Starfield has a release date

[Raid]

It doesn't really feel like the class choice makes a huge amount of difference anyway. I'm only a couple of hours in and I think I could already have bought the skills that my class gave me. I do quite like the way you need to complete little challenges to earn the right to upgrade a skill.

Honestly my initial impressions of the game aren't hugely positive. The art direction and sound design are great, but it feels really bland, and I'm genuinely surprised at how close to Skyrim it feels to play. How do Bethesda make such different settings feel so similar?

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, it would have been more for role-playing purposes than any material gameplay difference (I think class just affects your starting perks, with my one I did get three quite useful ship-based ones).

I'm enjoying it, but in very much the same way I enjoyed Skyrim the first time round, and Fallouts 3 & 4, but then I went in with that expectation so I'm fine with it.

[Wrathbone]

I've had a fair few dialogue options specific to my class of Diplomat.

[Animalmother]

I picked the diplomat as my starting class as it was supposed to help with dialogue and commerce, both of which were very handy in FO4 and Skyrim but it feels like it feels like its had relatively little advantage here. If I was starting again I'd have picked the one that lets you carry more stuff, weight restriction is a massive pain in the bollocks in this game and the sooner mods come to the console the better. The starship modding interface with the controller is very poorly done, again it needs a mod to fix. Last moan is the game really needs some sort of vehicle to let you roam around the moons and planets, your really restricted by only being able to walk.

I've steered myself back onto the main quest missions after going on joining the Freestar Rangers and living the Firefly lifestyle for a bit. I'm currently traveling with a space cowboy voiced by the guy who did Adam Jensen from Deus Ex, that raspy velvet voice is a delight!

[Sly Boots]

There are console commands you can use right now to do various things, one of which is increase weight capacity (I've just done so) - on my keyboard I hit the '/@ key to open the console, then the command is player.setav carryweight x

x being the value you want to set your capacity to, I didn't want to break the game so just added another couple of hundred kilos so I wasn't constantly worried about encumbrance

[Animalmother]

I mean on the Xbox console...

[Raid]

Is there a way of sending loot directly to your ship rather than into your backpack? I finally hit the encumbrance limit and thought being able to deposit items directly into your cargo hold would be a no-brainer, but I can't say I've noticed an option. Granted, I don't think I even know where the starter ship's cargo hold is anyway, so I'm not sure it'd be a massive help right now.

[Wrathbone]

I mean on the Xbox console...

If you’ve got a PC that will at least launch Starfield, you could run it via Game Pass, load your Xbox save, enter the console command, save and then load it on Xbox.

Is there a way of sending loot directly to your ship rather than into your backpack? I finally hit the encumbrance limit and thought being able to deposit items directly into your cargo hold would be a no-brainer, but I can't say I've noticed an option. Granted, I don't think I even know where the starter ship's cargo hold is anyway, so I'm not sure it'd be a massive help right now.

Yes, though you have to be within 250m of your ship. You go to the menu, then to ship settings, then there’s an option to view your cargo hold. If you’re within range you should be able to switch to your inventory and move items to the hold.

The access panel for the cargo hold inside the ship varies in location, but it’s a small turquoise square that says CARGO, usually near the cockpit. There’s also your captain’s locker, which is separate and intended for more long term storage.

[Raid]

Yes, though you have to be within 250m of your ship. You go to the menu, then to ship settings, then there’s an option to view your cargo hold. If you’re within range you should be able to switch to your inventory and move items to the hold.

That's a bit naff. So to use your ship's cargo hold you need to first pick up an object, and then manually move it to the ship, and you can only do that when you're nearby? This feels like obvious mod fodder; just give me a hotkey to send an item directly from the environment to my ship! I want to pick up stuff purely to sell without cluttering my own inventory.

[Wrathbone]

Yes, though you have to be within 250m of your ship. You go to the menu, then to ship settings, then there’s an option to view your cargo hold. If you’re within range you should be able to switch to your inventory and move items to the hold.

That's a bit naff. So to use your ship's cargo hold you need to first pick up an object, and then manually move it to the ship, and you can only do that when you're nearby?

I get the design choice - if you're miles away or in a building on the other side of a city, it'd be a hefty handwave to say your stuff can just teleport to your ship. It's the classic inventory dilemma between convenience and roleplaying, and honestly I think the balance is right here. You can still lug stuff around past your weight limit, but it drains your O2 faster. That seems like a good compromise to me.

Alternatively I'd like to have a space urchin that follows me around and runs back and forth between my ship and whatever mortal peril I find myself in to relieve me of my burdens.

"A whole credit - why thank you Captain Wrathbone, sir! Don't you worry, I'll make sure to scurry round these heavily armed pirates while lugging this 500lb sack of titanium..."

[Raid]

I feel like there are any number of ways they could realistically automate things given the setting. Perhaps you could 'mark' things for a little droid to follow behind you, and run back to the ship with them before you leave the planet. That doesn't feel like a stretch given this is set a few hundred years into the future and I feel we're almost at the point where we could do it now. It doesn't have to be visible to the player, I'm thinking purely in gameplay terms.

I've always thought inventory management to be a tedious part of games, and it's exacerbated in games like this that give you such a phenomenal amount of crap you can pick up. I'm not even talking about the staplers and desk fans, I mean the reasonably valuable spacesuits and jump packs and guns you can grab from almost any enemy.

[Wrathbone]

You can always take a follower round with you to act as a pack mule. Personally I find it's easier to just grab everything and manage O2 until I get back to the ship.

[Raid]

But then you still have two separate lots of inventory management to do (pick up, transfer to pack mule, transfer back to inventory, sell), needless faffing that means I just won't bother.

I don't often think of The Division 2's interface as laudable, but having separate hotkeys for Loot, Loot as Junk (you can sell anything marked as junk with one button press when you reach a vendor), and Loot and Immediately Deconstruct makes this vastly quicker. Of course in TD2's case they then ruin that by changing these hotkeys depending on which screen you're looking at at the time, in the most bafflingly anti-user interface decision I can think of.

[Animalmother]

There's also no scrapping mechanic, you should be able to break up unwanted guns and suits for metals and parts.

[Wrathbone]

I do think the inventory is ripe territory for mods. As I said a while back, I'm surprised Bethesda didn't go with a grid system or something more visual, rather than sticking with their existing list system.