There are four approaches you can take to playing Starfield.

1. Your first playthrough is your main playthrough and you do everything, once you get to the Unity, come back and just keep playing in your main game and ignore doing NG+

2. Your first playthrough is your main playthrough and you do everything, once you get to the Unity, you go forward and do as many NG+ iterations as you want until you get tired of it and then make your last iteration another main playthrough focusing on whatever makes you happy

3. Focus on the main quest on the first playthrough so you can unlock NG+, then speed run NG+ 10 times before doing your main playthrough

4. Focus on the main quest on your first playthrough so you can unlock NG+, but instead of speed running each NG+ iteration, you pick a new faction to do, enjoying each iteration until you are ready to settle down and make whichever iteration you are on your main playthrough and focus on whatever makes you happy.

NOTE: NG+ stands for New Game Plus and it happens when you reach the Unity in the main quest and step through to go to a new universe. You lose all your material items but keep all your mental items (like level, research, skills, and powers).

Things to consider, when you reach the Unity, it will display a record of your life in that universe. If seeing very few memories makes you sad, one of the first two options might be best for you.

When you go to a new universe, you leave all physical items behind, meaning all your credits, equipment, and ships. You only take what is in your head, which is your level, powers, research, and skills. If losing everything you worked for makes you sad, doing one of the last two options might be best for you.

I ended up doing the fourth option and have not regretted it. Then again, I am an engineer and very goal orientated, so what makes me happy might not be the same as you.

Here is why I selected the fourth option as my strategy:

1. Since you give up all your material items when going to a new universe, I wanted to wait until my last play through to be my main play through.

2. Since each new universe is a restart, I wanted to do each of the factions as a separate play through. That way I can decide which ones I want to do again in my final play through.

3. Since I wanted to focus on building outpost, I used some of the play throughs to not only to gain the skills I needed, but also get some practice in building outpost so I have a better idea what I want to do on my final play through.

4. I wanted the best starborn ship and armor for my final play through, so my target play through is NG+10. I also wanted to have my powers maxed out.

On a side note, I did not learn about how to maximize collecting powers during my play throughs, so I have various levels among the different powers. I could have did a few more speed runs skipping the main quest, but honestly, the powers I use are at a decent enough level that I don't feel it will be worth it to max all of them out. But, when I start a new character to have a more optimized character (not picking up skills that I use), then I will definitely make sure I pick up all the powers on each play through.

Update:

After starting my final play through, I think if I were start a new character, I would pick option 4 and just focus on getting to NG+10 as quickly as possible, maximizing all the powers and magazines along the way. Then focus on all the missions and quest in the game. But then again, if this is your first time to play the game, then picking the third option is still an option since it allows you to experience all the main content and gives you a chance to make different choices if you want on your final playthrough.

On your very first playthrough, you can talk with the Hunter (a starborn character you will meet near the end of the main quest) at the Viewport bar in New Atlantis when you first arrive.

You may want to do NG+ (New Game Plus) 10 times.
On NG+6, you will get the best Starborn Guardian starship (VI)
On NG+10, you will get the best Starborn Spacesuit Venator (Phys/Engy/Em: 246, Thermal/Corrosive/Airborne/Radiation: 50)
NOTE: The perks of the armor are random, so you might want to save before starting NG+10 so you can keep trying for whatever perks you like best on your final playthrough.

To get the full experience again on your final playthrough, do the main quest over again instead of skipping. This will open up several quest with Constellation companions that would not be available when skipping the main quest.

Of course you are free to select the main quest on any of your other playthroughs as well, but it will take more time. Skipping the main quest greatly speeds up the playthrough.

NOTE: The starting mining drill can be used as a weapon, especially when you focus it. (Use the same button you would use for a scope to focus the laser so it will be more intense.) This is also a great way to speed up mining resources that seem to take forever to break up. The benefit of doing this is that you don’t have to worry about ammunition.


- After reaching the Unity, turn back and keep checking with Vlad until no more locations are available

NOTE: If you visit all the temples found when you reach the Unity, you will have only unlocked about half of the powers for that playthrough. If you want to maximize upgrading all your powers, I highly recommend going back after visiting the Unity. When you do, you can find most if not all the other temples. Once you run out of temples, then go back to the Unity to go to the next universe.


- Each time you pick up a magazine, you will get the next perk in the list for that magazine, it does not matter what issue that magazine is. So, you can pick up issue 1 of a magazine in 5 different playthroughs, and get all 5 perks for that magazine.
- Below is a list of magazines and how many times you need to pick them up. If there are only 5 perks with a magazine, picking up any more will not give you any additional perks.

