Fans have already cracked Starfield skills and map

Nicholas James Published 27/07/2023

Starfield is probably the single-most anticipated game of 2023, and amateur-sleuth fans have already cracked the code on Starfield skills and map.

Starfield is the next massive single-player story effort by Bethesda Softworks, the acclaimed creator of Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Starfield will be a brand-new IP managed by Bethesda, facing fans with an open galaxy to explore and change.

A huge part of any Bethesda game is the skills you can acquire and the places you can explore. Somehow, diehard Starfield fans have pieced together all of the skills and the entire Starfield map.

Starfield skills discovered by fans

The single biggest determining factor in how you play out your time in Starfield is going to be the skills. Just like Elder Scrolls and Fallout, Bethesda has designed an absolutely enormous skill tree with tons of variety for fans to peruse. The studio has shown brief glimpses and peeks at the system, but otherwise has been quite careful to only provide snippets. Despite this, one fan has spent over 200 hours of their own time piecing together the Starfield skills, and they’ve actually done it.

Reddit user u/asd8dhd posted to the r/Starfield subreddit four days ago, with a post titled “After almost 200 hours of research, here is the complete skill system used in Starfield.” Within the post are links to two Google Docs files, one is a 44-page-long breakdown of what u/asd8dhd thinks the skills look like, the next is an image album of supporting evidence. But don’t worry, we won’t make you scrolls through all 44 pages.

How do skills work in Starfield?

Starfield’s skills will look slightly different from the systems that fans expect. Yes, you’ll get better at certain skills by adding points, but that’s not the only way. In Starfield, leveling up a skill comes in three stages. Firstly, leveling up your character level will grant you a skill point every time you level up. After you have the skill point, you can take the first, or next, rank of a skill by using the skill point to buy that level of the skill.

After unlocking a skill tier, you’ll be presented with a specific challenge that involves the skill. In order to get to the next level of the skill, you’ll have to unlock it by completing the challenge and then also assign a skill point to the next level. Phase one of leveling up is assigning a skill point, phase two is completing the challenge for the next level of the skill, and phase three is earning another skill point to unlock the next tier.

What are the skill trees in Starfield?

Starfield’s skills are divided into five skill tree options, Physical, Social, Science, Combat, and Tech. Each of these covers a different area of Starfield’s expansive character customization system. Each tree’s skills are separated into four different tiers, with advancing power and difficulty, Novice, Advanced, Expert, and Master.

Physical Skills

Physical skills are about physical resistance, durability, and athleticism. The fan-made skill breakdown says that physical would be divided into five major trees at the Novice Rank. These are all core aspects of the Physical tree that tell us a lot about what this skill tree governs. u/asd8dhd speculates that these will be Close Combat, Endurance, Stealth, Weight-Lifting, and Wellness.

Novice: Close Combat, Endurance, Stealth, Weight-Lifting, and Wellness
Advanced: Damage Resistance, Environmental Resistance, Equilibrium, Metabolism, Mind Over Matter
Expert: Ascension, Decontamination, Martial Arts
Master: Concealment, Neurostrikes, Regeneration

The confirmed skills in this tree are Stealth Rank One, Weight-Lifting Rank One, and Wellness Rank One. The Challenge for Rank One Stealth is to perform 25 sneak attacks. Rank One of Weight-Lifting adds an additional 10 kg to the player’s carrying capacity. Wellness Rank one adds another 30 HP to the character. All of these do pretty much what you’d expect from them.

For the Advanced Skills, Rank One of Decontimatio grants an increased chance to recover from infections. Rank One of Martial Arts’ challenge, meanwhile, is to deal 250 damage with unarmed attacks.

Not every Starfield player will be looking to parkour across the map or tank damage like a superhuman. For some, the storytelling nature of Bethesda’s games is perfect for a socially-oriented character. The Social skills extend far beyond just talking though, with players able to mind-control aliens and robots with some of the Master skills on this skill tree.

Novice: Commerce, Gastronomy, Persuasion, Scavenging, Theft
Advanced: Bargaining, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Invested, Negotiation
Expert: Instigation, Leadership, Outpost Management
Master: Manipulation, Robosociology, Xenosociology

For the confirmed skills, Gastronomy improves your cooking, Persuasion helps you with speech challenges.

Combat Skills

Combat skills are going to be where many Bethesda fans go straight away. These skills are exactly what they sound like, they’re here to turn your character into a lean, mean, killing machine.

Novice: Ballistics, Dueling, Lasers, Pistol Certification, Shotgun Certification
Advanced: Demolitions, Heavy Weapon Certification, Mag Weapons, Particle Beams, Rifle Certification
Expert: Marksmanship, Rapid Reloading, Sniper Certification, Targeting
Master: Armor Penetration, Crippling Shot, Critical Hit

Science

The Science Skills seem to cover all sorts of technologically focused abilities, and tons of utility beyond that. A central part of the Starfield storyline will be a set of mysterious artifacts, so having a scientific mindset will probably be a very useful tool for fans who want to tech out this tree.

Novice: Astrodynamics, Geology, Medicine, Research, Surveying
Advanced: Botany, Detection, Spacesuit Engineering, Xenobiology
Expert: Astrophysics, Chemistry, Outpost Engineering
Master: Orbital Defense, Planetary Colonization, Route Management

Starfield Star map discovered

But the skills aren’t the only thing in Starfield getting an early release. Another fan has pieced apart every bit of footage that shows Starfield’s map of stars to recreate the map. The Starfield Navigator site shows off what seems to be a comprehensive map of Starfield’s star systems. There are approximately 75 Star Systems, as far as fans can tell from the trailers.

Some of these systems have multiple nodes, such as the Iota Virginis, 61 Virginis, and Mu Virginis systems. Below is a full list of all of the main system names we’ve seen in Starfield across the various demos. While there’s no telling exactly which systems will make it to the final version.

Alchiba
Alphas Andrasie
Alpha Centauri
Aranae
Altair
Arcturus
Barnard
Cassioepeia
Charybdis
Cheyenne
Cygni
Delta Pavonis
Eridani
Herculis
Gliese 674
Kryx
Kapteyn’s Star
Linnaeus
Lunara
Luyten’s Star
Lambda Serpentis
Narion
Nirah
Ophiuchi
Porrima
Procyon A
Ross
Sagan
Sirius
Sol
Tau Ceti
Volii
Van Maanen’s Star
Virginis
Wolf 359

That’s our complete look at what’s coming to Starfield soon, from skills to star systems. Starfield will release on September 6, 2023. In the meantime, feel free to start planning your character build and your roadmap through the star system with the resources that dedicated fans have managed to pull together.

Nicholas James

About Nicholas James

Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.

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