In Starfield, you can be a pilot and fly your customised ship, but the fun and challenge start when you participate in space combat!
By Pixel | Published June 20th, 2023
Starfield Ships
In Starfield, players can own ships or even entire fleets. Ships are fully customizable, which is an entity separate topic and guide. In short, you can add new starship modules, replace them and upgrade to find the best possible combination for combat. Progressing in Starfield will allow you to unlock advanced spaceship technologies and find merchants who offer better equipment and items. As a result, you and your ship and crew will become powerful over time and better suited for space combat.
Many factors influence how good and prepared your ship is for a fight. Here are ship modules that will allow you to be more efficient in Starfield Space Comabat.
- Engines
- Grav Drive
- Weapons (various, currently unknown which is the best)
- Shields
- Cargo
- Reactor
- Fuel Tanks
Starfield Spaceship Piloting Explained
Space Combat is a big part of Starfield. Developers describe it as a “dance” between your piloting skills and power allocation system. The game is designed to manage your ship’s energy depending on what you want to do next. Allocating power into your engines (in-game shown as “ENG” column) them will make your ship faster while boosting your grav drives systems (in-game shown as “GRV” column) will shorten the time required to make a jump. Powering up your shields (SHD) and weapons will prepare you for battle.
In Starfield, your ship, space combat, and piloting capabilities depend on the following power statistics:
- Engine (ENG)
- Shields (SHD)
- Grav Drives (GRV)
- Weapons (LAS) (BAL) (MSL)
The engine is just an overall essential part of every starship. It’s your vessel’s heart and will improve its speed and maneuvering capabilities.
Shields are extremely important in space combat. Ramping them up will make your ship tanker and more survival. You can prevent unnecessary damage to your vessel and survive the enemy’s fire for longer.
Grav Drives can shorten the time required to perform the jump between the stars, but also they can be an important escape factor during combat. If you can’t win the fight, you can try to escape. And if you boost your grave drive power, you will need less time to escape before the enemy will damage or destroy your ship.
Boarding & Destroying the Ships During Combat in Starfield
In space and ship combat, you have two choices. You can attract, destroy and scavage the remains of the target ship. However, even more exciting can be boarding, gun-fight your way through to the control center, and taking over the vessel. It all depends on your piloting skill, ship upgrades, and situation. If you meet an enemy or part of a Crimson Fleet faction, they will attack you instantly. And your only choice might be to escape or destroy them first. After destroying the target, fly closer and loot the remains from your cockpit.
You can also immobilize the target ship, board, fight with its crew, and control the vessel and cargo. This ship can be later joined to your private fleet at any main planet’s docking area. The boarding system in Starfield makes piracy extremely beneficial and a great way to make extra credits in-game. However, owning a fleet can be costly, and you’ll need a crew and officers to manage it.
Skills That Improve Your Space Combat and Ship
You can unlock various skills to improve your piloting and space combat abilities. For Example, Targeting and Control Systems allow you to directly target specific subsystems of the enemy’s ship, such as engines or grav drive, to prevent them from escaping and leaving your target vulnerable and ready to dock the vessel and boarding their ship. The Starship Design skill under the Tech skill tree will allow you to fully customize your ship and make it even more efficient in battle. Adding new customizable modules to your craft and replacing old ones will help you take on challenging targets and be a compelling space pilot.
Looking for more about Starfield?
- Comprehensive Starfield Guides
- Starships & Customization Guide
- Character Creation Explained
- 10 Things You Must Know About Starfield!
Starfield launches exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC on September 6, 2023. You can play it day one with Xbox Game Pass.
Thank you for reading the “Starfield Space & Ship Combat Explained” Guide! We’ll do more deep dives into Starfield and cover the game. Additionally, you can also watch Deltia streaming the game on Twitch.
