PAST 0.10: Back To Nova Shipyards
So a little while ago I aired my grievances about Starfield's horrible vanilla combat AI, using the early-game Nova Shipyards level as a sort of case study. Now that PAST is getting closer to being feature complete (I estimate it's currently about 85% there), I wanted to do a follow up to show how PAST changes things up in Nova.
As I say in this video update, the tactical situation involves something rarely ever seen in vanilla Starfield: open conflict between NPC factions. They are usually completely siloed, isolated from each other, and so they only ever fight you. In my opinion this was another terrible Bethesda decision, as it eliminates a great deal of complexity and variability from the game.
In Nova, a small group of Spacers board the station attempting to scavenge, and are surprised by a large contingent of Ecliptic. The Spacers are now badly outnumbered, roughly four to one, and are currently boxed into a closed off set of rooms while the mercenaries are pushing in to kill them all.
The Spacers' situation is fairly hopeless.. until a random miner and a nonprofit organization administrator show up and get involved. Then suddenly they have a lucky break, an opportunity to punch through the Ecliptic line.
This is roughly the tactical situation in vanilla as well, except that the Spacers exist only to die and don't get the break. With PAST running, you get to see the rest of the story.
As I say in the video, every NPC is making its own decisions based on feedback from the game and from other NPCs, which means that this scenario plays out a bit differently every time. In some playthroughs, the Spacers push the battle all the way into the shipyard room. In others, the fighting happens in every corridor. I've played through Nova about a dozen times so far, and the scenario that happens in this video was yet another new one.
You can still find the latest package in the PAST #releases-latest channel of the GreslinGames Discord, available to Citizen role users. (If you don't currently have Citizen, please read the #read-this-first channel for instructions.)
Fly safe,
- G.