Starfield is the highly anticipated new open world RPG from Bethesda Game Studios. With hundreds of skills to unlock, deciding which ones to focus on early can be overwhelming for new players. Based on my experience playing the game, I‘ve identified 8 of the best starting skills that will give you a strong foundation.
Why Starting Skills Matter
Unlike most RPGs where you can eventually unlock every skill, Starfield has over 120 skills with a max cap of 60 skill points at end game. This means you need to specialize based on your preferred playstyle. The skills you choose early on will shape your character build and impact your journey through the Settled Systems.
Starting out right away with the most useful skills will make the beginning of the game smoother. You‘ll be able to take on enemies and challenges more easily compared to someone who haphazardly picks skills. It sets you up for success later when enemies get tougher.
So without further ado, here are the 8 best Starfield starting skills and why you should invest points into them first.
1. Medicine (Science)
Medicine should be one of the first skills you unlock in Starfield. It increases the amount and rate your health regenerates from using healing items like medpaks.
At higher skill ranks, medicine can also cure status afflictions that certain enemies can inflict. These afflictions do things like poison, burn, or irradiate your character which slowly chip away at health.
Even with good aim, you‘ll inevitably take damage from enemies. Medicine gives you sustainability so you can explore dangerous planets and clear out enemy camps without worrying as much about dying. It‘s the difference between limping back to your ship after every fight versus being ready for the next battle.
2. Stealth (Physical)
Stealth makes avoiding fights easier plus enables you to land devastating sneak attack critical hits. Having this skill lets you see the detection indicator so you‘ll know when enemies can or can‘t see you while crouching.
Higher ranks make enemies have a harder time spotting you. This pairs well with sound-suppressed weapons as you can pick off enemies silently without raising an alarm. I relied heavily on my suppressed pistol while sneaking around pirate bases to thin their numbers.
Even if combat is unavoidable, getting the jump on enemies with a sneak attack critical gives you a major advantage in the fight.
3. Engineering (Science)
Engineering allows you to repair and improve your weapons and gear. Guns have a durability stat that depletes with use until they break. Higher engineering skill lets you repair them to maintain top performance plus mod them to be even deadlier.
On top of that, you can use engineering to upgrade your space suit. This increases core stats like damage resistance, environmental hazard protection, mobility, and more. An upgraded suit can mean the difference between survival or death on hazardous planets.
Engineering is too useful to pass up as one of your first skills. It saves you money on replacements and repairs. Modded gear also far outclasses early game loot you‘ll find exploring planets.
4. Piloting (Technology)
Unless you want to exclusively explore planets on foot, I highly recommend investing early points into piloting. It‘s required to fly anything better than basic tier shuttlecraft.
Higher piloting ranks give you access and improved handling of fighter-tier spaceships. These ships have better weapons, defenses, and flight capabilities suited for combat and traveling long distances across the Settled Systems. You‘ll struggle in most space encounters without one.
Piloting also unlocks lateral thrust capabilities for smoother maneuverability. This helped immensely in battles where I had to keep enemies in front of me while circling strafing.
5. Persuasion (Social)
Persuasion increases your chances at successfully talking your way out of hostile situations. Instead of resorting to violence, you can use skill checks to deescalate conflicts through dialogue.
This talent pairs well with stealth, as even if enemies detect you sneaking, there‘s a possibility you can convince them you weren‘t trying to cause trouble. Persuaded enemies may even reveal additional information or reward you for your silver tongue.
Higher persuasion ranks also reduce vendor prices for buying and selling items. Combined with high barter skill, you can reliably broker lucrative trade deals. This is hugely beneficial early when credit reserves are low.
6. Science (Science)
The science skill opens various avenues of opportunity through the scanning system. Points invested here increase your scanning range and reveal more hidden points of interest while exploring planets.
Without science skill, your scanning range is severely limited. You‘ll miss out on many sites containing loot caches, harvestable resources, points of interest, enemy bases, derelict spacecraft, and more. Science allows you to fully tap into scanning to support an expeditionary playstyle.
