Atmosphere Affects Radiation

This mod was initially created for personal use and utilizes the same planetary keyword system Bethesda employs.

If you've done some exploring in Starfield, you've probably noticed how "extreme radiation environment" hazards don't always make sense. For example, the first thing you see when leaving your ship on Venus is "extreme solar radiation", even though that's the only non-issue on the real planet. Or, you might find a perfect paradise moon on the distant outskirts of a remote system—complete with breathable atmosphere, a decent magnetosphere, tropical forests, safe oceans, plentiful life and a spectacular view of gas giant rings—only to be greeted with radiation poisoning the moment you step outside (looking at you, Schrödinger VIII-a).

The opposite is also true: some barren, atmosphereless rocks are often completely safe from radiation, even while being fried by the local sun (like Volii Beta near Neon). And those that aren't safe only have dangerous radiation levels during local daytime—which makes no sense for bodies like Pluto (getting little sunlight) or the Moon (and basically anything without an atmosphere), where cosmic radiation is always intense.

This happens because Starfield uses a simplistic logic: "If magnetosphere < average, then radiation during daytime". This mod aims to make the system more nuanced.

The magnetosphere is no longer the only deciding factor. Instead, the atmosphere plays a major role in determining whether the surface environment is radioactive—similar to real world, where a strong magnetosphere alone can't block all radiation. While it surely helps, the atmosphere does most of the work. However, in the absence of a magnetosphere, a very dense atmosphere (like Venus’) can still prevent surface radiation entirely.

With this in mind, we have two edge cases:

• []Planets with extreme atmospheres are now shielded from radiation, no matter what.

  []Planets with no atmosphere are always exposed to radiation.

  For everything in between, a strong enough combination of atmosphere and magnetosphere is required. Based on Venus (which needs solely a level 4 atmosphere to block radiation), I've come up with a lazy "total score" system where each level of magnetosphere strength (very weak < weak < average < ...) and atmospheric pressure (thin < standard < high < extreme) contributes 1 point. Therefore a planet needs a total score of 4 to be fully shielded from radiation, which fits nicely with the default game's logic—for example, Montara Luna (with Waggoner Farm being the open settlement in established lore to have the lowest score) also has a score of 4.

  As a shameless excuse to make more planets safe slight bonus to boost habitabili