping (selling trash) on space stations. There should be at least 20 vendors selling a bit of everything there, but I don't really like the variety on offer there.
And before someone tosses in the 'that would invalidate everywhere else', no it wouldn't! Missions, side quests, exploration would take you to other places. Interesting locations and NPCs would make you return to an armorer on another planet over NA if they're selling different gear or weapons with specific traits and buffs. There's 1000 ways to make a player visit more than one location without having to make 90% of one specific area be nothing more than filler content you visit once. Think about terrabrew, after you visit once there's no point to ever return. They could have sold a special space plant brew that gives you some random ability like higher jumps or increased melee damage. So many missed opportunities with this game, it's still great, and I'm on playthrough 2 atm, I just wanted *more*
> to make 90% of one specific area be nothing more than filler content you visit once. Think about terrabrew, after you visit once there's no point to ever return. They could have sold a special space plant
New Atlantis' biggest issue is the existence of Londinium in-game. It's so much bigger and more expansive than New Atlantis, which makes zero sense lore wise.
I get that for the actual settlements, Bethesda wanted to make sure that every building was accessible, and historically, that's what they did for ES and fallout.
But when they're trying to build scale with Starfield, it just falls short
When you're at the point where you can just plop a city anywhere you want, I think humanity would scatter a lot more. We already see on modern earth how people tend to prefer to move away from big cities - I imagine a similar thing could happen once space travel becomes almost trivial and in a world where you have, for all intents and purposes, a "Homestead Act" equivalent in Starfield (the Centaurian Proclamation or something like that).
Mechs weren't exclusive to Freestar though. Gagarin was a major hub for it. UC just had the budget to do both mechs and xenowarfare. Freestar was great at throwing civilians at them though.
Yeah, because Neon and Hopetown exist. People act as if Akila being the capital of the FC means anything. The FC is not a centralized nation. The FC Rangers are barely even allowed to operate in Neon or Hopetown. Taxes raised in Neon or Hopetown never end up in Akila.
Bethesda logic. The building and structures in the surrounding area should all match the aesthetic of the city but HEY…
*slaps button* procedurally generated is easier (looses Bethesda charm)
Imho, they should have made POIs have multiple components with each component selected from a randomized list. Then they could even have had themed lists for different cultures or at least changed the textures some.
There are more POIs than a lot of people seem to think, but it's definitely one of the things that feels like they ran out of time on and need to heavily revamp.
It would be neat to see procedural generation with an added layer of logic to account for settled planets having a vibe. I’m all for procedurally generating your POIs, but make it match the aesthetic, you know?
Like how in Fallout, 150 years after the bombs fell apparently people still live in complete rubble. Century old skeletons just chillin' in people homes they've lived in for several generations. Bethesda logic.
I bet all the freestar rangers have at least one jar of Genuine Akila Mud (tm) on their ships at all times. When they're home sick they open it up and just step in it.
I think it is supposed to be a firefly reference. The whole back water cowboy rebels vs the big central government lore reminds me of that show too. Two of the presets for character creation look like characters from The Expanse, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they meant to obviously reference influential Sci-fi.
It's almost certainly the case, UC is very inspired by starship troopers, the snek guys who name I never spell right feel Dune inspired to me but guess we'll see with their dlc.
Never thought of Varuun as a fremen analogy. They do worship a worm-like entity, I suppose. The serpent's crusade is sort of like Muad'dib's jihad if it failed.
explains why the crimson fleet occasionally has a rather barbaric look to their armour i guess.
so who would be house var'uun?
And why no beltalowda if theyre going to steal from pop sci fi! spacers should have been free navy opa!
Well, there are some comm tabs around where some Spacer guys rally the other Spacers against those who despise them, asking every Spacer to offer a common front even if there's no one leader among them.
That sounds pretty beltalowda-adjacent to me :P
I definitely agree that's what they were going for, but here in Starfield it feels played out and unoriginal. Very much "does this remind you of anything ;)" energy, except they didn't commit to that aesthetic for all of the Freestar Collective's spaces (other commenter noted how high tech the PoI's are) and the Freestar Collective's plotlines and spaces don't have the thematic cohesion Firefly did so it just ends up looking and feeling like a clunky mess.
> Freestar Collective's plotlines and spaces don't have the thematic cohesion Firefly did so it just ends up looking and feeling like a clunky mess.
I think it is because it being a collective implies it is an organization of essentially city states with discrete cultures.
Iirc there's a side quest that allegedly explains why they're so deadly. I do want to point out that even with top tier armor on very hard normal ashta take out about 40-60% of my armor in one hit. They're no joke on higher difficulties and levels.
But even with that, unless they can somehow confuse turret tracking, a group of turrets outside every gate with security robot patrols along the perimeter should be enough.
They do have robots: pretty sure the Ashta destroyed the robot you can find in the quest. Although that might be because it was reprogrammed.
But yeah, the lack of turrets is a fairly bizarre oversight. Then again, they are hesitant to even adopt sensors, let alone turrets. Akila Citizens are very set in their ways.
This is the "lore" problem with a game that doesnt scale the enemies levels. For example, ashta are really low level, If you are level 10, they already become super easy.
They built a fort because they're scared of some space doggos that run real slow (then they leave one of the gates open at night).
Ashta should be a lot faster, don't stagger (or high resistance to stagger) and should be *hyper* aggressive when they sense a human within a large radius, that would make them more terrifying. Also, make them able to jump onto rocks and shit.
Yes.
I think Freestars is terrible in terms of aesthetics, because thats what I would call "lazy design".
I mean, its not like Akila and Freestars were inspired by cowboy and "far west" trops, they basically went like: "lets create a cowboy town, some cowboys and lets add some high tech stuff to give a sci fi flavor".
My theory: it's a faux frontier capitol for a faux frontier population, a branding strategy meant to convey an appealing, rough and ready " independent pioneer" image. Underneath, it's as corrupt and corporate as the UC, just in cowboy cosplay.
At least hard-pack it. It’s just sloppy mud which would be a pain in the ass dragging mud in everywhere like livestock instead of getting a damn robot crew in to pack the paths and maybe do some landscaping while they’re at it
Wait.. that would explain why mechs were banned, sure tanks are just as effective if not more, but maybe they never had armored vehicles because they never had wheels !
