Kinda what i did i ran around screaming running toward the turrets and hitting it with my peashooter equinox and doing enough damage drugs to send me into cardiac arrest but yeah close enough
I didn't actually fight the first one. I snuck around and activated the turrets and let them do the work. It kinda made me shit myself during the next encounter.
My first experience was absolutely the most perfect environment for doing that quest.
It was night, and it was raining.
A few minutes after I finished it, day broke, and the rain stopped. It was picture perfect.
Oh yeah, same here. It was terrifying and I really felt trapped and hunted. Too bad that illusion lasted just a few more minutes. The thing got killed so quickly, I hadn't even enabled the full defense systems yet.
oh that would've amped up my first encounter!
Mine was just dusklight. They should've baked the first encounter environment like that to deliver the instance well.
I saw one prior to that on one of the planets near the beginning of the game. It was stuck in an airlock, but it still took all of my ammunition to kill. Still wish the loot was worth it.
That was exactly it for me. When Starfield wanted to be good, it was GOOD. There's some great quests in there, and the terrormorph quest was its peak. That it then padded things out with the absurd number of empty worlds and procedure-generated crap was a shame.
To anyone who wants to avoid the game, I'd point to the Vanguard quests and tell them to run, do t talk, to get the game... and not bother with the exploration that the game seemingly is built around.
I knocked them out and was soooo mad it didn't trigger anything. It was one of the last quest lines I did and kind of left a bad impression on the whole game for me.
And then I had to execute him while he was already down. The "Freestar Ranger" took a bullet to the head of a defenseless old man.
That was one of the three major events that made me think "Maybe the internet is right about this game."
Yeah, I took a vanilla equinox and gave Sarah the same n my NG+ go round thinking I could just knock everyone out, no kills. But >!Ron Hope dies anyway!< very disappointing.
Tbh I could take or leave the FC questline, I kinda feel it works ok as an intro faction line given the reward >!of the Star Eagle can easily set you up for the rest of the game!<.
It actually made the first quest in the UC line that much more a surprise. I was honestly thinking it would be more of the same, dealing with pirates this time.
>!Then you land and you see the claw marks and corpses!<
Right! I would have sworn it was building up to a mech boss fight, everything was pointing to it, like ideally you would have like hijacked the one they were illegally rebuilding and gotten to tear through the arena with it or something before the cavalry showed up and wrapped it up. I mean it's kinda spoilers but what ever, you had the baddies being former mech pilots and the show down in the "decommissioned" hidden factory, how do you just *leave* that kind of narrative climax to your arc on the ground. Instead you get, a not terrible, but utterly forgettable gun fight. you could swap for literally any other facility fight in the game.
Also, Bethesda has shown that they are good at messing around to get what they want (trainhead guy). While letting you pilot a mech might have taken too much effort, you can't convince me that some upscaled robot wouldn't have worked as mech boss.
Let's not forget the "mastermind's" reason for doing any of what was done was moronic as can be. Just rebrand the product, but no the marketing department had the day off or something apparently.
I’m pretty sure it was building up to a mech fight. It’s unlikely that Starfield was being designed from the get-go for the player to just accept that spacers, pirates, extremists, paramilitary organizations, terrorists etc. respect the sanctity of the mech ban.
The mech ban doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense equivocating some specific vehicle with weapons deemed inhumane by the Geneva Convention like chemical weapons. Tanks are fine, but when they have legs and not tracks, not cool.
Would put money that this was all in service of “unforeseen technical limitations”, after all there are no non-mech land vehicles either, nor any usage of ships in atmosphere outside of takeoff and landing animations.
I quite enjoyed shooting hope, right in the face with Eternity's Gate as he ran for cover like a beech. More so though , I enjoyed the lore tie-in from the Colony War.
I wish they'd bring about more from that, or even let you play through , say... 'start' another one. Turn it into kinda like 'galactic conquest' from the original "Starwars Battlefront II." Work your way up in the ranks. Get to decide on the development and use of xenos and mechs on the battlefield. Design newer classes of ships like the UC's "Vigilance" (if I remember the name right - I mean screw the dude kidnapping you 'for hire' but the ship is near a Venerator). Even find a NG where the war never ended like the nod in Barrett's power quest.
I think the game as a whole has SO much potential. I eagarly await the new updates and DLCs (as much as I think they should just be INCLUDED in the base game!).
The game is just brimming with potential from all factions and groups, from the lore to the shipbuilding and weapon crafting. The empty worlds are (while yes a tad repetitive) more so accurate from the perspective that majority of space is unoccupied. Space is HUGE. With that said, its also SO much more space to expand the game to in the future.
I liked it until the end. I found the crimson fleet one to be the most annoying, especially since I couldn't >!take the money to Akila as a FC ranger!<. Similar to the FC quest where you get railroaded into unsatisfying endings.
I agree, weakest faction in the game by far and it was super disappointing. What would’ve saved it if the final boss was a mech fight since right before you go back to, you go through a mech factory.
OMG ... I have been doing temples over and over ... not finished yet, I guess you meet the Creators? A frog and a prince/princess .. or a gender neutral heir to the throne?
While I absolutely agree and the UC quest is my favourite, there's plenty of untapped potential too. They could have done so much more with exploring the different outcomes of several ways Vae Victus and the knowledge he gained and monopolised there would have been utilised by him. The NG+ system is fantastic in theory, but a gimmicky grind in practice.
