It’s making it, from the tons of hydrogen it has in the fusion process. The energy and the reason stars even do this is because all of that mass that close together spontaneously does that; starts fusing.

We can’t have any, because a star will use up all the hydrogen to make helium, then start using all of the helium to make carbon and oxygen. Then start to make…

This is overly simplified and it varies from star to star (the more massive the star, the longer it churns through “making” elements into more “complex” elements) until its core is all iron, at which point fusion becomes a net negative.

From there other things can happen like novae. All throughout this life process though, that “elemental conversion” is happening faster on the outside as opposed to the core, and stellar winds do blow off heavier elements that enrich the interstellar medium.

We need a shovel that can plunge into the sun’s core if we want its helium, TL;DR.

Almost every skill provides new dialog skill checks ranging from merely funny to altering your options for quest resolution.

As you progress in new or other skills, you reveal new parts of quests that every BGS and similar game before would require new games for.

The set pieces for the Main Quest and Factions are rife with alternate paths and options to also make use of new skills.

The Ryujin one for example, I’m up to 6 runs and still enjoying variating. Mind control guy to hack computer and blow up door? Which of the three vents is best, the one that requires Gymnastics and space magic? The one behind the security computer?

Alternate “timelines” switching up the Main Quest/replacing it entirely.

A system emulating the idea of endless possibilities for a discrete purpose; You can easily add more of all of this to the mix with as much or as little fanfare as you want, and it’ll fit right in.

I for one, hope individual devs start getting lee way to remix quest lines the same way they were allowed to do new environmental stories for future DLCs like they did for Skyrim’s DLC tenure.

I can keep going. Seriously. There’s plenty of game and innovation alongside the rest of what makes a human released software product a jank mess of an attempt to deny the Universe’s entropic march.

Just gotta be willing to trade a smirk for a smile for a lot of people reading this.

It also leaves a door open for future innovation as well.

An “update to quest dialog and option flow for some players” patch notes can hide entirely new quest iterations from people.

Everything done and repeatable can be adjusted, expanded, or added and the lore is already there to back it.

IMHO they’re gonna have a tricky time trying to balance things since they clearly also want “the classic BGS” experience to remain valid, but it doesn’t have to be for lack of innovation.

High dozens to hundreds, and you might not actually get to see some of the uniques that are radiantly placed too.

Dozens to hundreds of hours of guided content at the least.

On a game that came out on September and already has 6 week updates planned out for 2024 starting as early as February, nearly a full dev team, and a Megacorp already prefunded it all.

They did make the PR mistake of being a brand saying any opinion at all within a user score system, that was dumb.

I make stupid comebacks too when gaslit with things like Cyberpunk or Skyrim having a better launch.

Otherwise, literally (Way back machine it if you ever want to see History rhyming) Same complaints every BGS game gets.

The same ones that years later turn to praise. It’s demented

Yes, you can see a lot of the expected ‘shareholders said to fix this in 2024, they need holiday bonuses first’.

But somehow the 3–that’s less than a handful–of truly disrupting to game play choice bugs (extremely frustrating, but appearing and worsening over dozens to hundreds of hours of gameplay on average) means the rest of the package might as well not exist, let alone be a topic you can discuss online.

Impossible to have a nuanced conversation on anything actually related to the playing of the game.

Especially on nearly every space that dares declare itself as a place to discuss Starfield.

The subreddit of the same name, Steam page, Xbox club page, game effing faqs page.

Just copies of the same toxicity filled–not negative mind you, I’d happily debate a lot of the games negative–disingenuous takes.

I’ve played the thing for just over 200 hours.

I know the bugs, the systems, how to avoid them, and how to make my fun when the trek to Riften flight to Elos is being considered versus fast traveling there.

Because that’s the rub, the scene transitions are awkward (but even on console 2-4 seconds, because they’re a mall store in construction window dressing and not engine limitations as is often touted) but you can explore and take them sequentially. Things will and do happen in-between.

I love this game.

But my love pales in comparison with even a billionth of a billionth of a percentage of the number of times the word ‘hate’ is etched in each ‘nanoangstrom’ of the neurons making up the collective video games and video game industry discussion… industry.

Fuck, it’s money all the the way down isn’t it?