Playing Starfield Part 6: Outposts
I struggle with certain types of game mechanics in RPGs and MMOs. Especially those involving crafting, building or any other form of gated, time based, resource dependent creation. Outposts in Starfield is a textbook example of this. I love the notion of having a fancy base on some remote planet, with all the necessary facilities for my starship and crew. I also like, in principle, the idea of being able to customise it so that it looks exactly how I want it. However, the reality is always very different. Building an outpost in Starfield is slow and the UI that you have to use is ponderous. You have to sink a great deal of time and effort into building one and ultimately, beyond the cosmetic, your completed outpost offers very few benefits. Which raises the question as to why I’ve spent so much time recently, watching YouTube videos about constructing outposts?
Setting aside my own feelings on the matter, having watched a lot of content about outposts in Starfield, I think they offer different things to different players. Some are happy with the cosmetic and collectible elements that they bring to the game. Creating a home then spending time decorating it has always been a major source of entertainment in both the RPG and MMORPG genres. But outposts offer a technical conundrum as well, which potentially attracts a different type of player. There is a logistical element to creating an outpost. There are some planets that yield better resources or that have superior day and night cycles. If you pick the right one, you can potentially start producing the resources that you need to build a robust outpost, without spending a lot of in-game credits. Essentially, if you’re the sort of player that enjoys crunching numbers then creating and managing an outpost can be “spreadsheet heaven”.
Despite my ambivalence towards the mechanics of creating an outpost, I did spend an evening building one. I followed a specific YouTube video and the instructions therein. The outpost is on the moon Bessell III-B in the Bessell system. Specifically, because there is an area on the moon surface that has access to Aluminum, Iron, Nickel and Cobalt. Their extraction is further optimised by the day and night cycle of the moon, where one hour of moon time equates to nearly sixty hours of universal time. Hence if you sleep, upon waking the extraction process has produced a substantial amount of each ore. This generates XP and the ore can be traded for credits. Furthermore, if you install an industrial workbench, you have all the raw materials you need for making most common construction components, such as adaptive frames. Again this process will generate further XP. So, in this instance, building an outpost has multiple benefits including helping you level up your character.
Having built my outpost in Starfield and assigned my companions Lin and Heller there to maintain it, I don’t think I’ll be returning that often, apart from collecting the various extracted resources. I’m curious to see if there are any random attacks or whether the game provides any incentives to go back there. At present I am making credits quite easily and resources can be purchased for reasonable prices. Hence for a player such as myself, outposts don’t really offer anything beyond the immediate fun of building them. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I think the most enjoyable creative aspect of the game is building your own starship. Not only is it a fun process, it has a technical aspect that engages players that like number crunching. It also offers a tangible benefit upon completion. Overall, outposts don’t seem to offer as much. However, that is a subjective statement and I’m sure other players may feel differently.
