How to Build a Ship From Scratch in Starfield

Your ship is a central part of your Starfield experience. You’ll live in it, fight in it, and explore in it. The game allows you to upgrade it as you wish, or you can just break it down completely and make a new one thanks to an in-depth shipbuilding tool. However, it can all seem a bit overwhelming at first.

This guide will show you everything you need to know when building a ship in Starfield: factors to consider, resources required, menus to navigate, and common mistakes to avoid. It’s time to make your dream ship.

Getting Started

When building your spacecraft, there are a few things you’re going to need in advance:

• An existing ship: You can’t build a spaceship from a blank canvas in Starfield. The next best thing is to completely deconstruct an existing ship on your roster until nothing remains, and then get started rebuilding it. It’s a strange limitation, but an important one.
• Lots of money: Shipbuilding will quickly become expensive, especially if starting from the beginning. It’s a good idea to have over 100,000 credits in order to create more than just a decent vessel.
• The right qualifications: You’ll need to have high enough ranks in both the Piloting and Starship Design skills to get access to all ship components and classes.

To enter the shipbuilder menu, you’ll need to find a Ship Services Technician. They can be found in most major settlements and ports. Strike up a conversation with one, choose the I’d like to view and modify my ships dialog option, and you’ll be taken to the shipbuilder menu.

For creating a new ship, choose a vessel on your roster that’s cheap or you’re not attached to since the process will completely remake it.

Components: The Building Blocks of Your Ship

Every ship in Starfield needs certain essential components to function. Without these, you won’t be able to get to lift off. Each component has several presets to choose from in the menu, each with its own stats and costs. Unfortunately, you can’t customize a component directly.

The shipbuilder requires a minimum of one of each of the following components to build a workable ship. Here they are:

• Reactor: It’s the beating heart of your ship that determines what type of ship you can build and power up. All reactors are classed A, B, or C, with C being for the largest kinds of ship. For your craft to function properly, all other components you attach will need to be of an equal class to the reactor or lower. You’ll also want a reactor with high health, a good repair rate, and solid power generation.
• Cockpit: This is where you’ll fly your craft and have access to key systems, like the Armillary. It’s also home to the pilot’s seat.
• Docker: This component will enable you to board other ships and stations. It’s a good idea to put it in an area with a lot of space, usually above or below the deck.
• Landing Bay: You can’t set foot on a planet without one.
• Landing Gear: Your ship isn’t landing without them. When constructing your ship, make sure that both the Landing Bay and Landing Gear lower to the same level, indicated by the green striped blocks under them. If the blocks are red, the levels are uneven and need to be adjusted.
• Cargo Hold: This invaluable addition to any ship allows you to store items and goods you pick up along the way. While you only need one, you’ll probably be adding a lot more.
• Grav Drive: You won’t be going anywhere quickly without faster-than-light travel. You’ll want a Grav Drive that’s sturdy and can charge quickly in a pinch.
• Fuel Tank: The power of this component will dictate how far your ship can jump before having to stop and refuel.
• Engines: Good engines will give your ship the speed and maneuverability it needs in space, and can be invaluable when combat kicks in.
• Shield Generator: Another essential component in a fight, the Shield Generator will protect your hull from damage. When installing one, be sure to invest in a generator that offers high shields and regeneration rates.
• Weapons: To even the odds, you’re going to need a way to fight back. While you can equip plenty of weapons, you’ll only be able to equip three types on your craft. Ship weapons in Starfield are grouped into four main categories, each with an area of expertise. They are:
  • Energy (shields)Laser (weapons)Ballistics (hull)Electromagnetic (individual systems)
• Habitats: Called “Habs” for short, these components are the living and working areas for you and your crew. Habs are versatile and can serve as armories, crew quarters, research stations, and more. While you can choose the placement of your Habs, you can’t rearrange the doorways or furniture within them. Many Hab components will have some or all of these variants to choose from in the Component menu.
• Structures: These are the only optional components on your vessel. They serve no other function than extending your ship or making it look more appealing. While they are cheap to add, too many will also weigh down the build, making it slower and less fuel-efficient.

