The Starfield community's ships are giving me some heavy Spore flashbacks. In case that's a game you missed, 2008's Spore was a funky little space-sim with several minigames stacked onto its back-end.
While it fell short of Maxis' lofty promises, I still have fond memories of its creature creator—which people used to make anything other than functional animals. Like this horrifying disembodied head of Homer Simpson, which growls like a vile spirit risen from the pits of hades.
Similar patterns are emerging in Starfield—last week someone made a full F1 car, and it's only gone downhill (or gloriously uphill, depending on your tastes) from there. After all, who wants a boring old clunker of a spaceship when you could be flying through space astride Thor's mighty hammer Mjölnir.
My newest ship design: Mjölnir from r/Starfield
Reddit user TheStealthyNumber managed to pull this off by stuffing most of the important guts inside the ship, which makes it "fast and mobile … as soon as we can get a mod for proper ramming damage, it will be glorious."
I've also been deeply appreciating all the funky obscure Star Wars ships from the community shipyard. That love of a galaxy far, far away has extended to its other vehicles, with the aptly-named user PuttingInTheEffort's pod racer and user Caliartist's Sandcrawler.
Now this is podracing! from r/Starfield
Star Wars Sandcrawler cargo ship. Best I could manage without vertical panels. from r/Starfield
Vehicles from the real world have also been made star-worthy with a little ingenuity. Here's a massive truck by user Xeppeling and a bi-plane by user DevilZoku. The latter does unfortunately use a tolerance mod to hide key components and kitbash parts together, but it's still a beaut to look at.
We're Space Truckin' now from r/Starfield
Space Game? No, Flight Sim from r/Starfield
My favourite by far, however, is user SirRealest's creation. You see, they're here to do business with a big iron on their hip. The ship's fully legit, too, forged in the crucible of the game's console version: "[The] 9 block height limit (on console) made this a pain to finalise, but I’m happy with it for now." Texas Red better watch out.
starfield from r/Starfield
It's a real testament to players' creativity that we're already getting this absurd. It's also fitting for a Bethesda game, too—after all, its fans have a worrying obsession with modding Thomas the Tank Engine into every title. This feels like the natural cause and effect of letting players rig their own custom rides, and I'm psyched to see more.