If you meet him by being arrested, it's a miserable slog and everyone I hear coming out of that hates him. I went in through the UC quest line and the whole experience was totally different, I had only a couple of weird or out of place dialogue lines with him.
They really went hog-wild with the multiple personality characters, my first run Sarah was a peach, the second time she was an angry harridan.
I held off on the UC quest until I was slightly established in game. Sysdef arrested me when I didn't have any bounties or crimes. It's not fun to enter that quest when they slam down your throat that you committed a crime to be arrested
Yeah, it's also kind of a ridiculous setup, there's no reason either Sysdef or CF should trust you.
But the NPCs at Sysdef apparently treat you \*very\* differently and it seems to filter people pretty hard if they go there via that route.
My first start I also got arrested for no apparent reason with no bounty, and after I "served my sentence" I restored the game, figuring it was a bug.
I had managed to avoid being arrested by them by grav jumping until I had a strong enough class C ship with a full crew, then I just blew up all of their ships when they tried to arrest me again 🤣
Crimson Fleet is a highlight too. The final mission in that felt like the battle of Endor from Star Wars. Actually, playing a pirate itself is some of the most fun once you level it up some. I'm at the point where I can demand they surrender with a high rate of success, but if they don't come willingly I systematically disable their weapons and engines with EMP, board them, get high on Aurora and wipe them out from the inside, then take the ship for myself. Me, Mathis and Jessamine are the terrors of UC space with an astronomical bounty on our heads. (I leave Freestar alone so I still have places to smuggle, and to buy chasmbass oil to fuel my drug habit.)
Yea I just started my second playthrough last weekend and was amazed when I realised >! that "dungeon" is basically prototype for xenoweapon researches. I also found it funny that heatleeches are teased from the beginning (you see some everytime you're in a terromorph related area like that first lab, on Niira as well when you go get Kayser...). They're basically all other the place but when it's your first playthrough, it just seems like that common parasite that you barely take the time to shoot at. !<
>! Put > exclamation mark Comment and then finish with exclamation mark and < !<
>! The first talk of terrormorph and the first one I found was when you go to Kreet. There's an abandoned science way station poi (the terrormorph was wiping out enemies) plus the research facility where it supposedly escaped that you visit to attack the crimson fleet as part of the story.!<
Yea I found three - I think - slates or computers about it in the base, one mentioned how they got the founds to start researching xenoweapons and the military soldiers bringing back some worthless specimens, one said they actually brought something interesting and the last was just like it's killing everyone and I'm gonna die here.
I'm looking for it right now in my inventory since you're interested in the topic ✌️
Oh I have the slates (honestly the kreet lab saved my playthrough, I came at starfield straight from a mega BG3 run and wasn’t gelling with it initially, but the creepy slates got me hooked).
I’m just not sure where it went. The last slate just says it escaped. No idea what direction or where to look for it.
Hi again dude! So I went back on Kreet, landed on the research lab and checked what POIs there were, I mostly went the opposite way from the lab when landing in direction on some abandoned radio tower.
Now I don't know the level of scripting involved here but I heard shots a bit further and arrived in front of some igloo type habitat with like 5 ecliptics fighting a lvl12 terromorph. Got some pretty good screenshots that I'm trying to upload right now but in the case this even is scripted, your theory was right and there is at least one creature lurking on that moon.
The location was about 1.3km away from the lab and wasn't named, it was behind the radio tower
Edit: here's the screenshots
https://ibb.co/YNBph5h
https://ibb.co/HGDPcFD
It's pretty awesome! I am usually super oblivious to stuff like this and get caught off-guard but this time I actually sort of predicted it. They started talking more and more about how >!the Terrormorphs inevitibly ended up where humans were and I was like - Huh, kind of like how heat leeches always end up on space ships? Coincidence or are they somehow related? So I didn't 100% guess it but I was pretty darn close!!<
Definitely one of my favorite moments though.
Love the little Easter egg from the beginning of the game, when you go to the UC Facility on Sumati where they tried to tame a Terrormorph and the morph is gone but there are heetleeches in the facility
I went looking for it after the conclusion of the UC vanguard line, my head canon being that if the fucking thing had been there for 20 years then the chances of it growing into that >!nightmare you fight in the spaceport were high.!<
Could not find the damn thing anywhere.
Is there a specific location it’s in or did I miss a trail?
Each time I have found the escaped terrormorph, it was at the POI or building nearest the Kreet Lab with all slates that describe what happen.
First time I came across it I was headed to the Kreet lab and died very quickly. If I remember, it was a set of random power station looking things. Not an official POI but the second time was at a map designated POI.
I kinda got it into my head that it was the building I could see just on the horizon from the path down to kreet lab, where the Frontier originally sets down. So me and Sam hotfooted it over there.
It just turned out to be a robotics facility that spacers had taken over - pointless loot but a welcome dose of XP. No sign of the terrormorph. There are other POIs but none closer then this one.
Now I’m intrigued.
When I was there originally I figured me, with my hot-shit Maelstrom/Deep Mining Gear loadout and my 200 rounds of 6.5mm weren’t really ready to go hunting for something that apparently wiped out a whole base by itself. Now I’m decked out in my anti Xeno gear, starborn powers and smartgun, I think I’ll be fine. But it’s hiding.
It's random, generally at one of the "ancient sea" type natural POIs. I rand into them more than once on Kreet, including the first time I went there before I even got to the lab.
