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In Starfield, you can customize your spaceship to your heart’s content but can you build a ship from Scratch in Starfield? Visit a ship technician in any spaceport or landing zone to upgrade your ship’s modules, or have new ones attached. Change your weapons, engines, shields, grav drives, cargo, reactors, and more.
Ship customization is more than just cosmetic changes. The modules you choose will affect your ship’s stats and performance, so you can build a speedy fighter or a flying fortress. You’ll need to juggle resources and budgets to get the ship you want, but it’s well worth it to create the perfect ship for your playstyle whether you are building a tank or a fighter jet, we have got you covered.
Can you build a ship from nothing in Starfield?
Bethesda heavily marketed Starfield’s ship customization feature, promising players the ability to create their own ships or heavily customize existing ones and build a ship from Scratch in Starfield. While this is technically possible, the system for doing so is not well-explained. This is unfortunately par for the course in Starfield, as many of the game’s systems are poorly explained.
Here, we’ll go over everything you need to know about ship customization in Starfield. We’ll cover all the different modules you can choose from, how they affect your ship’s performance, and how to get the most out of your customization options.
The Basics of Building Ships in Starfield
Early on in the game, you’ll likely be making small, cost-effective modifications to your ship. As you progress through the game, you’ll have the money, skills, and resources to entirely pull your ship apart and rebuild it from scratch.
Here are some tips for Starfield ship customization:
- Start by deciding what kind of ship you want to build. Do you want a speedy fighter? A flying fortress? A versatile explorer?
- Once you know what kind of ship you want, start researching the different modules that are available. Read the descriptions carefully to understand how each module will affect your ship’s stats and performance.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try different combinations of modules to see what works best for you.
- As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock new modules and skills. This will give you more options for customizing your ship.
How to customize your ship in Starfield
To customize your ship as you build a ship from Scratch in Starfield, you need to find a ship technician. Ship technicians are NPCs that can be found near spaceports and landing zones. They sell parts, repair ships, and modify ships to your specifications.
To modify your ship, you need to visit a ship services technician and tell them what you want to change. You can change your ship’s weapons, engines, shields, grav drives, cargo, reactors, and more.
The modules you choose will affect your ship’s stats and performance, so it’s important to choose the right modules for your play style. If you want to build a speedy fighter, you’ll need to choose different modules than if you want to build a flying fortress.
Some modules require specific skills to use and buy. For example, you need the Piloting skill to use certain weapons, and the Starship Design skill to buy certain modules.
What are the Starfield Ship stats?
The stats of your ship in Starfield are important to keep an eye on when customizing your craft and to become an effective ship builder. These stats include:
- LAS:
- The damage done by your ship’s laser weapons.
- BAL:
- The damage done by your ship’s ballistic weapons.
- MSL:
- The damage done by your ship’s missile weapons.
- Hull:
- The durability of your ship (aka, its health bar).
- Shield:
- The amount of protection your ship’s shields provide from attacks before the hull takes damage.
- Reactor:
- The amount of energy your ship provides for you to allocate between the different systems.
- Cargo:
- The amount of cargo your ship can carry.
- Shielded Cargo:
- The amount of smuggled cargo your ship can carry and potentially conceal from scanners.
- Crew Capacity:
- The number of crew members that can be on your ship at any one time.
- Fuel:
- The amount of fuel your ship can hold.
- Jump Range (Light Years):
- The maximum distance your ship can travel in a single use of the Grav Drive.
- Mobility:
- The control and manoeuvrability of your ship in combat.
- Top Speed:
- How fast your ship can go.
- Mass:
- The total weight of your ship.
These factors all have to be balanced to some extent. The more modules you add to your ship, the heavier and more sluggish it becomes. So, you need to find a balance that works for you. Maybe you want a bare-bones speedster with nothing but the essentials, or a giant flying fortress covered in gun turrets and moving like a snail.
You can also use power allocation to change how your ship controls. By varying the bars as you play, you can put more power into weapons, engines, shields, or grav jumps. This will give you more damage, speed, protection, or jump range.
