Making credits can be relatively easy in Starfield once you’ve had time to collect knowledge about the economies. Every system you visit will have a wide variety of goods and resources you can collect, which could make you rich. In the interstellar traffic lanes, the right perks, opportunities, and decisions can see you make a fortune quickly! No matter how you come across the boundaries of making a fortune, you should always keep in mind a few details. Your cargo space, ability to persuade, and knowledge of commerce will decide how well you do. Make sure to invest in the strongest vessels, and in your own ability to talk.
You won’t become Diamond Jim of the spacer scene in any class vessel, but you can make the most of it. By bounty hunting, collecting debts, and exploring old ruins, you can get credit to buy better gear. As a result of these experiences, you’ll get into shadier things like moving contraband and doing piracy, which can be profitable. You can earn credits for everything in the game, from mining and surveying to mercenary work and escorting. So doing work that really pays off can mean all the difference, especially when you’re just starting out.
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Beginning Tips
There are a few things to keep in mind before you start your trading adventure in Starfield. For one, you’ll need to keep in mind that you have to invest in the right perks, and the right items early on.
- Access to the social perk Commerce will greatly improve your ability to buy and sell things, and piloting gives you access to larger ships.
- Another thing to keep in mind is that things like carrying capacity and inventory management will become the name of the game.-
- When dealing with carrying weight, make sure you always have companions on you.
- Resources, weapons, and food items will often give you the best bang for your buck credit-wise. Collecting them has little mass and huge payoffs.
No matter how you want to frame your character, items that increase your ability to carry things will be invaluable for your journey. In this respect, knowing what’s worth money and what’s not is a vital skill in any video game. Typically, if it isn’t worth at least 20 credits per .10 Mass it’s not going to be worth grabbing. Keeping this in mind, you can easily make a profit through some of the low-weight items like sculptures, drugs, explosives, and crafting resources.
Gold-rated items like this Grendel can be sold for a lot of credits given their total weight. Making it perfect for collecting.
Profit Through Trading
In Starfield, trading with vendors and other vessels can make for a great means of acquiring credits. Both while being in space, and while on planetside, there will always be someone out there willing to trade. Talking to people or hailing them often gives you the chance to trade if they can. You can find some rare stuff this way, but you’re better off investing in perks that improve your odds. It’s always best to keep a few simple tips in mind when trading with people.
- Buy everything you want from the vendor first, and nominally trade goods to cushion price fluctuation.
- Only buy things you need, or are special to the merchant themselves
- Never purchase items before you sell everything you want to get the most out of a vendor.
The reason for this set of tips is to create as minimal transactional friction as possible in your trading venture. You might want a weapon that costs 19k credits but only have five. If the vendor has 10k difference, and you put the weapon in your inventory he can now buy 29k worth of goods. Now you can offload your entire trade stack, and make the money back plus have the items you want, making the most of the trading system. By doing this, you also ensure that your items are not taxed differently from what you buy when in a system with discounts or taxes.
Boost Packs, Armor, and other items of the heavy variety can be hard to make a profit on in large quantities. So always collect the most valuable versions of them!
Best Items For Vendors
Some of the best items you’ll find for vendors include things like spare ammunition, packs of cigarettes, and collected simple weapons. They are all relatively low in weight but can make all the difference in your trading adventure. Another great item you can collect to make a quick profit is food items, drinks, especially alcohol, and explosives. All of these are low in weight and can be worth a large amount of credit if collected in stacks. Keep in mind that certain alcohols are worth collecting solely because they increase your carrying capacity.
Finally, keeping a firm supply of resources on hand can make you a quick profit. You’ll need these resources anyway when it comes to wanting to start crafting. Keeping that in mind, you’ll probably find more resources than you’ll initially need, but you can stand to sell some spares for a quick profit. Ultimately, everything has value in Starfield. Just make sure you collect as many low-weight items as possible.
Smuggling
Once you’ve acquired enough credits to get yourself a nice shielded cargo bay, smuggling will become more available to you. Smuggled goods are often worth a big profit, and the trade authority will buy them without a second glance. Because of this, it’s worth the 17-300k price range to get yourself a nice-sized smuggling bay for those pesky sensors. That being said, you’ll need to screw up that high cost to start smuggling effectively. This makes smuggling a late-game operation, but if you can invest in the deception perk it can become available as soon as level five.
Hauler Ships like the UC Econohaul are great for making profits quickly. This comes from their extended cargo holds that allow you to carry more things to sell.