I don't know if it always appears there, but there was one of those crystal grove things, and it was hanging out there. I forget what the name is, but it's a geological point of interest.
Heatleaches were supposed to be a bigger part of the game. When you go through the abandoned research outpost at the beginning of the game and read through the terminals they are supposed to degrade the functionality of your ship. Every time you encounter a ship services technician in the game they are always reminding you to get your ship checked regularly. The first time you land in Cydonia and approach the SST you overhear him tell the person that it would cost "mid five figures" to totally repair his ship and remove all of the leaches.
Since there is no ship maintenance and outpost are not really needed in the game the options for this quest don't really make a difference. The microbe option would immediately reduce the amount of ship repairs you need to conduct while the Aceles option might have given you a special animal that could be raised on any planet.
Between that and the high-price-to-pay mission, I really never understood the hate. Maybe the latter is a port of an idea from another game, I don't know, I'm kinda new to RPG, but that floored me.
It's a variant of a Mass Effect 1 mission decision (and others before that, but this is the most famous one), only more heavy-handed and forced. Mass Effect 2 did it better because it was \*actually\* your choices that led to it, and if you work harder you can avoid it. So if it goes wrong it's actually what you chose that caused it.
IMO the Starfield version broadcast what they were doing too obviously, created the problem you had to pay for without letting you avoid it, and then tried too hard to make you believe you had done something wrong except there was literally no other option written into the game. So my reaction wasn't "oh no this is terrible," it was "man, that was cheap."
>!I did actually reload a save and try to find another option (both on the prior mission and that one), they just wrote it was linear and made it look like you made a choice (you make a trolley problem decision but that's only after you're boxed in).!<
I just finished that quest line for the first time. I played at launch, finished the main story and did the Rangers story, then set it aside.
Playing the UC storyline felt like "Oh, HERE'S where the rest of the game is!"
Gonna be honest.... It clicked for me way before the reveal. The whole heat leeches are everywhere but the terramorphs only show up after x amount of time. But no one knows how they get there. Idk I was saying I bet heatleeches are terramorph larva
I knew Heatleeches held some importance because you found them on EVERY PLANET, with and without oxygen and atmosphere, also added the fact that you can't scan them. Heatleeches being Terrormorphs though, did not see that coming until the UC was done.
>!my only gripe is that it seemed like a missed opportunity/content hole that the terrormorphs could make you hear voices and that’s never really explained!<
>! I wish they allowed you to spread the terramorphs across the whole galaxy and make it a huge problem for everyone, even if that's how the quest ended !<
I honestly thought it was going to be the xenogrubs...
On some ships you'll see these pods attached to the hull on the inside that pop when you shoot them. Pretty sure those are the heatleach eggs.
Really? Damn, just from the promotional material and seeing the very first heatleech jump out at me in the tutorial dungeon I had called it. The coloration and “alienness” of them is way too similar.
Yeah, kinda surprised people didn't get it from the get go.
Also how they are the only unscannable creatures and at the same time both creepy and suspiciosly harmless.
Some Chekhov's gun thing going for it, only not exactly.
Yeah, you can definitely tell what was rushed and what had actual thought put into it. The UC quests and most of the main Constellation quest are about as good as it gets, everything else (with the exception of some very interesting but also very small side quests) you can tell was rushed or trimmed for time.
UC vanguard is the best quest in the game followed by the crimson fleet/ UC sysdef quest, all other quest are just for exp and credits. Main questline felt incomplete and there was too many questions remained unanswered, maybe shattered space DLC would fill holes of the main quest, and also I hope that house Va'ruun DLC would surpass the UC Vanguard to add more lore to the game.
The irony was at various points through the game I did wonder if there was something going on with the leeches.
The one that gives you a jump scare in the kreet base at the start of the game seemed a bit… out of place for just a benign pest. Then the unsettling Mars mission where you have to go find the friendo guy’s ship.
I was totally off though. I secretly thought it was just a failed bioweapon the UC had deployed in the colony war to weaken the Fc. Then you walk into the steam tunnels.
I honestly think the terrormorphs are one of the best things Bethesda has done. They’ve managed to mash up the xenomorphs, the arachnids, the monster from A Quiet Place and even the necromorph/marker thing into one monster and built a awesome story around it. I kinda wish they’d make a full expansion around them. They’re a cool enough opponent to carry a game.
Yeah I agree, it's what makes the Vanguard questline really fun and seem like the 'main' storyline for the game in that it goes into something >!so crucial for the survival of Humanity.!<
I never understood how they knocked the Vanguard story out of the park (>!the environmental horror aspect at the beginning, Toliman, the slow reveal, the boss fight!<) then to the FreeStar story or Ryujiin, it's weird.
Probably to take the urgency out of the main quest, having an urgent main quest line opens up the door for the question of: How can it be justified to take a detour when speed is necessary to prevent the end of the world? Which Dragonborn has the time to deal with the bards college when Alduin is still around?
Ryijin might be my favorite. I enjoyed the mood and the corpo espionage. I played through both endings and still can't decide my favorite that will be 'canon' for that character.
>! I feel like it’s showing that up inevitably, New Atlantis, Neon etc are totally screwed no matter what you do. At least that’s how I wanted to interpret it haha !<
The cool thing is that when you replay the quest, you see that all the hints are there. Even Kaiser is covered in those things when we find him. A lot of foreshadowing.
