Welcome to the Cyber Runner Stealth Build for Starfield. This is the perfect build if you want to engage in a stealthy playstyle in Starfield, taking out enemies while remaining undetected. This build is quite similar to the Assassin Build, however the Cyber Runner is more of a “Thief” playstyle, placing more emphasis on using their stealthy skillset to acquire riches rather than a pure focus on stealthy combat. That being said, the Cyber Runner build is still more than capable of dealing more directly with enemies when needed.
You can engage in stealth combat at all ranges – in melee with knives, at shorter range with silenced weapons, and long range with snipers. Ensure that you remain crouched and out of sight of enemies in order to stay hidden and retain your stealth bonuses.
We will now go through the elements of this build step by step.
Cyber Runner Build Table of Contents:
Cyber Runner Build Background
When creating your character at the start of your Starfield playthrough, you’ll need to select a Background for your character. There are 20 Backgrounds in the game, and each one has three starting skills associated with it, allowing you to get a head start with a particular build idea. Backgrounds may also affect some dialogue options as they change how NPCs see your character.
For the Cyber Runner Build, we are unsurprisingly using the Cyber Runner background. This will give you a head start with the following skills:
- Stealth – Improves your damage when you are undetected.
- Security – Allows you to bypass security systems, letting you access containers, rooms and passages that would otherwise be off limits.
- Theft – Improves your chances of successfuly stealing items without getting caught. Likely includes actions such as Pickpocketing.
Cyber Runner Build Traits
You can choose traits to further customise the abilities of your character at the start of the game.
Most of the Traits are not especially powerful and are more for roleplaying purposes. However one that is strong is the Wanted trait, which will give you a bonus to damage output when you are at low health. However, this trait also causes mercenaries to occasionally come after you (probably works in a similar way to the mercenary encounters in Skyrim).
Please note that traits are completely optional in Starfield – you can choose to have between one and three Traits, or none at all. Some traits can turn out to be detrimental depending on your playstyle and choices in the game. For example choosing Introvert will actually make you weaker if you later choose to adventure with a companion. So if you’re unsure, it is better not to pick any traits at all.
Cyner Runner Build Skills
Every time you level up in Starfield, you will gain one skill point to spend. These can be spent to improve various skills in the game. For a skill to be eligible for improvement, you’ll need to have completed a challenge that makes use of that skill. For example unlocking the next rank of the Security skill requires you to have picked a certain number of locks.
It’s difficult to give a step-by-step guide for what order to upgrade your skills in, however we recommend progressing through the following skills for the Cyber Runner Build:
- Physical Skills
- Stealth – You sneak more easily, and deal more damage with stealth attacks.
- Weightlifting – Increases your carrying capacity, allowing you to steal more before you find that your pockets are full.
- Martial Arts – Increases your damage with melee weapons and unarmed attacks.
- Concealment – Considerably increases your damage output with sneak attacks.
- Social Skills
- Scavenging – You have a higher chance to find credits and rare items when looting containers.
- Theft – Gives you the ability to pickpocket targets, and improves your chances of success when doing so.
- Commerce – You get a better deal when selling or buying goods.
- Combat Skills
- Pistol Certification – Your character is better at using Pistols, dealing more damage with these weapons.
- Ballistics – You deal more damage with Ballistic weapons
- Technology Skills
- Security – You are better at bypassing security systems (lockpicking)
Cyber Runner Build Weapons
In Starfield you can customise your weapons with various attachments that change their behavior in combat. One attachment will be a Silencer, which is obviously an essential feature for any stealth build. You can craft these attachments by visiting weapon workbenches. It’s highly recommended to at least equip your Cyber Runner’s ranged weapons with a silencer, when you are able to do so.
Obtaining a silenced pistol should be a priority for your stealth Cyber Runner Build in Starfield. This will let you take out enemies at short to medium range while making it hard for them to detect your location.
Using a melee weapon is also a good option for your stealth kills, provided you can get close enough.
When stealth isn’t possible, you can use any ballistics type weapon to fight with – a great choice is a Rifle, because this is a versatile weapon that is effective at most ranges, is reasonably accurate and can fire quite quickly.
Cyber Runner Build Armour
Armour in Starfield is expected to fall into four categories, of which you can equip one of each at a time. These are:
- Spacesuits
- Packs
- Helmets
- Apparel
Armour is important for not only protecting your character from enemy attacks, but also shielding you from various environmental effects as you explore different planets in Starfield. High quality armour (especially Legendary armour) will also come with various modifiers that improve your character’s abilities in a specific way (for example a % damage buff when using a particular type of weapon).
Starfield’s loot is mostly random, so it is difficult to create a precise guide for which items you should be using. However look out for high quality armour that gives you good resistances, along with modifiers that increase your offensive or defensive capabilities.
