Erlkönig: Starfield: I wish I'd known at the start…

Introduction

This is a few things people (including me) have mentioned wistfully wishing they'd known when they'd started playing Starfield. For the most part these are about game systems, not spoilers around where you can, e.g., trivially steal MagShears.

What kind of game is it?

• Starfield in an RPG set against a backdrop of space exploration, not a full space exploration game with added RPG elements.
  • no latitude/longitude
  • POIs (points of interest) vary in each game
  • these make sharing discoveries difficult in most cases, with others and with later version of yourself
• Starfield is grounded in NASA/punk style, some realism is a goal
  • no suborbital ship flight, orbital mechanics are hard to streamline, and Starfield just skips them instead of giving you some fantasy of piloted straight-down deorbits (at least as of 2026-03)

Theorycrafting

• Starfield is not really a min-max game. Just roleplay, it's fine.

Difficulty

I debated including this, since this isn't an "I wish I'd known" topic, but there is something subtle about these options I want to comment on:

• Difficulty should be chosen to be as much fun as possible for the player.
• If challenge is the objective, the game is perfectly playable even on near or max difficulty with restrictions like
  • XP+75% - no healing item use, no guns, cutter only, no item vendors, no ship vendors, no vendors at all
  • XP+73% - no armor / clothing (-2% for Vectera/Argos, starting outside)
  • Unarmed runs are playable, but I haven't tested for a difficulty ceiling
  • All of these allow using grenades, mines, and Powers.
  • None of these are recommended for new players.

Here's the important part: Raising difficulty or adding restrictions to your playstyle can dramatically affect gameplay and Skill choices. This is a great way to add novelty and increase game replay value.

Anyway, we now return to the "I wish I'd known" theme.

Skills

• No Skill is essential
• Skills that just boost a percentage can be put off, notably Wellness and Fitness
• Lootgoblins don't need Weightlifting, they're going to be overburdened even with it
• If you try to capture ships early, Piloting tier 3+ will spare you some grief
• Ships killed in the M.A.S.T. simulator count as real ship kills for Skill Challenges
• Stealth + Dueling + Concealment is perfect for sneak backstabs, and saves ammo
• Skill Magazines are the most important finds during play, being one of the few things where the effects are permanent for that character, even into NG+. There are 105 as of 2026-03

Powers

• Several Powers work through walls and ceiling around the point of impact
• Solar Flare can open Emergency Doors - from the wrong side
• Gravity Well can pull things out of enclosed shelves
• Some Powers may not be fully effective against Horrors in Dazra

Gear (Weapons, Armor, Ammo, Gear Perks)

• Some weapons can be charged up by holding the trigger
• Pick up (and optionally drop) weapons to auto-collect their ammo

Health

There are some ways to recover (some) health without using healing meds

• Leveling - full heal
• Starving before eating - can bring you up from near-dead to around 40%
• Life Forced
• Rejuvenation

Outposts

• Outposts and supply connections are designed around a "pull" model, meaning either a resource being built - or you - must trigger a demand for supplies to be sent. If you want a "push" model where local containers are just kept full, you're going to need mods.

Ships

• There's a hidden ship engine stat around boosting: engines like the 3015s are great at it, and those huge unlockable cargo engines many people adore (among others) are terrible at it.
• There's a hidden missile stat (when purchasing) for the magazine size. Large magazines are game changers for low-powered ships that want to mount one or even two sets of missiles with a single pip of power each. The largest magazine size is 14, shared by the Infiltrators. The second best is 10, shared by the Tsukisasu and Hunter Mags.
• That brief tutorial you got in ship stealth early on actually works. Jumping to a new system with minimal power makes you much less noticeable. Failing a contraband scan in ship stealth delays being found if you're more than 500m from other ships.
• While still coming out of a grav jump into a new system, you can often avoid the foes awaiting you by going into the starmap to jump to another system (scan what planet(s) you can first).

Ship Purchases / Captures tradeoffs

• Capturing ships is vastly more cost-effective than purchasing them.
• Both approaches are solid ways to get a ships with parts you can't build into a ship yourself, due to level, credits, or missing unlocks.
• Getting a large reactor early is especially helpful
• Make sure you have a sufficient Piloting tier to fly it

Ship Capturing

• You can often ground-capture ships without even seeing an enemy.
• When ground-capturing ships, bypass any crew outside, since alerting them can cause the ship to launch.
  • Be sure to save before entering, in case it does launch
    • If it does launch, and meets its enemies above, you should capturing it ASAP before its foes blow you all to bits.
• Once you have Targeting, especially, you can pretty often capture ships even without EM weapons, by simply targeting their engines, but this works better at higher difficulties.
• When fighting elites on a ship, one key advantage you have is that NPCs cannot fight while on a ladder, so shoot them on ladders, boost up when they go down, drop down when they go up. Rarely, an NPC will jump down the ladder anyway.
  • This is especially important on Extreme below level ~15
• Just before taking the enemy pilot's chair during a ship capture, stuff all your random stolen items into that ship's cargo and/or captain's locker (still testing which). Taking the ship will often strip off the stolen tags.

