Erlkönig: Starfield: Play Novelly

Adding Novelty and Challenge to Starfield Runs

Overview

There are many ways keep gameplay fresh, from a game simply having huge amounts of contents, to set different styles of play (like classes), to players making their own choices about constraints and playstyles.

In Starfield, the game itself emphasizes one approach in particular, changing yourself:

Although you leave this universe behind, a new universe awaits you. Who will you be in this one? What choices will you make?

Notes

(Some of these were tested when the max difficulty was still only Very Hard. The nude runs are MUCH harder with the later-added full environmental effects, where even the first few tiers of Personal Atmosphere won't save you if you're not careful)

• All constraints still allow using powers, unarmed combat, mines, and grenades
• Constraints apply from the start to entering the Unity realm
• Garb constraints start from the moment Lyn activates the first airlock

Universe Variants

Dig up a list of the universe variants from the web, note that some of them are a bit redundant, and the rest are almost perfect for making NG+2 to NG+10 each be a different variant. You can choose the upcoming variant during the credits at the end of an NG+ run (i.e. you have no control over the pre-NG and NG+ universe). Forcing the credits to scroll faster is recommended. There will eventually be a distinctive sound and an option will be presented to skip the rest of the credits. Don't quit. Instead go into command mode and use the following two commands, where "N" is replaced with a number from the list. I recommend saving universe 1 for a run where you plan to stay in that universe for a while, it is imminently repeatable. :-)

set 17e727 to 100  ; chance of a special universe
set 1801b9 to N    ; which universe (replace N)

Where N is (trying to avoid spoilers while still being identifiable)

• -1: normal
• 0: vasco
• 1: YOU? (may have to fast travel away/back from the lodge to keep YOU?)
• 2: dopplegängers
• 3: andreja
• 4: walter
• 5: hunter
• 6: cora
• 7: nemesis
• 8: kids
• 9: retired

Universe 1 normally forces a skip of the main questline (there's no way to avoid telling the you're starborn when there are two of you) so if you want to pursue the main quests with YOU?, reportedly you can choose the default universe, wait until Sarah joins your crew, then:

startquest 187431

Restrictions on the modern game to recapture 2025's diffiulty

Fast Lanes and Terran Armada (FLTA) introduced a slew of questionably balanced changes that radically lower game difficulty if used by the player. This frustrated players who view making the game easier as the last desirable outcome. Many of the challenges described here were tried were done by players without all the overpowered additions from FLTA and may be more rewarding if played like Starfield was in 2025.

Here's how to do that.

Core restrictions

• No X-Tech use (unless required for a quest)
• No using Credits as a crafting component (including not raising any item's quality tier)
• No Ship Optimization Terminals
• No StorMax 70 Cargo Hold (a still-unpatched game-breaking blunder)

Strict gear restrictions (optional)

• No gear above Superior (and no improving gear tier)
• No purchasing gear better than what you've looted (i.e. no Resonator at level 4)

Liberal gear restrictions (contemplated)

• Only wear Armor above Advanced if one owns same-slot armor, Advanced or less, with higher DR
• If you have a weapon at Superior tier, limit armor to Refined
• If you have a weapon at Exceptional tier, limit armor to Calibrated

These mean that if one has an Exceptional Wakizashi, one should highlight it by being limited to Calibrated armor. Also, they intend that armor above Advanced be stashed until a better, but lower tier, armor is looted in Shattered Space or FLTA content.

Abusing Anchorpoint

Lastly, for experienced players, it is very tempting to strip down the Frontier and go to Anchorpoint to buy a Resonator while still level 4 (you need Astrodynamics and the lightest possible Frontier - I even tossed half my landing gear and the Shield - to reach 28 Grav Jump). However, even on Extreme difficulty, this obliterates enemies, even up to level 50 or higher (especially if you somehow get a Calibrated one). It's a fun style and a great weapon. It also probably shouldn't be sold by anyone to a player under around level 40.

