In Starfield you can steal Spaceships. This adds them to your fleet. Before you can modify stolen spaceships they need to be registered by paying a fee at a Ship Service Technician, found at the landing pad of major cities like New Atlantis.
Method 1: Free Roam Planets for Ship Landing Sites
Sometimes while free roaming on planets in the open world (not in cities) you see points of interest called “Ship Landing Site“. Use the scanner to find these points, they appear randomly. Go there, get in the parked spaceship, defeat the crew, get in the pilot seat and lift off. You will need the necessary piloting skill that matches the ship’s class.
The Ship Landing Sites are randomly generated points of interest. If you have no luck finding any, try on another planet. It’s complete luck.
Note that certain stolen ships can only be docked at the Factions they belong to. In particular, stolen Crimson Fleet ships can only be docked at “The Key” (Crimson Fleet Base) if you joined their faction, as they are considered hostile in all major cities. They are the space pirates. See How to Join Crimson Fleet.
Method 2: Destroy Engines of Enemy Ships in Combat and Board Them
In Space Battles target an enemy ship’s Engine > destroy the Engine > then the ship can be boarded > defeat the crew > enter the pilot seat > undock the ship > Grav Jump to nearest city with a Ship Technician (if it’s damaged wait a minute for it to autorepair) > you can pay Technician 1000 credits to repair the Engine and pay a fee to register the ship.
Step 1: First, some weapons are better for breaking Engines than others. Modify your ship by talking to a Ship Service Technician at a landing pad in a major city (such as New Atlantis). Install a weapon that deals “Electromagnetic Damage”. It will say “EM” in the weapon damage type, for example Suppressor weapons deal this damage. For secondary weapon also use an Energy Weapon. A good choice is the “Spark 750 Suppressor”. This deals good Engine damage without destroying the ship too fast. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an EM weapon, other weapon types can also destroy the Engines but against low-level ships they tend to deal so much damage that the entire ship gets destroyed before the Engine.
Step 2: Find ships in space. You could simply attack friendly ships guarding the planets with major cities, but this will turn them hostile and put a big bounty on you. To avoid this, visit Mission Terminals instead and accept missions that have you hunt down enemy spacecraft (found in major cities, for example in the headquarters of the Freestar Collective on System: Cheyenne > Planet: Akila > Landing Site: Akila City, or in the pub on Sol > Mars > Cydonia).
Step 3: Destroy all other spaceships except the one you want to board. Leave only that one alive (if others are alive the ‘board’ prompt doesn’t always appear in Step 5)
Step 4: When attacking the ship target the Engines specifically. To do this:
On Xbox: press LB to activate Scanner > get close to enemy spaceship > A to lock on to target > after full lock-on press X to open targeting menu > LEFT/RIGHT to target the Engine (ENG) > shoot weapons to see health of the Engine go down until all bars are grayed out.
On PC: press F to activate Scanner > get close to enemy spaceship > R to lock on to target > after full lock-on press R to open targeting menu > A/D to target the Engine (ENG) > shoot weapons to see the health of the Engine go down until all bars are grayed out.
Step 5: DON’T destroy the ship. After the Engine is damaged quit out of the targeting menu (Xbox: B / PC: ESC). Fly close to the ship until the ‘board’ prompt comes up. Board it by aiming at it with the scanner and press Xbox: LB > hold X / PC: F > hold R.
Step 6: Defeat all the Crew on Board.
Step 7: Step in the Pilot Seat, choose to undock from your other ship. You will need the necessary piloting skill that matches the ship’s class. Route power to the Grav Drive and warp to the nearest city (if the Grav Drive / Engines are destroyed, just wait a minute in the Pilot Seat and they will autorepair).
Step 8: The stolen ship is now added to your collection. To make it usable you must register it at a Ship Service Technician at a city’s Landing Pad by paying a fee. Note that certain stolen ships can only be docked at the Factions they belong to. Particularly, stolen Crimson Fleet ships can only be docked at “The Key” (Crimson Fleet Base) if you joined their faction, as they are considered hostile in all other cities. See How to Join Crimson Fleet.
For more Starfield guides check out Starfield Wiki & Strategy Guide.
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