Starfield: 5 Best Tips for Beginners

After a long wait, Starfield is finally here, and it packs loads of content to wrap one’s head around. The game features the biggest universe yet from Bethesda. And, more or less, takes after the studio’s previous works in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout franchises. If you’re looking to explore your inner space adventurer and are wondering whether there are any preparations you can make to make the most of your experience, we’ve got you covered. With our Starfield: Best Tips for Beginners, you’ll enjoy a fulfilling adventure and can carve a successful path to conquering the depths of space.

5. If You Play Dirty, Play Smart

The most fun part about Starfield is the freedom to do whatever you want and become whatever your heart desires. You can work for a crime boss and then go ahead and steal from him. You can hijack other spaceships. Or smuggle your way through space. Anything from stuffed animals to harvested organs, xenowarfare technology, and heretical scripture are contraband goods you can smuggle in exchange for a pretty penny. Thankfully, these items are marked with a yellow tag icon so that you can spot them easily. 

Now, whether you pick them up depends on how willing you are to work toward avoiding getting caught. Because as much as contraband is up for the taking, there’s a high chance that the space police will be hot on your trail. To avoid getting caught, you need to first upgrade your ship’s storage to a shielded cargo hold. That way, when the space police scan for contraband, you can slip past them undetected. The other way to evade the patrol cops is to upgrade your deception skills. Once you do so, the cops’ scanners will become less effective against you.

With the police sorted out, you can proceed to offload your contraband at the trade authority shops without worry. Then, use the money for anything you like.

4. Make Use of the Fast Travel Option

Starfield involves jumping from one planet to another, each with its own unique space stations, species, weather, etc. If you’re a wanderlust junkie, you’ll want to explore as many planets as possible and still not even come close to completing the over 1,000 planets Starfield offers. Because of the similar process of space jumping is – start your engine, strapping in, steering upward, breaking through the atmosphere and into the next one – it helps to automate (or something close to) the whole process. 

Starfield has two options for traversing planets. The first is a longer route that you will probably get acquainted with first. It’s literally walking into your ship, strapping into your seat, and then clicking the planet you want to go to next. What follows is a series of cutscenes, black screens, and loading screens, all showing the actual take-off and docking. But you never actually get to steer the ship yourself, which can take away the interest in flying altogether. In that case, feel free to use the fast travel option.

Fast travel will have you pulling up your map whenever you want to jump ship to another planet, and with the quick press of a button, you’re there, thus skipping the bound-to-get-boring manual process, especially when done one too many times.

3. There’s No Need to Pick Up Everything

Contrary to other collectible games, Starfield doesn’t need you to pick up everything because most of it will become junk anyway. There are all sorts of items you can pick up, from apple juice to microscopes. If you continue to pick up everything, your inventory will quickly fill up. And besides running out of space to store more items, you’ll start running out of breath while your speed drastically slows down. 

It’s honestly more trouble than it’s worth, so try only to pick up the absolute necessities. Most of the items you pick up will be so you can sell them for profit. However, not all items’ value is equal to their sale price. In that case, make sure to calculate the selling price before picking up an item (usually 13% of the item’s value). Also, a quick note is that all ammo and items like med packs and digipicks for picking lock puzzles don’t weigh anything. For those, feel free to go all out. 

2. Forge Your Own Path

While at the start, it’s advisable to stick to the main missions to get a clear picture of the story and gameplay, you don’t have to do so in the latter stages of the game. Perhaps stay on course for the first two missions, at least. Thereafter, you can pick the next three in any order. And afterward, you can start to forge your own path. Trust me; it’s much more fun that way to do side quests and explore the world however you please. Plus, the main missions will still be around when you get back from your self-directed little pleasures.

1. Keep Your Scanner Eyes Open

In just a few moments of playing Starfield, you'll quickly realize that there are no local maps available to facilitate easy navigation. And while you can read signs on buildings or signposts and arrows, it may not always work for you. So, try to make the most of your “scanner eyes” instead. The hand scanner helps you identify interactable items, which can come in pretty handy when spotting useful ones like digipicks and ammo among the junk. 

Additionally, it helps to identify valuable resources while exploring a new planet. Things like plant species and minerals aren’t always easy to know their value when you’re seeing them for the first time. However, the scanner can help you filter the noise and harvest only the resources you need. Lastly, the scanner can help you see points of interest. And it even takes a step further to identify your distance from the target.

So, what’s your take? Do you agree with our Starfield: best tips for beginners? Are there more tips we should know about? Let us know over on our socials here.