There comes a point in every diary playthrough when the Comet of Invention meets the Cowpat of Diminishing Returns, when the Foot of Unbridled Agency meets the Covert Hedgehog of Limited Design, when Fucking Around meets Finding Not Much Out. I fear we are reaching that point with the life and times of Mary Read, my Starfield character and nowadays quite accomplished space pirate, who has sworn never to land on a planet ever again.
Immediately after conquering the Chimera in Part 2 of the Starfield No-Planet Run, I commandeered a UC Longsword II on the other side of the same system. The Longsword has proven a predator without equal, charging straight through opposing craft even when they’ve got several levels on me, its unforgiving autocannons forming the dominant bassline of every encounter. Frankly, it’s getting repetitive, and while the obvious remedy is to plunge cackling and crying into a star system with an AI threat level in the high double digits, I doubt that will really alter the rhythms of Starfield’s ship combat – it’ll just mean I have to do some grinding.
