Everything we know about Starfield ship customization revealed

Starfield ship customization will let you live the dream of building a ship as you design, modify and assemble your own spacecraft from a range of parts and options. It’s not just a few palettes and color options, what Bethesda has shown is a deep, modular system that looks complex enough to be a game in itself, not part of anything else.

There’s a lot at stake when building a ship in Starfield. As we’ll see below, things like combat, speed, armor, jump distance, and more will all be affected by your choices. This is not a cosmetic system, remember, you will constantly have to balance and trade what you want to do and what you can do in Starfield. To help you prepare and make sure you’re ready to build your dream starship, we’ll go into all the details you need and everything we know so far about Starfield ship customization below.

Starfield ship customization is modular in nature, allowing players to assemble complete sections and rooms that change stats – instead of building these sections separately, you can build engines, off-road vehicles, cockpits, etc. A “vendor” reference in the UI indicates that we will likely not be building these components ourselves as part of the Starfield crafting and research system, but will purchase them from designated locations. Something reinforced by the fact that each of these components and modules has corporate logos on it.

However, these mechanics appear to be quite versatile. Despite all the ships we’ve seen share the same mechanical semi-realistic aesthetic, what’s on offer has ranged from sleek-looking warriors to bulky warships, squat cargo couriers and more. We’ve even seen ships without weapons or shields, which made me think that if you really need money, you might do your best to dismantle everything but life support and thrusters and traverse a dangerous universe in a tin can. a firework.

We’ve also seen that certain components require different degrees in the “Starship Design” skill to purchase or use, which probably means that better ship parts will require higher Starfield skills to purchase or use successfully.

During ship customization, the same eleven stats were always presented at the bottom of the screen, clearly representing the key characteristics of any spaceship. These were listed as follows:

• LAS
• HONEY
• MSL
• body
• shield
• Cargo
• Crew
• Jump Range (Light Years)
• Mobility
• top speed
• Stack

Many of these seem self-explanatory, especially given the wider context of the presentation and the flight footage afterwards: Hull and Shield represent two types of health bars for your ship, Cargo is how much loot you can store on board, Jump Range is how far you can go at the speed of light and Mobility and Top Speed ​​affect your flight agility when traveling at any speed less than “C”.

But some are a little less specific at the time of writing about what they mean or what they do. LAS, BAL and MSL most likely refer to weapon/damage types (Laser, Ballistic and Missile) and seem to show the overall combined damage output of each weapon type – i.e. all your laser weapons are added to your total LAS stat.

Beyond that, the slightly more obscure ones are Crew and Mass. Crew is a stat where certain modules like cockpits and habitats expand to increase Crew numbers, but we don’t yet know if that means them. need allow more crew to work or a larger team on your spaceship. Both are possible, but we suspect the latter, especially with the knowledge that players will be able to hire NPCs to crew their ships accordingly.

Mass is something that every module in Starfield apparently adds and is represented by a red color in the stats, indicating that more mass is a negative element. Looking at the footage, we saw that adding new components to the ship increases its mass and penalizes Jump Range and Mobility, meaning that the heavier your ship, the harder it will be to fly. The exact stats changed may vary based on the component itself, but we hope to find out closer to release.

Along with the “basic stats” for each ship at the bottom, there is a fixed indicator at the top left that compares the numbers for “Reactor” with “Equip Power” showing the amount of energy your ship’s reactor produces and how. It actually consumes a lot of energy. There is a horizontal bar showing the total energy production followed by six vertical indicators labeled as:

• W0
• W1
• W2
• EN
• SHD
• GRV

We can make a good guess at most of these meanings – the three types of weapons under W0, W1 and W2 (probably Laser, Ballistic and Missile) and the energy consumption on Engines and Shields along with how much power they draw. A little more obscure is the GRV – but the descriptive text on the Fuel Tank component tells us that the system-to-system interstellar jumps are done by “Grav Drive”, which is what the GRV seems to represent.

