Starfield Tips: 13 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner

Starfield Tips: 13 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner https://ift.tt/DkEYHQO

With a game as big as Starfield, it's quite easy to make mistakes. It doesn't take long before the massive universe in play here reveals itself, allowing you to go pretty much anywhere you want right away. Sure, sometimes you'll be under-leveled, or you might need a lockpick or a cooler weapon to overcome obstacles, but these are all part of the learning experience as you venture across the cosmos for dozens of hours. But with our Starfield tips, you can reduce the growing pains and get a head start on the big wide world to explore.

Several of us on the GameSpot team have collectively poured hundreds of hours into Starfield, which inevitably comes with some regrets, some course corrections, and some things we wish we knew sooner, so in this guide, we'll reveal everything like that to you.

Whether you need help understanding how to build your own ship, or how to manage your inventory, or how to scan that neat-looking alien before it eats your face off, this guide covers many aspects of the enormous game.

And don't forget, these tips are merely the beginning of your journey. In our Starfield guides hub, we've collected dozens of guides and put them in one spot for your convenience. In addition to going deeper on some topics you'll see in this guide, you'll find even more topics covered, such as romance options, companions, factions, and more.

Starfield is one of the biggest and best-reviewed games of the year, so it's going to take over the zeitgeist in a way few games this year have. Join in on the conversation by getting ahead with our Starfield tips and many other guides.

Character creation

Like nearly every Bethesda RPG, you can create your very own character. There are dozens of sliders, presets, and hairstyles to experiment with. However, don’t feel the need to perfect your virtual avatar in one sitting. Throughout the universe, you will come across Enhance stores. These places let you change your appearance for a small fee of just 500 credits--pocket change in this universe.

Backgrounds

Once you’re happy with your character’s appearance, you’ll need to select a background. Your background doesn’t affect the story outside of a few dialogue options. Instead, it determines your starting three skills. So if you want to roleplay a Bounty Hunter, but you don’t think the Bounty Hunter’s starting skills will be that useful to you in the early hours (spoilers: they won’t), then pick a different background with more relevant skills and as you level up, invest in more Bounty Hunter friendly skills.

We recommend choosing a background that has the Security skill. This allows you to pick advanced locks right out of the gate. Without it, you can’t even attempt difficult locks, which means you could be leaving a ton of loot behind.

Traits

Starfield also introduces Traits. These are optional perks that give you an advantage in one area and a disadvantage in another. For example, Alien DNA gives you increased health and oxygen levels, but healing and food items aren’t as effective. Not every trait is specific to your character though. Dream Home lets you begin the game with a house in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like a good deal, right? Well, it also comes with a mortgage that must be paid weekly or in full if you intend to use the house.

There’s been some debate in the GameSpot office whether this trait is worth it. Some have found it useful because they've loaded their houses with workbenches and contraband. Others have found its location to be less than convenient.

One thing to keep in mind with traits is that you don’t have to pick any if you don’t want to, and certain traits can be permanently removed in New Atlantis at The House of the Enlightened located in the Well. Unfortunately, if you picked the Kid Stuff trait, therapy can’t help you forget your parents.

Important skills

Every time you level up you get one skill point that can be used in one skill tree. While it may seem logical to fully invest in one skill tree, I’d advise against it. There are a handful of skills that will come in handy regardless of your playstyle.

For example, I find tech trees to be a bit dull. However, the tech tree houses the Boost Pack Training skill, Security skill, and the Piloting skill which is required if you want to pilot Class B and C ships.

Meanwhile, the Social skill tree is where you’ll find the Commerce skill that lets you buy items for less and sell items for more. Chances are you’ll be selling a lot of junk in Starfield, so this is a skill that you shouldn’t overlook.

There are also skills that sound useful on paper, but I’ve found pretty underwhelming. For instance, the Gymnastics skill lets you combat slide, but I’ve found it to be kind of useless. Once you’ve unlocked a skill, be sure to check its various ranks. In order to rank up a skill, you’ll need to complete a little challenge. My advice is to spend some looking at all the skills and various ranks, because though you could eventually unlock everything, it will take a while and you can't respec.

Lockpicking

There’s no shortage of locks to pick through the universe, so it’s important to know how lockpicking works, otherwise you could be wasting precious digipicks.

When you interact with a lock you’ll be greeted by broken circles. You need to fill in those gaps with your pick patterns. The problem is that you can only use a pick pattern once. This means you need to strategically complete all the rings with the pick patterns you are given.

The easiest way to do this is to count how many gaps each circle has, and look at your pick patterns to see which are even viable. For example, if a circle has five gaps, and you have two two-prong and two three-prong pick patterns available, you already know you need to use one of each. Security Rank 2 will also highlight picks that are compatible with specific locks making it a little bit easier.

While I don’t advocate for save-scumming, I do recommend saving before your first few locks just so you can get the hang of it. Just keep in mind that you don’t actually use a digipick until you’ve slotted in your first pick. I also recommend checking every shop and dead body for digipicks because you’ll otherwise run out of them often.

Find your crew

Space travel doesn’t have to be a lonely pursuit. Throughout the universe you will find a number of companions to join your party. Some will join you for story reasons while others can be hired for a hefty sum of credits.

Thankfully, with a bit of luck and the Persuasion skill, you can recruit some party members for considerably less. Recruitable party members typically have a handful of skills that can complement your crew in a number of ways.

For example, Marika Boros in the Viewport Bar in New Atlantis specializes in Shotgun Certification, Ballistics, and Particle Beam Weapon Systems. If you recruit her, whichever ship you assign her to will be able to take advantage of her Particle Beam Weapon Systems skill. Just keep in mind that ships do have crew limits. While you can load up your ship with a ton of companions, a ship’s crew limit determines how many companions can buff your ship. You can increase your ship crew size to solve this problem.