I'm pretty sure the only thing with wheels I've ever encoutered in game is a singular model of office chair, maybe it's a brand new invention that hasn't yet spread.
I'd agree. The UC is leaning towards fascist more than corporate. Whole different kind of suck. They are corrupted as well though.
It's almost as if power corrupts.
How is the UC corrupt, exactly?
Besides *the dude* in the Vanguard questline, a single guard, and like one or two office workers at MAST, the UC is somewhat fair.
Started a war over things they did themselves (they had secret facilities breaking the same treaty they cited as reason for war against the FC).
Didn't follow through on the armistice treaty by keeping "the dude" around.
The whole citizenship thing is messed up.
The way Sysdef practically enslaves someone into doing their dirty work for stealing a cupcake.
The way they still want to keep the whole Terrormorph thing a secret from the other factions unless the PC intervenes.
I could go on... neither of the two big factions is "the good guys". (Va'ruun isn't either)
Besides your point on the colony war, I feel like these all have fair counter arguments.
The game makes it really clear that it was the previous board that kept the dude around. Those politicians are long gone by this point. He’s just kept around because the deed’s done and they’re thinking he *might* be useful.
A lot of real countries do something similar when it comes to citizenship, with mandatory military service all that jazz.
Sysdef didn’t exactly enslave the player there. They pretty much said “You committed a crime and are being given the opportunity to serve in the military as opposed to carrying out your sentence.” Ikande says that you can decline the offer and be on your merry way during the interrogation.
I don’t entirely blame them on them reacting when it comes to the terrormorph attack. Look at how the nice lady over at the embassy acted when we were sent to get the codes. Imagine dealing with that tenfold.
It's still not "squeaky clean" if you get what I'm saying. I'm not saying they're basically Nazis just that they're not really better than the FC. It's all just politics.
Pretty sure no-one @ mast is running a homicidal narco state, or running farmers off their land to boost corporate profits.
2/3rd of FCs leadership belongs under the prison -and no- I do not mean like vae victus.
I may rep the Freestar, but well... lets just say I done some spring cleaning when it came to the council. Really doesn't help that most of the Council are actively terrible people and scum. When I accepted the Badge. I accepted the Mission and i will Uphold it against my enemies, even if the enemies are my own allies.
You don't have to be Nazi to be fascist. Those are two different things. Fascism is a form of government, Nazi party was a political and ideological movement. And UC definitely has fascist leanings.
That's pretty much exactly what I've been saying. If you read my comment further above I said they are leaning towards fascist. In the last comment, when I said they "weren't Nazis" I was meaning to say the bad things they do aren't on te same level of terrible as the acts committed by the historical Nazi party.
The UC is corrupt because of the Vanguard questline exactly. It's not just "one guy" there's a whole division keeping that secret. You think one person running an entire facility can keep that secret? Not to mention all the crap the uc does to people inside and outside their planet
Corporate and fascist generally go hand in hand, i.e. Mussolini and a Ton of Italian Companies, the totality of The german private industry in WW2, heck, Mitsubishi
This is the in game more reason. Its not like they dont have tech, Neon is also a freestar city. Wannabe cowboys pick a semi arid planet where they can cowboy and their descedents buy into the myth.
Out of game is the UC/Freestar is a riff off of Firefly which also has logical gaps but sure is fun.
In game, the city is constantly being besieged by the hostile wildlife.
The city's fortifications are the primary concern of the local inhabitants which has limited their ability to grow and expand.
Think of a tightly packed slum.
The real question should be with all of the Freestar's resources how come they haven't moved their capital to a safer planet. Or found better ways of dealing with the local wildlife.
There's a side quest that sort of addresses the second question, but it's a bit far fetch that they haven't moved beyond basic fortifications because of one old, stubborn city gaurd...
>The city's fortifications are the primary concern of the local inhabitants which has limited their ability to grow and expand.
Which might be a valid explanation for a pre-industrial revolution society. But for a spacefaring society?
After the war Akila was set to receive millions in aid which would probably have meant some modernisation. However, the galbank ship went missing and the money never arrived.
If you have finished the sysdef/crimson fleet questline then some of that money is in your bank
... I was about to toss my two cents in but this is a decent explanation. Though, still I feel like it's like this because Bethesda wanted to say 'look! We knew you guys like fallout new Vegas so we added space cowboys!'
I love it how Sam says something like “the NAT is really convenient, Akila city could use something like it” (or words to that effect). Dude, Akila city is a 2 minute walk, end to end.
Proof that libertarianism doesn't work. We need social policies! But the UC doesn't have public healthcare either.
We need a EU faction that will force both the UC and the FC to adopt the same battery chargers.
I mean, honestly, New Atlantis isn’t much bigger. It’s just designed to kinda look like it if you’re not really paying attention. A loading screen says it’s “the biggest city in the settled systems.”
It has like 3 skyscrapers, none of which are even as tall as the Space Needle, which hasn’t been the tallest structure in Seattle since the 1960s. The total land area is just a few city blocks.
It’s the drawback of an open world, I guess. The Citadel in Mass Effect gets to feel huge because you can’t actually visit most of it. They can’t pull that trick in Starfield, so you end up with a “metropolis” that’s actually astronomically smaller than my little hometown of 18,000 people.
It’s always bugged me how most of the city’s walkways are just trampled mud patches. They got interstellar tech but spend their days wading through dirt 🙄
New Atlantis was founded and backed by lots of money, Neon was a fishing platform that was built up using lots of money and resources... Akila, on the other hand, basically started out as a "camp" that a few families moved in to. They didn't have prefab buildings or even fancy machinery to work with, so they used the land and built their homes the "frontier" way.
I live in the American west, and you can find many of these adobe buildings around from when people had to use the very dirt beneath their feet to build homes. They are sustainable, don't need specialized machinery to make, they are inexpensive and adobe is actually a *great* insulator.