My suggested balancing restriction would be a minimal armor approach:

• Buying weapons from Anchorpoint should make you an "avid gun nut" while below level 30, foregoing anything but minimal armor (non-breathable atmo) or none (breathable) while using it, to feel closer while you snuggle up to your discharging foreign prize.
• There are a number of rough-and-ready outfits in the game that fit this theme

Well-known Play Objectives

The Pacifist run

Reach the Unity with Combat / People Killed of zero.

Starfield does not provide for a true pacifist run, where you avoid killing anyone/anything directly or by proxy. One critter must die. At least one Starborn must die. And any number of people on various ships must die.

However…

You can reach the next Universe killing absolutely no normal people yourself, even in pre-NG. Exploded spaceships (including Starborn Guardians) are not counted. Starborn don't count as normal people, but surprisingly you can avoid killing them (yourself) as well.

More surprisingly, you are only forced to kill exactly one creature, one of the two Cataxi you first encounter in Nishina

It's total field day on turrets and robots
(I killed ~60 of each on my max difficulty run).

So your totals should be:

People Killed
0
Creatures Killed
1

and no entry for Starborn killed.

How to do this:

• Let your follower do all the killing, which works everywhere except Nishina.
• EM Weapons. I used a converted Starlash most of the time.

If you have Watchtower, note that its initial quest to grab the control core only has mechanical foes.

The Cutter and Swordmage runs (more generally, no-ammo runs)

Reach the Unity using only unarmed, Powers, and either

• Only your Cutter
• Only blades

How to do this:

• Your follower is pretty useful for distracting enemies from you
• For the Cutter, skill up on Lasers and Heavy Weapons
  • Warning: Terra Armada has removed the stacking aspect of laser burn
• For blades, skill up on Dueling, Martial Arts, Stealth, Concealment
• Various other combat skills may also help
• Remember that blades can also be customized, both hilt and blade
• Use Reactive Shield once you have it
• Anti-Gravity Field, Gravity Well, and Sunless Space are great for crowd control

Simple playstyle choices

Starfield's core weapon buff system and the lack of any way to craft a weapon from scratch appear to support a key goal

• Change your playstyle by focusing on the best weapon the game hands you

The inability to craft means this extends into NG+, since otherwise any advanced player could just remake the same favored weapon from the last game. Instead, the rarity of perfect legendary buff combinations is almost certainly intended to shape the player's game experience, and boost replay value.

Other pretty normal options include:

• Play all three versions of the SysDef / Crimson Fleet epic questline
  • triple agent
  • double agent
  • direct hire (in Cydonia) by just attacking SysDef (e.g.) until they declare war on you
• Choose different followers, or invert whether you have followers
• Change your weapon (or combat style) of choice as soon as you master one
• Change between ships with very different capabilities
• Change focus between main questlines and side quests frequently
• Explore systems outside of what seems like a reasonable level range
• Switch between heavy looting / large cargo playstyle and a lightweight playstyle - easiest by dumping all your loot into a base somewhere
• Switch between pacifist and aggressive dialogue options
• Heavily customize your ships
• Heavily customize one of your outposts
• Customize all your weapons
• Collect resources from the wild instead of from vendors
• Open up game subsystems and restricted areas, like the Key, the Trackers, and various others hidden behind questlines
• Capture ships
• Fly the Razorleaf into combats

Abusing the Quantum Entanglement Device

Let be straight here, the QED is already a serious cramp the Starfield's core story concept (starting fresh), has a stupid name, and should have been an in-Unity option that gave you some control over the Cargo or Captain's Locker content in the next universe by copying some less-complex things you have in this universe into the next universe - 3D printed together with you and your ship all in one pass or whatever. Because no things go through the Unity, not even you.

More lore-friendly things to get copied into NG+ would be resources, because the Guardian gets some anyway. By extension, the more removed from basic resources, or the more tactically significant, the less lore-friendly the prospective copy-through choice could be considered.

To change up your early playstyle, different levels of abusing the QED are entirely possible. Examples below sorted from most lore-friendly first (random resources in the Guardians only) to least lore-friendly last (FL/TA's QED).

