The sheer volume of different environmental biomes on alien planets inStarfieldis honestly impressive. Players can land their ships and explore vast deserts, frozen tundras, muggy swamps, and picturesque forests. However, there’s a terrain type that a majority of players only discover 20+ hours into their playthrough or miss entirely, Coast Biomes.
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This is because, technically, Coast Biomes are sort of a ‘secondary’ Biome that can be applied to others as players will see with examples like Rocket Desert (Coast). So, to help new players save themselves from some unnecessary frustration or educate veteran players who missed this small mechanic entirely, here’s what Coast Biomes are inStarfieldand some tips on when players should start looking out for them.
Coast Biome Overview
Coast Biomes, in essence, are basically just another Biome for players to explore inStarfieldalongside all the others such as Mountains, Forests, or Desert Biomes. However, while clicking along the coastline in the Planetary view to find a (Coast) landing spot may seem simple, it can be pretty finicky. As seen in the image above, sometimes a Landing Area that looks to be almost in the ocean itself won’t count as a Coast, but a Landing area even further inland will.
Any Biome touching the ocean likely has a (Coast) map for it, though this isn’t 100 percent guaranteed. This means almost every planet has multiple (Coast) maps, even if there aren’t any necessary Fauna or Flora in them.
Typically there aren’t many Fauna, Flora, or Resources that are only found in Coast Biomes, but on average players will find that they need to go to the Coast every couple of planets they Survey (usually inthe pursuit of a Skill Challenge) in order to Scan a certain species of plant or fish that can’t be found anywhere else.
Why Players Find Coast Biomes Frustrating
Now, let’s go over exactly why so many people are unaware Coast Biomes even exist and why the ones who are aware of their existence find them irritating. Typically,when players discover all the Flora, Fauna, or Resources a specific Biome on a planet has to offer, the words ‘Biome Completed’ will appear along that line of the Scanner Tasks.This is a message letting players know that they’ve found all the Scan subjects of that specific type this Biome has to offer, and they should go to another one to find the others. However, because the ‘Coast’ Biome is basically a variant or specialized area of different Biomes (AKA Mountains (Coast), Forest (Coast), or Desert (Coast)), this message won’t appear if the last Scan Subject the player needs in this Biome is in the Coast region, which can be pretty infuriating. This unintentional deception is what leads many players down the route of spending needless minutes, hours, or even days running around a specific Biome looking for that elusive last Scan subject when all they needed to do was go to the Coastline.
On the local map, players can easily find where the Coastline is by looking at the edges of the map, if there’s a section that has no topography at all (and also has some inaccessible sections of the map sort of ‘dipping down’) this is most likely where players will find the ocean.
Another reason Coast Biomes are irritating is simply, more often than not, the last Scan subject the Coast Biome is hiding is a specific species of Fish, and Scanning enough of these to get to 100 percent can be mind-numbingly tedious.Swimming inStarfieldis obviously something that didn’t get a ton of polishfrom the dev team at Bethesda, as it barely works at all. While swimming, players aren’t able to dive underneath the surface at all, they swim at an incredibly slow speed, and if they want to fire their weapons (oruse a certain Power to mark nearby lifeforms) they’ll need to do so using the Boost Pack to get into the air. Thankfully, at the very least, Bethesda seems to have given aquatic species the same Hand Scanner priority as flying Fauna, meaningplayers can scan aquatic lifeforms from much farther away than they normally should be able to.To summarize, while Coastline Biomes are a nice idea, there really needed to be some in-game tutorial prompt or loading screen tip that mentions them.
When Players Should Start Searching The Coast
Lastly, let’s briefly go over when players should ‘assume’ thatthe last Scan Subject they’re searching foris in a Coast Biome. If players feel they’ve thoroughly explored a certain Biome yet haven’t received the ‘Biome Completed’ message on their Fauna tasks, for example, that doesn’t necessarily mean the last creature is in the Coast.Remember, the ‘Biome Completed’ message has nothing to do with Coast maps,as it could give the player this message in a Rocky Desert even though the last plant they’re looking for is absolutely in the Rocket Desert (Coast).
Additionally, players should keep in mind that some Biomes have a tendency to spawn certain creatures less than other Biomes. So, just because a player can’t find the last Fauna creature in a Desert Biome, doesn’t mean they should keep wandering around aimlessly. Instead, just fast-travel to another Biome that also isn’t at 100 percent completion, and more often than not, the creature will be easier to find there. However, if players explore multiple Biomes and can’t seem to find this elusive creature, it’s probably time to search the Coastlines of any and all Biomes on the planet in question.
Starfieldis available now for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
