Highlights
- One Starfield player has used the ship builder to create a spaceship that looks like a giant lobster.
- Designing a viable and upgradable ship is essential for safely exploring the Settled Systems, as players may encounter hostile factions and need a spacious cargo hold for gathered materials.
- Some players criticize the current perk system in Starfield, which locks basic features behind skill tree requirements, but investing in Piloting and Ship Design is crucial for challenging dogfights and higher-scaled star systems.
The ship builder in Starfield allows for some truly inspired designs, as one player uses its tools to construct a cosmic crustacean to cruise the stars. Though there is a lot to enjoy in the latest Bethesda title, few features have gripped the game's community quite as much as the ship builder has. Players have been sharing their starship designs, whether original concepts or faithful recreations, all across social media since launch. From building the Borg Cube from Star Trek to creating a gun-shaped ship in Starfield, the possibilities are near-limitless.
While there are plenty of structural parts in the ship builder that only serve a cosmetic purpose, creating a viable design and upgrading one's ship is key to exploring the Settled Systems safely in Starfield. Crimson Fleet Pirates, Va'ruun Zealots, and Spacers are just a few of the hostile factions that players can come across when grav-jumping into a new location. In addition to being combat-ready, it's also important for Starfield players to have a cargo hold spacious enough to carry all the raw materials gathered from their adventures.
The appropriately named mythiclobster74 shared an original design of their starship on the official Starfield subreddit that combined function and form – namely the form of a lobster. Though equipped with just a B-class reactor, the design boasts a formidable cargo hold of 2600 units, as well as a grav-jump range of 30 light years, with a total value of over 400k credits. According to mythiclobster74, most of the parts used in creating their crustacean vessel come from Taiyo Astroneering in Neon. Furthermore, players need to have at least Rank 3 in Piloting and Rank 4 in Ship Design.
These rank requirements have caused some players to criticize the current perk system in Starfield, as they feel that too many of the game's basic features (such as crafting) are locked behind the skill tree. That being said, Piloting and Ship Design are important investments for any Starfield player – regardless of build – as they allow them to tackle the hardest dogfights in the game, especially as they enter the higher-scaled star systems.
While Starfield mods will continue to improve on the ship builder once official modding tools are released in early 2024, if Skyrim's modding scene is anything to go by, players can also expect to see a full revamp of the perk system within the first couple of months as well. Chances are that a year from now, the Cosmic Crustacean from mytrhiclobster74 may end up looking even more formidable.
Starfield is available now for PC and Xbox Series X/S.