With Minimum Enemy Level (MEL) you don't have to worry about outleveling content anymore. This is relevant in the first universe already and even more so in all NG+ afterwards.

Little heads up for the new sister mod - they go very well in tandem:

Minimum System Level at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

"No more encounters with LVL 2 Spacers while you are LVL 27."

Enemies on foot (ie not Ships) below 75% of current player level are scaled upwards to reach 75% of current player level. They stay interesting that way, but still below the player's current power level (so you can feel your character growth). In numbers or on high difficulties they remain a factor to reckon with - encountered alone, on normal difficulty you can bounce them around properly :-). From v1.2 onwards their hp values should now be very close to the hp values of same level enemies in the unmodded game.


"It's still not a good idea to explore a high level system as a noob."

Enemies above 75% of the current player level remain untouched - there is especially no downscaling. So a level 20 player can eg encounter level 17, level 22 or level 98 enemies - just as rolled by the default spawn tables. Only when enemy levels drop below level 15 (for our level 20 player), MEL will kick in and scale them up to level 15.

This way MEL strongly differs from the great already existing enemy leveling mods, as far as I know at least ("pure scalers"): Instead of scaling all enemies - regardless of their own level - to player level multiplied with a factor, MEL only effects lower than player level enemies (75%). Additionally, pure scaler mods do inherently also downscale: When the spawn tables would roll a level 70 enemy for a level 20 player (in a high level system), a pure scaler mod with e.g. a factor of 1.5 for that enemy would make that enemy have level 30 (player level 20 * 1.5 scaling factor) instead of the intended level 70.

"No, no limits!"

MEL allows the spawning of enemy levels above the maximum of vanilla Starfield (around level 120 at max for a select few enemy types). This way even in NG+16  with your level 200 character you will still find challenging level 150 enemies (75%) that you might have sorely missed in vanilla Starfield.

"At player level 200 you maybe dont want enemies exactly your level."

A last thing to consider is that the player level/real power ratio gets flatter and flatter on very high player levels. This is because there comes a point when you have all combat relevant skills and best equipment already. Beyond that point additional player levels do only little (HP). Enemies are not affected that much by these diminishing returns of higher levels as many of their stats just autoscale upward with level. So maybe encoutering a lvl 150 enemy with a lvl 200 player is much more of a challenge than you intuitevly think :-).  Or maybe it isnt for your toon, who am I to say:-).

"Never will forget my first Terrormorph!"

As a little added flavor Starborn and Terrormorphs as most iconic enemies even scale up to the full player level. These will never be cannon fodder.


How it was done
MEL is a pure .esm mod, made with xEdit. It activates the PC Multiplier and Stat Autocalculate flags for all enemies. At the same time it scales them to 0.75 (PCMult), but sets a calculated minimum level of exactly the intended level of the enemy.

You can use the mod right away, midgame. It cannot hurt to make a manual save beforehand though to return to in case of problems anyway (should be good standard practice).

Installation

• With Starfield's June 2024 update (Creations) installation has become much easier (the Plugins Enabler mod and therewith SFSE is no longer needed to install this mod)
• Just download the mod version of your choice from the files section, unzip it and place the .esm file into your game's data folder 
• Double check ingame in the Creations menu (available from Main Menu), then Load Order submenu, whether your chosen .esm has a checkmark. Ideally move it down the load order, so that it is loaded last (this prevents it from being overwriten by preceding mods)  
  

In the files section under optional files you can also find two alternative versions of the mod that either scale up to 100% or up to 50%. Furthmore, you can also find alternative variants of the mod there that exclude Heatleeches from being scaled up. 

Credits
Shout out and many thanks to ljorder66 who made the first Leveled Enemies mod I am aware of (real pioneer work there)
Without xEdit and Elminster's work of a genius all this would not be possible, so, many kudos to Elminster and team.
Also, big hug and thanks to Nukem for the - as of June 2024 no more needed, but beforehand lifesaving - PluginText enabler mod.

If you like the mod a tiny bit, I would be really happy about an endorsement for good karma. This makes me cozy warm inside :-) and fuels me for the updates I will have to undoubtly do as Bethesda rolls out patches and DLC.

If you are just curious about other stuff I am up to, please have a look here:

DOE Resources
DOE Resources at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Sell Price
DOE Sell Price at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Starpower
DOE Starpower at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Loot
DOE Loot at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Ammo Rarity
DOE Ammo Rarity at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Ammo Prices
DOE Ammo Prices at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Skill Progression
DOE Skill Progression at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Research
DOE Research at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
DOE Less Shortcuts
DOE Less Shortcuts at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Replicant
Replicant at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
XP Unchained
XP Unchained at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Sneak Damage Hotfix
Sneak Damage Hotfix at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Equipment Level Requirements (ELR)
Equipment Level Requirements (ELR) at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
NGXP Plus / NGXP Plus Risk
NGXP Plus at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Minimum Enemy Level
Minimum Enemy Level at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Fauna Protection Initiative
Fauna Protection Initiative at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Spongecop
Spongecop at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Building Rarity
Building Rarity at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
Minimum System Level
Minimum System Level at Starfield Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)