In a sci-fi space RPG like Starfield, it’d be remiss if you didn’t have a ship to fly around with across the vast galaxies.

A ship allows you to explore the many planets, engage in spaceship combat, visit Staryards and maybe even do a little bit of smuggling. First, however, you need to get your first ship in Starfield.

But don’t worry! Starfield provides you with your very own ship early on in the game. In fact, you get it much sooner than you think: at the beginning!

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If you’d like more help in your galactic adventures, visit our Starfield guides, tips and tricks page.

How to get your first ship in Starfield

When you start a new game, you’ll be greeted by Supervisor Lin in a cavern excavation. After completing your excavation and finding the Artifact, you’ll be taken to Starfield’s and jump straight into Starfield’s character creator. Then after creating your character, you’ll follow a few steps and find yourself on Vectera, a moon of Anselon.

A ship will come flying down and you’ll meet Barrett, a client of yours. Once Lin and Barrett are finished with their conversation, go ahead and speak with Barrett. All of a sudden, space pirates will attack! Finish them off, and then speak with Barrett again.

Image credit: Eurogamer/Bethesda

He’ll be impressed by your ability to act under pressure and invite you to join Constellation, one of the many factions in Starfield. Barrett says to meet up with the faction in order to learn more about the Artifact you picked up, and offers you his ship in order to fly to New Atlantis.

Once you embark into space, Starfield will go through several tutorials teaching players how to navigate, fast travel, engage in space warfare, and amongst other mechanics related to the ship.

And that’s pretty much it! Getting your first ship in Starfield is part of the critical path and is automatically given to you.

How to get another ship in Starfield

Yes, you read that correctly. You can get another ship. However, you can only have one ship as your main vessel at any given time. While there may be yet undiscovered ways to find new ships, the method we came across involved stumbling on an enemy base on a random planet and finding their ship.

The game will add a new objective to your missions menu and gives you the option to kill all of the enemies on board the ship. After doing so, you can take command of the enemy ship and control it just like any other ship like the one Barrett provided to you at the beginning of the game.

You can dock on hostile ships and take them over. | Image credit: Eurogamer/Bethesda

A pop up notice will appear telling you that once you decide to land your newly stolen ship elsewhere, it’ll become your main ship. Any crew members that you’ve recruited throughout your journey so far will also transfer over to the new ship. Your previous ship can then be found in your Ship Collection and you can switch between them whenever you like.

Once you’ve taken over or stolen a ship, you’ll be unable to sell or modify it until you’ve registered it via the Ship section of the Data menu. This does, however, cost a small fee.

Ships can also be purchased from Staryards and Ship Services Technicians. Here you’ll also be able to modify your ships and, if you have enough credits, even build your own custom ship. These services can also repair your ship if needs be.

Ship Services Technicians offer you the chance to buy new ships and modifiy the ones you already own. | Image credit: Eurogamer/Bethesda

That’s it for now! Have fun with your ships and discovering new places throughout Starfield.

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