Below, we’ve listed all the ship modules and components we’ve seen used, customized, and used in the Starfield ship customization system, as well as the stat blocks attached to each. A quick glance at the dealer stores showed a wide variety of options, with only at least eleven types of landing gear for each component.

cockpits

It’s pretty self-explanatory since this module shows the player character sitting in the cockpit seat before takeoff, it’s clear that it will be the module from which the ship is powered.

• Cargo
• Health
• Crew Slots
• Stack

engines

The performer at the presentation suggested that “Engine” basically means “giant jet booster for extra speed”, stacking two different copies of the same engines at the back of their ship. Notably though, with the Engine added, the ship’s Jump Range decreased and the Top Speed ​​did not change at all – neither made The change was Mobility. We’re looking forward to finding out if there are separate modules to purchase for acceleration, or if it’s just a motor that specializes in handbrake turns.

• Class
• Engine Thrust
• Maneuver Thrust
• Engine Health
• Health
• Stack

Fuel Tanks

One of the simplest modules we’ve seen, the in-game description says Fuel Tanks stores Helium-3 fuel specifically for the ship’s aforementioned Grav Drive, used for long-range lightning speed jumps from system to system, allowing for larger tanks. for more, more frequent jumps before stopping for gas.

• Gravity Jump Fuel
• Health
• Stack

landers

As simple as possible, these components are the ship’s landing gear/legs that allow you to land on new worlds. We’ve seen a few of these have been tampered with, some of them having different skill requirements, but it’s unclear if they actually work differently from each other or just buy a better health/mass ratio.

• Health
• Stack

“Hab” Habitat modules/Control Stations

The “Hab” modules are the unifying central parts that seem to be built around your ship, and at first we thought they were different from the larger “Control Station” sections, until the explanatory text of the latter described itself as the “Habitat Module”, the Station was simply a bigger, better version of the former. makes it clear that there is a version. Otherwise, they seem to occupy space for the crew on your ship.

• Health
• Stack
• Crew Slots

Body / Body

Cowls or Bodys for your ship seem like a simple stack with no clear function beyond boosting the stats a bit, so for those times when you don’t know what else to cram into the empty space on the outside of your ship, we assume it’s armor plating, or some cosmetics to smooth out your ship’s lines and angles. Either way, the only stat effects we’ve seen so far are adding small amounts of Mass and Health.

• Health
• Stack

balls

The only gun we saw spawning properly in the showcase was the Mauler 104L, a solid looking piece of artillery placed above the Cockpit. Actual stats for the gun don’t seem to indicate the gun’s firepower, or are simply evident from changes in the “BAL” stat at the bottom.

• Class
• Reactor Power Requirement
• Health
• Stack

lasers

For those who like firepower a little more futuristic, the Dragon 221P MW pulse Lasers we see on board may look like ugly camera lenses, but they don’t seem to require anything unique on the ball. In fact, they actually used slightly less power, but that may just depend on the overall weapon’s stats and not be indicative of a trend.

• Class
• Reactor Power Requirement
• Health
• Stack

reactors

A quick glance shows that the Reactors are one of the most expensive parts of the ship, and considering how important and complex they will be, you can see why. The Crew Rating item indicates that NPCs will be required to keep a Reactor in good condition, and the unique Repair Rate stat can self-correct (or simply represent how fast your hired men can do it).

• Class
• Power Produced
• Repair Rate
• Reactor Health
• Health
• Crew Evaluation
• Stack

The showcase confirmed that players will be able to recolor and paint the hull of their ship with hue, saturation, and brightness options, at least in individual modules. So far, we haven’t seen any purely cosmetic self-expression options beyond that – so don’t get too hopeful for colorful murals in pushers or blurry dice hanging from a mirror until you can confirm this sort of thing.

From the presentations and descriptions it’s clear that ships will be built for a purpose – the “perfect ship” is more situational and players will have to balance elements like firepower, defense, flight, cargo capacity and jump distance based on what. if you want to succeed or make a versatile craft and let piloting skill fill the void. Some of the ship structures shown to us included:

• Laser focused, balanced defense structure
• High Hull and Mass Cargo Freighter
• Unarmed, shieldless ship with High Jump Range