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Here's another Starfield-only related news post, because there's too many of them and not everyone will care:

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

New Starfield Mods completely overhaul its User Interface and Particle Effects
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/new-starfield-mods-completely-overhaul-its-user-interface-and-particle-effects/
Modders ‘m8r98a4f2’ and ‘Weijiesen’ have released two must-have mods for Starfield that overhaul its User Interface and Particle Effects.
Created by Weijiesen and Team EVE, EXE – Effect Textures Enhanced remakes and improves every last visual effect in Starfield. This mod attempts to overhaul effects such as explosions (all of them), weapon fx (muzzleflashes, impacts, etc), gore, storms of all kinds, fires, ambient fx like fog, dust, wisps, auras, and smoke, water visuals and prop fx.
On the other hand, StarUI attempts to improve all inventory screens for use on a PC. This new User Interface has a new compact display style, offering more details in sortable columns. It also adds a category as a left sidebar, brings a bigger scrollbar, and increases the interface framerate to 60 fps. Not only that but it offers options to make go directly back to the game instead of the character screen, and to disable the starting and ending animation of inventories.
>> The article has two videos.

Speed up Starfield's annoyingly slow sitting and climbing animations with a quick mod
https://www.pcgamer.com/speed-up-starfields-annoyingly-slow-sitting-and-climbing-animations-with-a-quick-mod/
For how quickly you can hop-scotch around the galaxy in Starfield, the game sure does like to take its sweet time with other actions. Sitting down, standing up, climbing into your cockpit, climbing a ladder, stepping off a ladder, laying in a bed, waking up—all require lengthy animations that grind the game to a halt for what feels like an eternity (but is probably like, 5 seconds each).
I'm not usually one to bemoan cool animations, but I think Starfield's are jarring because you have zero control while they happen, and they all have this moment of windup before they actually start. Oh, what's that, there are Starfield mods for this? Of course.
Enter Ultra-Anim by Nexus Mods user Bub200. This simple mod speeds up animations for sitting and standing, ladder climbing, workbenches, and airlock doors, aiming to make them all appear"realistically fast."
>> There's a gif showing the difference while sitting in the pilot seat (3x faster).

Following Skyrim tradition, Starfield already has an alternate start mod that lets you skip the intro and begin in cooler parts of space
https://www.pcgamer.com/following-skyrim-tradition-starfield-already-has-an-alternate-start-mod-that-lets-you-skip-the-intro-and-begin-in-cooler-parts-of-space/
Only two weeks after launch, it's hard to say who's dissecting Starfield the fastest, speedrunners or modders. Put another check in the modding column, because one of the most popular mods for Skyrim now has a Starfield version. Alternate Start Starfield is here to give you different places to begin your space adventure instead of being some grunt miner. Because seriously, why would I choose the diplomat background if I'm still going to wind up a "dusty?"
Alternate Start for Starfield is inspired by one of the best Skyrim Special Edition mods, Alternate Start - Live Another Life, which lets you begin your quest in ways that don't involve that iconic wagon ride to a dragon attack. It's a great opening, but after 20 playthroughs it's time for something new.
This Starfield version provides new starting points for a list of Starfield backgrounds and eventually plans to support starting points for all four factions, its creator SpaceDov4 explains. There's a Beast Hunter starting point in Akila City and a Cyberrunner on Neon and so on. It means you get to start out by exploring some of the cooler cities than New Atlantis' very prim and polished spaceport.
>> There are no screenshots nor videos.

GAMING NEWS

Starfield's NPCs keep procedurally jumpscaring players mid-conversation, and now I live in fear
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfields-npcs-keep-procedurally-jumpscaring-players-mid-conversation-and-now-i-live-in-fear/
While NPCs getting bodied in the middle of a chat with your Starfield character is plenty funny, I've a far less slapstick thing to be afraid of now. While this hasn't happened to me yet, now I know it's only a matter of time. After all, once is chance, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.
The first incident comes from Starfield Reddit user welshscott5, who had an unwelcome visitor lean into view mid-sentence, then drift back into the ether with a look of raw disappointment. Starfield's NPC expressions can sometimes be uncanny, which makes the surprisingly true-to-life disdain on display here all the more hilarious. Maybe they stole his space sweetroll or something.

