Immersive Star Colours

In vanilla Starfield you can visit 100 star systems, each one with a spectral class ranging from M to B class. M class stars being red dwarfs, the coolest and oldest of stars. B class stars being blue and the youngest and hottest of stars. And the rest ranging in between. But despite a vague approximation of colour in the system map, these temperature based colours are not depicted in game to a significant enough degree.

In the vanilla game, each class of star has a very slight colour difference which isn't noticeable unless you look closely. These base colour values do contribute to accurate looking atmospheres, but in space and on planets with no atmosphere the star looks like the same old white no matter where you go.

In reality, the apparent colour of stars to the human eye varies significantly based on the spectral class. Immersive Star Colours aims to depict that in a semi scientifically accurate manner.

M, K, F, A and B class stars have all had their colours changed to accurately reflect what it would look like to the human eye with some artistic liberty. G class stars do appear white as depicted in game, to an extent, and as a result are unchanged. M and K class stars will appear orange. F class stars will appear a slightly silver-bluish white. And A and B class stars will appear a brilliant bright blue-white.

The colour of the stars in space and on non-atmospheric planets also varies based on a star's luminosity class. The number on the class of a star represents it's luminosity. A K2 class star will be brighter than a K5 class star, etc... And so the colour also varies based on this factor as well. An M6 class star like Barnard's Star will appear a deep orange, while a hotter M2 class red dwarf star like Sagan will appear a lighter orange, and so on.

In addition, these colours also translate to discovered stars on the galaxy map! They do not (currently) affect the star's appearance on the system map or the model in space (if you use mods to fly closer to the star) but I am hoping to introduce changes there in the future if possible.

Technicals & Compatibility

Immersive Star Colours works by changing and modifying almost every sun preset form in the game to change the apparent colour. It also adds new atmosphere forms for the non-atmospheric planets, and naturally all of those planets and moons have had their forms changed as well. And due to how Bethesda has accurately depicted the light and colour of atmospheres (rayleigh and mie scattering, etc...) around these stars, all of the atmospheres in the game (except for worlds around G stars) have also been updated to use the default sun presets/colour values in the vanilla game. Otherwise the planetary lighting would be way off and look awful.

So any mods that alter these forms will not be compatible. Stars Glare Their Colours (which partially inspired this mod, credit to Halrixx) is not compatible.

Known similar mods that are compatible are Realistic Sun Disk Size. Currently I don't know any other mods that touch this area of the game.

Source

I used the following article as the source for the colours of each star class. I tried to remain as scientifically accurate as possible. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.06254