Starfieldin ‘Seamless Landing’ -modu vaatii keskenän maahanpääsyn avaruudessa

When you land on a planet in Starfield, you still have to choose a landing spot, then watch a loading screen and animation. This is one of the details that contributes to making the ship feel more like a home where you can teleport around more easily. According to a report on pc-gamer-news, planets in space are basically just textures that you can fly over; this was revealed as players explored the limits of RPG while experimenting. This gap, which seems like something modders will never be able to fill, is notable because Frederik Wessberg has filled it. In a video he shared from his work-in-progress mod, the ship’s approach to the planet is shown with heating effects during entry into the atmosphere, a momentary whiteness as it enters the cloud layer, and then a direct landing. While the clouds are thought to be masking a loading screen, Wessberg notes that “the cloud cover doesn’t actually hide a loading screen.”

To make this system work, the floating bodies in the air had to be replaced with real models of planets and satellites. “I had to completely reimplement the rendering of planets in space in 3D,” says Wessberg, “and I did it with a method that had to be detailed and sharp at every altitude.” Wessberg then talks about the physical accuracy of the game: “Starfield is incredibly physically accurate, a true space simulation in many ways; it just doesn’t show it to the player, but I was able to take advantage of that in my design. Starfield is based on biome data and full surface maps, including data on climate, atmospheric composition, as well as factors such as orbital phase, distance from the sun, and contributions to the shadow cast by the planet’s satellites. Our philosophy is that the truth of Starfield is only that we model it with real physics.”