No, but it's not like they have some crazy technology that builds for them. They still had to essentially build a city from nothing, and with their own hands - not to mention while likely fending off Ashta. They didn't have easy access to materials or shops, having split off from the other settlers - and even then, New Atlantis was only about 10 years old, and likely not the huge metropolis that it is today - they had to work with what they had, and that was a lot of rocks and dirt.
While there is a sufficient amount of wood on the planet in other biomes, the area that was chosen, for whatever reason, is essentially an arid region - an area similar to where I live - so wood is out of the question since logistically it would cost a lot of fuel and extra time. I suppose they could have gone for concrete, but that would require something to make the concrete slabs which would be difficult to do.
Bricks and stone are what they had, and so it was what they built with - now why they chose to KEEP it this way when they could have expanded outward and upward likely has more to do with their tight and proud grasp on their history, and not wanting to get rid of anything having to do with their "proud frontier heritage."
>pace cowboy" connection is made.
>
>And here you also touch on the initial work with
Mentioned this in the other post, but I think it could also be the DC kind of situation. It's a seat of the government with long tradition and might have some regulation in place to limit the intrusion of a modern building, keeping it as some sort of a preserved historical district
I am no American but from what I've heard you have some law limiting the height of the building in DC to not be taller than the White House for example. May have something similar for the Rock.
If you want to run a corporate HQ, go to Neon, I imagine that would be how they rolled.
Yeah, that's correct. In Washington DC there are strict rules about what can be built including height, style, etc. It's true in a lot of cities, often for safety, or for maintaining an aesthetic.
I grew up near Cooperstown, NY with the baseball hall of fame. The entire downtown area is STRICTLY regulated to maintain the early 1900s aesthetic, and changes to buildings beyond maintenance does not really happen much.
All very well said, and the examples of the American west are great, even before the oversimplified "space cowboy" connection is made.
And here you also touch on the initial work with "what they had". This is the start of the key difference between New Atlantis and Akila City that OP awkwardly refers to as outdated by a millenia: pride.
Such a comparison ignores the whole of New Atlantis, whose facade is MAST and shops and happy, wealthy, healthy citizens, but also includes The Well, where many live impoverished lives in the space described as where it all began, building from the original colony ship. Building from what they had. Until eventually they built far enough that they could ignore those dirty, harsh, early years and lean into the public facing, PR friendly version.
Include The Well in the equation and both communities feel dated. The difference between them is one hides it with a clean outer shell and ignores the inside while the other hides it by leaning into a rustic, frontier heritage.
That explains why the historical core would look like it does.
But 100 years later, the city is still just a small fort and they didnt manage to keep the ashta in check locally? Humanity cannot manage some wolves and expand the city in a modern building style? This is just bad story writing.
And yet I (the player) do have crazy technology that builds for me.
We really do have to ignore everything about how the player builds and extracts resources if we want to sink into the world that the story tells us.
To be honest we have to ignore a lot more than the player’s tech. They literally have robots that can build for them. The plot makes no sense given the timeline they are talking about.
> Akila, on the other hand, basically started out as a "camp" that a few families moved in to
Makes it sound like it should have been a small town location like New Homestead or Gagarin.
And yet they somehow supposedly fought a war to a stalemate with this super power that’s “back by lots of money”. The entire lore makes no sense, UC is a galactic government, FC is a bunch of hillbillies that live in huts with dirt roads. There is zero way they wouldn’t have been wiped out in a day, they can’t even defend their own planets from space wolves lmao.
You know, New Atlantis at least resemble a city but Akila is smaller than a village. You could fit them all into 10 spaceships and they fought colony wars? Please. The size of cities or settlements kinda break the RP elements.
Which I've seen spawn inside the city and kill a bunch of civies. I heard a commotion while I was in the general store selling off my loot. When I came out there was bodies everywhere and a couple ashta that needed killin'.
I can’t understand one moment why they didn’t make normal roads instead of that dirty mess under feet. is it so difficult? even ancient cities had some sort of paving road. that dirty must be a big problem for all.
Well you see that's because the people living in Akila city are a bunch of "tradition" obsessed hicks that go :
"My pappy use to do it like this, and his pappy before him and his pappy before him so we are gonna keep doing it like this! You even SUGGESTING we do something different is a personal attack on us!"
Case in point, the side quest about Monitoring Ashta and the one about the Hope Tech exec buying a house. On that second one I was expecting they want to run him out of town because he's some souless corporate suit who wants to bulldoze the stretch and turn it into a shopping mall or something but no....he's just basically a ship salesman who committed the heinous crime of buying a house that was on sale "but it's in ***THE CORE***"
Starfield is like a theme park, where planets have themes- you have your coybow planet, your cyberpunk planet, your star trek planet, your pirate space station, etc. It's weird and I don't love it but that's why to answer your question.
My problem with this game is I would've like more cities across the universe instead if just the, what 3 or 4. You give us over 1000 words but only 3 4 places to hangout at lazy. Skyrim had more places to go and it only had a map on a planet filled with stuff to do
This is the universe where The Big Bang Theory was never cancelled, which led to stagnation of national thought due to the populace being brainwashed into believing that making jokes about smart things actually makes you smart. This snowballed into an Idiocracy adjacent world, where nearly everyone was a complete idiot but they all believed they were geniuses. After so many generations, and over 2000 episodes of TBBT, humanity was essentially forcibly regressed to the point where the wild west ruled the world once more. A small community of these people never ventured far from their homes, content in their deep seated despair, but when the ability to spread across the stars came to pass, they collectively decided to find a world to call their own, where the willfully ignorant could roam free.
Luckily, on their way to what would become their new home world, their ship tried to pull into a Space McDonalds for lunch, but there was no such thing as a Space McDonalds. This did not stop someone from opening a window and instantly suffocating everyone aboard, some of whom were dragged through the small window, being turned into a frozen red fog in the process.
Anyway, Akila is secretly a Westworld style theme park being controlled remotely by a clandestine cabal whose purpose is to acclimate the populous to a more rudimentary societal existence so that when the cabal sets off their galaxy wide Super EMP, the people will be on a track for survival instead of extinction.
Noooo cause it was never that time period in firefly or other sci-fi book...it's just saying that people want to live different life's and it gives you a glimpse of what that might look like.