Ship Cargo

• The Captain's Locker is ship specific, and the contents do not follow you as you change Home Ships.
• You can move things from your ship's cargo into a built chest - or just to the floor - to free up cargo space, although you'll have to put it back into cargo or your Inventory to have it show up for crafting.

Selling Starships

• You can register a ship through your own Fleet UI for fewer credits.
• Starship vendors have the most credits, a massive additional source to mine by selling off large captured ships.

Selling Contraband

The easiest way to sell contraband is places that can be reached by ship and that don't scan your ship first:

• The Den
• The Red Mile (don't accidentally steal the glass thing in front of her)
• The Key (pirates only)
• Trade Authority ships around shipyards that don't scan, like Deimos

Historically you could pile contraband on your ship's floor, switch ships, fly to New Atlantis, switch back to the ship with the decorated floor, then gather the contraband to go sell. Not sure this still works.

Followers

• Followers are immortal, consume no ammo (but need one matching round), and will recover if you can escape combat.
• Follower clothing, armor, and weapons can be upgraded; make sure they're actually equipped.
• If you don't mind seriously abusing your follower, the Oracle can be cleared even at level 10 or below. It is quite difficult. Don't get hit. Save often. Gear up the follower as you go. Best way to get a Va'ruun blade early.
• If you need a stealthy follower, take Andreja, or find Chameleon armor for one of the others.
• Polyamory is possible, but to marry Andreja you must be single at the time. You can then make her angry by marrying the others. She'll recover.
• You can have extra followers, sort of, by not finishing quests that add NPCs to your party, like the questchain to become a Ranger in Akila.

Starborn

• Starborn can be pickpocketed. They generally don't have much beyond a weapon and ammo.
• Starborn can be looted (not just the Hunter and Emissary in the Buried Temple). It's almost impossible to time it right, now - it used to be easier. If you do try, hammering the open-corpse-inventory key is the way - if it opens at all, you can loot everything.
• Starborn ships can be captured - only on the ground - by running up their wing as they're landing. The door activator is on the hull just below the door, and will go live for mere seconds. The crew inside is almost always outside after you enter. Even if you don't capture it, you can loot it and then go back out to farm the Starborn for Essence.
• Starborn ships can be captured at higher tiers than the one you might have been co-3D-printed with in NG+. Check "Eastern" systems, especially temperate moons, after helping Walter survive his unique purchase in Neon.
• Starborn ships can be captured in pre-NG, not just NG+.
• Starborn Guardian ships can routinely capture enemy ships on the higher difficulties
• Enemy Guardians moving in space near you produce distinctive distortions you can see, even when they're quite far away and behind you

Quests

• There is a boost pack just above the mine in Vectera you can squeeze out through a slot between the locked door and the cage.
• Finishing the Crimson Fleet questline and keeping a certain key from it causes GalBank Credit Tanks to start appearing in POIs.
  • Once you have it, take your time leaving, some rooms have been unlocked and you aren't actually under any time pressure.

Bugs

• Fast Travel is the answer to a huge number of bugs.
• Reloading is the next answer, solving overlapped ships, misbehaving quests, etc.
• Restarting the game program is the most command solution to texture issues.
• You can Fast Travel when overburdened in your Rover, especially to your ship
  • Moving straight to the ship in the starmap's planet view may not give you the option unless you first hover over the POI it landed at.

Mods

See Mods for a list of common crazy makers and their fixes.

Past the Unity and Starfield's Meta-Arc

• When you're about to faceplant into the big pretty orb, web search for 17e727 first
• Remember what you were just asked near that orb: "Who will you be?" Changing how you play - main weapons, main Skills / Powers used, which questline branches are taken, aggressive vs diplomatic, etc, are key to continuing to enjoy the game. Every time you use the same weapon as before, for example, limits the novelty. Novelty and self, and meaning, are critical philosophical questions certain NPCs talk about all the time, and are the game's meta-arc.
• Knowledge and thinking allow you to play the game in crazy ways that seem impossible early on