All skills in Starfield

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Skills are one of the most important features of any RPG, and Starfield is no different. In the realm of Starfield, the proficiency of your character’s skills stands as a pivotal aspect. What you focus your character on will decide how good they are at anything in the game.

If you cultivate the right skills, you can take your venture in different directions, whether you concentrate on specific areas of expertise or cultivate a well-rounded capability. It’s always smart to know every skill in Starfield so you can really focus on how you want your character to be.

Before you get into this, make sure you know if Starfield is on Game Pass or PlayStation 5, and how the Creation Engine 2 changes the game from previous IPs of Bethesda. There are a lot of skills so it’s best to keep your headphones on and get yourself focused on picking the right build for you. Below, you will find every skill in Starfield along with a description for each.

All skills in Starfield and what they do

Starfield offers 82 distinct skills that we know of. Each of these skills falls into one of five categories:

1. Combat
2. Tech
3. Social
4. Science
5. Physical

It’s a good idea to invest every skill point into the Starfield Skills you want. So if you like to hack and pick locks, don’t invest skills into explosives or ballistic weapons until you have fitted your character with the skill ranks they will mostly use. You should get more skills as you upgrade and move up levels.

Each of the skills trees is broken into tiers. You must unlock a certain amount of the tier before to unlock the next tier. For instance, you can’t unlock the second tier of the combat tree without first putting enough skill points into the first tier. Depending on the skills you choose you can have cheaper fuel costs and can acquire more components.

Skill point placement is permanent. Keep this in mind before placing skill points and regretting it later on.

All Starfield Combat skills

Combat proficiency revolves around your ability to work with various weaponry. Through the development of these skills, you will be able to use weapons more effectively and cause harm to your adversaries. The combat skills we know of so far are:

• Marksmanship – Increases critical hit chance with non-automatic ranged weapons
• Rifle Certification – Rifles do more damage
• Particle Beams – Particle beam weapons do more damage
• Ballistics – Ballistic weapons do more damage
• Heavy Weapons Certification – Heavy weapons do more damage
• Dueling – Melee weapons do more damage. Take less damage while wielding a melee weapon
• Lasers – Laser weapons do more damage
• Demolitions – Throwing grenades now shows a trajectory arc. Explosions have a larger radius. Reduce damage taken from explosives. Explosives do more damage.
• Targeting – Increased accuracy and range when shooting without aiming. Marks up to one enemy within 25m that damages you.
• Rapid Reloading – Reload ballistic weapons faster
• Sniper Certification – Scoped weapons are steadier and have less sway. You can hold your breath longer with scoped weapons. Headshots while aiming with a scoped weapon have a bonus 25% critical hit chance. Scoped weapons to more damage while using the scope.
• Shotgun Certification – Shotguns do more damage
• Pistol Certification – Pistols do more damage
• Incapacitation – EM weapons do more damage
• Armor Penetration – Attacks ignore a percentage of target’s armor
• Crippling – Human enemies have a percentage chance to enter a downed state after taking enough damage.
• Sharpshooting – Increase critical damage to different body parts

We are sure that this is more for ranged weapons, rather than melee weapons. So this deals with scoped weapons, threat elimination, proper training for combat capacity, and giving you a tactical edge. So if you’re interested in having a ton of empty magazines, shooting turrets, or having a larger radius of effective damage against your opponent, this is for you.

All Starfield Tech Skills

In the game, your interaction with the technological elements is governed by your tech skills. In addition to piloting your spacecraft, this skill extends to ship development, robotics, and security system manipulation. The confirmed tech skills are:

• Security – You can attempt to hack locks and gain auto-unlock attempts.
• Boost Pack Training – You can utilize your boost packs. Using boost pack expends less fuel. Boost pack fuel regenerates more quickly.
• Starship Engineering – All ship systems repair faster. Ship systems have increase damage mitigation.
• Payloads – Ship cargo holds have more capacity.
• Piloting – You can utilize ship thrusters. Increased ship turning rate and maneuverability. Unlock the ability to pilot class B and class C ships.
• Robotics – You deal more damage to robots and turrets. You can force a target robot to stop fighting for a limited time.
• Ballistic Weapons Systems – Ballistic ship weapons have increased damage and cost less to use in targeting mode.
• Targeting Control Systems – Unlocks ship targeting functionality. Time to lock onto enemy ships is reduced. Target-locked ships fire lower at you.
• Energy Weapons Systems – Energy ship weapons have increased damage and cost less to use in targeting mode.
• Engine Systems – Your ship’s top speed is increased. Ship boosts last longer and the cooldown is shorter.
• Shield Systems – Your ship has increased shield capacity.
• Missile Weapons Systems – Ship missile weapons do more damage and their targeting mode cost is reduced.
• Particle Beams Weapons Systems – Ship particle beam weapons do more damage and targeting mode cost is reduced.
• Starship Design – Allows the installation of improved, superior, cutting-edge, and experimental ship modules.
• Automated Weapons Systems – Automated ship weapons do more damage and reduce all targeting mode costs.
• Boost Assault Training – Nearby enemies take damage when you boost and have a chance to catch fire. Chance to knockdown nearby enemies when you boost. Aiming down sights while boosting will let you hover in place. While hovering, time slows down and the world moves slower.
• EM Weapons Systems – EM ship weapons have increase damage and cost less to use in targeting mode.

