Star Powers

Star Powers, a so small collection mod (collection details at the end)

-- The idea -- The powers in Starfield potentially add an amazing variety to gameplay. Unfortunately, many of them quickly become so unbalanced that using them feels like cheating.

The main offenders for me are Phased Time (infinite super time freeze) and Void Form (infinite near invisibility/hidden state). Closely followed by Sunless Space, Creators Peace, Gravity Well, Anti Gravity Field, Gravity Wave and Create Vacuum, who all contain crowd control effects (like paralyze, slow, push, pull or pacify) - without any resistance / saving throw system in place as counterbalance (only a few select enemy types have full immunities to some of these effects). Lastly, Solar Flare doing damage over time based on an enemy's max health is much too deadly when used on high level enemies.

Star Powers implements a failure chance for all crowd control effects (between 20% to 35%, depending on the effect type). This way, you never can be certain that such an effect sticks and have be on your toes to react accordingly if it doesn't. Additionally, duration has been lowered, power cost has been raised and potency of power regenerating aid items decreased, so that you can no longer chain a power back to back inifinetly.

Outside of all this direly needed nerfing of powers is one notable exception: the advent of the Spellblade. When having a melee weapon equipped, casting cost is lowered by 25%. Matching the ancient, non-technical structure of the Creators' Temples the powers work better when following the archaic way of using eye-to-eye weaponary. This gives melee weapons an additional edge to make them more competitive compared to the ranged arsenal.

-- The changes -- In general:

• All powers' costs increased by +15 points
• Having a melee weapon equipped decreases power cost by 25%
• Quantum Essence doubles power regeneration speed (instead of increasing it by eight times)
• All crafted Hearts are reduced in their regeneration effectiveness significantly (the best Heart now comes close to Quantum Essence, increasing regeneration speed by 1.9) Power specific:
• Anti Gravity Field: 35% failure chance of paralyze effect, duration halved, cost decrase per rank lowered by half
• Create Vacuum: 20% failure chance of slow effect, duration halved
• Creators' Peace: 35% failure chance of disarm/pacify effect, duration halved
• Grav Wave: 20% failure chance of slow/push/stagger effect, duration halved
• Grav Well: 35% failure chance of paralyze effect, duration halved, cost decrase per rank lowered by half
• Phased Time: duration halved, cost decrase per rank lowered by half
• Solar Flare: magnitude increase per rank lowered by half, cost decrase per rank lowered by half
• Sunless Place: 35% failure chance of paralyze effect, duration halved, cost decrase per rank lowered by half
• Void Form: duration halved, cost decrase per rank lowered by half

-- Contact -- I will create a thread on Starfield reddit after release (search for Star Powers mod and my name there: yourfellowglitch) for feedback, bug hunting, updates and general chat with a good Terrabrew in hand.

-- so small collection -- This mod is part of the "so small collection" of mods. These mods dont require each other and can be played stand alone, even balancewise. They form a greater whole though - the more of them you combine, the more you see this final shape. The overarching idea is to create a gameworld that feels immensely vast, begs for thorough exploration, is full of mysteries, plays truely challenging and lasts very, very long. In other words the goal of the mods is to make the player feel: so small.

Here's a list of the mods in the so small collection in case this idea resonates with you:

Dynamic Universe: A universe that dynamically scales up with your character level - be it star systems or individual enemies. No more outleveling of content, no more overleveled starts of NG+.

Gear Progression: Gear Progression adds levels to all weapons, suits, helmets and backpacks. Your character level must match these in order to equip the gear. Each NG+ these levels raise further.

Economy: Economy shifts income generation away from tiresome loot hauling. Ship building becomes the long term goal it's meant to be. As credits get more scarce, rewards remain meaningful.

Explorer: An immersive overhaul of the resources - crafting - exploration loop. Get out there into the Starfield and explore - the rewards are much bigger now, but so is the need to do it.

Linearity (alternatively have a look for "Death" or "Ruin" mods): A new gameplay mode where reloading is your last resort. Live and embrace your adventure as it unfolds, imperfect as it may be. You can always save to quit and continue later.

Slow Travel: Slow Travel makes your journey through Starfield much more tactile and immersive by grav jump costs, less map markers, no move on overencumberance and restricted fast travel.

Star Powers: Live as a Spellblade in the Settled Systems. Powers are rebalanced so that eg crowd control, slowed time and near invisibiilty become interesting instead of game balance breaking.

The Isotopes: A compelling reason to explore POI in all Star Systems. Loot the 75 new Isotopes, each specific to a singular Star System. They are needed for rank 4 skills and gear mod crafting.

High Level Weapons: Continue to find better weapons, all the way up to level 300. 7+ new revisions/tiers for each of 50 weapon types. Uniquely named, legendary, each hidden in a specific star system.

High Level Armors: Continue to find better armors up to lvl 255. All HLA share about the same power level - mix and match for the looks you like. Starborn armors improve in quality and variety, too.

Counterfire: Starting with level 85 the player gets 1% more ground combat damage for each level. Idealy used in combination with the "High Level Weapons" mod.

Terra Incognita: All ground surface maps disabled. No markers, no topography, no top down small buildings, no white dots - nothing. Welcome to Terra Incognita - the universe is yours to discover.

Helium-4: Gravjumping requires a pilot to inhale new Helium-4. Not storable and non-tradable - lasts 2 jumps. Explore those moons to get it. Can you chart a course across the Blackest Sea?

Dusty: The new stat Suit Energy depletes rapidly on airless worlds. Mine minerals or take shelter to survive. Five very hidden grains of Elder Dust reward the true Dusties out there.

Less XP: Extra XP for more difficult vanilla gameplay options removed. New options to turn off crafting XP, lower XP for killing fauna and adjust XP gain rate to 75/50/25/10 percent.

The Waiting Game: Whenever you wait or sleep you will sell loot for zero profit for the next 60 real time minutes. Go visit vendors at different places, adventure naturally, quit the waiting game.

Enter Unity: With Enter Unity your origin universe has a max level of 60, raised by 30 with each NG+. If you enter Unity more than 50 levels below max though, you are in for big trouble.

POI Rotation: A new realtime timer and a new list of discovered POI (Points of Interest) effectively prevent repetition. It will take many hours before you can encounter the same POI twice.

Rarity: Increase your chances of finding Legendary and Epic loot by fully surveying Star Systems. The more you explore, the better the loot. But beware, all beginnings are hard.

Health: Health regeneration from the start, but only up to a limit. Increase it by killing enemies, but beware: if you die or reload midsession you have to rebuild your kill streak.

Journey: Skill ranks 3 and 4 only unlock after crossing Unity many times and having 1000 Units of varying minerals. Broaden your play style, rebuild outpost networks, embrace the journey.

Time: After 24 waits/sleeps in the current universe player max Health is reduced by 20 for each further wait/sleep until next NG+. Move time naturally, wait/sleep only when it counts.

PPOI Deserted UC Listening Post: Procedural Points of Interest (PPOI) aims to make the contents of each POI procedural - no repeat visit should ever feel identical. This time upgraded: Deserted UC Listening Post.