How to Loot Destroyed Ships in Starfield

When you fly through space for the first time and read through the introductory tutorial, a surprise attack appears that you must defend yourself against. As you familiarize yourself with how to fly in space, you’re met with another challenge: looting the ships you just destroyed. After all, what good is defeating enemies if you can’t get any money or valuable items from them? If you want to gain rewards for a job well done, continue reading to discover how to loot destroyed spaceships in Starfield.

Starfield: How to Loot Ships in Space

To loot destroyed spaceships in Starfield, slowly approach them, lowering your speed if necessary, until you’re close enough to press E (keyboard) or A (Xbox controller). Doing this brings up their loot menu, where you can take all the items. The resources will go directly into your character’s inventory.

You’ll know you can loot a ship if a small chest icon appears over the wreckage on your screen. Here, you can fly toward it and settle within a 500-meter range before interacting with the ship.

Related: How to Unlock the Digipick Linked Safe in Starfield

You can find many different resource types in destroyed ships, from credits to common and rare crafting components. While the screenshot above shows me obtaining Tantalium and Positron batteries, I’ve also found supplies like Adaptive Frames, Iridium, and a few hundred credits, just to name a few examples. It’s always worth exploring these wrecked spaceships in case there is a valuable resource you can use later in your playthrough.

If anything, you can always sell some of the items you find if you feel you’ll never use them or need some extra pocket change.

Can You Steal Ships in Starfield?

If you randomly encounter a ship on a distant planet or defeat a ship without destroying it, you can enter, loot, and even steal it. Doing this can potentially give you more loot and even valuable contraband, which can net you tons of credits if you manage to sell it.

However, you must be careful, as you can get a hefty bounty and jail time for looting and stealing ships. Sometimes, you will not be authorized to pilot the ship, but you can raise your piloting skill to unlock more options.

Starfield is available on PC and Xbox Series X|S. To learn more, check out how to holster your weapon in Starfield, or click the game tag below to explore our growing article collection.