There are 82 Skills in Starfield divided into 5 Skill Trees: Physical, Social, Combat, Science, and Tech. Read on for a list of all the Skill Trees in the game, how to learn them, what skills are, as well as how to unlock and rank up skills.

List of All Skill Trees

Physical Skills

The Physical Skill Tree enhances your physical capabilities by allowing you to unlock movement abilities, increase your health & resistances, or gain stealth mechanics.

Novice Skills

Skill	Brief Description
Wellness	Wellness can significantly increase your total Health, up to 40% at rank 4.
Stealth	Stealth adds the Stealth Meter, makes you harder to detect, and lets you deal more damage with suppressed weapons.
Weight Lifting	Weight Lifting significantly increases your total carrying capacity, up to 100kg at rank 4.
Fitness	Fitness increases the amount of oxygen you have and reduces the amount of oxygen sprinting and power attacks use.
Boxing	Boxing lets you deal more damage with unarmed attacks and it consumes less oxygen.

Advanced

Skill	Brief Description
Nutrition	Nutrition makes food and drinks more effective, up to 50% at rank 4.
Pain Tolerance	Pain Tolerance reduces the Physical Damage you receive, and gives you the chance to ignore physical damage completely at rank 4.
Gymnastics	Gymnastics grants you more mobility such as combat slide and better movement in Zero-G.
Environmental Conditioning	Environmental Conditioning grants you increased resistances to Airborne, Thermal, Corrosive, or Radiation damage.
Energy Weapon Dissipation	Energy Weapon Dissipation lets you take less damage from Energy Weapons and has a chance to reflect the damage at rank 4.

Expert

Skill	Brief Description
Decontamination	Decontamination gives you the chance to recover from infections without doing anything.
Martial Arts	Martial Arts gives you different effects for unarmed or melee attacks, such as higher crit chance and the ability to disarm foes.
Cellular Regeneration	Cellular Regeneration gives you the chance to heal from injuries naturally without having to do anything.

Master

Skill	Brief Description
Concealment	Concealment increases your stealth attacks and grants you special stealth abilities, like not triggering mines and going invisible.
Neurostrikes	Neurostrikes grants you the ability to stun enemies with unarmed attacks and knock them down.
Rejuvenation	Rejuvenation lets you regenerate health while outside of combat, and while in combat in higher ranks.

List of All Physical Skills

Social Skills

The Social Skill Tree lets you deal with situations non-violently by giving you access to more dialogue options, buff up your companions, force NPCs to do things at your will, and improve your management with outposts and crew members.

Novice Skills

Skill	Brief Description
Persuasion	Persuasion increases your chances of successfully persuading an NPC.
Commerce	Commerce lets you buy items for cheaper and sell items for more credits at vendors.
Theft	Theft gives you the ability to pickpocket NPCs, increases your chances to pickpocket successfully, and lets you pickpocket weapons at rank 4.
Gastronomy	Gastronomy lets you research and craft better tier food and drinks, and does not use up as much resources in rank 4.
Scavenging	Scavenging lets you find more credits, ammo, or aid items in containers, and it lets you highlight specific items at rank 4.

Advanced

Skill	Brief Description
Intimidation	Initmidation grants you the ability to make NPCs and enemies flee away from you.
Diplomacy	Diplomacy grants you the ability to make NPCs and enemies stop fighting.
Deception	Deception lets you make other ships of higher level surrender to your piracy demands, and it makes contraband scans less effective.
Isolation	Isolation gives you more weapon damage and damage resistance whenever you do not have any companions or crew.
Negotiation	Negotiation grants you the ability to bribe NPCs during dialogues, and it can reduce the bribe costs as you rank up.

Expert

Skill	Brief Description
Leadership	Leadership buffs up your companions by gaining affinity faster, increasing their health, and the ability to heal you or pick themselves up while downed.
Instigation	Instigation grants you the ability to make enemies with a higher level than you fight for you.
Outpost Management	Outpost Management lets you place more things at your outposts, such as cargo links, robots, and crew members.

Master

Skill	Brief Description
Xenosociology	Xenosociology lets you make alien creatures that are higher level than you fight for you.
Manipulation	Manipulation grants you the ability to make NPCs of higher level to follow your commands for a certain amount of time.
Ship Command	Ship Command increases the amount of crew members you can have, up to 8 active members at rank 4.

List of All Social Skills

Combat Skills

The Combat Skill Tree helps you become more effective in fighting enemies by improving your efficiency with different types of weapons, unlocking combat abilities, and adding addtional effects to your damage.