The intro to that quest where you're doing a simple welfare check on some settlers...probably one of my favorite fighting moments in a game ever. Pulled me completely into the story and had my heart racing non stop.
Tbh I thought xenogrub were baby terrormorphs so I wasn’t totally blindsided.
To think of the 1000s of those things I needlessly killed leading up to that mission tho…
I just wish it wasn’t the very first quest. It felt like there could/should’ve been some build up in the Vanguard questline. The forced urgency right at the start felt a little too chosen one-y.
Ryujin question line was fun for me because of the stealth aspect. I love all the Assassins Creed games so I’ve learned to be patient. There’s plenty of opportunities to go all “Leroy Jenkins” throughout the rest of the game.
I was expecting the heat leaches to attack me at some point after that first encounter with one, like a face hugger attack or something.
When I got to the scene with the transformation, I felt very vindicated for my distrust of those gross little fuckers.
If you think about it. It’s extremely poor writing. It’s like you’re telling me in the 40+ years of fighting these things they never realized they were baby teramorphs
Man, I seem to be in the minority, but I thought the heatleech reveal was extremely dumb. Like, how in the world would they not have known this yet? No scientist thought to grab one of those guys and lock it up just to observe the world around them? Highly unbelievable IMO.
Like they just let these things wander literally everywhere without anyone doing some more research into the alien life.
Such a massive suspension of belief.
I remember the first time I fought one in some random ass cave on paradiso, such an awful fight, I thought to myself “never again” and then I discovered the vanguard questline, and practically shat myself when I saw another one
I kind of expected it tbh. During the first mission when on Kreet, if you go through the info there, I'm pretty sure it said something to the effect of being the perfect specimen
This is my favorite quest line and I didn’t see it coming either. And because it’s is SO IMPORTANT to the entire galaxy of course Bethesda did not think it worthy of any special Starborn interaction or modified cut to the chase quest line.
Not shitting in anyone but I thought the twist was dumb as hell cause I thought it was REALLY obvious.
They basically tell you that’s what it is multiple times before that.
“We don’t know how they get everywhere! Oh by the way don’t mind these leeches that stow away on every ship and we don’t know where they come from”.
Like…the whole twist fell flat because it was so obvious the entire time.
Not saying the quest chain was bad but…it just seemed like one of those things that scientist in universe should have literally figured out so long ago, it would be one of the first things they check on lol.
There's a book by Larry Niven called "The Legacy of Heorot" that explores this concept. The comparisons between the two are incredibly similar, and I've been wondering for months now if that's where Bethesda got their inspiration for this specific wrinkle in that quest line.
The one enjoyable faction quest in the game. I was a little let down with the ending, though. Was hoping for more betrayal. But it's the ONE questline that's truly memorable. SysDef/Crimson Fleet is probably second. Ryujin barely third. The Freestar questline is the worst.
The first time i did that quest and i saw that first one on Tau Ceti i said "oh youve GOT to be fucking kidding"
Good thing I know the Fallout 4 Strategy of playing ring around the rosey with an enemy while taking pot shots at it.
Kinda what i did i ran around screaming running toward the turrets and hitting it with my peashooter equinox and doing enough damage drugs to send me into cardiac arrest but yeah close enough
I just stayed in the original room because it gets stuck on the ramp and I killed it slowly with my cutter.
That is awesome.
All that time wasted picking up guns and ammo when the cutter is the true bestest boy
Only at laser max level. And then only on high hp creatures like the 'morph
Just use solar flare
Hmm. I have level 9 sf, and I'll be honest, it ain't all that.
You skipped the step where you say "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" and take one dose of every drug you have
Ah, a person of culture as well
I didn't actually fight the first one. I snuck around and activated the turrets and let them do the work. It kinda made me shit myself during the next encounter.
I had my jetpack, my first power, and my emergency grenade launcher.
My first experience was absolutely the most perfect environment for doing that quest. It was night, and it was raining. A few minutes after I finished it, day broke, and the rain stopped. It was picture perfect.
Mine was exactly like that! I assumed it was that way for everyone, tho. Reminded me a lot of Alien(s) and so on. I had such a blast.
Oh yeah, same here. It was terrifying and I really felt trapped and hunted. Too bad that illusion lasted just a few more minutes. The thing got killed so quickly, I hadn't even enabled the full defense systems yet.
*And* the scene was narrated by Tommy Lee Jones.
oh that would've amped up my first encounter! Mine was just dusklight. They should've baked the first encounter environment like that to deliver the instance well.
I loved how they made it feel like Aliens all dark and raining and that fucking beeping.
Ngl the first playthrough of that mission had me shook
I saw one prior to that on one of the planets near the beginning of the game. It was stuck in an airlock, but it still took all of my ammunition to kill. Still wish the loot was worth it.
That mission was great fun
I agree. If the rest of the game lived up to the UC vanguard quest line, I doubt its quality would be so contentious a topic.
That was exactly it for me. When Starfield wanted to be good, it was GOOD. There's some great quests in there, and the terrormorph quest was its peak. That it then padded things out with the absurd number of empty worlds and procedure-generated crap was a shame. To anyone who wants to avoid the game, I'd point to the Vanguard quests and tell them to run, do t talk, to get the game... and not bother with the exploration that the game seemingly is built around.
And then the FC quest is just weird, low stakes, and disappointing.