Constellation - behind Sara Morgan when first coming to the Constellation HQ. (Pick up 5 times)

Peak Performance - in the gym on the eye when visiting Vlad for the first time. (Pick up 5 times)

Grunt - Found at the end of the Red Mile, loot off corpse next to the button. (Pick up 10 times)
Alternate location for Grunt - in the Lobby of the Seokguh Syndicate Hideout, behind Frankie's Grab & Go, during the Ryujin Industries Questline.
Alternate location for Grunt - in the Ruffian camp near the farm, during the Deputized quest.
Alternate location for Grunt - on The Key on table in the back of the Last Nova
Alternate location for Grunt - on Derelict Starship in orbit around Maheo V in Maheo during Failure to Communicate quest. There is a key next to the issue that unlocks a large safe downstairs.

Nova Galactic - on Luna inside space station in a room above the control room stairs during main quest (Pick up 5 times)
Alternate location for Nava Galactic - Cassiopia I, inside the Escape Pod during Sarah Morgan's Companion quest.
Alternate location for Nava Galactic - inside MAST's Cabinet Level, on the table of the office of Deputy Elisabeth Macintyre.

Freestar Captain's Log - Akila City Consulate on the upper level, on a table just inside the first door. (Pick up 5 times)

Gunslinger's Guide - Marshal's office in Akila city (Pick up 5 times)
Alternate Gunslinger's Guide - on table inside the Book Shop in Akila city
Alternate Gunslinger's Guide - directly to your right when you enter the Ranger Office in HopeTown
Alternate Gunslinger's Guide - Neon on the upper part of the Freestar Rangers Outpost in the Coore, next to the bed.
Alternate Gunslinger's Guide - top floor living space of the Freestar Collect Embassy in New Atlantis durng UC Questline

Solomon's Adventures - bedside table in the upstairs bedroom of the Coe Estate in Akila City (Pick up 5 times)
Alternate Solomon's Adventures - next to a bunk bed on the 2nd floor of the Wagoner Farm in the Cheyenne System during ranger missions.

Tracker's Primer - Indum II at Pilgrim's Rest in the back side of the Personal Room of the house. (Pick up 5 times)

Kryx's Journal Entry - Vlad's Villa (Syrma VII-a, Syrma System) in the basement. (Pick up 5 times)

Unlocking powers at the temple can be frustrating. You will eventually unlock it, but sometimes it feels like it takes forever. Below are some things you can do to decrease the time it takes to unlock.

• Unlocking the powers at the temple is a timed event. Each failed attempt to reach the spot requires additional attempts.
  
• First, pick up the Gymnastics skill and get it to rank 2. This will allow you to move much faster in zero G.
  
• Second, if you are Starborn, you can use your Phased Time ability to get you to the next spot before it disappears. If I use this technique on all the spots, I usually unlock the power in five spots.
  
• If you are working on your Concealment skill ranks, you can practice on the temple guardian after unlocking the power. Just make sure to take a step back and hide as soon as you are outside the temple.
  
• After leaving the temple, there is no need to run back to your ship, just fast travel. This will greatly speed up your run.
  
• Speaking of speeding up your run, fast travel is your friend, use it whenever you can.

The most used power I use is Phased Time during combat.
The second most used power I use is Personal Atmosphere to aid in running and moving while encumbered. (Note: I can carry over 10k mass using Personal Atmosphere.)
The third most used power I use is Moon Form to heal while in combat instead of relying on med packs.
The fourth most used power I use is Sense Star Stuff while I am sneaking. Being able to know where everyone is and which direction they are moving greatly helps while I am sneaking around.
I also use Precognition when I want to see all the responses to a dialog.
And in certain situations, I use Creators' Peace to force legendary opponents to drop their weapon so I don't get hit as hard.

I am planning on using Elemental Pull and Eternal Harvest more in my final play through to help with gathering resources.

If I did not have my Stealth and Concealment skills ranked up, I might have used Void Form while sneaking, but as it is now, I really don't gain a lot from that skill other than maybe being able to run while nearly invisible.

You could make an argument about some of the other powers' usefulness during combat, but honestly, I do fine with the few I use all the time, so I might play with them for entertainment purposes, but doubt they will ever replace the 6 I currently slot.

When doing your playthroughs, you may want a few more levels for skills you need that you are working on. While you will gain levels quickly by doing the quest lines, an alternate way to level up is to power level using crafting.

The best way to do this is to build an outpost where you can mine both Aluminum and Iron. The goal is to build Adaptive Frames for experience. You get roughly 1 XP per Adaptive Frame you build and it takes 1 Aluminum and 1 Iron to build. Luckily, you can build up to 99 of them at a time. And if you sleep for at least one hour before crafting, you will get around 107 experience per build.

If you need credits, you can also sell the Adaptive Frames you are building.