Starfield Ship modules and components
Here are some of the different ship modules and following components that you can choose from:
Ballistics weapons
Ballistic weapons are those that fire solid projectiles, such as cannons and autocannons these are important ship components. They are more effective against a ship’s hull than its shields. The type of ballistic weapon you choose will depend on your playstyle. Some ballistic weapons are fast-firing machine guns, while others fire slower, more powerful slugs.
Bays
A landing bay is the other half of a docker, a ramp and door built into the bottom of a ship that allows you to access it after landing on a planet or moon
Cargo and Shielded Cargo
A cargo hold is an additional storage space for your spaceship, allowing you to carry more resources, weapons, and other items. Cargo holds are accessed via a terminal in the cockpit, and they can be added to your ship to increase its storage capacity. Shielded cargo holds are also available, which can be used to smuggle contraband.
Cockpits
Cockpits are essential modules in Starfield that allow you to fly your ship and access the cargo hold. The differences between cockpits are mainly aesthetic, but some offer more crew stations and a bit more cargo space
Dockers
Dockers are the small hatches that connect your ship to other ships or space stations. The only real difference between dockers is whether you want to leave your ship through the ceiling or through the wall.
Energy weapons
Energy weapons are designed to destroy the shields of enemy ships. They use lasers, particle beams, and other forms of energy to burn through the shields, making it easier for ballistic weapons to damage the hull.
Engines
Engines are essential modules in Starfield that propel your ship through space. The number of engines you have affects your ship’s speed and agility, with different engines providing different levels of performance. However, it is important to make sure that your ship has a powerful enough reactor to power all of its engines, or they will be useless.
Fuel Tanks
Fuel tanks store the helium-3 needed for the ship’s grav drive, which is used for long-distance jumps between star systems. Larger fuel tanks allow for longer jumps or more frequent jumps before refuelling. However, fuel tanks automatically refuel after each jump, so you don’t need to worry about running out of fuel.
Gear
Landing gear, also known as landers, are the legs that support your ship when it lands on a planet. You need enough landing gear to support the weight of your ship, which usually means at least one at the front and another at the back. However, you may need more landing gear depending on the size and weight of your ship.
Grav Drives
Grav drives are the essential technology that allows your ship to travel between star systems. Better grav drives allow you to jump further in a single jump, making it possible to explore more of the galaxy. If you want to prevent an enemy ship from escaping, you can target and destroy its grav drive, disabling its ability to jump.
“Hab” Habitat Module/Control Stations
Hab modules are the essential building blocks of your ship. They can be used to create a variety of spaces, from laboratories to armories to simple corridors. Hab modules are incredibly versatile and can be customized to fit your needs.
Missile weapons
Missiles are a type of weapon that can be used to target and destroy specific systems on enemy ships. They are slower to fire and use than other weapons, but they can be very effective at disabling enemy ships. Missiles can be targeted at enemy shields, engines, or other systems, depending on the needs of the situation.
Reactors
Reactors are an essential part of any starship, providing the power that all of the ship’s systems need to function. Better reactors generate more power, allowing you to use more powerful weapons and shields, and they also repair faster when damaged.
Structural
Structural modules are a catch-all category of starship modules that serve no purpose beyond how your ship looks. These modules can include protective cowling, portholes, weapon mounts, and more. Some structural modules may offer minor benefits, such as increased armor or shielding.
Shields
Shields are modules that protect your ship from damage by creating a bubble of regenerating energy around it. They are more effective against energy weapons than kinetic weapons, and the more power you put into them, the tougher they will be and the faster they will regenerate. Shields will eventually deplete if they take too much damage, but they will automatically recharge over time. The hull of your ship is what takes damage when your shields are depleted, so it is important to keep your shields up.
We hope this guide has been helpful in explaining all the intricacies of ship builder mode and how to build a ship from Scratch in Starfield. Head forth with this help with your frontier exploration of the stars, settled systems and united colonies. Check out our other Starfield articles on how many planets are there in this Space epic and how much Starfield is procedurally generated.