Highlights
- Leveling up in Starfield grants a skill point to spend in the skill tree menu, allowing players to unlock new skills or rank up existing ones.
- Certain skills like lasers, targeting control systems, and commerce are worth focusing on early in the game as they provide significant benefits that accumulate over time.
- Skills like research methods, weight lifting, and medicine offer long-term advantages by making certain tasks, such as upgrading weapons and healing, more efficient and reducing the need for excessive grinding.
Whenever a character levels up in Starfield, they have one skill point to spend in the skill tree menu. A skill point can be used to unlock a new skill or to rank up an existing skill.
Related:Starfield: How To Advance Time
Existing skills can be ranked up by completing the challenges presented for that skill. With so many skills and upgrades to be purchased, here's which skills players should focus on early into their playthrough.
Updated On September 8th, 2023 By Joshua Leeds:Starfield has many skills for players to unlock and level up. Many skills will give benefits that will add up over time and are worth looking into right away. This article has been updated to include additional skills players need to prioritize right away.
15 Lasers
Laser weapons are a very popular weapon type players will come across throughout the galaxy. It is always a good idea to make sure you have a couple of guns that shoot different ammo types, with lasers being one of the more prominent options.
This skill will help make sure that your laser weapons deal enough damage and can later add on to other damage-boosting skills to greatly increase your damage over time. This skill is also fairly easy to level up as long as you use laser weapons and can be maxed out very early into your playthrough.
14 Targeting Control Systems
The Targeting Control Systems perk will allow you to target specific parts of an enemy ship in dogfights. Targeting specific parts will allow you to disable the more annoying aspects of an enemy ship, such as their shields or engines, to make the rest of your fight much easier.
Disabling your enemy's engines is also how you can board their ship and attempt to loot it or take it as your own. Even just the first rank in this skill is well worth the investment and can make any space battle much easier.
13 Commerce
Buying and selling items and resources will be a constant back and forth as you save up for your next big purchase. This skill will help you both keep the credits you already have by lowering vendors' prices while also giving you more credits by selling your items for more.
Related:Starfield: Best Weapons, Ranked
This skill will multiply in effectiveness over time and should be learned immediately to start its effects. While some transactions may be just a few credits different, this will slowly add up over time and be well worth the skill point.
12 Research Methods
Researching upgrades and mods is an important part of trying to upgrade your weapon parts and spacesuit mods. Every research project will require a lot of obscure resources you may not always have enough of and can add a lot of grinding when you want a simple upgrade.
The Research Methods skill is another skill that will only grow in usefulness the earlier you get it. Lowering the required resources for projects will have a noticeable impact when researching and a long-term negation on how much mining you'll have to do.
11 Weight Lifting
Managing your inventory to stay within your carry capacity has been a staple mechanic in Bethesda game, and Starfield is no exception. Many weapons, spacesuits, and resources can be very heavy, and you'll often be right at or over your carry capacity.
This skill offers a simple boost to your carry capacity, which may not seem like much at first, but will be a much-needed addition. This skill also adds on top of spacesuit mods that increase carry capacity and is well worth the investment.
10 Pistol Certification
This is a fairly straightforward bonus, making all pistols in the game deal more damage. Your first gun in the game is a pistol, and the galaxy is full of more to use.
This bonus makes all pistols deal more damage, and with them being such a common weapon, you'll get a lot of use from this bonus. This skill can also stack off of others in regards to the type of pistol you're using, making it an ideal first skill to get the ball rolling on dealing more damage in combat.
9 Ballistics
Much like the pistol skill, this is a great early-game skill to invest in simply because of the scope of weapons it can affect. Most of the early game guns are ballistics, and this skill will increase the damage for all of them without limiting you to a single style of gun.
This skill is easy to level up when using multiple ballistic weapons, having you reach the upper ranks of the skill fairly quickly when using the right guns. Ballistic weapons will stay relevant throughout the game, making this skill a good early and late-game investment.
8 Medicine
This perk is located in the science section. Simply put, this skill makes your healing items, such as med packs, more effective, healing you for more health even faster.
Med packs, trauma packs, and emergency kits will always be important items you should stock up on. While there will always be more to be found throughout the galaxy, this skill will help you get more out of each item, eventually not taking multiple med packs to fully heal yourself. Investing in this skill early on will see long-term effects of using fewer med packs in the moment and having more saved up for what's next.
7 Ballistic Weapon Systems
Ship battles can be complex situations as you move energy around to maximize your ship's capabilities. Once you have broken an enemy's shield, it's essential to finish them off quickly before their shields can start to regenerate.
Ballistic Weapon Systems increases the total damage of all Ballistic Weapons on your ship, giving you a great early-game boost in dogfights. You'll often find yourself outnumbered in space battles, so making your ship as deadly as possible is an excellent trick to winning those more difficult battles.
6 Fitness
Your oxygen acts as your stamina bar in Starfield, being used up as you run and eventually creating carbon dioxide that can start to deal real damage if it gets too high. With so many planets to explore and each one being so big, increasing your oxygen will make your journey much more bearable.
The Fitness skill is a straightforward boost to your maximum oxygen, letting you run longer and keeping you further away from dangerous carbon dioxide levels. Ranking up this skill is simple and will simply happen as you play the game, so unlock it early to make progress through the ranks.
5 Wellness
This skill is fairly straightforward in that it gives you a boost to your max health. A simple stat bonus such as this one is a great use of early skill points, as you haven't had the chance to know what build you're working toward. For those who explore far-off planets, there's always a chance of you running into enemies far beyond your level, and the extra health will help keep you in the fight.
Related:Starfield: How To Hide Your Spacesuit
This skill is easy to level up as healing will be done as you regularly play the game. Unlocking this skill early will randomly have you completing the challenges and give you the ability to rank it further up whenever you want.
4 Piloting
This skill offers bonuses when flying your ship while also giving you access to flying bigger and more complex ships later in the game. Dogfights in your ship can be complicated, as enemy ships will range in versatility and may sometimes outclass your own.
Increasing your piloting skill will help make your ship more maneuverable and reactive to your quick turns in combat. As you level this skill up, it'll give you access to flying higher-class ships, which are far superior to what you start out with. Getting this skill early will make sure you can fly some of the better ships once you get them.
3 Persuasion
Persuasion now has a more in-depth system for players to use in dialogue with NPCs. This system gives you multiple chances to try and convince the subject using a risk-reward system that this Persuasion skill only makes easier.
This skill makes any option in a Persuasion conversation easier to succeed in. Persuasion can be used to talk yourself out of all sorts of difficult situations, so it's important to get this skill to make those tense situations easier to succeed in.
2 Boost Pack Training
The first rank of this skill should be one of the first skill points you spend in the game. At its first rank, you'll gain access to the boost features on all boost packs. Without this skill, you won't have access to the full abilities of the powerful backpacks you'll find in the galaxy.
For those focusing on the main story and finding temples to explore, a boost pack is almost a necessity to complete the puzzles within. The first rank alone is enough to make this skill worthwhile and should be purchased for any build.
1 Scavenging
Money makes the world go round in any game that has an internal economy. With hundreds of worlds to explore in Starfield, that saying is only multiplied. Scavenging gives the chance of more credits being found when looting containers, and this bonus greatly adds up over time. With higher ranks, you'll also have a higher chance of finding additional ammo and other items, such as med packs.
There are dozens of containers to search on just about every planet, and getting this skill early can lead to hundreds of thousands of bonus credits adding up over time. New ships and powerful weapons are expensive, so getting this skill and saving up early on is a must for anyone trying to make their way through the galaxy.
Next:Starfield: How To Change Your Appearance
