Slow Travel

Slow Travel, a so small collection mod (see collection details at the end) [works with the Free Lanes update]

-- The idea -- It felt disorienting and immersion breaking to me that moving through unmodded Starfield is so much catered towards quickly arriving at the next point in a checklist instead of living the journey itself.

This manifests itself mainly in four vanilla gameplay mechanics :

1. No grav jump costs: In the default game there's no incentive to plan your journey through the Settled Systems, e.g. when it comes to the order of doing misisons and quests or the setup of your outpost network. Flying back to the capitol worlds is always easy, at anytime. Everything is basically reachable all the time without any consequences. This makes the preparation of a journey out there trivial and irrelevant. Even worse, it destroys any sense of place and remoteness.

2. Map marker overkill: The planet surfaces are littered with map markers that give away their content and position much too easily, on compass and on area map. Instead of organically exploring the player is made to most effectively bee line from map marker to map marker, like crossing off a check list. The sense of suspense of what might be out there is greatly reduced this way as is the perception of all the little details of the journey.

3. Toothless encumberance system: The vanilla game allows the player to run, even sprint, while utterly and ridiculously overencumbered as the CO2 related damage done while doing so will always stop before killing the player. A literal metric ton can be carried around this way. Travel logistics become irrelvant as everything can be scooped up with one swipe.

4. Almost unlimited fast travel (teleporting): I could fast travel (in other words: teleport) directly from ground location to ground location - on different planets, in different star systems even - without entering my ship a single time and without experiencing the full journey across the planets' surfaces. This made me realize that it is not the loading screens that break Starfield's sense of cohesivenes the most, but the blatant shortcuts in its travel system.

-- The changes --

1. Slow Travel - as of version 1.3 optionally- introduces a grav jump cost of 500 credits plus your ships max cargo capacity divided by 2. So a ship which can e.g. hold max 1000 cargo units will consume 1000 credits (500+1000/2) every grav jump. Roleplaywise this reflects the costs for upkeeping the ship hull isolation against the heavy, mysterious radiation that comes with entering the "inbetween" when grav jumping. You can grav jump without keeping your hull radiation integrity up (ie when you dont have enough credits) but this will expose your character to brain damaging radiation effects that result in the loss of about 25% of the XP you need to level up on your current level. Ingame messages will inform you about travel cost and eventual brain damage (XP loss).

2. Map Markers will only appear when you are much, much closer to a location with Slow Travel. This affects your compass as well as your area map. Explore by sight and enjoy all the detail you will suddenly notice.

3. With Slow Travel you - as of version 1.3 optionally - cannot move, not even walk, when overencumbered. Let go of all that stuff that turns your gamepaly time into an inventory managing minigame. Carry what you need - not what sells for 13 credits after camping vendors for days and days. And if you find a true treasure hoard out there enjoy the challenge of actually getting it back all the way to civilization.

4. With Slow Travel fast traveling outside your ship in orbit is completely disabled. You have to manually walk or drive to and from locations on planets, including your own ship. Then you have to properly launch into space in your ship. Outside your ship in orbit you also cannot use the quest log for direct teleports to quest locations and the starmap will not allow you to fast travel either. Furthermore, Slow Travel - as of version 1.3 optionally- requires you to first enter the orbit of you target destination's planet before - in a second step - landing at the target location itself. Otherwise you risk catching the Spacers' Disease (think of a diver's compression sickness when resurfacing too fast), which reduces your XP by about 10% of the amount needed to level up on your current character level (a message will inform you if that should happen). Therefore, always "set course" to a planet first, arrive there and only afterwards land at a target spot. You will be surprised by all the random space encounters and companion chatter you find this way which you accidentally skipped beforehand by using the ample fast travel options.

-- (Un-)installation -- Please make a savegame to return to before enabling Slow Travel. Cells (which locations are made of) save their fast travel enabled state in your savegame. As Slow Travel dynamically deactivates fast travelling for the cells you come across their fast travel option remains disabled even after uninstalling Slow Travel.

To activate Slow Travel the first time please save your game after enabling Slow Travel and reload that save. This is only neccessary once right after first enabling Slow Travel, afterwards you are good to go for the future.

New in version 1.3: You will find the options to turn on/off "Gravjump cost", "Spacers' Disease" and "No movement on overencumberance" in the settings menu, gameplay options section. Each of the options is preceded by "Slow Travel:...". Initially they are all activated, but mix and match as you like.

-- Contact -- Find me under the username "yourfellowglitch" on the "nosodiumstarfield" reddit, where I have also threads for all of my Creations. Dont bother looking on the "official" Starfield reddit - it's just full of hate these days and not worth anybody's time imho.

-- 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

Here's a list of the mods 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.

Runnnig out of space, so just a list from here on: Building Rarity Helium-4 Dusty Less XP The Waiting game Enter Unity POI Rotation Rarity Health Journey Time PPOI Deserted UC Listening Post Waylayer