As Todd Howard had previously said, Starfield was designed to give us players a better appreciation of the scale of our galaxy. The result is more than 1,600 celestial bodies orbiting 120 star systems.
With procedural generation, anything goes when it comes to star system design.
Take this discovery, for example. We all know that moons and planets maintain a distance from each other as they ply the heavens. It’s not because they’re having a domestic dispute or are giving each other the cold shoulder. It’s because of gravity and tidal forces.
The smaller body gets ripped apart by the gravitational pull of the bigger one if it gets too close. However, we see Starfield’s procedural generation ignore some science and develop an extremely clingy moon.
This discovery was made by Reddit user ultra99999 two days ago. They immediately put up a thread with four photos describing the moon as a satellite to an unnamed gas giant.
Seeing how the moon’s dark side is very close to the planet, ultra99999 decided to land there to see the view. As they described it, the view was “not bad,” but is interesting.
We’re amazed at how the moon remained intact this close to the planet, a proximity that would’ve caused constant earthquakes. One user pointed out that the moon should be extremely stressed, leading other players to remark that so are they hilariously.
Jump to the Reddit thread to join the discussion or enjoy ultra9999’s uploaded images.
This discovery reminds us of one of our previous Outpost of the Week entries. This outpost is located on the moon Grimsey, which orbits the gas giant Deepala. The builder oriented the outpost so that its viewing room offers the best view of the moon’s parent planet.