A Surveyors Guide to Starfield

After surveying over 1,000 worlds, I have learned a few things that I’ll share with you now. Let’s get the first big question out of the way:

What the heck is a geophage?

You will see the term “geophage” used in the name of alot of the fauna. It simply means that the animal in question eats dirt, or whatever the soil is on their world. So alot of grub-like critters will have this appended to their names, but so will some of the larger creatures.

Which way is North?

Alot have complained about the mapping (or lack of) in Starfield, but we have to use the tools we have available to us. In that spirit here is how you can better navigate in the game:

The Compass

If you are not in Scan mode, the compass will be visible in the lower left part of your game screen. In the very center is a representation of the planet or moon you are on and it’s relative time of day. In a ring just outside of the world representation is a ring of “tick marks” with a small “home” icon that represents “North” or the top of your map page. This is true whether you are viewing the normal map image, or the ground map page.

The Ground Map

The ground map is a more detailed relief map, showing the general terrain levels around you. It is NOT highly detailed, but it does show enough detail to help you navigate. If you see a specific location you want to go to, just double-click on the map to set a marker there. You will then see a square on the outer edge of your compass that shows the location of your marker relative to your current direction.

Finding the Ocean

I use this technique all the time when I’m trying to find the ocean to scan for fish. First, look for a location that is marked as “Coast” within a biome and that will get you as close as you can to start.

After you land and disembark from your ship, pull up your map again and press the “G” key to get the ground view (I don’t own an XBox so all of these instructions are for PC players, sorry). Look for a completely flat area on your map. You should be able to make out the coastline because it’s right up against the ocean. Once you’ve identified the flat ocean, double click on it to set a marker.

Now close the map and on your compass you will see a new, square marker on the outer-most edge. Head in that direction and you will see the terrain change to become more beach-like before you see the water.

Scan Mode

Here fishy, fishy, fishy!

Fauna and Flora

Fauna and flora refer to the animal and plant life, respectively. The flora in the game is a little boring: no man-eating plants at all! You just run up to them and scan them and press the E key to extract their organic resource and you’re done.

Fauna also have organic resources you can extract, but they are also far more interesting because to many of them, YOU are on the menu!

Fauna — Temperment

Every animal has a Temperment rating that describes their behavior. Most animals will attack you if you attack them, so just because something is Peaceful, doesn’t mean it (and it’s buddies) wont stomp on you!

Aggressive — This thing is looking to kill you. It’s agression range (aka agro range) is likely to be as far as it can see. I think of sharks, aligators and crocodiles when I see this temperment. To be safe, I often just kill these on sight (KoS) Note: In game only, I don’t go out and kill sharks, aligators or crocodiles in RL).

Fearless — Just about as bad as Aggressive, They likely have never seen a human before and are curious about what you taste like. If they can see you, they will attack you. KoS

Territorial — They don’t go looking for trouble, but they don’t want to see you in their turf either. Get too close and they will start with a threat display and then atttack if you don’t move away quickly. Think of an elephant or a buffalo here.

Defensive — They wont hunt you down, but they won’t put up with any harrassment either. Get too close and you will see a threat display before they attack.

Wary — These tend to be prey animals, in the middle of, or lower, in the food chain. Think of cats, birds, coyotes, etc.

Skittish — These are definitely prey animals and they are ready to run at a moment’s notice.

Peaceful — You have to really try hard to get these to attack you. They generally run if attacked.

Fauna — Abilities, Resistances and Weaknesses

Many animals have special traits. These traits are always present, but they don’t always show up on your scanner. To see these traits you need to:

1. Have fully scanned the animal to 100%
2. Have your scanner over a living animal. These traits don’t show up on the dead for some reason.

The list of these traits is too long to post here, but I do track them allon my website at sfomni.com. However, I will cover the most common traits here:

Abilities

• Ranged mouth attack — Like an October politician, animals with this ability can hit you at range and elevation!
• Extra Health — Harder to kill because they just have more health to begin with!
• Acidic blood (reflects melee damage, armor piercing attacks) — Yes, that’s right, Acidic blood is really 2 abilities in one!

Resistances

• Energy damage — Energy weapons do less damage.
• Physical damage — Melee weapons and ballistic weapons do less damage
• Reflects melee damage — A portion of any melee damage you do is reflected back at you (about 4% as I understannd it).

Weaknesses

I’ve only found 4 weaknesses in the game after surveying every living critter, so in this category I will list them all:

• Blast damage
• EM damage
• Energy Damage
• Physical damage

Weaknesses are extremely rare on animals.

Same name, different resources?

You will see the same names used for both fauna and flora on different worlds, but the resources they drop will likely be different! I’d like to believe that this is simply because the original surveys had alot of work to do and a small selection of names to choose from. If 2 different plants on 2 different worlds look similar, they’d get the same name. The resources they produce may be different simply due to the different environments: a lower gravity may produce a softer resource. A lower humidty may produce more structure. Being consumed by fauna may promote the development of toxins, etc. The same is true of the fauna. Nature is an evolutionary arms-race.

What’s in a Name?

The name of an animal or plant can give you valuable clues about it. Here are some common parts of names:

• Apex — The top predator in it’s biome. Even if it has a Defensive temperment, be wary of it.
• Hunting — This animal is actively hunting for food.
• Grazer — Generally non-aggressive, but can still be dangerous, like a buffalo or a rhinocerous!
• Geophage — As mentioned at the top, any dirt eater generally has plenty of food and is not interested in trouble.
• Scavenger — Reportedly, animals with this name will show up some time after another animal dies (think vultures here). However, I have not seen this in practice, though I may just not have waited long enough.
• Herbivore — Plant eater. Generally less dangerous and aggressive, but then again a rhinocerous is a herbivore and they kill alot of humans each year!
• Filterer — Eats very small plants animals (like plankton, tardigrades, etc.) Generally not very aggressive.
• Flocking , Herding, Pack— Generally found in fairly large groups. They may all attack you, if you attack any one of them.

Wrapping it all up

I’m expecting to see many of the plant and animal models change over the next year or so to help add some diversity to the look and feel of each planet. Right now there are a limited number of 3D representations for many of the plants and animals (ie Boreas Root, Crag Root, Mire Root, etc. all look exactly the same). However, appearances aside, Bethesda put alot of detail into creating these worlds; they may be procedural, but they all still have their own look and feel to them.