Starfiled update 2024

Combat & Ship Damage

Adjusting Enemy Combat Damage and Player Combat Damage settings will directly impact the intensity of combat. The range of enemy and player combat damage spans from very easy to extreme, with extreme requiring heightened awareness. Increasing both to their maximum settings can boost experience by 12%, resulting in more damage taken and less damage dealt. Increasing enemy combat damage is worth considering based on your play style and is worth the XP boost. Conversely, decreasing these settings will not affect experience. We see no reason for moving player combat damage from the normal setting, although decreasing it below normal can enhance the realism of combat.

Ammo Weight & Carry Capacity

Cargo Access Distance & Vedor Credits

Cargo Access Distance allows you to adjust your access to your ship’s cargo. With three additional settings available, you can choose to access your cargo from anywhere, restrict it to outposts or settlements, or exclusively from inside the ship. Restricting it to inside ship only presents a challenge as you must carry all supply items on your person to sell. While opting for the Inside Ship Only Setting comes with a +2% XP Bonus, we recommend sticking to the normal settings unless you’re prepared for the additional effort required.

Vendor credits option offers a valuable feature with three additional options to customize your experience. You have the ability to reduce the amount of credits for a +4% XP boost or select from two settings to increase it with a maximum penalty of -4%. We believe that this penalty is worthwhile, and increasing the vendors’ credits enhances the game experience, allowing you to sell more without resetting the vendor or traveling to multiple vendors to sell your goods.

Medical Item Healing, Food Healing & Sleeping Healing

The next three gameplay options determine how easily you can recover health. Medical Item Healing dictates the speed at which you regain health when using med packs and other medical aids, with the choice to increase or decrease recovery speed. Opting for faster recovery incurs a -2% penalty, while choosing a slower recovery grants a +4% XP bonus. Food Healing allows you to adjust the healing received from eating food by setting it to either none for a +2% bonus or more for a -2% penalty. Sleep Healing determines where or if you can recover health or receive healing from affliction. For a -6% penalty, you can choose to heal from anywhere you sleep, but we do not believe this is worth the penalty. The Location Limited Sleeping setting restricts recovery from affliction but still allows for health recovery, limited to sleeping in ship outposts and settlements. Due to the time spent in these locations, the +2% XP bonus is well worth it and is recommended. Setting it to None provides a +4% bonus but does not allow for healing or affliction restoration while sleeping or resting. This means that you have to rely on food and meds to recover health.

Sustenance

Sustenance adds a survival aspect to the game by requiring you to eat and drink every 30 minutes. In doing so, you gain a set of positive or negative effects based on your selection. There are 3 settings: off (game default), positive and negative effects, and positive effect only. If Positive Only is selected, the positive effects are Drinking gives you +30% O2 Recovery, +15% Sneak Attack Bonus, and +25% Reload Speed, while Eating grants +30% Health, +15% Melee Damage, and +25% Carry Capacity. With this, there is no negative effect if you do not eat or drink, but you lose all positive effects. If Positive and Negative is selected, you gain all the previous Bonuses, but gain the following negative effects for not eating or drinking every 30 minutes. Neglecting to eat or drink results in penalties: -30% health, -15% Melee Damage, and -25% Carry Capacity for hunger, or not eating and -30% O2 Recovery, -15% Sneak Attack Bonus, and -25% Reload Speed for dehydration, or not drinking.

Combat Affliction Gain, Affliction Treatment, & Affliction Prognosis

The next section explains how afflictions are transmitted and treated. Combat affliction gain determines if you acquire afflictions from combat, creatures, and weapons. By disabling it, you avoid afflictions altogether. Normal mode results in afflictions from creatures only, while Increased mode increases the risk from all sources. Disabling combat affliction incurs a -3% penalty, while Increased mode provides a +4% bonus to XP. Affliction treatment determines how afflictions can be treated. In normal, afflictions can be cured with medication. No penalty or XP bonus is given on normal. If set to Improve Only, medication can improve the prognosis but cannot cure it. Improve Only gives a +6% XP bonus. Affliction Prognosis determines the potential for an affliction to deteriorate or develop an infection over time. With the Normal option, afflictions do not worsen over time and do not offer any penalties or bonuses to XP. Advanced settings introduce a chance for the affliction to worsen, while also providing a +5% XP bonus.

Environmental Damage & Affliction & Environmental Damage Restoration

Environmental Damage and Afflictions determine how you take damage or contract afflictions – you can turn it off with a -2% XP penalty. Normal allows you to take damage and gain afflictions from hazards or weather without any XP penalty or bonus, while Advanced option increases your chance of environmental damage and afflictions. Choosing Advanced enables you to gain damage and afflictions from hazards, weather, and ambient dangers on dangerous planets, along with a +4% XP bonus. Environmental Damage Restoration determines the process of damage restoration. The Normal option allows restoration to take place when you are out of danger, in a favorable location, and away from hazards. Normal restorations do not come with any bonuses or penalties. Resting allows for recovery when away from hazardous environments but only while waiting or sleeping, providing a +2% bonus. With Limited Resting, restoration is only possible when sleeping in a ship, outpost, or settlement, giving a +4% bonus. We recommend this option and feel that it is worth the extra XP.

Conclusion

Conclusion – In the May 2024 update, the new Game Options provides a significant increase in flexibility within Starfield. We feel that the new game options enhance gameplay and are a great addition to Starfield. They allow you to adjust combat, ship damage, healing, and survival settings to tailor the gameplay to your preferences.Although this was not the only change made in the update, we feel that it was the most significant.In this post we give our suggested settings, but recommend playing with the settings to find a balance between XP and challenge that fits your play style.