Unlocking Creative Horizons: Enhancing Ship Building in Starfield

Explore the creative possibilities of ship building in *Starfield*, where players use mods to craft iconic spacecraft. Highlighting the community's innovative designs, the text suggests potential improvements and expansions to enhance the ship-building system, with hopes that future DLC will prioritize this highly praised feature.
SummaryThe text discusses the creative potential of ship building in Starfield, highlighting the use of mods to create iconic spacecraft designs. A Reddit user, lililiilillil, showcased their ship resembling Eagle-5 from Spaceballs, achieved with modded parts. The piece also addresses Starfield’s modular ship-building system and its limitations, particularly in customization options. It suggests that future DLC, similar to Fallout 4’s Automatron, could enhance these features. With the upcoming Shattered Space expansion, there’s hope that ship building will be prioritized, allowing for even more creative possibilities without mods.

The Creative Potential of Ship Building in Starfield

One of the most captivating features of Starfield is undoubtedly the vast array of inventive ship designs players can create. This creativity is further enhanced by the use of mods, allowing for the construction of uniquely iconic spacecraft. Shortly after the game’s release, the community eagerly engaged with the ship editor, striving to replicate some of pop culture’s most recognizable starships. While the base game offers various options to build ships like the N-1 Starfighter or the USS Enterprise, third-party mods are necessary to unlock the full potential of the system.

Fan Creations and Community Innovations

A standout example of this creativity was shared on Reddit by the user lililiilillil, who showcased an image of their ship designed to closely mimic Eagle-5, the legendary vessel from the 1987 comedy Spaceballs.

In Spaceballs, Eagle-5 parodies Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon, depicted as a standard Winnebago RV outfitted with a dorsal fin and jet engines that allow it to traverse the galaxy. Lililiilillil mentions that to achieve this design, they utilized several mods for custom parts not available in Starfield. The result was so convincing that it could easily be mistaken for an official crossover event.

Room for Improvement: Enhancing Starfield’s Ship Building

Although the modular nature of Starfield’s ship-building system offers significant creative freedom, there are areas ripe for enhancement through expansions or DLC. As noted by lililiilillil, the game’s current painting options are limited, restricting the ability to accurately replicate the color schemes of reference ships. Whether Bethesda plans to address this issue remains uncertain, but the studio’s past actions provide a glimmer of hope.

Following the launch of Fallout 4, Bethesda released the Automatron add-on. While it included some narrative elements, its primary focus was on expanding the game’s crafting mechanics. This DLC allowed players to construct and customize robots, equipping them with new parts to create formidable machines. A similar approach could be applied to Starfield, introducing new ship parts and technologies to further enhance the system’s flexibility.

The Future of Ship Building in Starfield

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With Starfield’s first major expansion, Shattered Space, slated for release at the end of September, there is widespread hope among players that the next DLC will prioritize ship building. Given that it is one of the game’s most universally acclaimed features, it seems likely that Bethesda would seek to expand it. Ideally, this could allow for creations like Eagle-5 to be built within Starfield without the need for mods.

Source: lililiilillil/Reddit

Starfield

    Platform(s)
    PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
    Released
    September 6, 2023
    Developer(s)
    Bethesda
    Publisher(s)
    Bethesda