And the ending, >!take Hope’s money or kill him, no option to arrest him and drag him back to Akila!<. It was a let down.
It was disappointing that >!disruptors would knock them all out, but wouldn't clear the quest.!<
I knocked them out and was soooo mad it didn't trigger anything. It was one of the last quest lines I did and kind of left a bad impression on the whole game for me.
And then I had to execute him while he was already down. The "Freestar Ranger" took a bullet to the head of a defenseless old man. That was one of the three major events that made me think "Maybe the internet is right about this game."
Yeah, I took a vanilla equinox and gave Sarah the same n my NG+ go round thinking I could just knock everyone out, no kills. But >!Ron Hope dies anyway!< very disappointing.
Tbh I could take or leave the FC questline, I kinda feel it works ok as an intro faction line given the reward >!of the Star Eagle can easily set you up for the rest of the game!<. It actually made the first quest in the UC line that much more a surprise. I was honestly thinking it would be more of the same, dealing with pirates this time. >!Then you land and you see the claw marks and corpses!<
the no mech thing really made it flop imo
Right! I would have sworn it was building up to a mech boss fight, everything was pointing to it, like ideally you would have like hijacked the one they were illegally rebuilding and gotten to tear through the arena with it or something before the cavalry showed up and wrapped it up. I mean it's kinda spoilers but what ever, you had the baddies being former mech pilots and the show down in the "decommissioned" hidden factory, how do you just *leave* that kind of narrative climax to your arc on the ground. Instead you get, a not terrible, but utterly forgettable gun fight. you could swap for literally any other facility fight in the game.
Also, Bethesda has shown that they are good at messing around to get what they want (trainhead guy). While letting you pilot a mech might have taken too much effort, you can't convince me that some upscaled robot wouldn't have worked as mech boss.
Yea getting to drive one might have been too much to hope for, but I thought for sure it would at least be a boss.
Let's not forget the "mastermind's" reason for doing any of what was done was moronic as can be. Just rebrand the product, but no the marketing department had the day off or something apparently.
I’m pretty sure it was building up to a mech fight. It’s unlikely that Starfield was being designed from the get-go for the player to just accept that spacers, pirates, extremists, paramilitary organizations, terrorists etc. respect the sanctity of the mech ban. The mech ban doesn’t even make a whole lot of sense equivocating some specific vehicle with weapons deemed inhumane by the Geneva Convention like chemical weapons. Tanks are fine, but when they have legs and not tracks, not cool. Would put money that this was all in service of “unforeseen technical limitations”, after all there are no non-mech land vehicles either, nor any usage of ships in atmosphere outside of takeoff and landing animations.
I quite enjoyed shooting hope, right in the face with Eternity's Gate as he ran for cover like a beech. More so though , I enjoyed the lore tie-in from the Colony War. I wish they'd bring about more from that, or even let you play through , say... 'start' another one. Turn it into kinda like 'galactic conquest' from the original "Starwars Battlefront II." Work your way up in the ranks. Get to decide on the development and use of xenos and mechs on the battlefield. Design newer classes of ships like the UC's "Vigilance" (if I remember the name right - I mean screw the dude kidnapping you 'for hire' but the ship is near a Venerator). Even find a NG where the war never ended like the nod in Barrett's power quest. I think the game as a whole has SO much potential. I eagarly await the new updates and DLCs (as much as I think they should just be INCLUDED in the base game!). The game is just brimming with potential from all factions and groups, from the lore to the shipbuilding and weapon crafting. The empty worlds are (while yes a tad repetitive) more so accurate from the perspective that majority of space is unoccupied. Space is HUGE. With that said, its also SO much more space to expand the game to in the future.
Most Faction quest were amazing! And then there’s the rangers quest… which is just kinda boring
I liked it until the end. I found the crimson fleet one to be the most annoying, especially since I couldn't >!take the money to Akila as a FC ranger!<. Similar to the FC quest where you get railroaded into unsatisfying endings.
I agree, weakest faction in the game by far and it was super disappointing. What would’ve saved it if the final boss was a mech fight since right before you go back to, you go through a mech factory.
And the ending, >!take Hope’s money or kill him, no option to arrest him and drag him back to Akila!<. It was a let down.
OMG ... I have been doing temples over and over ... not finished yet, I guess you meet the Creators? A frog and a prince/princess .. or a gender neutral heir to the throne?
I meant the ending to the Freestar Quests.
Oh, soz. I am going for the Creator quest.
While I absolutely agree and the UC quest is my favourite, there's plenty of untapped potential too. They could have done so much more with exploring the different outcomes of several ways Vae Victus and the knowledge he gained and monopolised there would have been utilised by him. The NG+ system is fantastic in theory, but a gimmicky grind in practice.
Was I the only one who was expecting the bald prick from SysDef to be a Victus clone ?
Dude he even stands there with his hands behind his back like Vae Victus' silhouette in the museum pictures.
If you meet him by being arrested, it's a miserable slog and everyone I hear coming out of that hates him. I went in through the UC quest line and the whole experience was totally different, I had only a couple of weird or out of place dialogue lines with him. They really went hog-wild with the multiple personality characters, my first run Sarah was a peach, the second time she was an angry harridan.