Higher ranks also identify secured caches that require skill checks to unlock. These caches have rare crafting resources and valuable items inside. Science transforms scavenging into a reliable income stream while exploring.
7. Lockpicking (Technology)
Many locked doors and containers found in the world block off lucrative loot and schematics. The lockpicking skill checks associated with them scale in difficulty, so investing early in lockpicking will enable you to crack easier locks.
Locked medical storage rooms in particular have rare healing items and medicinal resources for crafting injections. Weapons lockers as expected contain dangerous weapons like laser rifles.
Having lockpicking supplements whatever combat or social talents you invest in by giving you access to more gear. It also avoids the feeling of coming across tantalizing locked loot only to lack the skills to pick it open.
8. Intimidate (Social)
Intimidate works similarly to persuasion but involves coercing others through aggressive demands and threats. You can bully enemies into backing down or handing over valuables rather than fighting them.
This talent shines against weaker opponents like desperate deserters or superstitious primitives. However, hardened mercenaries and zealots are less likely to cave to intimidation attempts. Know when to leverage coercion versus a honeyed tongue.
Either way, intimidate expands your non-violent interaction capabilities when you want to avoid bloodshed. It has great synergy with combat skills by enabling you to pressure enemies once they‘re low on health into surrendering.
When spending your first dozen skill points, I recommend striking a balance between defensive and offensive skills. Survival-focused talents like medicine, engineering, and piloting establish a strong backbone. You augment them with damage-dealing skills like ranged weapons and melee combat.
Supportive skills matter too like persuasion for social checks, lockpicking for accessing loot, and science for revealing exploration sites. Fill the gaps depending on if you prefer guns, energy weapons, hacking, or speech.
By distributing starting skills across different branches, you equip yourself to handle diverse challenges while leaving room to specialize later. These talents give you the means to live another day to further improve.
Choosing the right skills at the start of Starfield sets you on the path toward becoming a jack-of-all-trades adventurer or specialized expert. Getting to actually use talents effectively is a separate matter though. Here are some tips:
- Read skill descriptions – Know exactly what each rank upgrade does, don‘t assume. Granular bonuses matter.
- Lean into skill synergies – Complementary skills reinforce each other so the whole is greater than the parts.
- Exploit skill check opportunities – Dialogue, hacking, repairing, etc. Leverage your skills whenever possible.
- Design gameplay around them – Build your character identity around signature skills through playstyle.
Following these tips, my Starfield character leveraged stealth, science, and persuasion skills to become a cunning space explorer infiltrating dangerous ruins. The skills lent themselves to an opportunistic playstyle where I manipulated situations to my advantage.
Had I invested in soldier skills like assault training, advanced armor, and weapon mastery instead, I would have roleplayed more directly as a space marine charging headfirst into combat.
So choose skills that facilitate how you actually want to navigate The Settled Systems as your playable character. Let your talents guide your storytelling.
Here are final brief suggestions when spending precious skill points:
- Avoid dumping too many points into crafting early since materials are scarce. Wait until mid-game when resources are abundant.
- Prioritize movement skills like sprinting and boost jump to aid exploration over combat performance. Mobility fuels adventure.
- Don‘t neglect dialogue talents even for combat builds. Enemies with dialogue tags may offer alternate solutions.
- Scan skill unlocks before committing points. Some only offer negligible bonuses while others power spike tremendously.
- Resist temptation to over-specialize too early. Stay versatile to handle diverse challenges while settling into a playstyle.
Even among the 8 recommended starting skills, personal preference and intended playstyle should dictate priorities. Just be sure to build balanced talent coverage between offense, defense, exploration, social, and technical competencies relevant to an spacefaring adventurer during opening hours.
Specialization comes later once you unlock synergistic abilities that double down on specific combat, social, or technical systems. For now, tools to survive and thrive across space in all its glory take top priority.
Safe travels and may your skills serve you well amongst the stars, adventurer!
