Any self-respecting pilot, whether you’re aligned with the law-abiding United Colonies or piratical Crimson Fleet, will want a spaceship that reflects their splendour. Getting the best early ship upgrades inStarfieldwill make your in-flight experience much more enjoyable.
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Seeing as we spend a fair amount of time behind the space-wheel while exploring Starfield, making those hours as luxurious and efficient as possible is incredibly important.
There are an immense number of options at your disposal when it comes to customising your ship, and while Starfield stops short of allowing you to add fluffy dice to your cockpit, it’s hard to know where to start with all the other ship upgrades.
How To Upgrade And Modify Your Ship
Upgrading your ship is relatively simple. Land at any spaceport and find the resident Spaceship Technician. In New Atlantis, he’s standing by the gangway leading to the city, and in Neon he’s got his own little hut if you turn left upon exiting your ship.
Talk to the Technician and select the option “I’d like to view and modify my ships”. This will allow you to select which ship you wish to modify, and then press X to enter the ship builder.
Cargo Hold
Once you’re in the ship builder, things begin to get overwhelming. Your first port of call should be to upgrade your cargo hold, as this circumvents one of the most annoying parts of the game; managing your inventory.
If you’ve alreadyimproved your carrying capacity in Starfieldthen it might be worth focusing on something else, but it’s worth making all the space you’re able to. Don’t forget you can craft from your ship inventory, so upgrading your cargo hold is incredibly useful.
Fuel Tanks And Grav Drive
Next, you should upgrade your Fuel Tanks and Grav Drive. If you like flying around solar systems and outmanoeuvring opponents in dogfights, pick Fuel Tanks. If you prefer exploring far-flung systems, pick Grav Drive.
The Grav Drive is particularly useful, as upgrades mean you can travel further through space and consume less fuel while doing so.
Weapons
There’s nothing more exciting than splashing your cash on a big pew-pew laser, and Starfield has dozens of weapon options for your ship.
Ideally, you want three different weapons in case opposing ships are well-defended against one type. Missiles do big damage with a slow rate of fire, lasers are the opposite, and electromagnetic weapons are great for disabling ships mid-air, perfect for boarding actions.
Shields
Similarly, Shields are very important in a fight. You don’t want to be stranded in space relying on Ship Parts to repair yourself as an enemy fighter closes in.
Upgrading your Shields in Starfield is just as important as upgrading your weapons, so don’t neglect your defence.
Crew And Cosmetics
There are plenty of early ship upgrade options that give you more room for crew, but these are best left until the mid-game, when you can afford to recruit more specialists to man your ship’s stations.
The same goes for cosmetic upgrades. As tempting as it can be to recreate the Millennium Falcon right off the bat, save that for a time when you have credits to burn.
Reactor
Upgrading your Reactor is incredibly important in Starfield, but it’s also the ship upgrade you need to be most careful with. Upgrading your Reactor gives you more ship power – those points that you can assign to shields, weapons, engines, and the like.
However, you can only upgrade your Reactor so far before you reach a limit. Unlike other Starfield ship upgrades, you need to upgrade the Piloting perk to get a better Reactor, so make sure you’ve got that ticked off before adding one to your ship.
Best Early Game Ship Perks
There are plenty of early game perks that suit ship upgrades, but your first port of call should be Targeting Control Systems. This allows you to focus fire on one part of an opposing ship, disabling its engines or weapons in the middle of a fight.
After that, upgrading the Piloting perk is next best. This allows you to upgrade your Reactor and pilot bigger and better ships.
Finally, the Starship Design perk unlocks lots of important ship upgrades, so you should get that next. Shields and automated weapons are never a bad thing either if you’re doing lots of fighting.
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