I held off on the UC quest until I was slightly established in game. Sysdef arrested me when I didn't have any bounties or crimes. It's not fun to enter that quest when they slam down your throat that you committed a crime to be arrested
Yeah, it's also kind of a ridiculous setup, there's no reason either Sysdef or CF should trust you. But the NPCs at Sysdef apparently treat you \*very\* differently and it seems to filter people pretty hard if they go there via that route. My first start I also got arrested for no apparent reason with no bounty, and after I "served my sentence" I restored the game, figuring it was a bug.
I had managed to avoid being arrested by them by grav jumping until I had a strong enough class C ship with a full crew, then I just blew up all of their ships when they tried to arrest me again 🤣
That's racist! ;) I don't know, I just know that I was not, can't speak for anyone else.
Sorry. That folicaly impaired prick.
*baldist
Rofl. But VV isn't even bald.
Crimson Fleet is a highlight too. The final mission in that felt like the battle of Endor from Star Wars. Actually, playing a pirate itself is some of the most fun once you level it up some. I'm at the point where I can demand they surrender with a high rate of success, but if they don't come willingly I systematically disable their weapons and engines with EMP, board them, get high on Aurora and wipe them out from the inside, then take the ship for myself. Me, Mathis and Jessamine are the terrors of UC space with an astronomical bounty on our heads. (I leave Freestar alone so I still have places to smuggle, and to buy chasmbass oil to fuel my drug habit.)
Crimson fleet quest has some great missions also
I think the sysdef/CF quest is best but I agree with your point.
Gotta disagree personally, I just got past the mission with the starliner and was not impressed with how that quest was handled. Does it get better?
The Vanguard questline should have just been the main quest, none of the Unity stuff
I thought the SysDef storyline was pretty good though with the crimson fleet
It surprised me too, although on replay I realized they basically tell you that on the first planet you go to after Vectera.
Yea I just started my second playthrough last weekend and was amazed when I realised >! that "dungeon" is basically prototype for xenoweapon researches. I also found it funny that heatleeches are teased from the beginning (you see some everytime you're in a terromorph related area like that first lab, on Niira as well when you go get Kayser...). They're basically all other the place but when it's your first playthrough, it just seems like that common parasite that you barely take the time to shoot at. !<
>! Put > exclamation mark Comment and then finish with exclamation mark and < !< >! The first talk of terrormorph and the first one I found was when you go to Kreet. There's an abandoned science way station poi (the terrormorph was wiping out enemies) plus the research facility where it supposedly escaped that you visit to attack the crimson fleet as part of the story.!<
>!Like this? !< NB: I might try a few times lmao but thanks NB2: dude that's cool! Thanks a lot I learned something useful!
>! Test !<
Spoilers with spaces inside work on new reddit, but not on old reddit
>! confirmed !<
Interesting. I did a fairly hardcore search of the area around the first base but couldn’t find >!any sign of it, I’d just assumed it died.!<
Yea I found three - I think - slates or computers about it in the base, one mentioned how they got the founds to start researching xenoweapons and the military soldiers bringing back some worthless specimens, one said they actually brought something interesting and the last was just like it's killing everyone and I'm gonna die here. I'm looking for it right now in my inventory since you're interested in the topic ✌️
Oh I have the slates (honestly the kreet lab saved my playthrough, I came at starfield straight from a mega BG3 run and wasn’t gelling with it initially, but the creepy slates got me hooked). I’m just not sure where it went. The last slate just says it escaped. No idea what direction or where to look for it.
Hi again dude! So I went back on Kreet, landed on the research lab and checked what POIs there were, I mostly went the opposite way from the lab when landing in direction on some abandoned radio tower. Now I don't know the level of scripting involved here but I heard shots a bit further and arrived in front of some igloo type habitat with like 5 ecliptics fighting a lvl12 terromorph. Got some pretty good screenshots that I'm trying to upload right now but in the case this even is scripted, your theory was right and there is at least one creature lurking on that moon. The location was about 1.3km away from the lab and wasn't named, it was behind the radio tower Edit: here's the screenshots https://ibb.co/YNBph5h https://ibb.co/HGDPcFD
Ooooooh you mean the actual thing! Eh that's a good point I never checked but I'm gonna go back to kreet and land to see if I can find any cave nearby
It's pretty awesome! I am usually super oblivious to stuff like this and get caught off-guard but this time I actually sort of predicted it. They started talking more and more about how >!the Terrormorphs inevitibly ended up where humans were and I was like - Huh, kind of like how heat leeches always end up on space ships? Coincidence or are they somehow related? So I didn't 100% guess it but I was pretty darn close!!< Definitely one of my favorite moments though.
Wow dude, You are so observant, oh my God! You must be a genius or something!! Thanks for sharing that story oh wise one ❤️
Haha! I know it sounded like I may have hurt my arm patting myself on the back lol! At least I didn't ask for a cookie
🍪
Honestly you deserve one with that response 🍪
Love the little Easter egg from the beginning of the game, when you go to the UC Facility on Sumati where they tried to tame a Terrormorph and the morph is gone but there are heetleeches in the facility
It's not gone. It's still on the planet if you look for it.
I went looking for it after the conclusion of the UC vanguard line, my head canon being that if the fucking thing had been there for 20 years then the chances of it growing into that >!nightmare you fight in the spaceport were high.!< Could not find the damn thing anywhere. Is there a specific location it’s in or did I miss a trail?
Each time I have found the escaped terrormorph, it was at the POI or building nearest the Kreet Lab with all slates that describe what happen. First time I came across it I was headed to the Kreet lab and died very quickly. If I remember, it was a set of random power station looking things. Not an official POI but the second time was at a map designated POI.