There are several YouTube videos on how to set up your first outpost, some easier than others. I highly recommend doing the one that uses Bessel III-b. It was frustrating to find the exact pixel to land at, but figured out an easy trick that gave me much better results. Before picking your landing spot, save your game and exit. Then change your screen resolution to the lowest it will go. Then start the game again and find that pixel on a Mountain biome that also touches a Hill and Desert biome. After landing, save the game and exit. Then return your screen resolution back to normal. Then you can restart your game and search for the location at the base of the black mountain that intersects with the other two biomes to set up your output.

The reason why I like this location is because you will be mining not only Aluminum and Iron, but also Cobalt and Nickel, which means after you finishing crafting all the Adaptive Frames you can, then you can build some Isocentered Magnets.

Bessel III-b is also nice because when you sleep for one hour, you are actually producing close to 60 hours worth of resources.

There is nothing wrong with using other locations that are easier to set up, it will just take a little more time to gain experience.

Note: If you are not interesting in selling the components you are building, I found it very convenient to simply drop the components instead of trying to store them. To keep things orderly, I would pick up whatever I dropped the previous time and then dropped the items again to minimize the number of objects on the ground.

Once you get something set up, then you just have to decide how many levels you want. Just know that a lot of missions scale to your level, so make sure you keep up with your combat skills if you are doing this.

The easiest and fastest way to level up your starship skills, which usually require space combat, is to using the flight simulator at the UC Vanguard training center. Sign up to join the UC Vanguard and the very first thing they will want you to do is to test your space combat skills in a simulator. This counts as space combat and there is no risk to your own ship. The trick is to not turn in your score after you step out of the simulator, but instead, just keep going back and redoing the test until you have leveled all the space combat skills you want.

This is a very quick and easy way to get your Piloting skill to rank 4. It is also a good way to get most of the other space combat skills leveled. (I only used it for my Piloting skill since I am more focused on planet side combat.)

NOTE: Once the simulation starts, you can get up and go to the back of the simulator where you can log into the computer and increase some of your ship's stats and even pick up a wing man. You don't get in trouble for doing this and actually get praised for utilizing all of your advantages.

Taking the approach is much more safer than doing it in space. It is nice that there is a way to level these skills for those of us not as interested in space combat. And it is nice for those who want to get to the more powerful ships quickly.

The ideal place to store all your resources is in an outpost because when you are crafting you have access to everything on your person, in your ship and in your outpost. But until you have an outpost that can handle that type of volume, there are two containers at the Constellation Headquarters that have unlimited space. One is in your bedroom and the other is downstairs in the crafting area.

I highly recommend putting all your resources in the container in the basement. With all the crafting stations conveniently placed within close proximity to the storage container, it makes it really easy to just take everything from the container, craft, and then put all resources back into the container.

For everything else, like equipment and weapons you don't want to sell, there is the safe in your bedroom upstairs.

BTW, until you have a research outpost set up, you will have everything you need in the basement of the Constellation Headquarters to research and craft whatever you want. If that works for you, there is no need to even build an outpost unless you just need some rare resources. And having simple outpost dedicated to just harvesting a few resources is way easier to manage than trying to set up networks or living spaces for those outpost.

NOTE: If you have a crafting station at an outpost that you cannot access because it is obscured, simply move it a little bit. The reason why it is obscured is because when it was placed it clipped something on the planet and now there is a race condition when things are rendered. If you continue to have problems accessing something, you may want to move it and ensure nothing on the planet is disappearing when the item is placed.

You will meet many NPCs along the way that you can recruit to be your companion or to assign to your ship or an outpost. I will just focus on the ones that you can access via Constellation.

Some members of Constellation will not be available to join you.

• Matteo
  
• Noel
  
• Vlad
  
• Walter
  

They are all worth talking to and can offer some nice quest worth doing.

There are several that will be unlocked as you play through the main quest that can join you.

• Vasco
  
• Sarah
  
• Sam
  
• Andreja
  
• Barrett
  

Since Vasco attaches to the outside of your ship, he does not count as a crew member, so I would recommend always assigning him to your ship. If you picked traits that give you bonuses when you do not have a companion, then Vasco can be your traveling companion and you still get those bonuses. He is also pretty good at combat.

I would also recommend always assigning both Sarah and Sam to your ship. Sam and his daughter Cora are a delight to have on your ship and makes it feel more like a home. Plus Sam gives a bonus to Piloting that translates to having a bonus to your engines. Sarah also gives a bonus by reducing the fuel cost to grav jump.

I highly recommend Andreja as a traveling companion because she has great stealth abilities. Most other companions end up giving away your position if you are trying to sneak around. She is also a great fighter and highly recommend giving her an upgraded particle weapon. I also select her as my third and final ship crew member for bonuses to energy weapons.

NOTE: You just need to give a companion one grenade and one ammo. That will give them an endless supply of those items since they never expend them.

Lastly, I would avoid talking to Barrett as much as possible. He is just annoying and can talk over NPCs that you are trying to listen to. When you do have to work with him, avoid asking him any questions. You have been warned.


