Starfield's Radiant Encounter System Populates Planets with Locations & Quests
Some of us might be familiar with the radiant quest and encounter systems from Skyrim and Fallout, and that design is being expanded in Starfield to populate planets with locations and quests. In Skyrim, radiant encounters were triggered at certain spawn points throughout the map, and were limited to NPC encounters. The random groups of Stormcloaks or Imperials hauling a prisoner along, an old Orc who wishes to die in battle, and M'aiq the Liar are all examples of these NPC random encounters. There's also a radiant quest system that will choose among a set of locations, prioritizing unvisited locations, for the destination of certain quests (eg. the bounties that innkeepers, Jarls, or stewards could tell you about).
According to Will Shen (Lead Quest Designer) in this video, they have new tech that will take entire locations and place them on planets, and integrate these locations into dynamic quests. For
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is one of my favorite indie games of all time. The city design really captures the feeling of wandering around an unfamiliar, large, bustling place. The diary mechanic at the end of the day is a great way to get in character, and I like that you can decorate the apartment. I did some light data-mining (mostly item info and dialogue strings), and I even have fridge magnets of some of the pixel art!
Depanneur Nocturne is also a great evening’s worth of exploration and vibes, but I mention it because it has a reference to Spaceport Janitor and it made me SO happy when I realized that. :)
It's been a hot second since I modded Skyrim, but Realistic Water 2 was always my pick! I used several other Cathedral mods though (Landscapes and Weathers) – Cathedral Water not making cell edits is certainly an appealing feature too.
Building your own musical instrument sounds like a daunting project at the beginning but one with very satisfying results. :)
Not knowing much about marimbas or woodworking, I’m super curious about the actual hand-tuning process! Is it carefully trimming the boards down? And how much do the tubes (?) at the bottom affect the tuning vs the wood pieces on top?