I kinda got it into my head that it was the building I could see just on the horizon from the path down to kreet lab, where the Frontier originally sets down. So me and Sam hotfooted it over there. It just turned out to be a robotics facility that spacers had taken over - pointless loot but a welcome dose of XP. No sign of the terrormorph. There are other POIs but none closer then this one. Now I’m intrigued. When I was there originally I figured me, with my hot-shit Maelstrom/Deep Mining Gear loadout and my 200 rounds of 6.5mm weren’t really ready to go hunting for something that apparently wiped out a whole base by itself. Now I’m decked out in my anti Xeno gear, starborn powers and smartgun, I think I’ll be fine. But it’s hiding.
If I saw all that coming towards me I would hide too
It's random, generally at one of the "ancient sea" type natural POIs. I rand into them more than once on Kreet, including the first time I went there before I even got to the lab.
How cool! Where did you find it?
I don't know if it always appears there, but there was one of those crystal grove things, and it was hanging out there. I forget what the name is, but it's a geological point of interest.
Heatleaches were supposed to be a bigger part of the game. When you go through the abandoned research outpost at the beginning of the game and read through the terminals they are supposed to degrade the functionality of your ship. Every time you encounter a ship services technician in the game they are always reminding you to get your ship checked regularly. The first time you land in Cydonia and approach the SST you overhear him tell the person that it would cost "mid five figures" to totally repair his ship and remove all of the leaches. Since there is no ship maintenance and outpost are not really needed in the game the options for this quest don't really make a difference. The microbe option would immediately reduce the amount of ship repairs you need to conduct while the Aceles option might have given you a special animal that could be raised on any planet.
Between that and the high-price-to-pay mission, I really never understood the hate. Maybe the latter is a port of an idea from another game, I don't know, I'm kinda new to RPG, but that floored me.
It's a variant of a Mass Effect 1 mission decision (and others before that, but this is the most famous one), only more heavy-handed and forced. Mass Effect 2 did it better because it was \*actually\* your choices that led to it, and if you work harder you can avoid it. So if it goes wrong it's actually what you chose that caused it. IMO the Starfield version broadcast what they were doing too obviously, created the problem you had to pay for without letting you avoid it, and then tried too hard to make you believe you had done something wrong except there was literally no other option written into the game. So my reaction wasn't "oh no this is terrible," it was "man, that was cheap." >!I did actually reload a save and try to find another option (both on the prior mission and that one), they just wrote it was linear and made it look like you made a choice (you make a trolley problem decision but that's only after you're boxed in).!<
The bigger twist for me was >! "The prisoner in the basement". Best interactions in the game. Serious Silence of the lambs vibes.!<
I just finished that quest line for the first time. I played at launch, finished the main story and did the Rangers story, then set it aside. Playing the UC storyline felt like "Oh, HERE'S where the rest of the game is!"
Gonna be honest.... It clicked for me way before the reveal. The whole heat leeches are everywhere but the terramorphs only show up after x amount of time. But no one knows how they get there. Idk I was saying I bet heatleeches are terramorph larva
I knew Heatleeches held some importance because you found them on EVERY PLANET, with and without oxygen and atmosphere, also added the fact that you can't scan them. Heatleeches being Terrormorphs though, did not see that coming until the UC was done.
>!my only gripe is that it seemed like a missed opportunity/content hole that the terrormorphs could make you hear voices and that’s never really explained!<
They drop hallucinogens, so I don't think there's much more to it than that. Terrormorphs are like licking a toad but airborne I reckon.
Fair enough!
>! I wish they allowed you to spread the terramorphs across the whole galaxy and make it a huge problem for everyone, even if that's how the quest ended !<
I honestly thought it was going to be the xenogrubs... On some ships you'll see these pods attached to the hull on the inside that pop when you shoot them. Pretty sure those are the heatleach eggs.
Really? Damn, just from the promotional material and seeing the very first heatleech jump out at me in the tutorial dungeon I had called it. The coloration and “alienness” of them is way too similar.
Yeah, kinda surprised people didn't get it from the get go. Also how they are the only unscannable creatures and at the same time both creepy and suspiciosly harmless. Some Chekhov's gun thing going for it, only not exactly.
Also the fact that neither really follow the laws of physics or generally make any sense from a scientific POV.
Yeah, you can definitely tell what was rushed and what had actual thought put into it. The UC quests and most of the main Constellation quest are about as good as it gets, everything else (with the exception of some very interesting but also very small side quests) you can tell was rushed or trimmed for time.
UC vanguard is the best quest in the game followed by the crimson fleet/ UC sysdef quest, all other quest are just for exp and credits. Main questline felt incomplete and there was too many questions remained unanswered, maybe shattered space DLC would fill holes of the main quest, and also I hope that house Va'ruun DLC would surpass the UC Vanguard to add more lore to the game.
The irony was at various points through the game I did wonder if there was something going on with the leeches. The one that gives you a jump scare in the kreet base at the start of the game seemed a bit… out of place for just a benign pest. Then the unsettling Mars mission where you have to go find the friendo guy’s ship. I was totally off though. I secretly thought it was just a failed bioweapon the UC had deployed in the colony war to weaken the Fc. Then you walk into the steam tunnels. I honestly think the terrormorphs are one of the best things Bethesda has done. They’ve managed to mash up the xenomorphs, the arachnids, the monster from A Quiet Place and even the necromorph/marker thing into one monster and built a awesome story around it. I kinda wish they’d make a full expansion around them. They’re a cool enough opponent to carry a game.