This is generally where you can find the ability to pick expert locks or increase success chances for auto attempts while lockpicking. This is also where you need to invest to be able to pick master-level locks using a digipick or solving a puzzle, and sneaking past the galaxy’s many dangers.

All Starfield Social Skills

Your social skills influence your ability to communicate effectively with others. Among other interactions, this competency profoundly affects barter transactions, crew leadership, and NPC persuasion and intimidation. Confirmed social skills include:

• Intimidation – You can force a target NPC at or below your level to flee for a limited time.
• Xenosociology – You can force a target alien creature up to 10 levels fighter than you to stop fighting for a limited time. You can force them to flee and attack their allies.
• Persuasion – Increased chances of success when persuading someone.
• Theft – Unlock the ability to pickpocket targets. Greater chance to successfully pickpocket.
• Instigation – You can force a target NPC at or below your level to attack their allies for a limited time.
• Leadership – Companions gain affinity faster. Companions have more health and more carrying capacity. Companions will occasionally heal you when you get low health.
• Outpost Management – Additional cargo links can be placed at outposts. Outpost extractors produce twice as fast.
• Scavenging – There’s a chance you’ll find extra credits, ammo, and aid items when searching containers.
• Gastronomy – You can craft specialty food and drinks, and research additional recipes at a research lab.
• Deception – Ships stronger will automatically surrender to piracy demands. Enemy contraband scans are less effective.
• Diplomacy – You can force a target NPC at or below your level to stop fighting for a while.
• Isolation – Do more weapon damage and gain damage resistance for each spacesuit and helmet equipped when you don’t have a companion or any crew.
• Negotiation – You now have access to bribery in speech challenges. Bribery cost is reduced.
• Manipulation – You can force a target NPC at or below your level to obey commands for a limited time.
• Ship Command – You can have more active crew members.
• Commerce – Buy items for less and sell items for more.

All Starfield Science Skills

Among science skills are the formulation of medicines, outpost construction, astrophysics, and more. In the game, these skills play an integral role in crafting mechanisms and resource accumulation. The confirmed science skills are:

• Botany – Get more common and uncommon organic resources from plants, learn additional info about them from the scanner, and allows some plants to be cultivated at your outpost.
• Geology – Get more common and uncommon inorganic resources from surface objects.
• Astrophysics – You can scan the moons of your current planet. You have a chance to discover a trait when scanning.
• Chemistry – You can create improved chems, and research additional chems at a research lab.
• Surveying – Adds an optional zoom to the hand scanner, and the scan distance is increased.
• Medicine – Med Packs, Trauma Packs, and Emergency Kits restore additional health faster.
• Astrodynamics – Increase grav jump range of jump drives.
• Outpost Engineering – You can construct improved outpost modules and research additional modules at a research lab.
• Research Methods – Resources required to craft items and complete projects is reduced.
• Scanning – You can detect different inorganic resources on planet and moon surfaces and more information about ships in space.
• Spacesuit Design – You can craft different types of spacesuits, helmets, and pack mods, and research additional mods at a research lab.
• Weapon Engineering – You can craft improved weapon mods at a weapon workbench and research additional weapon mods at a research lab.
• Zoology – Get more organic resources from creatures and harvest from them without harming them. Learn additional info about them from the scanner which allows you to produce animal resources at outposts.
• Aneutronic Fusion – Ship reactors produce extra units of power.
• Planetary Habitation – You can build outposts on planets with extreme temperatures. Increases the maximum number of outposts you can build.
• Special Projects – You can research projects at a research lab.

This is where you will get better with medical training, knowing your overall sense of health, good nutrition habits, finding new ingredients, and becoming a skilled practitioner of the sciences.

All Starfield Physical Skills

Physical skills play a significant role in determining your character’s attributes in Starfield. From strength and health to stealthy movement and culinary prowess, these skills range widely. The confirmed physical skills are:

• Rejuvenation – Slowly regenerate health outside of combat.
• Decontamination – Increased chance to recover from infections naturally.
• Wellness – Increases your maximum health.
• Concealment – You no longer set off enemy mines. Ranged sneak attacks do more damage and your melee sneak attacks do more damage.
• Martial Arts – Increased chance to crit with a melee or unarmed strike. Take less damage while unarmed or holding a melee weapon.
• Stealth – Adds a stealth meter. You are more difficult to detect when sneaking. Suppressed weapons to additional sneak attack damage.
• Neurostrikes – Chance to stun an NPC with an unarmed attack.
• Weight Lifting – Increases your total carrying capacity.
• Boxing – Unarmed attacks to more damage. Less O2 used with power attacks.
• Fitness – You have more oxygen available.
• Energy Weapon Dissipation – Energy damage is reduced.
• Environmental Conditioning – Gain resistance to airborne, thermal, corrosive, and radiation environmental damage.
• Gymnastics – Unlock the ability to combat slide. Take less fall damage.
• Nutrition – Food and drinks are more effective.
• Pain Tolerance – Physical damage is reduced.
• Cellular Regeneration – Increased chance to recover from injuries naturally.

This will be your way to gain damage resistance, have less sway when fighting, be able to take in additional chems, fight infections, and avoid environmental damage.

How many skills are in Starfield?

There are 82 skills for you to choose from in Starfield that are all linked to the tech, science, combat, social, and physical skill trees. As you progress through the game, you will be able to rank up skills and make them even more powerful.