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Bethesda games are iconic. Whether it’s “I took an arrow to the knee”, being interrupted mid-fight by an overzealous courier, or installing mountains of mods, everyone can have their own fun. Starfield attempts to take the open world to the next level by launching its player into the stars.
As Starfield’s so huge, it can be hard to know just where to begin. Here are 12 top tips to help you become the ultimate space explorer.
#1: Pick Beginning Traits Carefully
In depth character customisation is becoming the norm in RPGs. In Starfield, you can take this a zero-gravity step further by picking up to 3 traits that can greatly impact your journey.
It can be tough to decide which to pick on your first playthrough of Starfield. Traits like Neon Street Rat are useful, but only if you know you’ll be getting involved in this planet’s missions. Should you ascribe to the United Colonies, or pick a religion before you know anything about it?
With all this in mind, I’d say it’s better to pick non story-related traits. I picked Kid Stuff—I loved the idea of having parents that I could visit, giving my character a bit of flavourful backstory. Turns out, it was better than I thought! You only send 500 credits home every week (if you don’t sleep much, it’s super infrequent), they give you some crazy loot, and they’re super cute, always saying how proud they are of you and bragging to their friends.
Visit the Astral Lounge in Neon sometime. Your parents might be having a bit more fun than you thought…
Other useful traits include Extrovert (if you’re like me, you’ll be travelling with a companion most of the time, so the extra oxygen is neat), Taskmaster, which can help repair your ship in dire situations at the cost of more expensive crew members, and Empath, which boosts combat effectiveness if you make choices that your companion likes (or the opposite if you don’t).
Just don’t bother getting the Hero Worshipped trait. Whilst the Adoring Fan is useful early game as a free crew member, mine just talked my ear off and gave me toilet paper. It’s a fun throwback to Starfield Oblivion, though.
#2: Use Your Scanner
Use your scanner. A lot.
Sadly, your scanner doesn’t tell you the power levels of your foes à la the Frieza Force scouter. What it does do is help you detect creatures, objects, and areas of interest when playing Starfield.
Not only is this incredibly useful when exploring hideouts, homes and other galactic structures and locating hard-to-find objects like Digipicks and Slates, it’s also necessary when surveying planets. The blue glow highlights all kind of fauna and flora, helping you take your giant leaps to gather data for mankind much easier. When these alien creatures and plants turn green, you’ve completed that particular dataset.
Are you unsure where to go in the vast galaxy? Turn on the scanner with a quest selected, and you’ll see a floating quest marker in the distance and how far away it is. Plus, you’ll see flashing arrows on the ground, showing you exactly where to go, if you need it. And I do. My god, I do.
So, scan, and scan often. It may obscure the incredible views and creatures for a bit, but it speeds up gameplay and helps those who get lost easily (not me, cough cough) from struggling too much.
#3: Save Often To Save Your Sanity
It’s an obvious one, but saving often in Starfield is a must.
The game autosaves whenever you enter a building or fast-travel anywhere. However, some missions take place all in one area, and can see you taking out waves of enemies or exploring labyrinthian buildings for a long time. One main quest in particular rivals the feeling of getting lost in Silph Co.’s warp panels as a child in Pokémon…and, wow, is it confusing. You really don’t want to have to start all over again there.
Do yourself a favour and save often. If you’re then taken out by a slavering Ashta or a particularly accurate Crimson Fleet member, you’ll not have to go back 40 minutes, cursing all the while. You’re welcome.
#4: Boost Your Game ASAP
I spent the first few hours of Starfield jumping normally. Like a chump. You’re in space, for crying out loud, with variable mavity—sorry, I mean gravity—so why restrict yourself to Stone Age level leaping?
With the sheer vastness of the galaxy, you’ll need to take advantage of every means of exploration you can get, especially as planetary vehicles aren’t an option. Unlocking the Boost Pack Training skill in the Tech tree will immediately give you a leg—or a leap—up on navigation, allowing you to cover more ground faster and jump higher to access hard-to-reach areas. It’ll also help you evade surprise attacks more effectively and reduce the sting of fall damage.
Could this have been part of the base game? Arguably, yes. That just makes unlocking the perk even more essential.
#5: Choose A Playstyle & Stick With It
With such a varied skill tree, it can be overwhelming to decide what perks to spec into, particularly in a first playthrough. How do I know if it’ll bring me endless joy to gun down my enemies with a rifle, or to take pot shots with a pistol?! Decisions, decisions.
The rub is, you probably won’t have enough skill points to spec into everything until New Game+. So, if you don’t care about stealthing your way around, don’t bother unlocking stealth or sniper perks. If you don’t want to build outposts or if you don’t survey many planets, take note that you don’t have to. In fact, I didn’t bother with base building at all, even though it’s a pretty expansive feature, if it’s up your alley.
Each perk has 4 different levels so you can graduate with a masters in pickpocketing, if that’s your jam. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to spec a bit into the Physical skill tree for increased health and carrying capacity, no matter your playstyle.