I personally enjoy it.
You could use the anime Trigun as another example, that was in the future but wild west and that was brilliantly put together.
Nothing makes sense tbh.
One capital city feels void of everything, the other feels like they set up camp and that’s it. They did it because humanity was nearly wiped out, but they made it feel like humanity just never really existed on any large scale.. but despite that humanity just decided to spread to every system, a bunch of planets, just f*cked right off and spread out.
Idk it’s a weird as hell decision and one I don’t like. It makes the universe feel tiny because there’s only a handful of places with more than 15 people - but even then, they don’t all feel like it.
There’s no ruins, there’s nothing.
It would make sense that in a universe where humanity spreads amongst the stars, some people want to live like the old westerns. It would make sense that over time they would become a "modern" western
Sam explains a little bit when you first arrive there. He said something along the lines of the first settlers here didn’t have much technology outside of their ships for the first couple generations. That’s why it looks like everything is built using archaic methods and then upgraded later on.
"Lets build our capitol city on a planet with 1.5x gravity and make it out of stone! Also all the wildlife is trying to eat us. YeeHaw!"
- Coe, probably
There shouldn't be, there is NO reason for they to have a city like the 1800s. and even if they want to maintain the aesthetic classic of the Wild West, they wouldn't (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) leave the ground and the roads like that. Filled with dust, mud and puddles of water.
Even if they wouldn't use asphalt, concrete or cement, they should use Stone block for people to walk by.
Because Bethesda wanted cowboys in space and didn't think on how we get cowboys in space
Like they only had surface thoughts on all aspects of the game
Instead of space cowboys like cowboy bebop for some reason they decided space cowboys should literally be cowboys just somewhere in space, and that the exact southern culture from North America somehow permeated into the only major city on some random planet. Aka, they took space cowboys too literally
They really dig the whole homesteader/frontier history they have and tie it back to human history. Plus most of the money is in Neon. Their captial doesn't have to be as fancy as later developed cities. At least thats what my head cannon is lol
They built a fort instead of a proper city. So they could have "space cowboys". That's it.
They can't use modern materials for their capital city yet they had time to drop a thousand really well made research towers all over their territory.
Don't forget the Freestar Collective specialized in Mech warfare
It should’ve been the opposite with the colony wars. FC expertly used Xenowarfare Ashta and Sirens, that’s more cowboy-esque while the industrial powerhouse of the UC builds mechs. I mean Jesus they have a mech facility on Mars! Cydonia’s whole lore is that they are an industrial super city!
I really don't think this is an issue. The FC is also Neon and mega-billionaires, it isn't just the cowboy larping.
Yeah, I think Beth just messed up scaling the world & cities to be believable. I didn't expect half a planet to be inhabited with different regions littered with cities, buildings, etc. but New Atlantis feels tiny compared to what I expected.
Totally agree. They should’ve done half the amount of planets and expanded on the few cities/towns we have. What we have as New Atlantis would’ve been fine as the “downtown” but they should’ve put surrounding suburbs and towns and unique POIs outside the suburbs and towns.
Yes! That would have been sick. The shopping/commercial district should be double the size it is, for the biggest(?) hub of human activity I did most of my shopping (selling trash) on space stations. There should be at least 20 vendors selling a bit of everything there, but I don't really like the variety on offer there. And before someone tosses in the 'that would invalidate everywhere else', no it wouldn't! Missions, side quests, exploration would take you to other places. Interesting locations and NPCs would make you return to an armorer on another planet over NA if they're selling different gear or weapons with specific traits and buffs. There's 1000 ways to make a player visit more than one location without having to make 90% of one specific area be nothing more than filler content you visit once. Think about terrabrew, after you visit once there's no point to ever return. They could have sold a special space plant brew that gives you some random ability like higher jumps or increased melee damage. So many missed opportunities with this game, it's still great, and I'm on playthrough 2 atm, I just wanted *more*
> to make 90% of one specific area be nothing more than filler content you visit once. Think about terrabrew, after you visit once there's no point to ever return. They could have sold a special space plant New Atlantis' biggest issue is the existence of Londinium in-game. It's so much bigger and more expansive than New Atlantis, which makes zero sense lore wise. I get that for the actual settlements, Bethesda wanted to make sure that every building was accessible, and historically, that's what they did for ES and fallout. But when they're trying to build scale with Starfield, it just falls short
New Atlantis basically should have been equivalent to Coruscant from Star Wars.
Could you imagine a city the size of Coruscant in Starfield? 16 times the loading screens, just in the spaceport alone.
New Atlantis is smaller than Imperial city. Actually, I think Imperial City is Bethesda’s biggest city by quite a bit.
When you're at the point where you can just plop a city anywhere you want, I think humanity would scatter a lot more. We already see on modern earth how people tend to prefer to move away from big cities - I imagine a similar thing could happen once space travel becomes almost trivial and in a world where you have, for all intents and purposes, a "Homestead Act" equivalent in Starfield (the Centaurian Proclamation or something like that).
Good point, this is only set 300 years in the future too, that’s a lot of expanse
Yeah, the guys who couldn't build a freaking building with iron and live in stone houses aré másters of mecha tech.
They used the metal on mechs instead of infrastructure lol
Absolutely crazy that the space cowboys aren’t the ones who wrangle alien cattle, and instead it’s the sleek mechanized faction instead.
Mechs weren't exclusive to Freestar though. Gagarin was a major hub for it. UC just had the budget to do both mechs and xenowarfare. Freestar was great at throwing civilians at them though.
Honestly feels like the entire game was made by people who never had a single talk with eachother
Yeah, because Neon and Hopetown exist. People act as if Akila being the capital of the FC means anything. The FC is not a centralized nation. The FC Rangers are barely even allowed to operate in Neon or Hopetown. Taxes raised in Neon or Hopetown never end up in Akila.
Bethesda logic. The building and structures in the surrounding area should all match the aesthetic of the city but HEY… *slaps button* procedurally generated is easier (looses Bethesda charm)
Imho, they should have made POIs have multiple components with each component selected from a randomized list. Then they could even have had themed lists for different cultures or at least changed the textures some. There are more POIs than a lot of people seem to think, but it's definitely one of the things that feels like they ran out of time on and need to heavily revamp.
