See Distances in Light Years

As of December 3rd, 2024, I no longer have plans to actively mod Starfield.

This mod is unlikely to receive further updates.

Bethesda has recently allowed paid mods to be tagged as Achievement Friendly on the Creations platform, with no plans to make accommodations for free mods. They are also allowing mod authors to re-upload free mods as paid mods to get the Achievement Friendly tag, at the request of console mod users.

This effectively disincentivizes free mods from being published, as it will push console users to stick with purely paid load orders in order to continue earning achievements. This was the final nail in the coffin for my interest in Starfield, and I no longer wish to support the money-first modding ecosystem that Bethesda is attempting to create.

Thank you to everyone who has used my work. I am happy to have been able to share things which have improved the game for so many people.

Does what it says on the tin. Makes your ship's HUD display interstellar distances in light years (LY) instead of astronomical units (AU).

Also increases the maximum light second (LS) value from 50,000 to 500,000. If anything is further than that, distance will start being measured at 0. 02 LY.

Personally, I found AU to be illegible for these sort of distances. LY is much easier to interpret at a glance, especially if you are used to other space games.

How does it work?

In the GlobalFunc script within the buttonclips.swf file, the following lines have been changed from:

private static const MetersInAU:Number = 149597870700;

private static const MaxLightSecondsDisplay:Number = 50000 MetersInLightSeconds;

_loc2_ = FormatNumberToString(param1 / MetersInAU,AUPrecision) + " AU";

private static const MetersInAU:Number = 9460730777119560;

private static const MaxLightSecondsDisplay:Number = 500000 MetersInLightSeconds;

_loc2_ = FormatNumberToString(param1 / MetersInAU,AUPrecision) + " LY";

Can be installed mid-save and should work immediately. No special steps required. Either use your favorite mod manager to install automatically, or manually install it by putting buttonclips.swf into your "Data/Interface" folder.

Uninstalling

Can be removed at any time, doesn't matter. It's just a flash file, so it's completely safe. You will immediately see AU again upon loading a save which previously had this mod.

Compatibility

Modifies buttonclips.swf. Any other mod which makes specific changes to this file will be incompatible without a patch.