Starfield mod gets us one step closer to seamless interplanetary travel
Bethesda SoftworksA Starfield modder has cooked up a mod that lets you travel between planets and their orbital bodies with no loading screen.
Starfield had a bit of an underwhelming launch for a large-scale Bethesda RPG. While significant leaps have been made with the game, particularly in the May 2024 update, there are some things that just missed the mark with players.
Early on, one of the biggest complaints was how Starfield handled space travel. The constant navigation of menus and loading screens from fast traveling convinced some players that the game’s low review scores were justified.
Luckily, the Astrogate mod looks to bring things closer in line with what players saw from Star Wars Outlaws’ planetary travel. While currently unfinished, a demonstration on Reddit shows us the first steps towards seamless interplanetary travel in Starfield.
At present, the Astrogate mod for Starfield functions as a suite of auto-pilot options that allows you to move around your ship as it travels through space. Players are able to adjust the speed to mitigate long-distance flights and keep you from spending seven hours moving from planet to planet.
Its biggest selling point however is that it allows for immersive travel between a planet and any of its orbital bodies including moons and space stations. Not only does it allow your ship to automatically take off and land, it does so with no loading screen in between any of the travel.
Travel between planets and systems still requires the player to enter the cockpit and initiate a grav jump. The reason that those limitations aren’t involved in short-distance travel around a planet is that a planet and its orbital bodies are all loaded as a single instance.
The mods creator RealityIDR has expressed interest in trying to figure out more ways around Starfield’s loading screens. Their primary goal however is figuring out a way to incorporate the game’s random encounters into the Astrogate mod.