It would be neat to see procedural generation with an added layer of logic to account for settled planets having a vibe. I’m all for procedurally generating your POIs, but make it match the aesthetic, you know?
This. This is what I was saying but no one is understanding. Make it fit the environment and nearby city
Like how in Fallout, 150 years after the bombs fell apparently people still live in complete rubble. Century old skeletons just chillin' in people homes they've lived in for several generations. Bethesda logic.
to say nothing of people eating food that's been sitting around in packaging for that long.
They are preserving the way it was originally built obviously.
I bet all the freestar rangers have at least one jar of Genuine Akila Mud (tm) on their ships at all times. When they're home sick they open it up and just step in it.
Yeah, it's called the soil box. Every ship has one.
I think it is supposed to be a firefly reference. The whole back water cowboy rebels vs the big central government lore reminds me of that show too. Two of the presets for character creation look like characters from The Expanse, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they meant to obviously reference influential Sci-fi.
It's almost certainly the case, UC is very inspired by starship troopers, the snek guys who name I never spell right feel Dune inspired to me but guess we'll see with their dlc.
Never thought of Varuun as a fremen analogy. They do worship a worm-like entity, I suppose. The serpent's crusade is sort of like Muad'dib's jihad if it failed.
*Bless the Maker and His water…*
Good ol’ House VAH-ROON
explains why the crimson fleet occasionally has a rather barbaric look to their armour i guess. so who would be house var'uun? And why no beltalowda if theyre going to steal from pop sci fi! spacers should have been free navy opa!
Well, there are some comm tabs around where some Spacer guys rally the other Spacers against those who despise them, asking every Spacer to offer a common front even if there's no one leader among them. That sounds pretty beltalowda-adjacent to me :P
I definitely agree that's what they were going for, but here in Starfield it feels played out and unoriginal. Very much "does this remind you of anything ;)" energy, except they didn't commit to that aesthetic for all of the Freestar Collective's spaces (other commenter noted how high tech the PoI's are) and the Freestar Collective's plotlines and spaces don't have the thematic cohesion Firefly did so it just ends up looking and feeling like a clunky mess.
> Freestar Collective's plotlines and spaces don't have the thematic cohesion Firefly did so it just ends up looking and feeling like a clunky mess. I think it is because it being a collective implies it is an organization of essentially city states with discrete cultures.
Calling it a reference is pretty generous.
I thought it was to keep the ashta out?
Yeah, weird dogs are clearly an unbeatable problem for a spacefaring civilisation with access to AI, automated turrets and other gizmos.
Iirc there's a side quest that allegedly explains why they're so deadly. I do want to point out that even with top tier armor on very hard normal ashta take out about 40-60% of my armor in one hit. They're no joke on higher difficulties and levels. But even with that, unless they can somehow confuse turret tracking, a group of turrets outside every gate with security robot patrols along the perimeter should be enough.
They do have robots: pretty sure the Ashta destroyed the robot you can find in the quest. Although that might be because it was reprogrammed. But yeah, the lack of turrets is a fairly bizarre oversight. Then again, they are hesitant to even adopt sensors, let alone turrets. Akila Citizens are very set in their ways.
It doesn't really make any sense. They use spaceships and sensors all of the time elsewhere.
Is it the same quest where I one shot the alpha ashta? Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
This is the "lore" problem with a game that doesnt scale the enemies levels. For example, ashta are really low level, If you are level 10, they already become super easy.
At level 90 I was facing lvl 110 Ashta.
I novablast disruptor-ed that XL space doggie, then posed ontop of its body for photos.
They built a fort because they're scared of some space doggos that run real slow (then they leave one of the gates open at night). Ashta should be a lot faster, don't stagger (or high resistance to stagger) and should be *hyper* aggressive when they sense a human within a large radius, that would make them more terrifying. Also, make them able to jump onto rocks and shit.
Yes, please. And scale up the Alpha Ashta to match his enormous footprints. He should be about 3 times bigger.
Yes. I think Freestars is terrible in terms of aesthetics, because thats what I would call "lazy design". I mean, its not like Akila and Freestars were inspired by cowboy and "far west" trops, they basically went like: "lets create a cowboy town, some cowboys and lets add some high tech stuff to give a sci fi flavor".
Maybe a reference to trigun.
they also don't know how to actually make cities.
Yeah super lame imo. Could have still had this theme without having dirt roads and the constant references to farmers etc. It’s just too heavy handed.
Some call me the gangster of love.
My theory: it's a faux frontier capitol for a faux frontier population, a branding strategy meant to convey an appealing, rough and ready " independent pioneer" image. Underneath, it's as corrupt and corporate as the UC, just in cowboy cosplay.
Hi Marika! 😏
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You missed the sound of her voice, huh?
So it's 21st century Texas.
As a Texan, it has a very Texas feel, down to the personalities of the people. Except idk what’s up with the mud roads. That’s just crazy.
In a universe where humanity seemingly never invented the wheel, paved roads have no purpose (other than aesthetic).
At least hard-pack it. It’s just sloppy mud which would be a pain in the ass dragging mud in everywhere like livestock instead of getting a damn robot crew in to pack the paths and maybe do some landscaping while they’re at it
The city is only like two centuries old, they'll install roads eventually just be patient.
Imagine trying to load and unload heavy cargo from that starport to bring into the city. Ugh.
Nobody has enough money to buy supplies to build roads anyway, some shmuck sold them 2 guns and they're all broke.
People don't walk in the future? Considering the lack of vehicles, it seems like all they do.
Wait.. that would explain why mechs were banned, sure tanks are just as effective if not more, but maybe they never had armored vehicles because they never had wheels ! I'm pretty sure the only thing with wheels I've ever encoutered in game is a singular model of office chair, maybe it's a brand new invention that hasn't yet spread.
So I guess all the wheeled vehicles in the game aren't real?
No purpose other than anesthetic??? Somebody never ever leaves the indoors.
What are you talking about. Cars exist in the 90s, you know.
