Explorer

Explorer, a so small collection mod (see collection details at the end)

-- The idea -- With resources being available for sale almost everywhere in the Settled Systems I lost my drive to venture into the unknown. The whole scanning, outpost building and mining gameplay loop felt disjointed and a little tacked on because of this.

Explorer puts this gameplay loop front and center. Only very basic, common resources are for sale. To get the rest you need to explore, mine and build outposts. The rewards have been increased big time: 5 times more credits for selling survey slates and 5 times more XP for fully surveying planets or systems.

Furthermore, you now have stronger reasons than ever to get these resources as a steady stream: Ammo drops and ammo store availability have been drastically reduced with Explorer (drops down to 20% to 25% of default; ammo vendors have less choice of ammo types, too), while ammo sell and buy prices have been trippled. You will want to craft large quantities of your own ammo now, which instead of Primers requires additional, non-sold resources. This creates a direly needed resource sink and a reason for industrial large scale mining.

Exploration needs ammo. Ammo needs resources. Resources need exploration. Welcome to the loop, Explorer!

-- The changes --

• Uncommon, rare, exotic and unique resources are not sold any more. NEW in v1.6: Even the chance for common resources being available has been reduced by 50%. With one of the optional free configuration creations for Explorer even common reduces can be removed completely from stores.
• Manufactured goods are not sold any more (with the exception of cooking items) - build them yourself or loot them at the Points of Interest out there.
• Data slates with survey data sell for 5 times higher prices, making exploration very lucrative (Vlad in The Eye has 60.000 credits now to help selling off the survey data)
• XP rewards for surveying whole planets or systems are 5 times higher - it's really worth it now to be curious and thorough.
• Ammo drop rates are to down to about 25% (to 50% with one of the optional free configuration creations), while ammo prices have been trippled and stores have less choice in ammo. Crafting your own ammo becomes vital to sustain your combat prowess.
• Ammo crafting is freed form the Primer requirement, allowing to craft large amounts of ammo. NEW in v1.6: Ammo crafting creates three times the amount of the vanilla quantity. It's hard to get all the resources - but once you have them, it's really worth it.
• All ammo types now have unique extra resouce requirements (uncommon or rare inorganics, which arent sold). A varied outpost network, covering all your resource bases, makes a lot of sense now in order to be able to craft all kinds of ammo, especially in the quantities you will need.
• Crafting XP are (NEW in v1.5: optionally, see gameplay options menu) set to 0. Explorer makes you necessarily craft much more and mass crafting unfortunately breaks the XP balance. This is techincally done by optinally turning all XP gain off when interacting with the crafting workbench. To renable XP gain after crafting just tap the Sneak button, an ingame message reminds you of this when crafting. XP gain kicks back in anyway on location change or on killing an enemy.

-- How is Explorer different from my former mods dealing with exploration, resources or ammo? -- Explorer is an integrative rebalance of my various separate mods that try to improve the resources - crafting - exploration loop. It's an all in one package, that's been finetuned for all the parts to work together. That said, it adds various new aspects. In detail:

• Compared to my Explore for Resources mod: Explorer does not exempt all resources from sale. Common resources remain available. This leads to a more immersive and believable world (eg no mineral dealers without any stock).
• Compared to my Survey Rewards Tenfold mod: Explorer lowers the credit rewards for selling survey slates to 5 times default (instead of 10 times). This allows to actually get the full sell price for the high end survey slates without breaking the hard coded vendor credit limit. This is also fostered by giving Vlad 3 times the credits he has without Explorer (60.000 now). Finally, Explorer newly grants 5 times more XP for surveying whole planets or systems.
• Compared to my Ammo crafting without Primers mod: Explorer does not just remove the Primers, but places additional resource requirements in their stead. These uncommmon or rare inorganics are not sold, but need to found by exploration.
• Compared to my Ammo Rarity mod: Explorer does allow for for more varied ammo sizes of ammo spawns while Ammo Rarity always spaws the same number of a specific ammo type. Also vendors are covered more thoroughly.
• Compared to my Ammo Prices mod: Explorer is more blanced here - increasing by 3 times instead of 10 times.