(UOG: unmodified original game item - from before Shattered Space)

• Classic
  • Nothing ;-)
• Simple
  • Resources (to, say, immediately build workbenches and craft in your new Guardian)
  • Collectibles - plushies, snow globes, mugs, books, etc - any mostly non-tactical "misc" object
  • Clothing - to improve roleplay and avoid murdering helpless employees again
  • Food/drink
  • Emergency Kits, Trauma Pack
• Retro gear [ melee - basic - common ]
  • UOG melee weapons, basic quality only, common (no perks) only (same pattern for following tiers)
  • Med Packs
  • Chems (amp, combat boosters, Aurora, etc)
  • Credits < ¢15k - if you'll skip stealing everything not nailed down in Vectera/Argos and the Lodge
  • Digipicks - unless you actually ran out in this universe at some point ;-)
• Basic gear [ gunpowder - basic - common ]
  • Drugs (environmental hazard recovery, immobilizers, etc)
  • UOG weapons/ammo using gunpowder
  • UOG armor
• Calibrated gear [ lasers - calibrated/sharpened - rare ]
  • UOG laser and mining weapons
  • Credits > ¢15k - (although this trivializes buying Rover access when first in New Atlantis)
• Refined gear [ refined/honed - epic ]
  • UOG weapons/ammo (all)
• Advanced gear [ advanced/quantum-edged - legendary ]
  • Gear from Shattered Space, Trackers Alliance, Perfect Recipe, and At Hell's Gate
• Superior gear [ superior - exotic ]
  • Gear from all Bethesda content, and fundamentally similar gear from mods
  • X-Tech Power Cores - only never-used cores can be put into the QED
• Anything ???

Deciding carefully what to pass in can have a huge influence in how you play the next run. Just remember that the more fully you equip your own copy in the next universe, the more those game loops suffer.

Restriction ideas for NG+ runs

Doing each of NG+2 to NG+10 with either a different play style or some weird constraint to make it more challenging can keep play fresh.

Keep those caveats in mind with the list of options below:

• Restrict weapon use to those for a certain skill, the cutter only, or unarmed
• Restrict weapon use to blades (and powers) for a "swordmage" run
• Restrict purchases from vendors to, say, digipicks and/or ship and ship parts, or nothing at all
• Restrict selling items to vendors to just contraband, or nothing (or some variation)
• Restrict ship modifications to only at your large landing pads
• Restrict armor by no helmet (challenging if pre-NG+3-ish), no suit, no jetpack (ugh), or no armor, period
• Restricted to no apparel at all
• Restrict to specific followers, or none
• Restrict ship updates to quest rewards and captures only (no ship vendor use except to reach the Legacy)
• Ban the use of med/trauma/emergency kits (most impactful for new 'toons on Extreme)
• If you're a nut, banning use of ship vendors too (your large landing pads are fine, but that Cabot cockpit is only going to be yours by capture)
• Avoiding mods that allow you to move epic gear perks around
• Avoiding any mod, trick, etc that would trivialize the difficulty

Specific notes on suitless or suit-limited runs

The most implacable enemy on Extreme is the atmosphere (or lack thereof), making suitless runs nearly impossible in pre-NG, and difficult, even later, with yet only low levels of Personal Atmosphere. A certain trialog with the Barretts is also very tightly timed, air-wise, and the cave artifact mission really needs Creator's Peace to allow escaping with fast travel. Additionally, without the ability to recover from all from the environmental damage you take on Vectera, you'll die before boarding the Frontier (ironic, since you'd be able to recover inside). This appears to limit difficulty to XP+73%, with the 2% off being to drop the environment hazard recovery Setting one notch to account for the inital Argos mine nonsensically not being categorized as an outpost or settlement. Vectera is still quite challenging like this. See sidebar for more info.

Going without a helmet also means you don't have a flashlight. This can be unsettling. I recommend it.

Added objectives that should have been achievements

• Find all 105 skill magazines
  • On the same run
    • Pre-NG+

Added objectives almost no one will ever complete

• Build an ultimately-networked Outpost that all known resources are either produced at or flow to
  • This is a huge project probably best saved for a universe you plan to stay in
  • Combines very well with a no-vendors run on full Extreme, forcing full survivalist on you
  • Attempt it naked for bonus karma
  • Painful without a mod to support push-based supply chains, like Magnus the Magnate's Outpost Production Shenanigans. If some mod were to have storage units settable each for a specific resource, that might work even better

Crazy objectives for new characters

New characters have the toughest time, with the most brutal being between level 1 and roughly level 15 on Extreme at +73% or above.

