21 Starfield Tips and Tricks You Don’t Know

Starfield is fun after the nth playthrough and it’ll be just that till Bethesda starts releasing more content updates to it. There’s just so much to do.

I’m still figuring out the best parts of it and maybe you too. So here are some Starfield tips and tricks that might help you have some more fun in space.

21 Starfield Tips and Tricks!

1. Sleep Before Missions and Quests

Take a nap in your ship or your outpost before heading out. Get the ‘Well Rested’ effect for a 10% boost in XP. If you haven’t used this cute little bonus from Bethesda, do it.

2. Pick Emma Wilcox

You’ll find her in The Rock, Freestar Collective HQ, Akila, Cheyenne. But why pickpocket Emma Wilcox? Because you’ll want her Assassin’s Advanced Grendel that’s why!

3. Unlimited Cargo Space

This is common enough but I’m not talking about the storage box in your room at the Lodge. I’m talking about the storage box by the research station! And you do know you can fast travel to the Lodge from inside your ship to dump resources?

4. Clean Stolen Items

Take your stolen item to the Trade Authority. Sell the item and then use Buy Back to get a clean item.

5. Sell Contraband

Go to the Den, Wolf System. No scans so you can sell contraband items easy. You sell contraband to the Trade Authority as well but only in person and not via kiosks.

6. Can you mine faster in Starfield?

You can. Just hold the aim and the fire buttons together. Mining’s a lot faster and I’m glad Bethesda added this on soon enough since it wasn’t there on launch.

7. Get More Loot

Load screens are good for you in Starfield early on. Prior to loading into a location, max out the difficulty. This will update the loot tables. Now revert the difficulty when you spawn. Result – Max loot but min difficulty!

8. Use Unobvious Objects

Starfield has one of the best physics systems today. Make the best of it!

9. Grenadier Companions

Give your comp a grenade. Just one grenade. In combat, stick around a corner and don’t let the enemy get close. Now watch your companion turn one grenade into as many as possible till everyone’s done for! (Just keep a close eye on their throw. Starfield can be fun for the wrong things and you should save game before combat scenarios, mostly when you’re planning to give your companion a grenade.)

10.  Fully Survey Planets

Take your time on this. Fully survey a planet before building an outpost. Or maybe find a research tower and look for survey data. Fully surveyed planets yield a lot more resources than without.

11.  Put VASCO to good use

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VASCO is the most versatile companion on Starfield but the robot’s best used when assigned to your ship, helping clear hostiles when you land if any and even adding a 20% shield boost as well as 1+ energy point.

12.  Never Lose a Companion

This is perhaps the best Starfield tips and tricks to use and I wish I knew it earlier. Losing a Companion is always a hard one. When you do, go back to your ship menu, and re-assign the companion to your ship. Then fast travel with the ship and they’ll be right there after!

13.  Level up Piloting Easy

Doing it the hard way is fine but takes a lot of time and even more save games. Just use the Vanguard Simulator. Level up in piloting all the way to get access to higher-class ships. In case you’re stuck at L4 (no one’s made it through L5 in one shot), here’s some help!

14.  Can you play Starfield offline?

Yes. You can play Starfield offline. All game data is built-in and stored. You can start the game offline, play it and quit after a few days or weeks (Starfield is addicting). But if you play Starfield with Game Pass, forget offline playing. Game Pass requires constant server uplink for all games and Starfield is no different.

15.  Take the Kid Stuff Trait

You might think meeting with your in-game parents is not how you want to play Starfield. But that’s not the best part of this trait. With Kid Stuff, you can get the Wanderwell ship. It’s not better than the Frontier but you can sell it for some.

16.  Access Ship Storage from Outside

You don’t always need to get on the ship to access what’s in it. Access your cargo as long as you’re within 250m. Go to your inventory and find Cargo Hold.

17.  Complete ‘Into the Unknown’ asap

Starfield’s about exploration but it’s also about completing the main storyline. You can wander off at any point but it’s better to do that after you complete the ‘Into the Unknown’ mission or else you’ll be missing out on a lot of story content.

18.  Don’t Choose A Faction

You don’t necessarily need to choose a faction in Starfield. You’re free to enter any faction. Well, you can enter all factions and enjoy the whole bounty of faction-specific missions. Faction quests have higher rewards too.

19.  Set Course!

Unless you know this already, exploration gets a lot more fun in Starfield after you’ve discovered the Set Course button (and how to use it.) It’s in the bottom right of the Pause menu and it’ll help you automatically check the planet or location of your fast travel. Use it to quickly access the Lodge or even to a new planet!

20.  Always Use the Scanner

The hand scanner is probably the most utilitarian usable item in Starfield. On a planet, use your hand scanner with your HUD to know what’s where, including basic details to find research towers or abandoned outposts nearby. In closer quarters, the hand scanner will help you find objects that you’d obviously miss without it, especially useful for looting. And lastly, you can fast travel to and fro between saved locations and your ship with the scanner but I’m sure you know that already.

21.  Get the Mark 1 Armor Now

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Starfield has more glitches than bugs and we love Bethesda more for this but I’m not sure how long they’ll keep this major glitch up and running. The Mark 1 Armor is what you’ll find in the Lodge. It looks great and right now has the highest resistance stat total out of all Starfield armor. The best part’s that you can get this armor from within the safe (that requires the highest lockpicking skill level) by properly pointing through the gap between the door to access the armor. It’s as easy as that.

As far as Starfield tips and tricks go, these are the ones that’ll help you at almost every stage of the game. In case you’re short of credits, check this out!