The second major expansion for Starfield is coming on 7th April with the release of Terran Armada, but it might be the Free Lanes update that will be more impactful for the experience of playing Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG. Oh, and it’s coming to PS5 on that same day too!
Nobody expects the Terran Armada!
The Terran Armada expansion brings a new questline to the Settled Systems, as a huge… well, it’s a huge armada of ships from old Terra that appears out of the aether and threatens the free planets. There’s new characters to meet, locations to explore, and the threat of the Terran incursions will move around the star map terrorising different planets. They bring gravity dampener tech with them to trap ships and blockade planets, so you’ll need to find a way around that, and then there’s robotic forces to battle on the ground.
It’s an interesting new galactic threat after the single location narratives of Shattered Space, and part of the excitement will be the new ships and modules for keen ship builders out there. There’s new Terran ships in each of the size classes, but you can’t just buy them, you’ll have to commandeer them – the Saladin looks particularly sleek with a Star Destroyer wedge shape and an angled speed boat bridge. You will be able to buy some of the new modules, though.
Cruise the Free Lanes of Starfield
Alongside the paid expansion is the Free Lanes update, with the most attention-grabbing feature being Cruise Mode. Up until now, travel between planets within a system could only be done by fast travelling, either from the map or from waypoints in space. Now, however, you can point your ship in that direction and enter Cruise Mode. It’s more thematically fitting with an Elite: Dangerous or No Man’s Sky, letting you feel like you’re actually flying between planets.
You have four discrete speeds of Cruise Mode, from being faster while in orbit of a planet, to being able to bridge the gap between celestial bodies in a few minutes. You can stay in the pilot seat for this, or lock in autopilot and have a walk around, talking to companions, managing inventory, even redecorating. A compass in the screen corner has a travel time, so you can get back to the cockpit in time to reach your destination.
Stay at the flightstick, though, and you can spot anomalies in space, little generated points of interest you might visit, and interdiction events that see hostiles pulling you out of Cruise Mode. Approaching a planet or event shows what’s really happening here: locations still have their size limits, and Cruise Mode is joining them up, like a fancy loading screen. It’s a clever solution, though.
There are plenty more quality of life and added features in the Free Lanes update, though.
X-Tech extends your guns and gear
X-Tech is a brand new resource that you will earn from boss chests and around dungeons, and it’s the path to a major new way to upgrade and customise your weapons.
Instead of waiting for god rolls for your guns, X-Tech can be used to roll for legendary modifiers, multiple times… until you’ve rolled 5 times, at which point you have a fully free choice of modifier. There’s now Rank 1, 2, 3 and 4, with 4 being the most powerful and playstyle affecting – Kismet means that some reloads will give triple ammo, Reckless reduces mag size to 1 bullet but ramps up damage massively, Saboteur can instantly kill robots. Add on top of this Quality Levels and… there’s a lot of weapon powering up!
All of this can also be applied to helmets, body armour, all your other gear, and can even be used to improve and customise your ships further.
There’s new modules including EM Pulse Shielding, Repair System Overdrive, Evasive Stealth Drive, a Micro Reactor, and more. X-Tech can then be spent at the Ship Optimisation Terminal – found in the decoration module – applying upgrades and boosts to shields, weapons, ammo reload, targeting and beyond.
Quantum entanglement
What’s the point of all these upgrades if you’re just going to leave them behind on a New Game Plus run? Well… now you don’t have to! Build a Quantum Entanglement Device at The Lodge and you can use Quantum Essence to store items and have them pass through the Unity with you when you become Starborne and reboot. Most things can go into this inventory, so you can stash weapons, space suits, grenades, ammo, med packs and more.
Quantum Essence is also now usable to let you upgrade Starborne abilities without grinding through temple locations on each hop. Now you can farm Essence by destroying other Starborne ships
New companions
Fan favourite Maria is now recruitable as a companion, and then there’s Model G, which is basically this game’s R2-D2 / BB-8. It’s a cute little robot, and you can swap its personality and colour scheme at will.
Pets and toys at the Outpost
There’s some fun additions to outposts, including creature habitats with hyperactive little animals rampaging around inside them. There’s also a Milliwhale pet, which is a quet reward in Free Lanes, like a sci-fi crustacean that you can play with – teach it to play dead, for example – and (similar to Model G) change how it looks.
Furthering the customisation options are texture suites for Freestar and Pirate styles, while ‘one and done’ players can slap down an all-in-one Elevated Cabin space with everything you’ll need in an outpost. A new shared outpost container gives you access to all your gear between planets and outposts.
Another major time sink will be the Colony War Action Heroes. They’re Vault Boy toy equivalents, can be found sealed or unsealed and placed on a playset. Find them and on first pickup they will reward you with a player buff.
Faster Fast Travel
A new database in the game menu shows known planets and outposts, settlements and cities, giving them all a place in a faster to navigate system. These can direct you to a particular resource you need, list all your outposts, and then just let you fast travel there. No more scrolling the star map, just faster fast travel.
New planetary POIs and a Moon Jumper
New POIs have been created to add variety to the admittedly repetitive planetary exploration.
One of those POIs has a garage with a Moon Jumper that you can commandeer. It has silly boost jets on the bottom and rear, basically letting you hop up into the sky and then fly around for a bit. It looks silly and fun.
A space station to call your own
There’s a new aspirational item for earning all the loot and all the money you possibly can, with an asteroid space station that you’ll maybe, one day, be able to call your own.
Trackers Alliance expanded!
Available today, and not just on the 7th April, the Trackers Alliance (available for 700 Creations Credits in-game) has been expanded with five new Trackers Alliance adventures. These are free to existing owners.
Phew! That’s a lot of new features and changes for Starfield! As a final reminder, the Free Lanes update and Terran Armada DLC both drop on 7th April for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and it’s all coming alongside the PS5 launch of Starfield on the same day.
