Starfield Beginner Guide - Best Tips Before You Play
Aug. 31, 2023Starfield Beginner Guide – Best Tips Before You Play
In this Starfield Beginner Guide I’ll give you my top tips & tricks for a smooth start of the game. Starfield is a truly massive game and you cannot respec or undo your choices, so keeping a few pointers early on could save you a lot of time!
I won’t post anything spoilery about the story, but it’s inevitable to mention some mechanics and I’ll mention some specific quest rewards. If you want to avoid those spoilers, skip based on the headings for each section! Let’s start with Character Creation Tips.
YourBackgroundgives you a combination of 3Skillsthat you can use right after you start. This is the equivalent of 3 free Skillpoints, so it can be very valuable early on. You can see a full comparative list of backgrounds on the wiki.
I personally found combat to be quite easy on normal, and with a game this big there’s little reason to pump up the difficulty much, so if you’re going the balanced explorer route, it is best to get backgrounds that save some work on exploration or quest progression:
Homesteader:Gives you Geology, Surveying and Weightlifting. Surveying and Weightlifting are essential skills for exploration, one because you will be able to scan things easier, the other because it gradually but significantly increases your carry weight.
Long Hauler:Gives you Weightlifting, Piloting and Ballistic Weapons Systems. As discussed Weightlifting and Piloting are crucial, and Ballistics weapons is a nice to have.
Space Scoundrel:Gives you Pistol Certification, Piloting and Persuasion. The Pistol Certification is a nice to have if you enjoy pistols, Piloting is a must-have, and Persuasion is another must-have because the vast majority of quests have persuasion scenarios and being good at it can save you a lot of work!
Traitsare unique characteristics applied to your character. They have positive and negative outcomes, but overall they are pretty balanced.
You can pick any trait that you like for Roleplay purposes for your allegiances or perhaps faction bonuses, but my recommendation is that you take:
Terra Firma:Health and Oxygen are increased when on the surface, but decreased in space. This trait is great for similar reasons as the previous one: you will be doing a lot of sprinting and running when on planet surfaces, and this can make it a lot nicer.
Alien DNA:Health and Oxygen are increased, but your food and meds are less effective. This trait can be removed at a doctor as well if you’d like, so it can be a good boost for your early game that you later remove.
You will obtain 3Skillsfrom your background, and then you will gain 1 skillpoint to use to upgrade or unlock skills for every 1 level you gain. Since this is a rather slow process and there seems to be no re-spec option, planning can save you a lot of heartache.
You need to do specific challenges or activities to be able to level up your skills, so taking some of them early on is the best option to avoid getting stuck doing “tedious” stuff later in the game. Full lists of all skills and their unlock challenges and bonuses can be found on the Skills page on the Starfield Wiki. But these are my recommendations:
Recommended Combat Skills:Ballistics and Rapid Reloading are very useful because they apply to all the ammo-based guns in the game. You’re going to be using many types of guns and ammo based on what you find around and the ammo at your disposal, so they will both be used frequently.
Recommended Social Skills:Persuasion, Outpost Management and Ship Command. Persuasion should be at the top of your list as it’s incredibly useful. The other two are mid to lategame needs to make your life easier, giving you better outpost performance and allowing you to increase your crew – which is very very nice!
Recommended Science Skills:This is actually a very important category, because a lot of your activities and progress are locked behind these. I recommend you take Research Methods, Surveying, Weapon Engineering, Spacesuit Design, Scanning and Astrophysics in order to optimize your time scanning worlds and to open up your weapon and spacesuit mods.
Recommended Tech Skills:You will want to take these as soon as possible! Boostpack training, Piloting, Security, and Payloads. Security lets you hack things and is a must-have that you should take as soon as you can, and Payloads will let you carry more cargo on your ship, which can be valuable for completing missions and exploring.
Your first step should be to Check your “Activities” tab when you’re first in The Citadel, I mean, New Atlantis, and track each of the “talk to this person” to start a series of quests.
You should also Gather Faction quests so you can get started with them. The first factions available are from United Colonies and you will be sent to pick up Freestar Collective and Ryujin Industries later on. You can also get contracts from the Tracker’s Alliance (first encountered on Mars), Constellation, and random small allegiances.
This game is really massive and it’s very easy to get distracted and overwhelmed. To avoid doing what I did with Skyrim (played 350 hours before I ever did step 2 of the main quest!), I suggest you try to stick to doing the main quest where possible. The progression is necessary to unlock companions and useful bonuses. Don’t get too caught up in planet scanning and landing, as there are skills that make it easier and faster so you should do just what’s needed to level them up then move on until you have it all maxed and can optimize your time.
Generally, I do the main quest then check the other quests in the area and update them if they are nearby, and then I continue with the main quest.
HOWEVER, you should always prioritize your companion quests as soon as they become available, just to be sure you don’t miss any.
One side-quest that you should absolutely aim to complete is called “Overdesigned”, as you get the opportunity to obtain a Top Tier Ship for free. This means you need to max your piloting to 4, however, so make sure you engage and kill enemy ships to unlock the higher levels of the skill.
I generally ignore vendors in RPGs because I feel I want to get my loot from exploration and drops, not just buy it. However, there are some things you should not go without.
The game has many aspects that can feel rather confusing due to controls, UI, and the overall feel that you’re way above your head. This sections covers some tips that may help you navigate your first few hours:
I actually struggled to understand the controls and systems for the outpost, as it’s too much information all at once. My first recommendation is to not worry too much about this aspect initially, at least until you’ve had enough time to familiarize yourself with other mechanics and gather quite a few materials from going about adventuring.
You’ll then be able to set upOutpostsin the worlds you visit, that can work to extract resources from the planet or moon. You can place cargo links that connect outposts to other outposts in the same system, or even in other systems. You can also obtain quests that request specific cargo delivered to specific areas.
All of this can only happen if you have researched the right outpost components so that you can generate power, collect materials, store them and then transport them off world. It’s a rather complex management process so if you need help on how it works and the controls for it, use the “help” menu on your settings and scroll down to the many, many options there are.
You can also recruit and assign crew besides your actualCompanionswith storylines. The extra crew can join you on your ship or can go to an outpost and improve production there. If you recruit crew as you find them but don’t have outposts, they’ll just wait around the planet they were found on until you have an assignment, but fortunately, you can assign them remotely too!
Starfieldis a huge game and there’s a lot to learn and find. I’ll be posting more in-depth and specific guides for how things work, including ships, outposts, etc., but for now, these guidelines should help you get going with the game.
We hope you found our Starfield Beginner Guide helpful. Don’t forget to check out our Starfield Wiki for all the latest info onWeapons,Armor,Missions,Locationsand more.
Fexelea
MMO raider by day and guide writer by night, Fex enjoys multiplatform gaming, good books and animes, and streaming with a cold beer.
