Welcome to the Explorer Build for Starfield. The Explorer is eager to chart new worlds and discover secrets. They also perform well in combat when using laser weapons.
We will now go through the elements of this build step by step.
Explorer Build Table of Contents:
Explorer 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 Explorer Build, we are using the Explorer background. This will give you a head start with the following skills:
- Lasers – Increases your damage with Laser weapons.
- Astrodynamics – Increases the range and efficiency of Grav Jump Drives.
- Surveying – You can survey worlds and scan for materials and other items of interest.
Explorer 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 some traits can actually be a disadvantage, depending on how you play the game. For example choosing the introverted trait will make your character weaker while you have a companion with you. Traits are optional and you can choose not to pick any, which is a viable option if you’re unsure.
Explorer 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.
Due to the prerequisite skill challenges which must be completed before upgrading a skill, 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 Explorer Build:
- Fitness – Increases your oxygen (stamina) allowing you to sprint for longer, and carry out a larger amount of other physically draining actions.
- Environmental Conditioning – Gives you resistance to environmental damage. Useful for exploring hazardous planets with dangerous conditions.
- Scavenging – Improves your chance to find credits and rare items when looting containers.
- Lasers – Improves your damage with Laser Weapons. Since the Explorer starts with this skill, it makes sense to continue to improve it.
- Rifle Certification – Improves your damage with Rifles – versatile weapons that you can use at a variety of ranges.
- Astrodynamics – Improves the range and fuel efficiency of your Grav Jump Drives.
- Surveying – Improves the range of your scanner and lets you zoom in further
- Botany – Gather more resources from plants, and learn more about them with the scanner.
- Astrophysics – You can scan more distant worlds, and have a chance to learn a trait of the world when you scan it.
After the full release of Starfield we will create a full step-by-step progression guide for the Explorer Build.
Explorer Build Weapons
In Starfield you will be able to customise your weapons with various attachments that change their behavior in combat. You can craft these attachments for your weapons by visiting a weapons workstation. Adding an Amplifier to your weapon is a good way of improving its damage per shot. You can also add scopes to many weapons to make aiming easier, along with different types of ammunition such as armour piercing ammo or explosive ammo.
In terms of weapon types, any Laser weapon is a good starting point for the Explorer, since you get a head start with the Lasers skill. Later on, Laser Rifles are the most optimal choice, as you’ll benefit from your investment in both the Lasers and Rifle Certification skills at the same time.
Explorer 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.