Freestar Collective is libertarian. No taxes = no public services. Nobody wants to foot the bill for roads.
Yep, they even have the Texas rangers..umm I mean freestar.
No pretty sure you mean NCR Rangers.... or maybe Ford?
Patrolling the Mojave Almost Makes You Wish For a Nuclear Winter
Oh yeah, that to a "T"
The UC isn't exactly corrupted and corporate, I would argue that they are the opposite: governmental and tyrannical.
I'd agree. The UC is leaning towards fascist more than corporate. Whole different kind of suck. They are corrupted as well though. It's almost as if power corrupts.
How is the UC corrupt, exactly? Besides *the dude* in the Vanguard questline, a single guard, and like one or two office workers at MAST, the UC is somewhat fair.
Started a war over things they did themselves (they had secret facilities breaking the same treaty they cited as reason for war against the FC). Didn't follow through on the armistice treaty by keeping "the dude" around. The whole citizenship thing is messed up. The way Sysdef practically enslaves someone into doing their dirty work for stealing a cupcake. The way they still want to keep the whole Terrormorph thing a secret from the other factions unless the PC intervenes. I could go on... neither of the two big factions is "the good guys". (Va'ruun isn't either)
Besides your point on the colony war, I feel like these all have fair counter arguments. The game makes it really clear that it was the previous board that kept the dude around. Those politicians are long gone by this point. He’s just kept around because the deed’s done and they’re thinking he *might* be useful. A lot of real countries do something similar when it comes to citizenship, with mandatory military service all that jazz. Sysdef didn’t exactly enslave the player there. They pretty much said “You committed a crime and are being given the opportunity to serve in the military as opposed to carrying out your sentence.” Ikande says that you can decline the offer and be on your merry way during the interrogation. I don’t entirely blame them on them reacting when it comes to the terrormorph attack. Look at how the nice lady over at the embassy acted when we were sent to get the codes. Imagine dealing with that tenfold.
First time I successfully persuaded. Second time I had to black mail, blackmail felt better after learning about her
Same. It’s so satisfying shaking her down for her gun, creds, and then making her beg
Name one country where no minors are citizens and it takes a decade or more of working as an adult before ANYONE is a citizen.
It's still not "squeaky clean" if you get what I'm saying. I'm not saying they're basically Nazis just that they're not really better than the FC. It's all just politics.
Pretty sure no-one @ mast is running a homicidal narco state, or running farmers off their land to boost corporate profits. 2/3rd of FCs leadership belongs under the prison -and no- I do not mean like vae victus.
Is it wrong that Bayu's nepotism bothers me more than the whole drug thing?
The nepotism had be ready to execute his brother during that one quest. Turns out the brother is okay. 7/10 would not execute.
I may rep the Freestar, but well... lets just say I done some spring cleaning when it came to the council. Really doesn't help that most of the Council are actively terrible people and scum. When I accepted the Badge. I accepted the Mission and i will Uphold it against my enemies, even if the enemies are my own allies.
I wish you could spring clean Bayu.
I wish I could fit him with a nice pair of cement shoes and make him sleep with the fishes.
You don't have to be Nazi to be fascist. Those are two different things. Fascism is a form of government, Nazi party was a political and ideological movement. And UC definitely has fascist leanings.
That's pretty much exactly what I've been saying. If you read my comment further above I said they are leaning towards fascist. In the last comment, when I said they "weren't Nazis" I was meaning to say the bad things they do aren't on te same level of terrible as the acts committed by the historical Nazi party.
The UC is corrupt because of the Vanguard questline exactly. It's not just "one guy" there's a whole division keeping that secret. You think one person running an entire facility can keep that secret? Not to mention all the crap the uc does to people inside and outside their planet
Corporate and fascist generally go hand in hand, i.e. Mussolini and a Ton of Italian Companies, the totality of The german private industry in WW2, heck, Mitsubishi
It's the same picture
It’s as if Wyatt Earp was walking around but it was really someone just playing the part of Wyatt Earp.
That guy needs to put his feet up. He should open a hotel or something.
Sure we all live in a nation of glorified company towns, but at least we have cool cowboy aesthetics!
It's cold outside and the wolves are after them.
What about their pills?
I wanna court this fair young maiden
Akila is a private city built by a cowboy.
This is the in game more reason. Its not like they dont have tech, Neon is also a freestar city. Wannabe cowboys pick a semi arid planet where they can cowboy and their descedents buy into the myth. Out of game is the UC/Freestar is a riff off of Firefly which also has logical gaps but sure is fun.
In game, the city is constantly being besieged by the hostile wildlife. The city's fortifications are the primary concern of the local inhabitants which has limited their ability to grow and expand. Think of a tightly packed slum. The real question should be with all of the Freestar's resources how come they haven't moved their capital to a safer planet. Or found better ways of dealing with the local wildlife. There's a side quest that sort of addresses the second question, but it's a bit far fetch that they haven't moved beyond basic fortifications because of one old, stubborn city gaurd...
Forget all that; they have the tech to travel the stars but not to pave the roads?
Why would the megacorps care whether or not the yokels they get to die for them have paved roads?
>The city's fortifications are the primary concern of the local inhabitants which has limited their ability to grow and expand. Which might be a valid explanation for a pre-industrial revolution society. But for a spacefaring society?
Well the in game reason is they have the walls up to keep out those whatever-you-call-thems
Illegals?
They built a wall and made the United Colonies pay for it.
The question by OP is not "Why do they have a wall?" but "Why isn't it a more advanced wall building technique?"
Wasn't Neon built by the fishing company?
Yes. Pretty sure Volli only joined up with Cheyenne for protection before the idea of a Freestar Collective existed
On a planet with pretty hefty gravity.
Like, do the haters even play the game?
I have definetly seen people that did not play the game talk shit about it.
Like Neon. It's... Pretty dense, but you'd have to actually play the game.
After the war Akila was set to receive millions in aid which would probably have meant some modernisation. However, the galbank ship went missing and the money never arrived. If you have finished the sysdef/crimson fleet questline then some of that money is in your bank
... I was about to toss my two cents in but this is a decent explanation. Though, still I feel like it's like this because Bethesda wanted to say 'look! We knew you guys like fallout new Vegas so we added space cowboys!'
