The best Starfield ship upgrades to get early

The best Starfield ship upgrades are the ones that have a tangible effect on your flight and fight experiences. Fuel tanks and grav drives might sound fancy and important, but sometimes – especially in the early game – a good shield generator and some missiles are really all you need.

This guide explains which upgrades are worth spending your credits on early to get the most for your ship.

Starfield ship upgrades

What are the best Starfield ship upgrades?

Every module you stick on your ship contributes at least slightly to the hull rating, which is your ship’s HP. Adding extra modules and bumping up the hull rating is a smart way to keep your ship going even after your shields stop working, especially if you opt for a tankier build. If movement and agility are what you're after, though, ditch some extra parts and focus on speed and mobility. Outrunning enemy ships means you won't need high hull ratings anyway.

Finally, make sure to balance your weapons. Most reactors only let you have a maximum of three weapon systems, and no matter how cool your shiny new module looks, you really don’t want to enter a space fight with two or three laser weapons and nothing else.

Reactors

This one probably goes without saying, but get yourself a good reactor as soon as you can. The reactor determines how many points you can pour into your ship’s features, so make sure yours is built around the systems you want to use the most. Prioritize reactors that let you add more to your shields and whatever weapon system you prefer.

Lasers

Ballistics are fine, and missiles are handy, but laser weapons are probably the most important kind you can invest in. Lasers rip through enemy ship shields, which makes them vulnerable to your other weapons or to being disabled so you can board and loot.

Missiles

Like I said, missiles are definitely handy. These make short work of enemy ships once their shields are down, though you do need to time your attacks carefully. Of the three main ship weapon types, missiles have the lowest ammo capacity and the longest recovery time.

Cargo Storage

Your ship storage space runs out more quickly than you’d probably expect, so buying and attaching new storage is a must to help avoid encumbrance. Our Starfield ship storage guide explains how to do that.

Engines

Engines are at the bottom of our recommended list, since they don’t matter quite that much. Going fast is helpful sometimes, but less so than you might think. Going too fast makes turning difficult, which is a massive pain in tough space fights, and you need to use your boost to break free from enemy locks on your ship.

Shields

Don't skimp on your shields either. A better reactor with good shield drives that let you pour more points into them is an essential combo if you plan on fighting in space a lot. Your default shields go down far too quickly, so this is something you'll want to invest in soon if you stick with the Frontier.

What about fuel tanks and grav drives?

Space travel in Starfield works a bit differently than you might expect while looking at a star map. Fuel determines how far your ship can travel without having to make a stop in between. Grav jumps are the same, but for plotting routes between distant star systems.

Starfield calculates fuel usage and routes using some unseen system that doesn’t always make sense. For example, you’ll need to make at least one stop between the Alpha Centauri system and the Cheyenne system, despite them being so close together, but you can go from Alpha Centauri to Eridani – a much greater distance – without any fuel or grav considerations.

It comes down to a matter of convenience. You can still reach other systems without substantially improving your fuel tanks and grav jumps. It just takes a little longer to get there, though on the bright side, the extra stops in other systems earns you XP the first time you visit.

The short version is that you should focus your money and ship building experiments on other parts first.

If you need money for more upgrades, consider selling your ships you don't need anymore, or get a free ship so you don't even have to worry about it.