This Starfield mod totally revamps outpost building by imbuing it with the joys of capitalism
The forces of the free market have finally corrupted the one place Tim Curry could flee to.
If you found Starfield’s vanilla outpost building system to be a bit of a disappointment, a new mod might be able to help reinvigorate your desire to colonise half the galaxy, by giving you the chance to become a heartless corporate investor.
That’s right, fetch your top hat and fistfuls of interstellar Monopoly money, it’s time for you to splash out on the chance to become the overlord of a depressing mining colony on some far flung moon. After all, who needs picturesque homesteads nestled amid alien flora when there’s a profit to be made.
The mod that’ll seemingly allow you to assume the form of some terrifying industrialist beelzebub is called ‘SSEO - Outpost Investor’ and is the work of modder JayDovahkin. They’ve decided to have a go at transforming outpost building into “a proper endgame system to sit alongside shipbuilding”, by making the process of manufacturing resources a bit more rewarding, but also balanced enough not to become an instant route to mega-wealth.
In order to achieve this, the mod adds “actual profit margins on manufactured goods” into the building equation, by introducing the need to pay a sum designed “to simulate installation/delivery/manufacturing fees” when you place an outpost item and boosting the value of manufactured goods to make producing them worth the production costs.
“Outposts are now true long-term financial investments, and HUGE ones at that,” JayDovahkin explains, “It's going to take careful financial planning to make them more than a money sink, and they take quite a bit of time to break even on investment. But when they do finally get there, and with a proper cargo ship to transport goods, you can kiss poverty away forever.”
Once you’ve made a profit, you’ll be able to re-invest funds into expanding your operation, likely increasing future profits, and blow some of it on buying some luxury furniture via the mod’s revised outpost furnishing system. The good news for those who dislike having to scrounge up structural parts every time they want to build a chair is that the latter allows you to buy ready-made furniture using credits alone, providing a means to burn some of your cash.
JayDovahkin also recommends that you team this mod with another of theirs, ‘SSEO - Settled Systems Economy Overhaul’, which revamps Starfield’s entire economy in an effort to make things more lore-friendly and stop you becoming absurdly flush by the time you reach its highest levels.
If you’re hoping to spend your time in the Settled Systems in a slightly less businesslike manner, you’ll probably be happy to learn that Starfield’s latest update has made it possible to seamlessly gobble up every food item you find in the world.