Starfield’s ship-builder makes me feel like a kid again
Shipshape
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Open-world sci-fi RPGStarfieldmay overreach at times, but its ship-building system is one of the most rewarding I’ve ever seen.
Everything from your ship’s shape to its armaments is yours to choose. You could build a nippy fighter like theStar WarsX-Wing, or go for a ponderous battleship. You could even build a cargo hauler or a passenger liner.
However, what really elevates any custom-builtStarfieldship is how you get to walk around the environment you create, seeing your vessel’s corridors, berths, and cockpit for yourself. Your creation does not exist in isolation, rather it’s a thing you can touch, explore, and revel in.
It reminds me a great deal of playingThe Simsas a kid. Rather than simply building a house for my Sims, what really made the game special was seeing themlivethere. Watching the professional and personal tribulations of my Sims made these houses feel like they were more than just four walls, becoming spaces with greater meaning.
Your Starfield house can fly and has lasers
Spaceships inStarfieldare of a similar breed. They’re covered in the clutter and detritus of human life - discarded magazines, coffee stains, and rumpled bedsheets are par for the course in your ship’s cramped halls. Altogether, this offers players a profound sense of ownership. Your ship inStarfieldisn’t just a means of transportation or a way of carrying your loot - it’s yourhomeand your lifeline. It just so happens that yourStarfieldhouse can fly and has lasers.
The spice of life
This sense of ownership makes even mundane activities onStarfield’s roster more exciting. It’s one thing to watch a canned take-off animation again and again, but another entirely to watch your very own spaceship, an object of your own design, slip the surly bonds of gravity. Even docking at a space station becomes a joy. Almost every time I dock, I find myself compelled to switch to a third-person view and admire my ship as it hangs from the station’s dockingarm.
Starfield’s space engagements are more fraught as a result of this attachment - space battles not only test your shipbuilding and piloting skills but also have a far more personal dimension, since it’s your own creation on the line. After all, that pesky pirate who’s just popped up is shooting at your home. You live there. It’s where you keep all your stuff.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
The overall ship variety on offer really shines when you’re in the pilot’s chair. Ships inStarfieldhandle noticeably differently based on their class and design. First off, there’s the obvious stuff, like size and the number of engines. An agile class A fighter will zip around with ease while a bulky cargo hauler will feel more ponderous when you’re at the helm. However, there’s a lot more depth to the system than you might expect. Some pilots might favor thrusters that offer an impressive turning speed, while others might put a premium on raw acceleration.
The sheer breadth ofStarfield’s parts library is comparable to the mech building inArmored Core 6. While not as fine-tuned as thecombat system in FromSoftware’s mech battler, the different weapons and shields on offer inStarfielddo offer distinct forms of performance. Rapid-fire lasers feel like Gatling guns, while railguns feel like more precise, punchy weapons.
Perhaps a ship’s most important feature is its hab modules. These represent the places that you and your crew will actually occupy. With each ofStarfield’s in-universe manufacturers offering different aesthetics, there’s a range of styles that can be applied to these living quarters. The clean white lines of Nova Galactic provide quite a different charm to Hopetech’s more rough-and-ready approach. What’s more, the contents of these habs are heavily customizable. Passenger dorms, infirmaries, armories, control rooms, and even brigs are available from ship parts dealers. With this range of options at your fingertips, you’re empowered to craft a ship that’s a reflection of your own personality, as well as the wants and needs of your travels.
Work in progress
That said,Starfield’s ship-builder is not perfect. Though it provides fertile ground for your imagination to run wild, the tools themselves can be a little janky. The hotkeys aren’t particularly intuitive if you’re playing on PC, and the module selection tools can be fiddly.
On top of that, you have little control over where ladders and hatches are placed. While not a problem for smaller vessels, this can create issues for larger ships. It sucks to spend an hour building a new ship, only to find that your creation has become a confusing maze thanks to unintuitive ladder placement. Though there are ways to game the system by using companionways and assembling your hab modules in a specific order, the need for these workarounds feels like an oversight by Bethesda.
Personalized ships make even the most routine missions seem intimate
Additionally, the ship-builder doesn’t offer any sort of “ghost” mode, meaning that, if you want to look inside your ship, you’ll have to commit funds and leave the hangar screen before going to check out your ride on foot. The absence of this sort of feature can make tweaking your ship tougher than it needs to be. Hopefully, these problems will be solved either by mods or official updates, as they do put a damper on things.
Nonetheless, the ship-building system is still one of the strongest out there and weaves elegantly intoStarfield’s range of open-world activities. From dogfights to cargo hauling, the presence of a custom-built, personalized ship makes even the most routine missions seem intimate. Though these systems have yet to reach their full potential, they are well worth checking out if you have even the faintest interest in building a home that you can also fly through space.
Enjoying Starfield? Check out our guides forhow to assign Crew to Outpostsas well aswhere to sell Contraband.
An editor and freelance journalist, Cat Bussell has been writing about video games for more than four years and, frankly, she’s developed a taste for it. As seen on TechRadar, Technopedia, The Gamer, Wargamer, and SUPERJUMP, Cat’s reviews, features, and guides are lovingly curated for your reading pleasure.
A Cambridge graduate, recovering bartender, and Cloud Strife enjoyer, Cat’s foremost mission is to bring you the best coverage she can, whether that’s through helpful guides, even-handed reviews, or thought-provoking features. She’s interviewed indie darlings, triple-A greats, and legendary voice actors, all to help you get closer to the action. When she’s not writing, Cat can be found sticking her neck into a fresh RPG or running yet another Dungeons & Dragons game.
The PS5 Pro’s PSSR upscaling gives multiple games a huge visual upgrade – can it compete with Nvidia’s DLSS 3 successor?
I’m a Nintendo Switch expert, here are the best early Black Friday deals right now
Arcane season 2 confirms the hit series isn’t just one of the best Netflix shows ever made – it’s an animated legend that’ll stand the test of time
