There are skills associated with ship combat, which you'll absolutely need if you'd like to fend off pirates and enemy factions.Įxploration can be done during space flight, or at ground level on planets. Power can then be directed into weapons, and then to shields as you duck out to regroup. During a battle, you could, for example, boost power to engines to close the gap between your ship and an enemies. There's also ship combat, which relies on a mix of shooting and power allocation. It's clear that enemy outposts will need to be cleared out, and that some planets will be home to dangerous flora and fauna. Things are much faster and snappier than what we got in the Fallout games, and there's plenty of gadgets, explosives and tech to assist in dispatching enemies. The bulk of the combat that you will be experiencing while playing Starfield is classic third or first-person shooting. These vary subtly, but do give each ship its own personality and atmosphere. It seems that each of the different vendors that you can buy ship parts from has their own design aesthetic. Ship customization doesn't just stop at external design, as there's also different options for interiors. In the gameplay deep-dive, there were ships themed after animals, giant ring ships, as well as more classic looking, sleek cruisers. It looks like we'll buy these from individual vendors across different locations. There's quite a bit of freedom when putting together ships. You can piece entire sections together, swapping out core components like cockpits, engines, and more, and it seems that there's no need to individually craft those parts. Another might increase the performance of your boost pack, and of course there's plenty of skills that are focused on stealth and pickpocketing as well. Skills shown off so far include classics like Intimidation and Hacking, as well as more unique skills like Xenosociology, which lets you mind-control aliens. Ranking up a skill makes its effects more potent, but you'll need to complete set challenges to reach the next rank for each.

Each time you level up, you get a skill point to spend. The skill tree in Starfield is solid into five sections: Physical, Combat, Science, Tech and Social. Traits appear to have both positive and negative effects associated with them. Unsurprisingly, this can't be mixed with the 'Introvert' trait, which does the opposite. Meanwhile, Traits can shape your personality, so if you choose the 'Extrovert' trait for example, you'll have more endurance when travelling with companions, and less when alone. For example, picking 'Dueling' awards 10% extra melee damage, while 'Gastronomy' lets you create unique food and drinks, alongside researching further recipes. You can go as deep as you'd like with this, or simply paint in the broad strokes before getting quickly into the game.īackgrounds offer three starting skills each. There's one that sets you up as a chef, which unlocks unique dialogue options.

You may choose Beasthunter, which will give you access to additional contracts.

Your background will come up constantly in the story, but not always where you'd expect. Then, body, face and background are chosen. From there, it's a case of choosing from 40 presets as a start point. You start your character creation journey as if cycling through employee records.

Starfall calendar september 2020