Contraband is by far one of the highest-profiting ways of making money in Starfield. This means you’ll be inclined to keep it safe at a neutral system, or outpost until you can offload it. For this, you’re best off going to the Kryx system, or Wolf in order to properly hide all of your collected contraband. You’ll know if it is contraband because it will have a large yellow square in its inventory card similar to a red one for stolen goods. If you are caught with contraband it will be confiscated and your character will be fined.
Profit Through activities
There are several activities throughout Starfield that will help players make a decent profit. Some of these are obviously harder than others but you’d be surprised to know that this does not translate to profits made. For instance, simple transport missions from point a to point b can make for an easy way to make a few thousand credits. On the other hand, surveying a planet is going to take a lot longer than clearing out a horde of spacers at an abandoned station. This makes it imperative that you keep three things in mind when taking activities in Starfield.
- Time spent on the quest itself
- What’s expected as a goal
- The reward was given.
Sometimes getting a lower stack of credits for a quicker set of activities that’s in a chain of events is more profitable than one big combat slog. For instance, going and doing debt collecting missions can be a quick space tour and a bunch of persuasion checks. These kinds of missions not only pay well but require minimal effort for the reward given. So make sure to always keep these things in mind early on, as your need to resupply ammunition can eat into your profits.
Piracy is a great method of making money so long as you can invest in the black market parts!
Best Activities To Earn Credits
Some of the best activities in Starfield to build credits come from escorting, debt collecting, piracy, and bounty hunting. Each of these activities is relatively easy going and grants the player a level of profit that’s slightly higher than scavenging old places. That being said, each of these requires an understanding that you have associated costs and risks with each of them. For instance, debt collecting is easygoing if you have the persuasion perk, if not it will be a hard slog of constant fights. Bounty-hunting missions can be super easy if you have the ability to win a fight quickly, but early on they can be difficult.
It’s important to remember that the legality of your missions is another major focal point of profits. The more illegal something is, the more profitable it will often be, with the higher risks associated. You can see yourself making a fine profit through things like stealing ships, and smuggling goods but you’ll always have to deal with the law. For that reason, you’ll need to invest heavily in good ship parts, weapons, and armor. That being said, these activities can give you access to quick payouts that are worth the high risks involved.
Profit Through Scavenging
Another major way to earn a profit in Starfield is to search for the many abandoned places in the galaxy. Each planet will have locations that have either been lost to time, or taken up by aliens and spacers alike. By aligning yourself with the pirates, you can easily eliminate one group that will try to kill you at these sites and allow you to scavenge them. That being said, the Crimson Fleet, Ecliptic, and Spacers will enjoy these sights almost as much as you will for similar reasons. The unclaimed goods and treasure waiting to be had will attract monsters of men and beasts alike.
Deception is one of many perks that will help you turn the tide of getting contraband into a system!
For this reason, you should always treat these places as a point of caution, and always keep in mind the best ways to dispatch your foes. Keeping enough medical equipment, ammunition, and explosives will be the key to surviving these labyrinths. Luckily, the more you explore these dungeons, the more experience you’ll gain making you a much better combatant. That being said, there are a few cautions and dangers to keep in mind while scavenging these locations.
For one, you’ll have to deal with constant inventory management as carrying too much will slow you down. Secondly, the constant enemies and hazards at these locations can cause status effects that will force you to carry medical equipment. Lastly, these places are often quest-associated and may require you to come back later for the truly important stuff available. All of this comes together to make scavenging a catch twenty-two, as it really just depends on where you go to make your credits.
Shielded Cargo holds are great for moving high-ticket items into a system
Best Perks For Profit
If you want to build a character that can easily make a fortune in Starfield, you’ll need a few perks under your belt. The main contenders are:
- Commerce- allowing the player to buy and sell goods at better prices
- Weightlifting- Increases carrying weight for more items to sell items
- Deception- allows the player to potentially bypass system scanners
- Piloting- allows the player to make the most of the reactor level of a ship
- Payload- increases the cargo hold of
These will allow your character to make the most of gaining items for your sales, as well as bypass city sensors. You could also invest in things like bribery which can make your character more constructive with the money they make. These are all gained through experience, so you can rely on them from their acquisition to make better profits.
-Source: IGN
Closing Tips
There’s an infinite way to make credits in Starfield so long as you open yourself to possibilities. For the most part, you can easily find out if something is profitable by looking at the item’s inventory card. Using it’s mass and value, you can easily figure out which is better to pick up. Finally, the rarity of the item is another great way to determine its value. A bunch of simple weapons may not be worth as much as a bunch of rare or epic weapons. That being said, your item’s level will also play a huge part in your choices. So never be afraid to keep your options open, and to try new things to sell!
Vendors are essential for moving goods you wish to sell, and will help you keep a steady profit!