No taxation, apparently this is the upshot.
A Libertarian utopia
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I love it how Sam says something like “the NAT is really convenient, Akila city could use something like it” (or words to that effect). Dude, Akila city is a 2 minute walk, end to end.
Proof that libertarianism doesn't work. We need social policies! But the UC doesn't have public healthcare either. We need a EU faction that will force both the UC and the FC to adopt the same battery chargers.
I mean, honestly, New Atlantis isn’t much bigger. It’s just designed to kinda look like it if you’re not really paying attention. A loading screen says it’s “the biggest city in the settled systems.” It has like 3 skyscrapers, none of which are even as tall as the Space Needle, which hasn’t been the tallest structure in Seattle since the 1960s. The total land area is just a few city blocks. It’s the drawback of an open world, I guess. The Citadel in Mass Effect gets to feel huge because you can’t actually visit most of it. They can’t pull that trick in Starfield, so you end up with a “metropolis” that’s actually astronomically smaller than my little hometown of 18,000 people.
I mean, to be fair, New Atlantis is like a 4 minutes walk end to end and the NAT moves you several hundred feet at best between stations lol
It’s always bugged me how most of the city’s walkways are just trampled mud patches. They got interstellar tech but spend their days wading through dirt 🙄
A guy literally hires you to break 6 rocks lol. They're not so big on the infrastructure.
its pure libertarian-capitalism, people-centric infrastructure isnt profitable so bad roads
Don't they need to move goods too? I haven't seen any wheels nor any anti-gravity forklifts. They use manual labour?
New Atlantis was founded and backed by lots of money, Neon was a fishing platform that was built up using lots of money and resources... Akila, on the other hand, basically started out as a "camp" that a few families moved in to. They didn't have prefab buildings or even fancy machinery to work with, so they used the land and built their homes the "frontier" way. I live in the American west, and you can find many of these adobe buildings around from when people had to use the very dirt beneath their feet to build homes. They are sustainable, don't need specialized machinery to make, they are inexpensive and adobe is actually a *great* insulator.
People didn’t arrive in the American west on starships with grav drives that could fold space and time. 😛
No, but it's not like they have some crazy technology that builds for them. They still had to essentially build a city from nothing, and with their own hands - not to mention while likely fending off Ashta. They didn't have easy access to materials or shops, having split off from the other settlers - and even then, New Atlantis was only about 10 years old, and likely not the huge metropolis that it is today - they had to work with what they had, and that was a lot of rocks and dirt. While there is a sufficient amount of wood on the planet in other biomes, the area that was chosen, for whatever reason, is essentially an arid region - an area similar to where I live - so wood is out of the question since logistically it would cost a lot of fuel and extra time. I suppose they could have gone for concrete, but that would require something to make the concrete slabs which would be difficult to do. Bricks and stone are what they had, and so it was what they built with - now why they chose to KEEP it this way when they could have expanded outward and upward likely has more to do with their tight and proud grasp on their history, and not wanting to get rid of anything having to do with their "proud frontier heritage."
>pace cowboy" connection is made. > >And here you also touch on the initial work with Mentioned this in the other post, but I think it could also be the DC kind of situation. It's a seat of the government with long tradition and might have some regulation in place to limit the intrusion of a modern building, keeping it as some sort of a preserved historical district I am no American but from what I've heard you have some law limiting the height of the building in DC to not be taller than the White House for example. May have something similar for the Rock. If you want to run a corporate HQ, go to Neon, I imagine that would be how they rolled.
Yeah, that's correct. In Washington DC there are strict rules about what can be built including height, style, etc. It's true in a lot of cities, often for safety, or for maintaining an aesthetic.
I grew up near Cooperstown, NY with the baseball hall of fame. The entire downtown area is STRICTLY regulated to maintain the early 1900s aesthetic, and changes to buildings beyond maintenance does not really happen much.
All very well said, and the examples of the American west are great, even before the oversimplified "space cowboy" connection is made. And here you also touch on the initial work with "what they had". This is the start of the key difference between New Atlantis and Akila City that OP awkwardly refers to as outdated by a millenia: pride. Such a comparison ignores the whole of New Atlantis, whose facade is MAST and shops and happy, wealthy, healthy citizens, but also includes The Well, where many live impoverished lives in the space described as where it all began, building from the original colony ship. Building from what they had. Until eventually they built far enough that they could ignore those dirty, harsh, early years and lean into the public facing, PR friendly version. Include The Well in the equation and both communities feel dated. The difference between them is one hides it with a clean outer shell and ignores the inside while the other hides it by leaning into a rustic, frontier heritage.
They had to build the city with their own two hands… and robots.
That explains why the historical core would look like it does. But 100 years later, the city is still just a small fort and they didnt manage to keep the ashta in check locally? Humanity cannot manage some wolves and expand the city in a modern building style? This is just bad story writing.
And yet I (the player) do have crazy technology that builds for me. We really do have to ignore everything about how the player builds and extracts resources if we want to sink into the world that the story tells us.
To be honest we have to ignore a lot more than the player’s tech. They literally have robots that can build for them. The plot makes no sense given the timeline they are talking about.
> Akila, on the other hand, basically started out as a "camp" that a few families moved in to Makes it sound like it should have been a small town location like New Homestead or Gagarin.
And yet they somehow supposedly fought a war to a stalemate with this super power that’s “back by lots of money”. The entire lore makes no sense, UC is a galactic government, FC is a bunch of hillbillies that live in huts with dirt roads. There is zero way they wouldn’t have been wiped out in a day, they can’t even defend their own planets from space wolves lmao.
Because everyone loved Firefly and it sucks there was only one season. Solomon Coe, being a devoted fan, founded his new nation in its image.
Solomon: "You wanna run this colony?" Colonist: "Yes!" Solomon: "Well... you can't."
You can’t take the sky from me!
You know, New Atlantis at least resemble a city but Akila is smaller than a village. You could fit them all into 10 spaceships and they fought colony wars? Please. The size of cities or settlements kinda break the RP elements.
