Most of the hardcore Bethesda RPG fans who’ve invested thousands of hours into Skyrim and Fallout 4 can't wait for the release of Starfield, which is set for September 6.
These would-be interstellar explorers got plenty of fresh answers regarding what to expect from their trip to space at this month’s Starfield Direct, which featured everything from some potential peeks at Earth, to surprisingly valuable sandwiches and even a ship with a rage quit button.
While some have been left contemplating how their interactions with the Adoring Fan and a mysterious space-faring Grandma might go, one has decided to put their maths skills to the test by attempting to calculate the exact scale of an in-game planet.
How big do you think each of Starfield’s planets will be?
The celestial surveyor in question is Reddit user XxXMach_SevenXxX, who has put together a post on r/starfield that showcases their efforts to estimate the scale of the planet Nemeria IV-a.
The data they used to do so, which covered the distance to the planet's horizon and the strength of its gravity in comparison Earth, was gleaned from a brief shot of it shown in the exploration section of the game's recent deep-dive.
Calculating based on these values that the planet must have a radius of around 100 miles and a diameter that’s just under half that of the Earth, they came to the conclusion that the scale of the game’s worlds is 20 to 1, which they believe to be: “quite respectable for a game this ambitious!”
While many were impressed by the cosmic brain power on display, some of their fellow players quickly highlighted possible aspects of the planet that might not make it an ideal basis upon which to calculate the scale of the entire game, such as it being a moon, that its size might not correlate exactly to its gravity, and that the player in the screenshot is seemingly standing atop a hill.
Similarly, user Reasonabledwarf suggested that one of the HUD markers visible in the image could suggest that the horizon is further away than XxXMach_SevenXxX estimated, which would make the planet larger than their calculations predicted.
Thankfully, XxXMach_SevenXxX seems to have taken this criticism in their stride, saying: “Yeah, there are a lot of questions that could invalidate my calculations, I just wanted to put some maths out [there)] to see what could be [in] our future.”
Regardless of whether you’re brushing up on your number-crunching skills in order to become the ultimate navigator in Starfield, make sure to follow us for lots of guides to its world and mechanics.
You can also check out our latest mods of the month for some killer Skyrim and Fallout mods that’ll help tide you over until release.