Ships in Starfield allow players to travel, fight enemies, and transport goods from one place to another. Even though all of these are important tasks, players cannot keep all their systems at maximum power at all times. As different scenarios are thrown at you, you need to divert and allocate power accordingly to different ship systems in Starfield. But if you are confused about how the Starfield ship power allocation system works, let us help you out.
How to allocate power in your ship in Starfield
Your ship in Starfield has a limited amount of power available. This maximum power capacity is decided by your spaceship’s reactor. All the ship’s systems cannot be kept at full power at all times. If you are in spaceship combat, you will obviously want to allocate extra power to shields and weapons instead of gravity drive.
To allocate Starfield ship power to different systems, you can use the Arrow keys on PC and D-Pad on the controller. On the keyboard, by default, you have to hold down the Left-Alt key and then use the side arrow or W/D keys to switch between ship systems. Once you have highlighted the system you want to allocate power to, press the up/down or A/S keys to increase or decrease power to that ship system.
The total amount of spaceship power available to allocate is displayed on the HUD, below the power assigned to each system. All your systems have a maximum and minimum power level that you can allocate to the system. This limit can be increased by upgrading the ship with better parts.
What does allocating power to a ship system do in Starfield
It’s quite clear what happens when you allocate Starfield ship power to one of the systems of your spaceship but just a recap, allocating power to a selected system helps increase the effectiveness of the said system.
Allocating power to your engine allows you to fly faster. Allocating to the shield strengthens the shield and deflects incoming damage while allocating power to the gravity drive allows you to jump from one star system to another.
You can also divert powers to the weapon systems of your ship in Starfield. Weapons fall under laser, ballistic and missile categories. Allocating power to each of these will improve their effectiveness thus increasing damage and reducing recharge time.
If during combat, one of your ship’s systems gets damaged, allocating more power to it will allow you to repair that part of your ship.
Let us look at all the different systems players have in their ship’s HUD
| Ship System for Power Allocation | Description |
| Ballistics – BAL | Ballistic systems deal higher damage and more consistent damage. They also recharge faster. |
| Lasers – LAS | Charge lasers faster and deal additional damage. Better for destroying enemy shields. |
| Missiles – MSL | Deal additional damage and increase reloading speed. |
| Engines – ENG | Increase acceleration and stronger, longer boosts. |
| Shields – SHD | Increase the durability of your hull and your hull takes reduced damage. |
| Grav Drive – GRV | Increases charging speed for your Grav Drive required to make jumps. |
How to increase max power capacity for your ship
The total power of every ship is determined by the ship’s reactor. The stronger reactor the reactor on your ship, the more power you will have available to allocate to different systems of the ship. What reactor players can use depends on how much money they are willing to spend on the ship and what their piloting skill rank is.
The game classifies reactors in Class A, Class B and Class C. The higher piloting skill players have, the better reactor players can equip and the more power they will have in their ship. This additional power can allow players to allocate more power to different systems of the ship.
