First We Crawl V2.0

This mod starts the player without a ship, adds in-system ships, and makes interstellar travel a goal to obtain rather than a starting condition.

Interstellar travel is the greatest achievement of humanity. It should be a goal to be reached for, not a starting condition. The intent of this mod is to create a more local-focused early-game experience that slowly broadens out. The player should start grounded, exploring their initial starting zone for their beginning opportunities, rather than jumping around the Settled Systems in a free interstellar spaceship.

First We Crawl starts the player at a spaceport with nothing but their clothes (see my standalone mod, No Ship Fast Start). The player will have to explore, loot, earn, and/or steal their way to prosperity. Eventually they will be able to afford a simple spaceship limited to in-system travel, opening up a variety of planets and moons to explore and exploit. Later, they’ll be able to upgrade ships and venture out to nearby stars, before eventually extending their reach to the whole map.

What FWC does

System Drive

This mod introduces the FWC System Drive, a grav drive that can’t make interstellar jumps. This was done by making the drive extremely fuel-inefficient, as a workaround to the shipbuilder’s 15-light-year jump minimum. With the System Drive, the ship’s stats will show a jump distance of 15+ light-years (nominal thrust of 50), but the ship won’t be able to carry enough fuel to actually make a jump. This allows a ship to pass the shipbuilder check even though it is only capable of in-system travel.

The System Drive is cheap, consumes little power, and for lore, provides artificial gravity on the ship.

System Ship

I’ve created a very simple System Ship using the System Drive, available at ship vendors in the various starting locations the player can choose from. This ship will be a relatively affordable way for the player to get off the ground. The ship can be customized or replaced when the player has enough money to upgrade to an interstellar grav drive.Diminished jump distancesAt the game’s 15-light-year minimum jump distance, far too much of the Settled Systems are opened up right away. Sol and Alpha Centauri are only 4.6 light-years apart. Several Settled Systems have nearby secondary stars that are much closer. Shorter jumps should be the rule, initially. FWC makes full range jumps impractical in early game stages. The player will have to balance cargo, fuel, and cost to effectively begin exploring the stars.

Efficiency: Bethesda included the variable SpaceshipGravJumpDistancePerFuel, set to 1 by default. By lowering this efficiency, the amount of fuel required for a jump increases, making fuel capacity a significant factor. In FWC, drives have been assigned efficiencies of 0.03 to 0.25, based on class, level, and design skill rank.

Cost: Interstellar grav drives now cost between roughly 50,000 and 2 million credits, based on factors such as thrust and efficiency. Ship prices, which are just the sum of their part costs, are therefore much higher as well.

Fuel tank mass: The obvious workaround to high fuel consumption is to pile on fuel tanks, which are light and cheap in the base game. I’ve increased the mass of tanks so the fuel-to-mass ratio is between 1.67 and around 6. This creates diminishing returns from adding fuel tanks, particularly early on.

Limitations and future tweaks

First, I’m new to modding. If you’ve got suggestions, I’m happy to hear them. If you have ideas for tweaking values or patching consistent with the goals of this mod, let’s talk.

I’ve altered ship vendor lists and the records of all grav drives (except Class M) and fuel tanks. Any mod-added grav drives or fuel tanks would need to be patched to fit within the scheme, and mods that alter the same vendor lists might make the System Ship unavailable. There may be some other compatibility issues I’m not aware of, but I haven’t touched much else.

I’ve tested this out, and I’m personally pleased with the results at low levels, but I haven’t extensively tested the pacing of steadily progressing to longer-range and heavier jump capabilities at higher levels. I think a player should need some combination of Astrodynamics, Starship Design, and high level (60?) to be able to make a 30-light-year jump with a massive cargo vessel. I suspect tweaks will be in order. Again, if you’ve got suggestions, let me know.

Rather than using the new System Ship, I’ve thought of replacing the grav drive in some of the stock ships (first level Rambler, Watchdog, etc.) with System Drives so a variety of in-system ships would be available at vendors, and early encounters would be with system-limited ships, so taking a ship early would be less likely to get you interstellar travel prematurely. I don’t know what unintended consequences might result from altering NPC ships, though.

The ability to buy ships with parts you couldn’t buy individually means you can bypass some of the progress restriction if you have a lot of money. I guess this is something I hadn’t noticed because I always build my own ships and haven’t really looked at what’s for sale. Grav drive pricing with the mod does make better ships significantly more expensive, so there is still a barrier, but it’s not ideal, in my option.

Unfortunately, fuel efficiency is not visible to the player. There will be some trial and error, but you can generally assume that more expensive grav drives will get you further for the same amount of fuel.

The adjusted mass of fuel tank is shown in their individual description, but the fuel/weight ratio shown in the part list is based on the old information, so it’s incorrect. I don’t know where that mass data is stored separately.

I think this mod would pair well with Real Fuel or similar, but because I’ve dramatically increased fuel consumption, fuel cost would probably need to be adjusted.

And finally, here’s what I consider a major issue with the base game: You’re allowed to fast travel to points beyond your ship’s range. This breaks immersion, particularly in combination with this mod’s effort to limit travel distance. I’ve looked at what other modders have attempted, but I haven’t found any real solution to this specific problem. Anyone who can figure out how to limit fast travel to actual ship range would be a hero. In the meantime, players are left with self-restricting role play.

Credits:

LeavingLasOrleans

Download mod

File	File size
First We Crawl-2-0	286 KB
First We Crawl-0-91	50 KB
First We Crawl - No Start-99	40 KB
First We Crawl-0-9	26 KB
FWC System Drive - standalone-1-0	1 KB