u/Richiesusername

A few years ago, when I first played Starfield, it felt like a typical Bethesda release. Rushed, buggy, with a lot of bad writing that we would rely on modders to fix, like we had with games like Skyrim and Fallout 4.

I wasn't as negative on Starfield for this reason.

I'm currently going through it again because of the Terran Armada release. I figured "By this time, I bet there are all kinds of great mods to fix all the poor or contrary writing, lots of better quests, etc.," just like going back to Skyrim. In Skyrim, I barely touch vanilla content these days, because the mods are just that good.

I am at the end of the Freestar Rangers questline and it's probably the most glaring piece of bad quest-writing in the entire game. There's a post from three years ago that sums it up here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/17wnpaj/freestar\_ranger\_ending\_not\_satisfying/#:\~:text=I%20wanted%20to%20arrest%20the,wanted%20to%20arrest%20Paxton%20Hull.

In a game where your main purpose is to belong to a group of explorers, where you're pushed towards being "good" at each turn, murdering everybody is just a bad way to go. It feels unfinished. Even the one GOOD part of writing, finding out that in the sort of "libertarian" utopia of the Freestar Collective, the capitalist is just as forced into corruption as he is in the real world, doesn't shine through because you're forced to kill him. Then you get your ship with a prison cell in it like the game is mocking you.

My question, though, is why haven't modders made better versions of these quests? Is it impossible to do? Is it just a showing of people mostly giving up on Bethesda with this game? Just not as many modders as there are for Skyrim or FO4?

Help me out, guys. What's going on here?

I've been looking forward to the Mantis quest for a while in this playthrough. But I have some bug where no matter what, it won't start. I've tried startquest, setstage, even installing a mod that changed it and the item that starts it (Legacy of the Mantis).

When I use SQS it tells me that all the quest stages are dormant. Can someone please tell me the console command to change that?

So, I don't know what's going on with my Mantis quest. I had a mod to delay it to level 15, but I'm well past that and it won't start. I have that and The Headhunter mod that starts a quest when you land at the base, and I've been looking forward to it because I've never done that mod before.

But I get no quest pop up when I read the Secret Outpost! slate. And startquest does not work. Nor does setstage.

Anyone have a clever workaround? I'm dying over here!

I used to play modded Starfield back in the early days. I'd like to re-install, but re-learning modding in all the new ways is.. a LOT.

Can someone point me to the best modlists, tutorials, etc., please? Or at least recommend some good set ups for me?

I like extra content, armor, gear, etc., and survival elements, plus base building.

What's the gold standard right now?