One of the most difficult aspects of any Bethesda game is the weight mechanic, and Starfield is no exception. Due to the fact that these games have a huge economy based on the scavenging of items, and crafting of others, you’ll have a lot of options for getting rich. Unfortunately, one of the major hindrances to accomplishing this goal is the sheer amount of stuff you can carry in one sitting. Luckily, Starfield can be relatively lenient in how much equipment you carry between the many different storage systems available. This can culminate in your ship cargo, your companions, yourself, and all of the properties you can purchase.
Luckily with all of the crafting available, there’s really no end to the reasons why collecting components can help you out. For one, using these components in research and recipes can maximize the most out of this clutter giving you a great profit. Otherwise, the many decorations, buildings, and upgrades for your weapons can be an important step along your path to success. Besides this, you’ll need to manage your weapons, armor, health items, and clothing as each has its own individual weight. Luckily, in this guide, there’s the aim to teach you how to make the most of the limited weight you’re given.
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Storage Sources
With so many ways to overcome these weight restrictions, at first, you might need some clarification on how to manage it all. There are four main places you can store your stuff; companions, ship cargo, houses/ outposts, and your own inventory. Your inventory and cargo hold will be indispensable if you keep yourself unencumbered. Initially, you’ll be limited to a couple hundred pounds, but as your storyline progresses, you’ll find better ships. After this, you’ll have access to your companions and crew, as well as any houses you find.
While companions and crew may be static in the amount of equipment they can carry, the other three methods of storage are fully upgradeable. Using perks and upgrades can make both your own inventory and your ship’s cargo hold more potent. Additionally, all of your homes can have a variety of storage chests crafted and stored within them, giving you a great potential for storing your items. These storage systems are incredibly potent over time but require skill points and resources in order to improve. By going through your research station, you can potentially acquire better storage options and higher-level cargo holds to further your efforts.
Personal Storage
Your personal inventory can be defined by your strength stat and whether or not you have the weight-lifting perk. These two factors, along with any upgrades on your equipment can give you a carry weight well over 200 pounds. Personal inventory can be a tough thing to manage as you’ll be getting these things as you travel around various locations. For this reason, it’s important to keep in mind that items such as alcohol can give you a bit extra carry weight for a limited time. Of these consumables, Bog’s Grog gives the player an additional 20 pounds of carry weight for four hours.
Weight Lifting is a great perk to keep in mind if you want to increase your base carry weight
Weight Lifting Perk
The weight-lifting perk is probably one of the better options to take as quickly as possible as it increases your total carrying capacity. You can upgrade this ability by sprinting around at 75% capacity or higher, which is easy to accomplish. Any proper scavenger will appreciate this perk as it increases your carrying weight in increments of ten percent up to 50 percent! Once acquired in its final level, the weight-lifting perk makes the player fifty percent more resistant to staggering effects. Altogether, the bonuses of the weightlifting perk make it worth picking up as early as possible and can be found in the physical skill tree.
Companion Inventory
One of the best ways to maintain your inventory early on is to use your companions like in any other Bethesda game. By trading with them you’re able to acquire a bit more breathing room as they tote around the goods. Luckily in Starfield‘s normal difficulty settings, companions are considered unkillable so you don’t risk losing your stuff if they fall in battle. Unfortunately, when handing equipment to your companion, they have a chance of using it themselves including consumables, weapons, armor, and ammunition. It’s important to remember this as you never want to give a companion something that is limited in use.
Starting Perks
In the beginning of your game when creating a character, one of the starting perks will grant you a companion that works like the fan from prior titles. This fan has an incredibly high carrying capacity as one of their abilities is the weight-lifting perk. While they will be completely terrible in combat, that along with the kid’s stuff perk can give you more immediate carry weight. The kid’s stuff perk grants you a non-boosting backpack that gives you an additional ten pounds of carry weight.
Companions are a great method in making sure you have enough carry weight to go around!
Ship Cargo
Ships of various classifications will have different cargo holds that can range from a couple of hundred pounds of storage to a couple of thousand. Generally, the more cargo the ship has, the less defended or speedy it will be. In this sense, it’s a good idea to keep all of your unneeded gear inside these ships, since their cargo holds are perfect for storing stuff. The more cargo you have, the more fuel your ship will use between jumps. It can be frustrating since some crafts have terrible gravity drives, but it can be worth it.
Contraband Hold
Most pirate facilities let you have a contraband hold for contraband and illegal goods. The best way to keep extra stuff on board is to add fifty to a hundred pounds to your inventory. The payoff can be too good to pass up on contraband holds, even if they can be expensive and put a bounty on your head if found. Last but not least, keep in mind that these holds do affect your speed since they’re usually in the engine.
