Samuel Daywood
Once you finally start soaring through the vast expanses of space, you quickly learn you’re not alone. Not everyone in Starfield is friendly. You don’t have to be friendly either. Space piracy can be highly profitable – if you can do it right.
The universe is filled with aeons worth of wreckages and miscellaneous space junk – but what good is it? The answer is quite a lot, actually.
How to Loot Destroyed Ships
If you happen to see one of these floating carcasses or are ruthless enough to take down a live one, you can loot it simply by coming in close, hovering your cursor over the ship and pressing A (E for keyboard). You have to be in quite close proximity for this, say within 500 meters.
Once in range you should see a small icon pop up over the ship marking it as lootable. It should open like a container, letting you collect your reward with minimal effort.
If you can’t see any juicy looking ships around, try swinging your scanner around for any interesting waypoints. While you still need to be within 500 metres to be able to loot a ship, you can usually scan damaged and destroyed ships from a good distance away.
How to Loot Damaged Ships
While the game doesn’t make it immediately clear, you’re pretty much free to pillage and plunder to your heart’s desire.
If you’re looking to go full space pirate then you also have the option to board, loot and even steal the entire ship. To do this, when engaged in combat try and refrain from destroying your target ship. However, these won’t be possible without certain requirements.
First, you’re going to need the Targeting Control Systems skill in the Tech Tree. This will unlock the ship targeting functionality, which will let you damage ships without completely destroying them.
However, without the right weapons, you’ll always going to end up destroying ships anyway.
With that said, I recommend visiting Alpha Centauri – Jemison – Atlantis and upgrade your weapons in the Ship Services Technician just nearby the landing area. I also suggest checking Kryx – The Key, specifically from Jazmine, the Ship Services vendor in the area.
Now, you’ll come across a variety of weapons. For boarding purposes, you must get weapons that have good Electromagnetic Damage. This will damage ships just enough for you to board and use them for other purposes.
With the ship targeting functionality, your ultimate goal is to damage the ship’s engine. This should render it inactive – non-hostile but intact. Keep in mind that, you must use Electromagnetic Weapons for the engine.
However, you can also consider damaging the other ship’s parts first as well. Such as the weapons and shields, if it makes it easier to access the engine.
Once this is done, open the target lock once more. Then, the docking/boarding option will come up when you’re in close proximity to the ship.
From here, you’re free to start rummaging around. Another option is to steal the whole ship to pawn for credits, assuming you can find a vendor willing to take it.
Boarding a ship in Starfield can net you valuable resources that could have been lost if the ship was destroyed. Keep in mind however, this kind of behavior is generally frowned upon in the settled systems. While space piracy is a quick path to profit, you can also quickly end up with a hefty bounty on your head (or even in jail).
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