Persuasion

Every now and then you might stumble across a character who can be persuaded. When you attempt to persuade an NPC you’ll get a series of dialogue options with a number attached to each choice and persuasion bar. Each successful bit of dialogue will fill the persuasion bar depending on what number was attached to that option. However, you only have a handful of attempts, so you need to pick carefully. While higher numbers might make it seem like those options are riskier, the choices have more to do with what you’ve learned about the character. As such, it’s best to exhaust all dialogue options before attempting to persuade an NPC so as to be as informed as possible when picking from the different options.

For example, a character who is a stickler for the rules may not be swayed by you asking them to bend those rules, while a pushover type of person may give in if your persuasive efforts sound more like bullying. Psychoanalysis... in space!

Contraband and stolen goods

In Starfield there’s a difference between stolen goods and contraband. Stolen items are marked with a red symbol, and they are items that have been stolen from NPCs. If you get caught stealing, they'll call the authorities. If you’re successful, the only thing you need to worry about is finding a place that will buy those stolen goods, such as the Trade Authority in New Atlantis or Neon.

One way to earn easy credits early on is to clean out one of the back rooms in a Trade Authority office and sell it all back to the vendor--those suckers!

Contraband, on the other hand, is marked yellow, and while it can be acquired without stealing, whenever you enter a settled system your ship will be scanned. If they detect contraband, then you’ll be in big trouble. You can sell your contraband at the Trade Authority, but you’ll need to smuggle those items first--use our linked guide above to learn how. If you don’t have a way to smuggle items yet, you could find a safe place to stash them, such as your "Dream Home," or if you join the Crimson Fleet, you can offload it to their shopkeepers.

Space travel and fuel consumption

Space Travel plays a huge role in Starfield, but it can be a little finicky. You can access your Star Map from anywhere by pausing. From there you can view any system you’ve visited or fast travel to any key location you’ve already found.

For example, I can quickly travel to New Atlantis from anywhere, as long as I’m not over-encumbered or in combat. However, for any unexplored systems, you need to “Jump” there first. Jumping consumes fuel, and fuel determines how far you can jump. Fortunately, your ship refuels itself after each jump, so you'll never actually run out of it.

This means that if you have a quest marker in a system out of jump range, you just need to jump to a nearby system and then jump again. You can also upgrade your fuel capacity if you’d rather not jump as often. Just remember, if you are overencumbered, you’ll need to physically walk to your ship before you do any traveling. This is where boost packs come in handy. Additionally, note that you can’t fast travel into most cities if you are carrying contraband.

Encumbrance

Speaking of encumbrance, it works a little differently in Starfield than in other Bethesda RPGs. If you’re carrying too much, you can still move, sprint, shoot, and jump. However, your oxygen levels will decrease more quickly as you move around. When you run out of oxygen, you accumulate CO2 which will eat away at your health. CO2 buildup can’t kill you, but it can hurt you.

When you’re overencumbered, you can’t fast travel. The best way to work around encumbrance is to transfer all your non-essential items such as resources into your ship cargo or hand it to your companions. You can do this while inside your ship, or you can access the cargo by interacting with the panel near the cockpit. Being overencumbered isn’t all bad, as it’s an easy way to unlock upgrades to your carrying capacity, which require you to run while carrying above a certain percentage of your available mass.

Exploring planets

You can land on solid ground on any planet in Starfield. From there, you'll earn XP for uncovering its properties, such as natural resources, flora, and fauna, all on your way to 100-percenting the planet. This can be daunting at first, but there are a few ways to make it more manageable. Several skills can drastically cut down on the time it'll take to 100 percent a planet. Under the Science section, Surveying is an early skill that expands the radius of your scanner, making it much easier to spot resources. Zoology and Botany also make it so you can scan fewer instances of a plant or an animal to 100 percent them.

Just like your character, each planet has specific Traits. These refer to naturally occurring sights to see. You can see how many traits a planet has from the scanning menu in space or in your scanner UI on foot. While planets are liable to have human-made elements like science labs or mining facilities, if you're looking to uncover its Traits, you'll want to look for landmarks labeled as "Natural." These can be things like geological or ecological elements, and they will repeat all across the planet, so you don't need to worry about landing in the wrong spot on such a massive search area like an entire planet.

Sleep is important

Bethesda’s “Well Rested” bonus returns in Starfield making sleep more important than you might think. Of course, sleeping passes time and heals you, but if you get a full night’s sleep you’ll get the “Well Rested” bonus that gives you a 10% XP boost for 24 in-game hours.

I recommend taking a nap every time you land on a new planet. That way anything you encounter will net you some extra XP. If you’re unsure if the Well Rested bonus is still in effect, press Start and then Y to check your status. If you see Well Rested then you’re getting bonus XP.

Ship building

Ship-building and modifying can be an expensive endeavor, but it’s well-worth the effort. Most major cities have a technician that can be found in the starport who can help you upgrade your ship. Once you’re in the building menu, click anywhere outside of your ship to bring up a list of ship parts. Here you can add all sorts of different parts, cabins, and modifications, but we recommend starting with a Workshop 2x1.

This will give you easy access to some workbenches. Keep in mind that you will need to move around other ship modules in order to slot the workshop in, and the game can be particular about where you put certain parts. Additionally, some parts won’t work depending on your ship class. The Frontier, the starter ship, is Class A, and while you can purchase Class B and C ships and parts, you won’t actually be able to fly them until you’ve invested in the Piloting skill, one of the best skills in the game.

And there we have it. 13 things I wish I knew when I started playing Starfield. If you have any more tips be sure to drop them in the comments below.