Starfield is amazing – except for one major thing

As a Game Pass subscriber, I didn't have to buy Starfield, so I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, but I have a real problem with it. I'm about 15 hours In and I love the game. It's huge and full of the usual Bethesda goodness. I love just picking a direction and seeing where the world takes me.

There's just one problem, I hate the space combat. I'm not talking about boarding ships and fighting person to person, I mean ship to ship. I had visions of the Death Star trench run from Star Wars: A New Hope, dogfights amongst the stars with daring manoeuvres and ace pilots. That's not quite the case in Starfield. 

Like I said, I'm about 15 hours in and space combat has been the biggest obstacle to progress for me so far, any mission that requires it I'm likely to avoid.  Ships are cumbersome to control and enemies often catch you in a seemingly unavoidable stream of lasers. The game recommends boosting to avoid gunfire, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. 

As for my own attempts to fight back? It mainly consists of alternating between RT,LT and Y (I'm on an Xbox controller) to spam what are essentially light, medium and heavy attacks. It's not really like there's an aiming component to it either as it's all about getting a lock on and then giving 'em hell. I'm not using the base ship anymore, but I still haven't found any way to perform evasive actions like barrel rolls.

One mission had me fighting a bunch of mercenaries in space, and I must have died about forty times, more than the rest of my adventures combined. Unable to get away and take my business elsewhere, I had to reload an earlier save and then skirt around the planet.

I really can't stress how much I am enjoying the game, and there are space mechanics I like, namely the exploration. I just wish I could board hostile ships like a space pirate instead of the constant space Twister of trying to dodge enemy missiles and lasers (you can do this to rob passing merchants and civilians). Bethesda's latest is a whole galaxy of fun, but please let me keep my feet on the ground.