10 Mistakes You’ll Want To Avoid In Starfield

The universe of Starfield is enormous. So enormous that you can easily get lost in the intricate mess of features, systems and skills you’ll need to learn if you want to survive for long. Early in your adventure, there can be massive difficulty spikes, killer space battles, and you’ll always be lacked for credits and cargo space. There are many, many mistakes you’re liable to make in the first 10 hours of Starfield, and to help your space exploration just a little easier, we’ve put together a list of 10 mistakes we wish we avoided on our first playthrough. Trust us, some of these tips are life changing.

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More Starfield guides:

Best Skills | Best Ship Upgrades & Mods | All Companions | All Romance Options | All Settlement Locations | Join All Factions | How To Pirate Ships | Secret Companion | Secret Ship & Suit

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#1. You Can Fast Travel Everywhere

This took us way too long to figure out — you can fast-travel to any planet you’ve visited once before. No need to hop into your cockpit, take off, jump to a system, select the landing zone and land. If you’ve been to a major settlement before, you can even directly travel to locations like the MAST District from Akila City. (As long as you aren’t carrying contraband.)

Just open the galaxy map from your character menu, zoom out and select the system -> planet -> location to travel to immediately. You can also always fast travel to your ship by using the Scanner. Target the ship (or other locations with icons you’ve unlocked) to instantly travel there. The only limitation is you have to travel to these areas first, you have to be unencumbered, and you can’t be carrying contraband that will get scanned in orbit.

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#2. Save Time Exploring — Only Grab Loot Crates

Planets and even the outposts you’ll frequently explore are absolutely enormous in Starfield. Some of these areas you could search for hours — and almost always, you’ll find nothing. What you really want to look out for are computer terminals and loot crates. The yellow crates with neon lights are easy to spot, and they’re where you’ll find 90% of the loot in every location you explore. You can essentially ignore the rest of the environment and only look for loot crates. At the end of large outposts, you’ll usually find a hexagon-shaped loot crate. These always have the best loot possible.

Of course, this isn’t always the case. Planets are packed with resources you can mine or collect when you want to research or construct outposts. And there are rare magazine collectibles you can find that give permanent stat boosts. Always be on the lookout for those magazines! They’re not just in settlements — they’ll also appear in outposts, abandoned labs, lost mines, and whatever other dungeons you encounter.

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#3. Don’t Leave Ship Parts In Your Personal Inventory

Ship Parts are the Aid item that heals your ship. Each Ship Part is incredibly heavy — about 10 Mass each, and you can collect a bunch. Whether you buy them from vendors or find them while exploring, they’re valuable so you’ll want to grab as many as you can. But don’t keep them in your personal inventory! They’ll weigh you down incredibly fast, and they’ll always appear in the Aid tab.

Whenever you visit your ship, make sure to check your Aid tab and drop your Ship Parts into the cargo hold. You can also quickly deposit all your Resources. After selecting your personal inventory while transferring items at your ship’s cargo, you’ll see a quick move key bind that instantly moves all resources from your inventory to the ship cargo. Very, very useful.

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#4. You Can Sell Directly From Your Ship Cargo

You don’t need to ferry items from your ship cargo to the store. Whenever you sell to the Trade Authority or literally any other vendor, you’ll be able to swap to Sell -> Sell Ship Inventory. You can sell everything from your parked ship instantly from any vendor. Very handy for unloading extra sets of armor or weapons you’ve collected in your adventures.

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#5. Assign Crew To Your Ship Right Away

Crew are absolutely integral to your early success in Starfield, and you’ll quickly gather a small group of them. At the start of the game, you can select up to 3 crew for your ship. All the companions you unlock from Constellation can be assigned to your ship as crew. Do it ASAP by opening your Character Menu, then selecting the Ship Menu (bottom-left) — then go to Crew. That’s [Y] on the Xbox console.

When you assign crew, skills that are associated with flying a spaceship will be highlighted. These are the crew members you want the most. When a crew member is assigned to your ship, you’ll gain their abilities while flying — absolutely critical for taking on tough opponents in space. Because healing is so limited and you’re so exposed, space battle can be devastating if you’re not prepared.

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#6. And Rank Up Piloting Skill

Because space combat is so difficult early on, you’ll want to put a point into Piloting ASAP. Even at Rank 1, you’ll notice a huge improvement in your piloting skills. Without Piloting, your ship is sluggish — get Rank 1 and you’ll be banking much faster. Another important aspect of Piloting Skill is that this allows you to unlock Class B and Class C spaceships. You won’t be able to pilot these enhanced spaceships until you rank up Piloting. Start early — space fights are rare, so you’ll need every kill to count toward the next Piloting rank.

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#7. Don’t Forget Ballistics (Or Lasers)

Not only is space flight difficult, shooting up enemies on-the-ground is ALSO very difficult in the early game. Naturally, you’ll want to unlock skills in your favorite types of weapons — Heavy Weapons, Rifles, Pistols, Shotguns, etc. You’ll ALSO need to purchase skills for Ballistics or Lasers. Depending on your preference, these skills are essential for survival. Ballistics are much more common in the galaxy, so I recommend grabbing Ballistics to deal extra damage. You’ll go from barely scratching Spacers to actually taking them down efficiently.

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#8. Companions Are Great, But Stealth Is Easier Solo

Stealth is another skill that can completely change the way you play. By taking cover and hiding, you can lose contact with enemies. When hidden, your sneak attacks deal x2.2 normal damage. Once you’ve upgraded your favorite weapons or get your hands on a silenced gun, you’ll be able to deliver multiple sneak attacks in quick succession.

There’s just one problem. Your companions will fight back, breaking stealth permanently if you’re spotted. If you want to go for a stealth build, I recommend asking your companions to stay on the ship while you sneak through outposts scoring instakills with silenced weapons. Even stealth-focused companions like Andreja won’t stop shooting after spotting an enemy.

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#9. Lower The Difficulty If You’re Getting Blasted

The early game in Starfield can be brutally hard. If you’re progressing through the main story and just getting killed instantly — which can happen — don’t forget that difficulty settings can be changed anytime. Open the pause menu, go to settings and set the Difficulty to Easy or Very Easy. On Very Easy, you basically can’t lose any encounter. There is no penalty for lowering the difficulty. There are moments where your ship simply can’t beat a sudden ambush in space. When that happens, don’t be afraid to lower the difficulty so you can progress.

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#10. Play Through The Main Story First

And finally, you’ll probably want to play through the main story first. We won’t say why exactly, but a short while into the story, you’ll earn upgrades that can make combat significantly easier. You don’t have to complete the main story — there are roadblocks along the way that force you to level up — but once you reach a certain threshold, you’ll be able to unlock enhancements that can turn previously impossible battles into a breeze. Don’t miss out by saving the main story for later.

That’s 10 quick tips. Don’t struggle for dozens of hours when you could make your space adventures easier right away.