Just make sure to unlock Starship Design at some point from the Tech skill tree. Even if you don’t vibe with spaceship building, like me, having a decent ship is essential to survive combat out in the stars. Towards the end of the main story, I had to grind another two skill points to unlock this perk just to upgrade my ship enough so it didn’t turn into a pretzel at the first missile hit. You have been warned.
#6: Sharpen Your Tongue
Sometimes, pulling out an axe and having golden-cowboy Sam shoot NPCs in the face isn’t your only option. Get good with words, and quests get good outcome. Good? Good.
Unlike the sentence above, your sharp tongue can get you out of any number of sticky situations around the galaxy. Persuasion is therefore one of the most useful skills. Whilst Persuasion attempts are random, by levelling up the skill, your chances to succeed increase. If the answer is green, success is very likely, whilst red shows the lowest chance. You need to fill up the Persuasion bar to succeed, and each response has a number against it, showing how many segments of the bar will be filled if your words are inspiring or manipulative enough.
However, these numbers are somewhat deceptive. Even if you only have one attempt left and three segments still to fill, this doesn’t mean that you must pick an answer worth 3 or more. In fact, if they are unlikely to succeed, I’d suggest you don’t. If you pick an answer worth 1 and succeed, you will be given more opportunities to Persuade within the dialogue. Whilst this means more opportunities to fail, sometimes it’s better to attempt to succeed with lots of small responses than one bigger, less likely option.
This is one of the most important skills in Starfield, particularly if you want to garner favour with both important NPCs and your companions.
#7: Resist Your Kleptomaniac Tendencies
Whether you’re playing Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, or Starfield, one thing that’s a constant in Bethesda-land is the amount of useless crap strewn about the worlds.
Do NOT pick up everything you see; you’ll have a fuller inventory than a Zatu shopper at Christmas. You’ll soon learn that even the things that claim to be worth a lot of credits will not sell for much until you level up in bartering. Besides, money is easy to come by in Starfield, unless you need to pay off bounties left right and centre. You have a limited inventory, which can make you encumbered. If you’re weighed down this much, then your oxygen will deplete even when walking slowly, and you can start taking damage.
Whilst your carrying capacity can be improved, such as through the Weight Lifting skill or by upgrading your ships, it’s worth only picking up what is useful. These include health packs, better weapons, spacesuits, attire, and rarer resources to help you craft what you need.
Inventory management is the bane of an RPG-lover’s life. Just don’t let it get you down (pun intended).
#8: Digipicks Are A Girl’s Best Friend
Another reason not to pick up every fork, alien plushie, and random desk knickknack you find? The good stuff’s locked away!
Channel your inner Thieves Guild with Digipicks—this game’s version of a lockpick—to grab some of the best loot the game has to offer. You’ll also need the skill to hack into computers and complete some missions, but these are often no higher than the Novice or Advanced difficulty.
Essentially, you have 4 difficulty levels when digipicking. These determine the number of rings you must clear and how many Digipicks you must use: Novice and Advanced, which both have 2 rings, Expert, which has 3, and Master, with 4. Each Digipick has different key slots, and you need to figure out which keys fit into which open slots. But be careful—just because it fits doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work! You could lock out another key required to finish the puzzle.
Top tip: take your time and align your Digipicks against the open slots on every ring before you start slotting them in. This will stop you using the wrong picks and locking out others. Making mistakes is costly, as attempting to insert them will use up a Digipick, and undoing it will use another.
Oh, and another top tip: unlock Security level 2 ASAP so that the rings turn blue when you are hovering over a pick that fits.
Where can you find Digipicks? Keep an eye out all around the galaxy. You’ll find them on desks or shelves, or you can loot bodies or pickpocket NPCs to find them. Sometimes they are helpfully inside a safe after you’ve unlocked it, or nearby. Some vendors sell them, but not in bulk. So, use your scanner to spot these little devices as much as you can.
#9: Survey Planets For Easy EXP
One of the most exciting things about Starfield for me is the weird and wonderful alien creatures that can be found on the explorable planets. Ginormous star whales floating gracefully through the sky. Apex birds hovering menacingly. And majestic dinosaur-esque creatures, like the Mossgnath that can be found in Akila, are always incredible to watch, towering above you as they lope across the land.
It’s not just the spectacle that makes exploring these planets worthwhile. Surveying planets, particularly ones with lots of potential for life, will net you significant EXP. Once you have completed the survey data for the planet by finding enough fauna, flora and Traits, you’ll be given your EXP and a Dataslate. You can then sell this data to your fellow Constellation member, Vladimir Sall, to top up your retirement savings (or your parents’).
If you upgrade the scanner in the skill section, you can increase its range and require less points of contact to complete fauna or flora entries, speeding up your task considerably.
Top tip: when you get a power called Personal Atmosphere during the main quest, you can keep topping up your oxygen as you run. This makes the somewhat tedious task of running around planets to search for that last elusive creature a little more bearable.