Payload
One of the best perks you can get for your early-game ships is the payload perk, which adds a percentage to their cargo. You’ll get an extra hundred pounds on the first upgrade if you’re upgrading a ship with a huge cargo hold like the prison shuttle. This can be upgraded by traveling with a filled cargo hold and making sure you fill it with exotic cargo. Requires at least three skill points in the tech skill tree before you can acquire the payload perk, but should be one of the first steps on any hauler build. Finally, this perk interacts with both the contraband Hold and the normal cargo hold giving both a higher space capacity!
Shielded cargo holds and other modifications are a perfect means of protecting yourself from having too much equipment on your person.
Housing/ Outposts
When you acquire a new property in Starfield, you can dedicate it to being a storage facility by filling it with containers. Similar to anyone who’s played an Elder Scrolls game, the housing acts as a safe space to dump your gear. Houses and outposts can both have these storage units, though their weight capacity varies from 10 pounds to 200 pounds. Plus, you can spread these caches around as many planets as you want, so you can have warehouse-style buildings. These containers require aluminum and structural material but can be built from basic crafting recipes.
Medpacks/ refrigerators
Luckily when owning a house or outpost you can have more than just treasure chests littering your premises. Using med packs containers and refrigerators can help keep your materials both organized and neat when trying to restock. Both have very limited cargo space, however, when putting medical and food items in their prospective places it pays off. You can fit at least six half-pound med packs in one med container, and fifty food items in one refrigerator. These are both high-ticket trade items that if made the most out of can keep your character from being broken from an ammunition purchase.
Equipment Upgrades
One of the available upgrades for your armor, helmets, and jump packs is the ability to increase your carrying capacity. Though there can be far better ways of upgrading your armor, the added carry weight is great for trading builds. Any appropriate long hauler will want to acquire these upgrades as it makes carrying around resources that much easier. The capacity in which these upgrades increase your equipment is in percentages such as five percent or ten. Another way to upgrade your carry weight is through clothing that also ups it by five to twenty pounds. Altogether these upgrades can add an additional hundred pounds to your characters which is astonishing without mods!
Storage crates are a great way to store equipment in your home and outpost without having them cluttered with random things on the ground
Alcohol/ Stimulants
There are a number of different alcohol items such as beer, bourbon, and whiskey that will upgrade your carrying capacity for a short amount of time. In this sense, bogs grog as before mentioned is probably the best of these items that you can purchase. Most of these concoctions can be crafted using the resources and recipes you acquire in your journeys. So, these drinks are almost better to keep around since a half pound of beer can give you eight pounds of extra carrying capacity. Several stimulants work the same way or increase your speed, which makes moving easier when you’re encumbered.
These methods can be dangerous for users because they lower O2 collection and the risk of addiction. Although not as taxing as previous games, Starfield says these addictions can be a problem later on. In small doses, the added weight can make traversing a space station more enjoyable. They’re all low-weight and daisy-chainable so they’re almost constant. If you don’t mind the freeze-dried alcohol taste, you can forget about being over-encumbered!
Over Encumbered
You’ll get the over-encumbered status effect if you carry too much equipment. If you have this status effect in Starfield, you’ll lose O2 with every step, and you won’t be able to fast travel until it’s fixed. It’s not ideal since moving toward your vessel is the only way to fix this or trade off equipment. Overburdened isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a player, but it slows you down. You should avoid it at all costs since being overburdened makes new stuff harder! Instead, try to do it as little as possible and delegate as much weight to your companions as possible.
-source: Gamers Heroes
Moving while Over Encumbered
Movement while over-encumbered is taxing, and takes away from your O2 with every inch of ground you take. To make the process easier, jump and boost your way forward until you reach your ship. You’ll still lose oxygen when you move, but it’s better than walking or sprinting. Over-encumbered is a status debuff, so stay away from combat and strenuous exercises until you can get rid of it. Importantly, note that fall damage when you’re over-encumbered is increased, avoid landing in any large holes! Interestingly, when over your carrying capacity, you’ll have to deal with being able to be staggered more. To avoid this outcome, make sure you engage your opponents from a distance as you will want to stay out of stressful melee combat.
Weight Capacity As A Whole
While your health and your oxygen levels are equally important to anything else, carrying weight is just as important. Keep in mind that absolutely everything you pick up besides medical packs, ammunition, and credits will have a carry weight. Because of this, you’ll need to possibly make multiple trips to the same locations early on, unless you have a long hauler ship. These long-hauling vessels can make some of the best easy game purchases if you want to trade. Trading will be the biggest reason why your carrying capacity becomes so problematic. Just remember that with the right perks, and the right ship, you can bring home upwards of a thousand pounds of equipment!
