How to dock in Starfield: Boarding other spaceships explained

Get onboarded for coming aboard, welcome or not.

By Cole Luke

Published: Wednesday, 06 September 2023 at 10:25 AM

It wouldn’t be a space game without exploring space stations and living out your dream as a space pirate, stealing ships and whatnot.

And on this front, Bethesda has delivered – and to explore this mechanic further, we’ll be taking a look at how to dock in Starfield with boarding other spaceships explained.

There are a few things to consider, however, like how to stop a ship from moving without blowing it up and making sure you have all the right paperwork to fly a colossal commandeered craft, but we’ll go over those too.

Stealing ships in Starfield and selling them can be a great way to get some good money early on in the game, or if you can’t make heads or tails of shipbuilding.

We have plenty of Starfield tips and tricks, so be sure to clue yourself up to get the most out of the galaxy.

There are hapless fellows just waiting to have their engines annihilated and their livelihood upended out there, so we won’t keep you. Read on for all the boarding shenanigans!

How to dock in Starfield: Boarding other spaceships explained

To dock with another ship or space station in Starfield, you first need to target the vessel and press A (on Xbox) or the E key (on PC) and, once you’re within 500 metres, you can hold X (on Xbox) or the R key (on PC) to dock.

From there, you can either board the vessel, undock from it or, alternatively, get up from the captain’s chair and take yourself to your airlock.

To board enemy ships, you first need to choose which ship you want and destroy any other enemy ships in the area.

Once your desired vessel is all that remains, you need to disable its engines and ensure you have unlocked Targeting Control Systems on the tech tree. This allows you to directly target individual components on a ship in a system similar to Fallout’s VATS.

Once disabled, follow the same procedure as above – but instead of a warm welcome, you will have to deal with the ship’s crew.

Be sure to have the proper license in place to fly Class B and C ships. These become available to you when you unlock Rank 3 and 4 Piloting SKill respectively.

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