Another top tip: can’t find any more fauna to complete your survey? Check the coastal biomes. There may be some aquatic creatures hiding in the (potentially toxic) waters.
#10: Join An Extracurricular
This part of the blog is going to be your guide to the Settled Systems. Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial because you got everybody there. You got your UC vanguard, the rough and ready rangers (the Freestar Collective), cool corpos (Ryujin Industries), unfriendly pirate hotties (the Crimson Fleet), the greatest people you will ever meet (Constellation), and the worst. Beware of Cora Coe. (Just kidding, she’s just a child.)
These five major factions are looking for new members. As you begin the game, you are quickly recruited by Constellation, which serves as the main story’s faction. It’s also where you’ll find all your companions, from hard-line leader Sarah to morally-grey cultist Andreja. But don’t worry—being a part of Constellation doesn’t mean you’re cut off from the other factions.
Will you join the Imperials or the Stormcloaks—uh, I mean, the United Colonies or the Freestar Collective? Despite their conflicting values, joining both doesn’t shift your allegiance totally one way or the other.
The UC is the political and military force behind New Atlantis, the city where you can find Constellation’s base. You can join the Vanguard very quickly by visiting their MAST headquarters, and once you’ve risen through the ranks, you can get discounted offers from UC vendors and purchase a house in New Atlantis.
The FC, on the other hand, is Sam Coe’s former stomping grounds. This federal law enforcement agency, based in Akila City, means you can help diffuse a bank heist, kill or arrest criminals, and even run the Red Mile, a spectated suicide mission reminiscent of The Running Man where you need to dodge Ashta attacks and make it back to base in one piece. Go around with Sam and see even more flavour injected into this tasty quest line.
Ryujin Industries is a fantastic faction to join if you like persuasion, stealth, and dirty corpo tactics. I’d have loved the Crimson Fleet much more if they weren’t all so rude to me whenever I successfully did their dirty work, including helping the leader fulfil his lifelong dream. Maybe I shouldn’t expect so much out of space pirates…
Either way, these factions, despite most of them being side questlines, are fun and give much more flavour and bulk to the world of Starfield. I just wish you could join Andreja’s theocratic faction, House Va’ruun, and worship the Great Serpent. Sounds like a real trip, even for a futuristic space game.
#11: Smuggle Contraband—But Be Careful
Do you like heretical scripture? Drugs? Or are you more of a harvested organs kinda gal?
Contraband is different to “stolen items” in your inventory. You’ll see a yellow icon next to them, which means you have to be particularly careful if you’re going to be moving these illegal items around the Settled Systems. When landing on planets or systems controlled by the FC or UC, you will be arrested, which will also remove other stolen items from your inventory. This is incredibly annoying. Don’t ask me how they know that dal makhani dinner isn’t yours, but poof, it’s gone…along with all the ammo and Digipicks you’ve looted throughout the galaxy.
So, why bother picking up contraband in the first place? Well, it sells for quite a high price, if you know where to go. I’d recommend going to The Den space station in the Wolf system. No scanning takes place upon arrival, and it’s the best price you’re going to get, particularly early game.
Alternatively, you can equip your ship with a shielded cargo hold or a scan jammer to avoid being caught red (or yellow) handed. You can also increase your Smuggling skill to reduce the chances of getting caught, or store contraband in your outpost until you can safely get it to a trading post.
#12: Follow Your Nose—And Your Heart
The Settled Systems span the whole of the Milky Way. Take your time looking around to get the very best out of the galaxy, and follow your nose.
A new planet! Scan it, and you’ll see there’s a lot of flora and fauna ready to be discovered. It must be a pretty decent place to explore, so have a look.
Sometimes, you’ll be approaching a new planet and you’ll get a distress call. Is it a genuine SOS from a poor soul in need, or is it a trap? Either way, it’s often worth doing, and can lead to some compelling sidequest action.
Pass by some citizens in Neon or the Well, and you might catch a snippet of some juicy gossip. Follow it up and see how you can help (or hinder) the weird and wonderful citizens of the Settled Systems.
To this end, don’t get too worried about what’s the right or wrong thing to do. Pick whatever you want—you won’t get locked into an evil storyline, and unless it’s a big, obvious story choice, you have free reign to have fun.
The journey is only made better by your choice of companions. Will you travel with soft-hearted cowboy Sam, who just wants someone to love him and his pre-teen daughter? Or best girl Andreja, the only one so enamoured by you that she won’t suffer your clearly polyamorous tendencies? These companions make every quest more interesting with their little quips and insights into their lives.
Just be careful not to accidentally throw a grenade into a crowd of civilians. Your companion will not care if it was an accident. You’re dead to them now.
Wrap Up
That’s all you need to start your playthrough of Starfield! Will you discover the mysteries of the Artifacts? Or have more fun running around planets trying desperately to find that last Trait?
The choice, happily, is yours.