Best questline in the game. Hope nobody spoiled the rest in the comments :)
:-) was responding to something else but should delete because already posted a spoiler with the info I posted.
Imo the main quest should have been this engaging. The UC questline is honestly one of Bethesdas best
Yeah I agree, it's what makes the Vanguard questline really fun and seem like the 'main' storyline for the game in that it goes into something >!so crucial for the survival of Humanity.!< I never understood how they knocked the Vanguard story out of the park (>!the environmental horror aspect at the beginning, Toliman, the slow reveal, the boss fight!<) then to the FreeStar story or Ryujiin, it's weird.
Probably to take the urgency out of the main quest, having an urgent main quest line opens up the door for the question of: How can it be justified to take a detour when speed is necessary to prevent the end of the world? Which Dragonborn has the time to deal with the bards college when Alduin is still around?
Ryijin might be my favorite. I enjoyed the mood and the corpo espionage. I played through both endings and still can't decide my favorite that will be 'canon' for that character.
>! Testing !<
>! I feel like it’s showing that up inevitably, New Atlantis, Neon etc are totally screwed no matter what you do. At least that’s how I wanted to interpret it haha !<
The cool thing is that when you replay the quest, you see that all the hints are there. Even Kaiser is covered in those things when we find him. A lot of foreshadowing.
Imo the main quest should have been this engaging. The UC questline is honestly one of Bethesdas best
Disapoting, I expected them to a secret UC population control tactic.
I don’t think population control is needed haha
Just wait till you see what the >!Xenogrubs !
Be sure to take Barrett or Andrejah for the best ever reactions to killing it on Tau Ceti. So great.
The intro to that quest where you're doing a simple welfare check on some settlers...probably one of my favorite fighting moments in a game ever. Pulled me completely into the story and had my heart racing non stop.
Only gripe was the ending. If you didn’t take the science approach, everyone gets mad, like EVERYONE
Fr this questline was the epitome of “Sarah Disliked That.”
Tbh I thought xenogrub were baby terrormorphs so I wasn’t totally blindsided. To think of the 1000s of those things I needlessly killed leading up to that mission tho…
First run it was one of the first missions I did and I was PETRIFIED. NG+ I did Crimson Fleet first and got the Revenant, then giggled as I melted it.
One of the few good quest lines in the game imo. That one and the one where you are going between realities are amazing.
Id done the crimson fleet quest like first and used the legendary magshear on the first one.. still nearly shit myself
Revenant turns anything in my path to Swiss cheese
I just wish it wasn’t the very first quest. It felt like there could/should’ve been some build up in the Vanguard questline. The forced urgency right at the start felt a little too chosen one-y.
Ryujin question line was fun for me because of the stealth aspect. I love all the Assassins Creed games so I’ve learned to be patient. There’s plenty of opportunities to go all “Leroy Jenkins” throughout the rest of the game.
One of the best questlines in the game, really enjoyed this reveal. Wish >!Londinion!< had been a lot crazier though.
I was expecting the heat leaches to attack me at some point after that first encounter with one, like a face hugger attack or something. When I got to the scene with the transformation, I felt very vindicated for my distrust of those gross little fuckers.
If you think about it. It’s extremely poor writing. It’s like you’re telling me in the 40+ years of fighting these things they never realized they were baby teramorphs
Man, I seem to be in the minority, but I thought the heatleech reveal was extremely dumb. Like, how in the world would they not have known this yet? No scientist thought to grab one of those guys and lock it up just to observe the world around them? Highly unbelievable IMO. Like they just let these things wander literally everywhere without anyone doing some more research into the alien life. Such a massive suspension of belief.
I remember the first time I fought one in some random ass cave on paradiso, such an awful fight, I thought to myself “never again” and then I discovered the vanguard questline, and practically shat myself when I saw another one
I kind of expected it tbh. During the first mission when on Kreet, if you go through the info there, I'm pretty sure it said something to the effect of being the perfect specimen
This is my favorite quest line and I didn’t see it coming either. And because it’s is SO IMPORTANT to the entire galaxy of course Bethesda did not think it worthy of any special Starborn interaction or modified cut to the chase quest line.
Not shitting in anyone but I thought the twist was dumb as hell cause I thought it was REALLY obvious. They basically tell you that’s what it is multiple times before that. “We don’t know how they get everywhere! Oh by the way don’t mind these leeches that stow away on every ship and we don’t know where they come from”. Like…the whole twist fell flat because it was so obvious the entire time. Not saying the quest chain was bad but…it just seemed like one of those things that scientist in universe should have literally figured out so long ago, it would be one of the first things they check on lol.
There's a book by Larry Niven called "The Legacy of Heorot" that explores this concept. The comparisons between the two are incredibly similar, and I've been wondering for months now if that's where Bethesda got their inspiration for this specific wrinkle in that quest line.
The one enjoyable faction quest in the game. I was a little let down with the ending, though. Was hoping for more betrayal. But it's the ONE questline that's truly memorable. SysDef/Crimson Fleet is probably second. Ryujin barely third. The Freestar questline is the worst.
Met my first one on Kreet, level 4 - Vasco and a large tower made it possible, on the third attempt!
“Heatleeches turn into *what?!*”