• Reach the Unity at the lowest possible level (on at least Normal diff, w/o glitches/zips/etc, or mods that trivialize the run). E.g reach NG+1 at level 18. (It seems like 17 should be possible…)
• Reach the Unity with the minimum possible kill count in your character stats [my best until 2025-06: people 9, creatures 14. Later in 2025: people 0, creatures 1 Nishina Cataxi (on Extreme)]
• Reach the Unity with the most inconvenient set of restrictions possible, the Nude Unity: Extreme run.

Weird objectives

• Run up maximal bounties with maximal factions (bad aspect: cops catching you by mere proximity)
• Every kill means you have to add another plushtoy loose in your ship.
• You have to collect all your corpses for display
• All your loot belongs in a huge pile you can run around in to stress your computer as much as possible
• Marry all the romanceables in one run (hint: Andreja must be first)
• Without using a mod for it, dress twinsies with your spouse, where both of you ar wearing the same outfit that spouse starts in (requires prioritizing looting over shooting in a certain late-game starborn fight that teleports you to the Lodge
  • caveat: I've seen cases now where only some companions drop clothing, and I don't know if it's randomized, a bug, etc.
• Capture/exchange your way up to a level 75 ship without doing ship upgrades

Command-heavy objectives

• [On PC] Force the Universe with YOU? (possible as early as NG+2 - in the credits of NG+1) and take her (or him) to the temples with you, teaching her powers as you go

For more info about this, see the page about YOU?.

Warping Progression

• Use commands to keep your character stuck at level one.

This feels like receiving a kind of systemic shock after having played the game normally before, since you will only have 3 skills, period, and at this point I'm certain no skills are required to reach the Unity. Many weird, but totally reasonable side effects can further warp what you thought you knew about the game. I really enjoyed this run.

I made a batch file (my-noxp.txt), so that I could keep just one character affected, although I forgot to load it a few times, levelled, and had to restore from an earlier, level one save.

(defaults are in parens)

setgs fXPModBase 0        ; (1) multiplier to result's XP, to which 1 is added
setgs fXPDeathRewardHealthThreshold 100
setgs fXPStart 123456789  ; (200) base amount between levels
setgs fXPBase  123456789  ;  (75) added interlevel amount, multiplied by level
setgs fXPMult  0          ; (.0015) added multiplier to fXPBase

You'll still need to clear some single XP point gains occasionally:

player.modav experience -1  ; removes one XP, larger negatives to remove more
;
; (caveat: that is -probably- what I used, but I haven't retested it yet,
;          same thoughts for: player.setav experience 1)

Role playing

(based on ideas from another player)

• Hoarder: You find a use for anything that crosses your path, you cannot sell anything and always find a place for it to live.
• Fat bastard: You prefer to eat a mountain of food to replenish your health, literally, instead of using meds.
• Space pirate: Armed with a pistol and cutlass (i.e. any sword) you make your own rules among the stars.
• Stoner: You always have a supply of Aurora when you need it, which is all the time.

Experience Your Youth

• Use the coc command on Vectera to dump yourself somewhere totally different, like Neon, and then stay there until you can buy or capture a ship. You'll probably have to head to Vectera (or coc back) at that point, since the game restricts free travel until you meet Constellation.

Game-changing Mods

Too many possibilities to list.

Other Thoughts

I did an NG+12 run at level 153 totally naked, weaponless, and only buying from ship vendors, and it still isn't especially difficult. But it is funny. Especially when a Vanguard chick in the Den told me she didn't recognize me "out of uniform".

The problem with what I'm doing is that the fewer things I'll let myself use, the more variety in that sense is lost. On the flipside, I get a new sense of urgency (mostly from the looming asphyxia problem, but some from being a glass cannon) and definitely am hitting POIs differently with only powers to attack. Some sets of restrictions can make Nishina, in particular, a nightmare.