StarField Creation Kit (First Impressions)

So - Finally the Creation kit for StarField was released. It takes about 4 minutes(!) to start and just as long to become responsive again after selecting your base datafile (Like Starfield.esm). The version i have before me on release is 1.12.30.2.

Starting it up without loading a datafile made the editor swallow 10 GB of memory (Gulp!) and when i had loaded the Starfield.ESM datafile, taskmanager said that it was using 15+ GB of memory. Sheesh...

My initial impression when the editor started is that the editor is a mess. When the UI pops up, all the editor windows are cluttered in the middle of the screen and it's your job to place them where you want them. Once that is done, you are back to where you entered the TESCS/GECK Editor in the past - you know - in an ordered state.

One cool thing is the Docks top menu, it allow you to load/save layouts of all the Windows. Quite a handy feature if you have multiple screens and lots of Windows open. I suggest that the second thing you do after position all the windows in the editor, is to save a profile of your layout immediately.

As usual, there is an object windows to drag/drop items from, a Cell view selector, and now also an inspector Window, it reminds me of the properties view when you design old WinForms apps in Visual Studio where all the objects properties are listed.

As earlier, there are internal cells and external cells. To focus on something in a cell, you can click on the item, then press T to center above it, then you can use Shift + mouse to move around the item. If you then unclick the item (either by Control clicking it, or clicking dead space) you can now move forward back/left (scroll wheel) and left/right with the mouse. Navigation inside a structure (like a house) is still rather cumbersome. You click on object a to rotate the camera, then object B to rotate the camera. IIRC, there was a "free flight" mode in earlier editors, but i can't seem to find it.

External views are still painfully slow to zoom in to using the mouse wheel and finding a small item on the ground to quickly zoom in is almost impossible - as it was before in earlier versions of the editor.

The key A flips lightmodes on and off (as it did in earlier editor versions), this makes it easier to see things, but can hide external cells nature as everything becomes awfully bright (Cydonia became PINK when i tried).

A new thing is the Galaxy editor, it allows you to view and select planets to view. This is certainly something that will make the whole modding experience vastly bigger.

Editing items is now VERY complex, there are settings here, there and everywhere. My advice is that you start thinking out what type of weapon you want to create, then create it. There are different weapon categories in the item tree, melee weapons etc have their own tree nodes, but oddly enough regular bullet/energy weapons like the Magshear are sorted under the root "weapons" category. It works, but there are SO many rifles/pistols that those would deserve their own categories and it would make it easier to find them.

Creating items is done the same way as earlier, you rename an item and are asked if you want to rename or create a clone of the item. You can also create a new item by right clicking and selecting new, but then all the values and stats of the weapon stats has to be filled in. In my experience, It is easier to use a weapon as a template and modify the values instead of creating one from scratch.

The Game Settings has grown, as expected by about a billion settings, even for how long an NPC should wait until they greet you. The same goes for the editors Preferences which now has multiple tabs to configure things in.

Dialogue is now called Filtered Dialogue and you can "drill down" on an NPC, dialogue option or quest dialogue by searching/filtering, earlier all the dialogue was loaded for a specific NPC, you could not filter out what you was not interested in. This is an improvement.

Import Export options are better, now seems to export things as text files, which makes them manageable in more capable text editors like Notepad++. Continuing on subject of Import: there is now also an option to import a heightmap, i assume that this is the standard grayscale height maps, which means that you can use any heightmap, generated in a program or even captured by Satellite.

There seems to be integration with Bethesda .NET as well as loading/saving mods as TES plugins (.ESP), so this probably means that you can save your mod and still chose to upload it to Nexusmods instead of Bethesdas own portal.

There is a "dark mode" in the editor, sort of. A theme (File menu) called Plastique Dark makes some parts dark, but most of the white backgrounds in the editors windows are unaffected. Too bad they didn't go all the way, as i have experienced light sensitivity problems myself and a dark mode is essential for software in todays creative IT jobs.

I expect most of the things to work the same in this editor as in earlier games, but i'm sure I'll find out about that soon. Unfortunately Bethesda is still going with the .NIF object format, something you need a tool for to work with in free 3D tools like Blender. (I remember that i never got into the whole 3D creation thing just because .NIF was a proprietary format that wasn't supported by anything else than 3DS Max, a program that was not a free tool for home users).

Another thing is that there is no built in help with the basics as in most modern development tools. If a site is down, then you can't get any help from the tool provider... *CLEARS THROAT*. Also, putting all documentation at a non-indexed place like Discord is extremely poor as it isn't searchable by the most important tool developers use today - A web browser.

Scripting was one of the things i REALLY wanted to look at early, but i had problems accessing and viewing even ONE script as it is unclear how to set this up.

I was unable to load any scripts by double clicking on them. There were options to export them to an external tool, but nothing happened when i clicked there, and i could not create a new script, either in the scripts manager or on an item. In both cases, something went wrong and i was prevented from even SEEING a script.

This makes me appreciate games with less control over the actual data in the mods, compare this with Project Zomboid, a game i've been digging deep into scripting the last few weeks - all the scripts there are in the open, they are on disk and i can edit/view them with Notepad ++. Also i remember that BGS games uses a proprietary scripting language, a skill that isn't directly transferable to other games as Luascript (A plugin language often used in games) and Java is - Two languages that Project Zomboid uses that are transferable. Luascript could be a thing that BGS should look into. I haven't seen if they have actually changed this, but I'm also not holding my breath either.

It is obvious that this is a BGS game editor, it has that "feel" to it. Clunky AF - but you have always been able to create some pretty cool stuff with it, all the things you know from before are there - and some new stuff. It feels like a step up from the earlier editors, just as the GECK Editor was a big step up from the Elderscrolls Construction kit. For the moment, I just don't know big of a step it is.

Anyway, i hope to dig deeper into the editor and maybe even create a mod soon. I should consider myself lucky to have experience from earlier games and previous editors, if i had not all of this would probably feel like trying to climb Mount Everest. Hopefully, there will be tutorials soon on youtube that helps bring in new people into modding Bethesda games.

I just gonna leave here with some pros and cons, this is just my first impressions of the Construction Kit, so - no score for now.

• Plattforms: PC

• Release date: 2024-Jun-10

Har 32 GB minne, men det tar ändå 3 minuter och 25 sekunder från att jag startat editorn tills jag har laddat Starfield.esm. Mina siffror var från en cold start eftersom inte alla lägger datorn i sleep mode utan stänger ner och startar datorn från 100% powerdown. Och det med en hyfsad SSD (ej M2).

For större reach alltså. När jag hade skrivit artikeln så länkade jag till den från andra ställen som inte var Svenska. Vilket språk du svarar på är upp till dig. Sverige är Flerspråkigt, med engelska som ett mandatoriskt andraspråk.

Önskemål:
Om någon kommer på hur man kan se/editera script så skriv gärna, är nyfiken på vad de har lagt till och vad som går att göra. Jag är Dev IRL så scripting är mest intressant för mig.