Todd Howard blames the pandemic for Starfield delays: Working from home was 'very, very slow'
https://www.pcgamer.com/todd-howard-blames-the-pandemic-for-starfield-delays-working-from-home-was-very-very-slow/
(...)
The majority of the audience now seems to understand that delays are a necessary evil for large and complex projects. But they're still a bummer. Bethesda director and executive producer Todd Howard has been on the interview circuit promoting the game, as part of which he and Xbox head Phil Spencer sat down with the Washington Post, and during that chat Howard put the delays down to a mix of production and pandemic issues.

Starfield's space shanties are sung by the viral sea shanty man
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfields-space-shanties-are-sung-by-the-viral-sea-shanty-man/
Nathan Evans is a singer from the fine town of Airdrie in Scotland and, during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, became TikTok famous for a very old reason: sea shanties. This young man is a master at belting out the salty old songs of our forebears, and his renditions of classic sailor songs found a wide audience: over 2020 his versions of standards like Leave Her Johnny, The Scotsman and The Wellerman were all over TikTok with millions of views.
Someone at Bethesda clearly noticed, because in Starfield there's an occasional random encounter you'll have in orbit: a spaceship with a notably Scottish captain singing shanties that have been adapted for the cold vastness of space. The IMDb credits for the game show that this is Evans himself floating in the void, lightening up players' days briefly before jumping out of the system.

You can mine ore twice as fast in Starfield just by holding one button, and yes I just realized this 40 hours in
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-mine-ore-twice-as-fast-in-starfield-just-by-holding-one-button-and-yes-i-just-realized-this-40-hours-in/
I'm 40 hours into my Starfield playthrough and only now realizing there's an easy way to mine ore faster. No, I'm not talking about letting Outposts do the mining for you, I'm talking about good ol' fashioned laser cutting. Did you know the laser cutter has a secondary fire? I didn't know that, but I sure wish I did a week ago!
This tip came to me by way of a TikTok by gamesclips247. Yes, the laser cutter has a secondary fire. You can barely tell it's happening, but if you hold both left click and right click with a laser cutter (both triggers on a controller), the cutter goes into overdrive after a second, turning the laser beam from red to orange.

Bethesda 'talked about' using the Fallout version of Earth in Starfield, Todd Howard says
https://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-talked-about-using-the-fallout-version-of-earth-in-starfield-todd-howard-says/
For reasons I won't get into here because it may constitute a little bit of a spoiler, the planet Earth in Starfield is a bit of a wasteland. But what if it was The Wasteland—that is, the post-nuclear hellscape of Bethesda's other big sci-fi-ish game series, Fallout? In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Todd Howard said developers actually gave thought to the idea.

Don't waste your time in Starfield's first city, visit these ones instead
https://www.pcgamer.com/dont-waste-your-time-in-starfields-first-city-visit-these-ones-instead/
New Atlantis is both the first city that you visit in Starfield and the most boring one. The best cities to visit are elsewhere in the galaxy, offering characters and missions with cool vibes. New Atlantis, however, is like getting lost in an sterilized sci-fi parking lot.

Starfield bug means you can just take this entire store's inventory out of a muddy puddle in the middle of a road without any skill or repercussions
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-bug-means-you-can-just-take-this-entire-stores-inventory-without-any-skill-or-repercussions/
Starfield has plenty of ways to make money. You can complete quests and be rewarded for your efforts. You can trade valuable items you find, or rare minerals that you mine. You can even sneak into places and, when nobody is looking, steal an expensive ornament.
However, why bother doing any of that when you can just stroll up Akila City's high street and, out of a muddy puddle in the ground, loot the entire inventory of one of the city's biggest vendors without any skill or repercussions? Oh, and if that wasn't good enough, you can then simply wait 24 hours and do it all again.

I spent 10 minutes in Starfield bludgeoning a UC officer with a dumbbell in the middle of the street, to death, and no one batted an eye
https://www.pcgamer.com/i-spent-10-minutes-in-starfield-bludgeoning-a-uc-officer-with-a-dumbbell-in-the-middle-of-the-street-to-death-and-no-one-batted-an-eye/
So we're all sad about Skyrim's famous bucket heists and how they're not replicable in Starfield. Sure, there've been replacements in the form of shuffling credit sticks into laundry baskets, but none of these methods use something as common as the humble bucket to work their magic.
Well, move over—there's a new physics interaction in town. What's more, it lets you kill and loot any non-essential NPC without the game even recognising your brutality, and it can be achieved with anything heavy, and a bit of patience.