-- (De)-installation, usage and compatibility -- As easy as it gets. Explorer is useable midgame and can be removed anytime. Stores need 48 hours to adjust their stocks to the presence (or absence) of Explorer. So, best wait/sleep at least dwo days ingame after installing/unistalling explorer. When deactivating Explorer best quit the game afterwards and restart it again to erase all changes from runtime memory, too.

NEW Info in V1.4: In case you are using my "Economy" mod, please place "Economy" in load order behind/lower than "Explorer". In other words: Let "Economy" have precedence/override over "Explorer". This is neccessary as both mods affect sell prices of survey data slates and you will want to have Economy sort out the corret price increase (5 times).

-- Contact, bug reporting and feedback -- I will create a thread on NoSodiumStarfield reddit after release (search for "Level Scaled Quest XP" creation and my name there: yourfellowglitch) for feedback, bug hunting, updates and general chat with a good Terrabrew in hand.

-- so small collection -- This mod is part of the "so small collection" of mods. These mods dont require each other and can be played stand alone, even balancewise. They form a greater whole though - the more of them you combine, the more you see this final shape. The overarching idea is to create a gameworld that feels immensely vast, begs for thorough exploration, is full of mysteries, plays truely challenging and lasts very, very long. In other words the goal of the mods is to make the player feel: so small.

Here's the so small collection's homepage for further info: https://youngneil1.github.io/so-small-collection/

And an overview video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKrZ3oP20aA

Finally a list of the Creations in the so small collection in case this idea resonates with you:

Dynamic Universe: A universe that dynamically scales up with your character level - be it star systems or individual enemies. No more outleveling of content, no more overleveled starts of NG+.

Gear Progression: Gear Progression adds levels to all weapons, suits, helmets and backpacks. Your character level must match these in order to equip the gear. Each NG+ these levels raise further.

Economy: Economy shifts income generation away from tiresome loot hauling. Ship building becomes the long term goal it's meant to be. As credits get more scarce, rewards remain meaningful.

Explorer: An immersive overhaul of the resources - crafting - exploration loop. Get out there into the Starfield and explore - the rewards are much bigger now, but so is the need to do it.

Linearity (alternatively have a look for "Death" or "Ruin" mods): A new gameplay mode where reloading is your last resort. Live and embrace your adventure as it unfolds, imperfect as it may be. You can always save to quit and continue later.

Slow Travel: Slow Travel makes your journey through Starfield much more tactile and immersive by grav jump costs, less map markers, no move on overencumberance and restricted fast travel.

Star Powers: Live as a Spellblade in the Settled Systems. Powers are rebalanced so that eg crowd control, slowed time and near invisibiilty become interesting instead of game balance breaking.

The Isotopes: A compelling reason to explore POI in all Star Systems. Loot the 75 new Isotopes, each specific to a singular Star System. They are needed for rank 4 skills and gear mod crafting.

High Level Weapons: Continue to find better weapons, all the way up to level 300. 7+ new revisions/tiers for each of 50 weapon types. Uniquely named, legendary, each hidden in a specific star system.

High Level Armors: Continue to find better armors up to lvl 255. All HLA share about the same power level - mix and match for the looks you like. Starborn armors improve in quality and variety, too.

Counterfire: Starting with level 85 the player gets 1% more ground combat damage for each level. Idealy used in combination with the "High Level Weapons" mod.

Terra Incognita: All ground surface maps disabled. No markers, no topography, no top down small buildings, no white dots - nothing. Welcome to Terra Incognita - the universe is yours to discover.

Helium-4: Gravjumping requires a pilot to inhale new Helium-4. Not storable and non-tradable - lasts 2 jumps. Explore those moons to get it. Can you chart a course across the Blackest Sea?

Dusty: The new stat Suit Energy depletes rapidly on airless worlds. Mine minerals or take shelter to survive. Five very hidden grains of Elder Dust reward the true Dusties out there.

And some more (no enough space here :-)): Less XP Enter Unity The Waiting Game POI Rotation Rarity Health Journey Waylayer Time Level Scaled Quest XP