Your ship is the anchor in your journey across the stars to find the mysterious Artifacts, and so you're best equipped, we have our guide on the best Starfield ships, with epic ship designs to build, buy or steal.

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Your ship is not an expendable means to an end in the way cars are in GTA, as it acts as a hub for your companions and crew and a giant storage locker for all your space sandwiches.

There are many elements to consider when choosing, building or stealing a ship. You might ponder the nitty-gritty details of how far it can jump, its mass, how many weapons it has or, perhaps most importantly, how cool it looks.

We have an in-depth guide on how to go about building a ship and it is well worth exploring, but if you can't make heads or tails of it, we have some good options for you to buy, obtain for free or steal.

With that said, there is a literal universe out there with oodles of ships, so let's get to infinity and beyond!

Best Starfield ships to steal

Starfield ship targeting an enemy ship
A Starfield ship in action. Bethesda

This section is for the space pirates among you... It's all well and good spending time building a ship, but a lot of us enjoy the thrill of commandeering someone else's. It's certainly cheaper, too.

Some of the best ships belong to other space pirates in The Crimson Fleet (so if you feel guilty, remember they're in the thief game, too).

The pirates' ships tend to have great stats, not to mention the Shielded Cargo feature. This allows you to smuggle contraband into Settled Systems.

You can check out our detailed list of free ships here, where we go into detail on how to grab them. Or if you just want the ships' names without the guide, we'll list them below:

  • Star Eagle
  • Kepler R
  • Razorleaf
  • UC Prison Shuttle
  • Wanderwell

Also, check out the video below from YouTube channel Gaming with Griff Griffin. Some nice tips there on grabbing free ships!

How to build ships in Starfield explained

Starfield ship technician looking into camera
A Starfield ship technician. Bethesda

To build the best ships in Starfield, you need to head to a spaceport and speak with the ship technician. From here, you can ask to customise a ship in your collection, register a new one, repair your ship or buy a new one outright.

An alternative is to build a large landing pad at an outpost. You can then use the ship building terminal to do it yourself.

When in the ship viewer, go to the ship builder by pressing X (on Xbox) or the B key (on PC). You can move and replace the individual modules by selecting them and pressing Edit.

If you make a mistake, you can undo and redo actions. To get to different modules, you can change the level by pressing up and down on the D-pad (on Xbox) or the H and F keys (on PC).

By pressing the A button (on Xbox) or the G key (on PC) you will go on the Add menu, where you can see all the available parts. At the bottom of the screen will be a row of your ship’s stats, and it’s wise to keep an eye on these if you want your ship to specialise in something in particular - such as transporting cargo, fighting or speed.

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There are loads of ship parts to choose from, and certain vendors will have exclusive access to some of the more exotic modules - so be sure to shop around.

You can also unlock more components and types of available ships by upgrading your Ship Command and Piloting skill levels.

Once you are done customising your ship, you can confirm the changes and view your new steed on the landing pad.

I.Eat.Games on YouTube has a great guide on shipbuilding. Check it out below:

Read more on Starfield:

Best ships to buy in Starfield

If you have a whole heap of credits burning a hole in your pocket or you simply can't bring yourself to "liberate" a ship from someone else, then you may find what you're looking for from one of the ship vendors dotted across the galaxy.

Below are some of the best ships that you can buy in Starfield with their specs listed and where to buy them.

Stronghold

Found in Akila City for 400,025 Credits, the Stronghold is a Class C passenger ship, perfect for ferrying crew and passengers through space safely.

It's armed to the teeth with defensive weapons and has a large cargo capacity to boot. Take a gander at all of its specifications.

  • Price – 400,025
  • Class – C
  • Hull – 1,047
  • Cargo – 2,360
  • Reactor – 27(C)
  • Crew – 6
  • Jump – 30 LY
  • Shield – 1,600
  • Ballistic weapons – 48
  • Laser weapons – 36
  • Particle weapons – 0
  • EM weapons – 0
  • Missiles – 0
  • Mass – 2,030
  • Location – Akila City

Silent Runner

The Silent Runner is a marvel of cargo capacity that will ensure you don't run out of storage space anytime soon. It's amply powerful, too, with a 34-rated reactor and a 30-lightyear jump distance to get you where you need to go in as few steps as possible.

Found in Hopetown, this bad boy will set you back 390,150 credits. Check out the rest of the stats just below.

  • Price – 390,150
  • Class – C
  • Hull – 1,164
  • Cargo – 6,060
  • Reactor – 34(C)
  • Crew – 5
  • Jump – 30 LY
  • Shield – 975
  • Ballistic weapons – 0
  • Laser weapons – 0
  • Particle weapons – 36
  • EM weapons – 0
  • Missiles – 96
  • Mass – 2,463
  • Location – HopeTown

Narwhal

The aptly named Narwhal is the most expensive ship in the game at 455,400 Credits, and its stats reflect this.

Nothing has been left on the table, and this whale of a ship is extremely well-rounded, doing a little bit of everything - and will serve you well in your quests.

Drool over what this ship is capable of just below.

  • Price – 455,400
  • Class – C
  • Hull – 2118
  • Cargo – 1,760
  • Reactor – 36(C)
  • Crew – 7
  • Jump – 30 LY
  • Shield – 995
  • Ballistic weapons – 131
  • Laser weapons – 26
  • Particle weapons – 0
  • EM weapons – 0
  • Missiles – 90
  • Mass – 1,593
  • Location – Taiyo Astroengineering in the Ryujin building on Neon

Best Starfield ships: The best spaceship designs in Starfield so far

Starfield space ship design
Starfield space ship design. Bethesda

Of course, original ship designs in Starfield can be very cool, yet it was an inevitability that people would try their hand at recreating some of sci-fi’s most iconic ships - with the most famous of all arguably being the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

Given that we write about games, it may not come as a surprise that we’re big fans of spaceships from our favourite medium. Redditor neok182 made a very impressive rendition of the Normandy SR-2 from Mass Effect, and also a nigh-perfect Firefly Class ship from Serenity.

Rebs Gaming on X (formerly known as Twitter) shared a convincing Star Wars X-Wing build made by X user fudgiebrown.

There's also a build guide on YouTube courtesy of fudgiebrown, should you wish to recreate this yourself.

We're massive fans of this freight haulier made by Brad Groux over on X, too, as it really reminds us of the eponymous Red Dwarf.

Good news, everyone! The good ship the Planet Express ship from Futurama has been made in Starfield. With this handy tutorial on Reddit, too, you can craft your own to make some interstellar deliveries.

Someone also went to great lengths to create a Formula 1 ship, if you fancy racing around the galaxy like Lewis Hamilton.

What will you try and build in Starfield? We might try our hand at making the USG Kellion from Dead Space...

Starfield is available across Xbox Series X/S and Microsoft Windows.

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