NOTE: You can only have three active crew members until you raise the Master Social Skill called Ship Command.

When I start a new character, which I will do because I will want to have an optimized character build since I seriously doubt I will ever level a character enough to max out all the skills, below is the skill plan I will follow up to level 110.

NOTE: Picking a narrow group of weapons to focus on is really all you need. For me, scoped rifles are the ideal choice since I can have a few different caliber options and customize one for close quarter combat and one for long range sniper shots.

NOTE: Since my end game focus will be in exploration, several skill choices are dedicated to that goal.



Tier 1:
Stealth (3) - because I am focus on being a sniper
Weight Lifting (4) - because it will allow me to carry more

Tier 2:
Gymnastics (2) - because this will allow me to unlock powers faster

Tier 3:
Cellular Regeneration (3) - because I needed some points to reach tier 4 and it is nice to know I don't have to worry about having the right aids to heal whatever.

Tier 4:
Concealment (4) - because my combat focus is on being a sniper
Rejuvenation (4) - because it is nice to quickly heal without replying on medpacks or sleeping.


Tier 1:
Persuasion (4) - because this gives me more options
Commerce (4) - because I needed some points to reach tier 3 and it will help maximize making credits

Tier 3:
Outpost Management (4) - because outpost have a lot of benefits (such as making credits and power leveling)

Tier 4:
Manipulation (1) - this is a free skill earned during the Ryugen faction quest line and well worth getting early to make sneaking around a lot easier.


Tier 1:
Ballistics (4) - because I will focus on rifles and being a sniper (plus they are the most common weapon type in the game)

NOTE: I could have gone with Energy (4) and then Heave Weapons (3) to make my Mining Laser the highest DPS weapon in the game. The only downside to this option is the Mining Laser is a very short range weapon. This isn't as big of a deal when you can slow down time though.

Tier 2:
Rifle Certification (4) - because I will focus on rifles and being a sniper

Tier 3:
Marksmanship (3) - because I am focus on being a sniper
Sniper Certification (4) - because I am focus on being a sniper

Tier 4:
Armor Penetration (3) - because this greatly helps with higher tier targets
Sharpshooting (3) - because I am focus on being a sniper


Tier 1:
Research Methods (4) - because this will greatly help with cutting cost while doing research
Surveying (4) - because my end goal is to explore

Tier 2:
Scanning (4) - because my end goal is to explore
Weapon Engineering (4) - because I want to make the best weapons for my character
Zoology (1) - because this will unlock an outpost module to give me more options
Botany (1) - because this will unlock an outpost module to give me more options

Tier 3:
Astrophysics (4) - because my end goal is to explore
Outpost Engineering (4) - because this will unlock advanced outpost modules

Tier 4:
Special Projects (4) - because this will unlock advanced mods and outpost modules
Planetary Habitation (4) - because this will allow me to build outpost anywhere


Tier 1:
Boost Pack Training (1) - because this will give me access to boost packs
Piloting (4) - because this will allow me to fly any ship in the game
Security (3) - because this will allow me to open any lock in the game
Targeting Control System (4) - because this will greatly speed up getting target locks

Shield Systems (4) - because this will greatly increase my protection in space combat
Payloads (4) - because this increase my ship's cargo capacity

Starship Design (4) - because at some point, I will want to explore making starships

Automated Weapon Systems (4) - because I plan on having auto turrets in two of my three slots for my ship builds

Starting on your first NG+ play through, there is a chance you might run into the Starborn trader, who has given up the race and is enjoying life. She is also a merchant who caters to the Starborn who can pay her high prices.

I have heard that she randomly appears in the universe, so it is hard to track her down. But once found, she will always be found at that location during that play through. If you start another NG+ play through, then the process starts all over again.

My strategy was to visit every system until I find her. But I found out that she will just appear randomly. So, it is pointless to go looking for her.

This is my tale of how I came to that realization.

I was farming starships and retreating to the same planet to avoid attackers waiting for me in space. I had visited the same planet over a dozen times. So I was totally caught by surprise when I saw an unknown ship approach me. It turns out to be the Starborn trader. Because I had been to that planet multiple times before, I am pretty sure she was not there. So, her appearing must be related to something else other than location that is predefined when the new game initializes.

Saying that, I do not know what triggers her appearance. It could be the number of times you jump. Or it could be purely a random number that determines if she appears, much like how the special NG+ scenarios are determined.

NOTE: Each time you start a NG+, there is a small chance it will pick a special variation. I have heard that it will not start checking for that condition until your fourth play through, but honestly I have no idea if that is correct. Anyway, if you get a special condition, you will be able to identify it because you will not have access to your inventory and will not be able to save the game, not even auto saves. There are 10 different variations that I am aware of.

So, long story short, there is no need to go looking for the Starborm trader. She will find you when she is ready.