Starfield: How to use ship targeting more effectively

Traveling across the stars in Bethesda’s latest RPG can be surprisingly tricky, as space is often a war zone for ships. Starfield features a ton of enemies, including space pirates, that will gun down your ship at every opportunity. Ship targeting is a vital skill that allows you to destroy certain parts of an enemy vessel to disable its weapons, shields, and engine, leaving its occupants vulnerable.

Exploiting these vulnerabilities is a great way to gain an advantage in combat, allowing different approaches to present themselves during unexpected firefights. This extended lock-on system even gives you the opportunity to board and steal uncharted ships. If that sounds like an interesting way to dispatch criminals, then you’ll need to understand how to effectively utilize this skill.

Ranking up the skill tree 

Allocating points to the “targeting control systems” skill will unlock this key ability. It’s one of the first skills in the tech section and only requires a single point to get started. Leveling up this ability through Starfield’s rank system is one of the best ways to dominate encounters at your own pace. 

The ranks have a mix of skill point and challenge requirements to unlock each subsequent effect, providing an added level of immersion. Here’s a rundown of the ranks:

Unlocking the final ranks requires a lot of dedication, but over the course of your 100-hour long adventure, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet their requirements through normal play. Note that you’ll need to fully destroy ships rather than disabling them in order to progress.

What each weak point destroys

The targeting control systems skill is designed around disabling core ship functions, including a ship’s weapons, shield, engine and grav drive. Destroying weapons prevents enemies from attacking. If a particular weapon is causing lots of damage, it’s best to target this first to avoid an untimely death.

If you want to destroy enemies swiftly, targeting the shield and grav drive is the way to go. Deciding which to single out first depends on the strength of the enemy, your weapons, and their intentions. 

Most space pirates are intent on fighting to the death and are unlikely to power up their grav drive in order to escape. Focusing your firepower on their shields will make their engine easier to target. Other smarter enemies may utilize their grav drive to find shelter and make repairs. If you’re on a mission based around space combat with tough enemies, it might be useful to target their grav drive before their shields.

One of the most interesting things you can do with targeting systems is completely disable a ship. By taking out an enemy’s engines, you can kill off all ship functionality and board their vehicle. Engines are the most protected part of the ship, so it’s worth taking out any weapons and shields first if they can take the damage without being destroyed.

The right weapon for the job

Utilizing the right weapons is key to disabling and destroying antagonistic spacecrafts. You can add five main weapon types to your ship to carry out your destructive intentions.

Lasers are the weapon of choice for targeting shields, and ballistics are unparalleled at destroying ship quarters. Missiles and particle beams can be great alternatives for either job. Electromagnetic weapons are great if you want to disable ship functions without causing any unnecessary destruction.

Each weapon system has its own skill tree you can level up to increase its effectiveness. These expert-level skills require eight skill points to unlock, but don’t require additional points to improve: Instead, completing challenges are the only requirements to level up each ability.