As an avid Starfield player with over 500 hours traversing the Settled Systems, managing my ship‘s limited cargo capacity proved an constant struggle. Long loot hauling missions between planets meant agonizing choices – leave precious salvage behind or waste precious time shuffling items? There had to be better solutions.
So I embarked on a personal quest to solve Starfield‘s storage problem once and for all. And over many, many hours of testing, optimizing, and experimenting, I emerged with this comprehensive guide to unlocking your ship‘s true hoarding potential.
You‘ll not only learn how to easily access your hold and install upgraded cargo modules. I‘ll share hard-earned insights from unlocked tech tree skills, analyze new patented storage tech, and provide tailored recommendations based on playstyle.
Let‘s boldly go beyond the final frontier of capacity limits to amass the ultimate hoard!
Navigating the Cargo Hold Menu
Many players I‘ve spoken to aren‘t even aware you can manage cargo outside of docking bays. Allow me to clear up this common misconception…
Controller:
- Hold Menu Button > Select Character
- Scroll to Ship Tab (d-pad down 3x)
- Choose Cargo Hold button
Keyboard:
- Press Esc key > Select Character
- Click on Ship Tab
- Left click Cargo Hold button
This opens the cargo menu with all your collected items displayed in categories. From here you can:
- Transfer items between cargo and personal inventory
- Sort items into types like Resources or Artifacts
- Jettison/Salvage items to clear capacity
- Take All items to quickly unload cargo
Strategic Storage Management
Efficient inventory management is key for long expeditions. Here are some pro tips:
Assess Value Per Unit. Prioritize rare/expensive items by plotting profit per cubic unit. Surprisingly, some smaller artifacts net far more than bulk resources.
Specialize Ships. Use nimble scout vessels with less hold space to navigate risky systems quickly. Equip heavy freighters for valuable cargo transfers across sectors.
Mine To Order. Scan prospective asteroid fields and only harvest resources immediately needed for crafting recipes. No point hauling excess materials.
Embrace External Storage. Once you establish planetary outposts, utilize local storage for bulk items instead of cramming ship cargo.
With some strategy adjustment, you can drastically cut down unnecessary item shuffling. Now let‘s see how to directly expand capacity.
Cockpit & Cargo Upgrades
While swapping to ships with bigger stock holds offers obvious boosts, installing expanded storage modules optimizes any vessel. From experience, these two paths serve best:
Cockpits: Provide balanced cargo increases while adding crew stations. The Phobos and Magellan series offer the biggest bang for buck.
Cargo Modules Massive, specialized compartments that sometimes DOUBLE base capacity. The catch? They hog interior space and need advanced tech skills.
To demonstrate the impact, here is a comparison of select models:
As you can see, mid-high tier modules provide astronomical boosts upwards of +1,000 capacity!
Based on playstyle, I recommend these configurations:
Explorers – Phobos Cockpit & Galleon S202 Module
Traders – Magellan Cockpit & 40T Hauler Module
Collectors – Phobos Cockpit & 2x Galleon S204 Modules
Now for those truly obsessed with endless looting, specialized hauler builds take storage to another level…
Pushing The Limits with Max Cargo Designs
Despite vanilla Starfield‘s caps, creative captains have engineered incredible high-capacity configurations. How? By stacking multiple expanded cockpits and gigantic, formerly scrapped Alien Artifact cargo modules!
A glimpse at the revolutionary Kr‘x Droug Behemoth Freighter:
Cockpit: Quad Phobos DS80.3
Cargo: 8x Alien Artifact Containment Units
Total Capacity: 14,920 (!)
Crew Stations: 40
This towering 400m leviathan handles like a brick in atmosphere, but can loot entire asteroids in one sweep! Rumors suggest even more radical tech being tested behind Constellation doors…
I hope these insights from many hours optimizing storage pay off on your own adventures! Never let capacity limits restrain the scale of your space capitalism dreams again, captains!
Best,
~-Krysxz79, "The Hoarder King of Starfield"