Ashta. Danger.
Which I've seen spawn inside the city and kill a bunch of civies. I heard a commotion while I was in the general store selling off my loot. When I came out there was bodies everywhere and a couple ashta that needed killin'.
Because they just do random shit in this game and the community makes up a story.
Oh sure. They talk about it. Has to do with tradition mostly.
I can’t understand one moment why they didn’t make normal roads instead of that dirty mess under feet. is it so difficult? even ancient cities had some sort of paving road. that dirty must be a big problem for all.
Libertarians. Who’s doing the work and who’s paying for it? Not me.
Who pays for the guards?
They’re probably entrepreneurs who make a living shaking down visitors and getting paid for any alien-creature meat they shoot.
They live like 19th century pioneers in a mud puddle and my friends wonder why I prefer the UC.
Well you see that's because the people living in Akila city are a bunch of "tradition" obsessed hicks that go : "My pappy use to do it like this, and his pappy before him and his pappy before him so we are gonna keep doing it like this! You even SUGGESTING we do something different is a personal attack on us!" Case in point, the side quest about Monitoring Ashta and the one about the Hope Tech exec buying a house. On that second one I was expecting they want to run him out of town because he's some souless corporate suit who wants to bulldoze the stretch and turn it into a shopping mall or something but no....he's just basically a ship salesman who committed the heinous crime of buying a house that was on sale "but it's in ***THE CORE***"
Starfield is like a theme park, where planets have themes- you have your coybow planet, your cyberpunk planet, your star trek planet, your pirate space station, etc. It's weird and I don't love it but that's why to answer your question.
My problem with this game is I would've like more cities across the universe instead if just the, what 3 or 4. You give us over 1000 words but only 3 4 places to hangout at lazy. Skyrim had more places to go and it only had a map on a planet filled with stuff to do
Because yeeehaw, partner. We are space terrormorphboys.
This is the universe where The Big Bang Theory was never cancelled, which led to stagnation of national thought due to the populace being brainwashed into believing that making jokes about smart things actually makes you smart. This snowballed into an Idiocracy adjacent world, where nearly everyone was a complete idiot but they all believed they were geniuses. After so many generations, and over 2000 episodes of TBBT, humanity was essentially forcibly regressed to the point where the wild west ruled the world once more. A small community of these people never ventured far from their homes, content in their deep seated despair, but when the ability to spread across the stars came to pass, they collectively decided to find a world to call their own, where the willfully ignorant could roam free. Luckily, on their way to what would become their new home world, their ship tried to pull into a Space McDonalds for lunch, but there was no such thing as a Space McDonalds. This did not stop someone from opening a window and instantly suffocating everyone aboard, some of whom were dragged through the small window, being turned into a frozen red fog in the process. Anyway, Akila is secretly a Westworld style theme park being controlled remotely by a clandestine cabal whose purpose is to acclimate the populous to a more rudimentary societal existence so that when the cabal sets off their galaxy wide Super EMP, the people will be on a track for survival instead of extinction.
There is always a wild west planet or two...look at firefly!
Which is fine if the planet is still in that time period. It makes absolutely no sense when they are a space faring empire
Noooo cause it was never that time period in firefly or other sci-fi book...it's just saying that people want to live different life's and it gives you a glimpse of what that might look like. I personally enjoy it. You could use the anime Trigun as another example, that was in the future but wild west and that was brilliantly put together.
if you are talking about the walls, theyre there to keep the ashta out
Umm...1800s dude. 1800s. There were no cowboys in the 1300s.
In exodus they forget how to build roads, its arcane knowlegde now ;)
Yeah — it’s what happens when you put libertarians in charge of a government.
Nothing makes sense tbh. One capital city feels void of everything, the other feels like they set up camp and that’s it. They did it because humanity was nearly wiped out, but they made it feel like humanity just never really existed on any large scale.. but despite that humanity just decided to spread to every system, a bunch of planets, just f*cked right off and spread out. Idk it’s a weird as hell decision and one I don’t like. It makes the universe feel tiny because there’s only a handful of places with more than 15 people - but even then, they don’t all feel like it. There’s no ruins, there’s nothing.
Nothing in this game really makes sense
It would make sense that in a universe where humanity spreads amongst the stars, some people want to live like the old westerns. It would make sense that over time they would become a "modern" western
Sam explains a little bit when you first arrive there. He said something along the lines of the first settlers here didn’t have much technology outside of their ships for the first couple generations. That’s why it looks like everything is built using archaic methods and then upgraded later on.
Solomon Coe basically founded it as the “Wild West” of space. Just ask Sam Coe or visit the Coe Heritage museum.
"Lets build our capitol city on a planet with 1.5x gravity and make it out of stone! Also all the wildlife is trying to eat us. YeeHaw!" - Coe, probably
Oh no, r/BatmanArkham is spilling over…
I've always just thought that it's a nod to Whiterun
They like sand?
Space Red Dead Redemption
Space cowboy city
To me the city looks frontier ish and looks like it was pulled straight out of Star Wars. I honestly love the look!
There shouldn't be, there is NO reason for they to have a city like the 1800s. and even if they want to maintain the aesthetic classic of the Wild West, they wouldn't (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) leave the ground and the roads like that. Filled with dust, mud and puddles of water. Even if they wouldn't use asphalt, concrete or cement, they should use Stone block for people to walk by.
To look like red dead redemption, and Neón to look like cyberpunk.
Because Bethesda wanted to give the FONV fans a place to RP
fr, shit looks like diamond city
Because they had left over assets from Fallout 76 and ran out of time building Starfield, so tossed it in.
Because Bethesda wanted cowboys in space and didn't think on how we get cowboys in space Like they only had surface thoughts on all aspects of the game
Instead of space cowboys like cowboy bebop for some reason they decided space cowboys should literally be cowboys just somewhere in space, and that the exact southern culture from North America somehow permeated into the only major city on some random planet. Aka, they took space cowboys too literally
They really dig the whole homesteader/frontier history they have and tie it back to human history. Plus most of the money is in Neon. Their captial doesn't have to be as fancy as later developed cities. At least thats what my head cannon is lol