Attachments: Assembling Your Ship

While it would be nice to stick a hundred guns on your ship, the truth is that your ship’s assembly is limited by its attachments. Just as you can’t stick a cannon on a door, you also cannot flip or rotate certain components, like Habs. Cockpits and Landing Bays also need to connect to other rooms. To make these rules more visually intuitive, the shipbuilder mode has three types of attachment indicators, highlighted in blue:

• Square dots: Weapons and equipment can only be attached to these.
• Circular dots with arrows: These mark doors (when horizontal) and ladders (vertical). They must line up with other doors or ladders to connect.
• Circular dots: You can place other components like Grav Drives and Engines on these spots. If you connect a Hab’s door panel to this, it won’t function as a door anymore.

Once your craft is assembled, you’ll only be able to view it from the outside. Unfortunately, the shipbuilder mode doesn’t allow you inside the ship until you’re done.

Flight Check: Troubleshooting Your Ship

Seeing as shipbuilding is one of the most in-depth systems in the game, it’s only natural that you’re going to run into some problems. Some components may be incompatible with each other or just forgotten. Any faults with your craft will show up as red error messages at the bottom right of your screen. To access this list in detail, you’ll need to open the Flight Check menu.

On doing so, you’ll get an itemized list of issues as well as their importance. Red issues are critical, which might stop the ship from flying altogether, and yellow ones are problems that are advisable to resolve since they might lead to other ones down the line. There are a few common errors you may want to watch out for:

• The docker doesn’t have enough space to attach to a ship or station.
• The doors of components don’t connect to anything.
• The ship’s components exceed the Reactor class.
• Critical components were left out.
• The weapons on your ship are not assigned to weapon slots. This can be solved in Flight Check by opening the Weapons tab and assigning your three groups of weapons to their own button.

On top of this, please note that you can’t build a ship longer than 40 meters or taller than 9 meters.

Ship Stats: The Final Checklist

When assembling your ship, you can see how each component will cumulatively affect your vessel via the stat bar at the bottom of your screen. Some may seem a bit confusing at first, but are actually pretty easy to understand:

• PAR, EM, BAL, MSL, LAS: Your equipped weapon types and their damage.
• Hull: The HP of your ship. The size of your ship will increase this number.
• Shields: How much damage your ship can soak up before it starts hurting. Decided by your Shield Generator.
• Cargo: The carrying capacity of your craft. Decided by your Cargo Holds.
• Max Crew: The number of companions you can have on your ship. Influenced by your Habs.
• Jump Range: How far you can Grav Jump before stopping. This depends on your Grav Drive, Fuel Tank, and Mass.
• Mobility: How fast you can turn in a fight. The bigger and heavier your ship, the more difficult this becomes.
• Top Speed: Your engines will dictate the top speed you can reach in flight.
• Mass: While credits are often thought of as the impediment to getting better components, Mass is also a key concern. Everything you add to your ship, even Structures, will make it heavier. Better components often add more Mass.
• Grav Drive Jump Thrust: An invisible stat, not mentioned in the menu, but still important. This is the light-year limit of your Grav Drive, which enables you to make jumps. Trying to jump over this limit will trigger a warning that you can’t make it, forcing you to make smaller jumps.

Finishing Touches: Coloring Your Ship

Different components from various companies might not visually connect to each other when placed on a ship. Thankfully, the builder menu allows you to tint and color your ship to create a more unified color scheme. Simply select a component and press the Color button. When on a PC, you can also use “Ctrl+Click” to select multiple ship parts for coloring. If you’re on an Xbox, simply double-select a component to select all others attached to it.

Everything Is Ship Shape

Starfield offers players great freedom not only in the way they explore the galaxy but also in designing the ships that they’ll use to do so. You should now have everything you need to start making the ship of your dreams. While it may involve a little trial and error at first, as long as you’ve got the necessary components correctly attached, your ship can be anything you want to be. The galaxy is waiting.

What class of ship do you prefer? How many ships have you built so far? Let us know in the comments section below.