The Starfield no-planets run: space pirate Mary Read is born

HomeFeaturesStarfield

The Starfield no-planets run: space pirate Mary Read is bornSink me, another diary feature!

Sink me, another diary feature!

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios

An image of a ship exploding in Starfield

Mary Read, in all her Level 6 glory. |Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of a player character called Mary Read in Starfield, wearing a spacesuit and holding a shotgun.

To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settingsWas Starfield worth the wait? Liam and Alice B discuss this question - and more - in the video above.Watch on YouTube

To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings

Leaving Luna to the Spacers who prowl its mech graveyards, I head to orbit in my barely upgraded Frontier -the game’s starting vessel- and set out to wreak terror upon the Sol system. My voyage clearly has the blessing of the gods of the Seven Seas, for I immediately stumble on a drifting Star Parcel freighter off the shoulder of Pluto. The freighter captain begs me to assist with an important delivery, and after badgering them into paying some compensation upfront, I agree. Even as the funds transfer, I’m already circling behind the other ship and opening my targeting computer to perform a surprise attack on their Graviton drive, my fingers itching in anticipation of a bloody boarding action. Haha, this will be like taking candy from a ba-GREAT JENNY’S TEACUP!

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of a freighter shooting rockets at the player’s spaceship in Starfield.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game StudiosImage credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game StudiosImage credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game StudiosImage credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios

An image of the player’s ship exploding in Starfield.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios

An image of the player’s ship exploding in Starfield.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios

An image of the player’s ship exploding near Saturn in Starfield.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of three blue-white United Colonies ships in Starfield, floating in formation close to the player’s craft.

Among the basic tricks a budding freebooter in Starfield must master is not accidentally wrecking a ship you’re trying to hijack. My understanding going in is that I need to engage close-up targeting mode (one of the early Tech unlocks), then target and disable my victim’s engines, so they can’t slip away when I try to dock with them, and also their Graviton drive, so they can’t warp out of the region altogether. But doing this without shredding the other craft proves fiddly.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

The player targeting a spaceship’s systems in Starfield.

This is partly because ships tend to move about when you fire rockets at them, so that your shots often strike components you’re not aiming at. And it’s partly because, gah, I don’t know. What am I missing? The game’s navigation and scanner HUDs are violently confusing. Each HUD plays some part in the process of locking onto ships and targeting their systems, but I keep mixing them up. In one HUD, clicking the right stick performs vital mid-combat hull repairs. In the other, it engages Photo Mode. It’s as though my ship were in the hands of two captains, one of whom is trying to make the cover of Time Magazine.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

The player destroying a spaceship in Starfield.

The game also considerately feeds me a fewinter-factional dust-upswhere I can, in theory, pick a winner. At one point, I arrive in orbit to discover a battle underway between the UC and the ne’er-do-wells of the Crimson Fleet - my salty comrades-in-arms, except that true pirates have no allegiances. This is perfect! I’ll let them duke it out, then descend upon the survivor like the wrath of Blackbeard and, you know what, never mind.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bethesda Game Studios

An image of the player’s ship exploding in Starfield.

There’s nothing for it. I’m going to have to resort to that most craven and dishonourable weapon of the enterprising Black Bart - the art of conversation. I’ve read somewhere that you can bully or trick other pilots into letting you dock with them, and start accepting a few hails and dipping my toe into a few quests, eyes peeled for a “lower arms and prepare to be boarded” option.

First on the menu is Dr Sohla Banglawala, a scientist I meet in a debris cloud somewhere, who sounds like a proper side character with a multi-stage questline. “It’s been a long time since I had company,” she sighs. I attempt to flirt my way aboard, but alas, my cunning overtures are met only with absent-minded requests for lithium and bad jokes about geologists. So I try to murder her in cold blood, and she escapes to hyperspace. Let’s do this properly next time, Dr Banglawala.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of the player talking to a side character, Dr Sohla Banglawala, in Starfield. The doctor is requesting geological samples.

Then I encounter a Settler Econohaul. The ship’s captain isn’t important enough to have a name, and the vessel is barely armed. But they prove astonishingly pugnacious when I try to shout them into submission, forcing me to make another attempt at ballistic sabotage and, yep, thar she blows. I probably should have put more points on Social at the outset, but then again, I can’t fly a spaceship with sheer force of charisma.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of the player in dialogue with an enemy ship captain in Starfield. The other captain is refusing to hand over their cargo.

I move in dutifully for the kill, and something occurs to me: what if I risk leaving the other ship’s Graviton drive intact, and just focus on nuking their engines, to minimise the chances of inadvertently destroying it? I’ve been operating on the principle that they’ll just jump to hyperspace if they’re given the chance. I mean, it’s what I’d do. It’s what a sensible person would do. But it occurs to me that Bethesda NPCs aren’t celebrated for being sensible.

OK, UC Transpo, let’s rid you of those engines - bang bang bang. Off they go! Now, which HUD mode am I supposed to be using again? Hang on, has that “Dock” prompt been there all along? Oh my god oh my god.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of the player’s spaceship docking with a civilian vessel in Starfield.

YES.

With a yo ho ho and a sawn-off shotgun I’m finally aboard another ship, hooting and hollering down the corridors. Avast, ye bilge-sucking star plankton! Come back here and take your medicine, ye sons of biscuits. Look, please come back. I appreciate that you’re probably delivering teddy bears to an orphanage or something and that you’ve only got one popgun to share between you, but please - put up some kind of fight. I really need this.

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of a player boarding a spaceship in Starfield, with a dead crew member in the foreground and another running down a hallway behind.

Having joyfully massacred a lot of innocent space truckers I slide behind the UC Transpo’s steering column, blood thundering in my temples, the foul, rum-spiced breath of my legendary ancestor whistling in my ears. The vessel is mine! I promptly cut my starting ship loose and plot a fresh course to Mars. I’m a real pirate, mum. Now to open the Hangar menu and consider my prize. Oh wow!

Image credit:RockPaperShotgun / Bethesda

An image of a transport ship in the player’s hangar menu in Starfield.

It’s a piece of shit!