Summary
Starfield, while an expansive game overall, is by far themost cluttered game Bethesda has ever madein terms of items-per-room. Every single room in this game has 50+ lootable items players will see when they open their Hand Scanners.
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And, sadly, the vast majority of these items aren’t at all worth the Carrying Capacity they’d take up. This is extra disappointing because players are really incentivized to carefully search each and every room to find the Magazines that give permanent upgrades. So, let’s go over some of the best items inStarfieldfor players to look out for while they’re roaming the stars and which items to either ignore or only pick up when players have a ton of extra space in their Cargo Hold.
Disclaimer:In general, the only items that are ‘always’ worth grabbing in this game tend to be Weapons, Spacesuits, Packs, Helmets, Credits, Resources, and Ammo. Everything else is at least a few steps lower on the totem pole.
8Most Food Items
First up let’s start with food items. food inStarfieldcan likely be worthwhile to eat/use if players center their build entirely around buffing food with Skills like Gastronomy and so on, but very few players actually attempt this. Most of the time, players just pick up a lot of the food items they see absentmindedly, only to rarely (if ever) use them, and then sell them to the nearest vendor for a handful of Credits.
While it’s great thatStarfieldhas hundreds of different food items in the game, all of which are beautifully modeled, very few of them are worth the bag space when players could use that space for guns or packs instead.
7Workshop Items
In past Bethesda games, such as theOblivionorFalloutseries, players will often find Junk items while exploring that can then be used in some aspect of the game’s crafting system. InFallout 4, for example, players aren’t actually able to find Adhesive naturally while looting, they would always have to use a Workshop to break items like Duct Tape or Wonderglue into Adhesive.
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InSkyrim, players had all sorts of routes for this such as using Pelts from a wide variety of animals to make different types of Leather. However, inStarfield, all of the random tools, rolls of duct tape, and plastic items are only used as junk items and nothing else, which feels like a step back from their previous titles.
6Heavy Common & Rare Crafting Materials
Speaking of Crafting, let’s talk about Crafting Materials as a whole inStarfield. Whether it’s Industrial Components such as Adaptive Frames or it’s just some containers of Toxin, there are a lot of random Crafting Materials players will find will looting any Abandoned Outpost, Crimson Fleet Base, or really any building in general.
But, because ‘creating’ these items at an Industrial Workbench is easy and buying them from Vendors is even easier, players should (most of the time) avoid picking these upwhile exploring the vast Star Map ofStarfield. A lot of Crafting Materials are very heavy (AKA Drilling Rigs and Nuclear Fuel Rods) compared to most other items and every single point of Carrying Capacity matters in this game, especially for players who can’t help but hoard everything in sight. Additionally, for the lighter Organic Resources especially,players can just go down the Greenhouse route instead of tearing apart every abandoned Science Lab for some Adhesive.
5Apparel Duplicates
While players are adventuring on planets with breathable oxygen, they can set it so that the game shows them in their Apparel instead of their Spacesuit, Pack, and Helmet. Additionally, players can transfer Apparel to their Companion’s inventory and then ‘Equip" it to them as well to change what they’re wearing. At this point, it’s likely most readers have already seen someStarfieldplayer who has theircompanion dressed in the Neon Dancer Outfitusing this feature.
And because of this feature, players are always on the lookout for new Apparel items to put in their ever-expanding wardrobe. However, while these items aren’t too heavy, their sale value is pretty low, so players should only pick up one (or maybe two) at most before ignoring any repeats they see. There’s no real reason for players to hoard every single Prison Garb they find while exploring an abandoned prison, but most players just end up doing this absent-mindedly.
4Antiques & Exotic Items
Starfield’s’Value’ statistic is honestly pretty deceptive. The game might say that an item has a Value of 6000, only for the player to find out it sells for about 300 when they take it to a Vendor. Even with the Commerce Skill at max rank, there’s a huge gap between what the game estimates an item’s Value at and what it actually is.
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On top of this, there are tons of items players will encounter that may seem like either antique or exotic items, such as antique ducks or pyramid statues, that are worth grabbing to sell later. 90 percent of the time, they just sadly aren’t worth the space they occupy in the player’s inventory. There are still a few of these items worth grabbing overall (unlessplayers are busy stealing from puddles), but this sub-category of things is typically worth ignoring overall.
3Most Wines & Beers
Players familiar with theFalloutgames will need to break some habits here, as Alcohol is another thing that was usually worth grabbing in past Bethesda games to sell later that just isn’t as valuable inStarfield. Part of this is due to the fact thatStarfieldseems to really force packrat-style players to either deal with constantly being over-encumbered or fully commit theirentire build to increasing their Cargo Holdand Carrying Capacity.
But, the other reason is that the mass-to-value ratio of most alcohol types just doesn’t add up. There are a few instances where players might find a whole shelf of 20+ wine bottles that might be worth grabbing due to the sheer quantity of them, especially if there’s nothing better to loot nearby, but most of the time they’re also something players can simply walk past.
2Laboratory Equipment
Until players figure out and basically memorize all the items that are used in Research Projects and Crafting Recipes (such as Solvents, Amino Acids, and Anti-Microbials), they’re going to end up hoarding a lot of useless science-related items. Items such as Injectors, Pill Bottles, Test Tubes, and so on might sound like they’d be used in Aid Recipes or Research Projects, but they’re not.
A decent way to get around this confusion is by going into the Research Lab and Pharmaceutical Workbench and simply Tracking the resources of every recipe so that anything used in these areas of Crafting will be marked with that Magnifying Glass icon next to their name (when the UI stays consistent, of course).
1Books
And finally, Books. Books at first might seem like one of the few worthwhile paper-based items that players keep seeing strewn across every single room. All the folders, pencils, markers, pens, cups, desk fans, and so on are all just useless junk. But, the Value the game puts on Books is a lot higher on average. However, again, the Value these items actually sell for in comparison to the mass they take up in the player’s inventory just doesn’t even out.
Starfieldis out now for PC and Xbox Series X.
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