Novice Skills

Skill	Brief Description
Lasers	Lasers increases your damage with Laser Weapons, and it can grant you the chance to set enemies on fire at rank 4.
Dueling	Dueling improves your melee capabilities by increasing melee weapon damage, take less damage while using melee weapons, and heal with melee kills at rank 4.
Pistol Certification	Pistol Certification makes you deal more damage with Pistol weapons, and it can increase your critical chance at rank 4.
Shotgun Certification	Shotgun Certification lets you deal more damage with shotgun weapons, and a chance to stun enemies at rank 4.
Ballistics	Ballistics significantly increases your damage with ballistic weapons, like rifles and pistols, up to 30% at rank 4.

Advanced

Skill	Brief Description
Rifle Certification	Rifle Certification makes you deal more damage with Rifle Weapons, and increases your reload speed at rank 4.
Demolitions	Demolitions gives you the ability to see a trajectory arc for throwables and explosions would deal bigger damage.
Heavy Weapons Certification	Heavy Weapons Certification lets you deal more damage with heavy weapons and grants you more resistance while holding down sights at rank 4.
Particle Beams	Particle Beams lets you deal more damage with particle beam weapons and gives you a chance to crit at rank 4.
Incapacitation	Incapacitation significantly increases your damage with EM Weapons, up to 15% at rank 4.

Expert

Skill	Brief Description
Targeting	Targeting improves the accuracy and range of your weapons without aiming down sights, and it marks enemies who attack you.
Sniper Certification	Sniper Certification gives you better handling of scoped weapons and can deal more damage with them.
Marksmanship	Marksmanship increases the critical hit chance and damage of your non-automatic weapons.
Rapid Reloading	Rapid Reloading grants you faster reloading speed for different weapon types.

Master

Skill	Brief Description
Armor Penetration	Armor Penetration makes your weapons ignore a percentage of your target's armor.
Crippling	Crippling increases your chances to make enemies enter a downed state and stay downed for longer.
Sharpshooting	Sharpshooting significantly increases your critical hit damage with ranged weapons.

List of All Combat Skills

Science Skills

The Science Skill Tree assists the player in exploration by unlocking upgrades for your equipment, improving your outposts, and crafting better items or projects.

Novice Skills

Skill	Brief Description
Astrodynamics	Astrodynamics let you grav jump farther by increasing your grav jump range and reducing fuel costs.
Surveying	Surveying adds zooms to your Hand Scanner and lets you scan objects from farther distances.
Medicine	Medicine increases the effectiveness of healing items by making them heal more and heal faster.
Geology	Geology allows you to get higher rarity resources from surface objects like mineral deposits.
Research Methods	Research Methods reduces the amount of resources you need to craft items and complete research projects.

Advanced

Skill	Brief Description
Botany	Botany allows you to get higher rarity resources from plants, and learn information about them faster.
Scanning	Scanning grants you the ability to scan planets and moons for higher rarity resources, and lets you scan ships for information and what they have in cargo.
Spacesuit Design	Spacesuit Design lets you craft higher rarity armor, such as spacesuits and helmets.
Weapon Engineering	Weapon Engineering allows you to craft higher tier weapon mods on the workbench.
Zoology	Zoology allows you to get higher rarity materials from alien creatures, and you can learn more about them quicker when scanning them.

Expert

Skill	Brief Description
Outpost Engineering	Outpost Engineering allows you to construct better outpost modules and research higher tier modules at a Research Lab.
Chemistry	Chemistry allows you to create and craft higher tier chems at a Research Lab.
Astrophysics	Astrophysics lets you scan moons and planets without having to fly to their orbit, as far as 30 Light Years away at rank 4.

Master

Skill	Brief Description
Special Projects	Special Projects lets you research experimental projects and craft higher tier manufactured components on an Industrial Workbench.
Planetary Habitation	Planetary Habitation lets you build outposts in harsher environments such as ones with extreme temperature or extreme pressure.
Aneutronic Fusion	Aneutronic Fusion makes extra power for you ship, up to 5 units of power at rank 4.

List of All Science Skills

Tech Skills

The Tech Skill Tree makes space navigation easier by giving you access to space equipment, better upgrades to ship weapon systems, and the ability to fly higher class ships more effectively.

Novice Skills

Skill	Brief Description
Security	Security allows you to lockpick higher tier locks and lets you use auto attempts.
Piloting	Ploting grants you the ability to pilot higher class ships, and makes it easier to move around in space.
Boost Pack Training	Boost Pack Training grants you to the ability to use boost packs and increases its effectiveness.
Ballistic Weapon Systems	Ballistic Weapon Systems increases you ship's ballistic weapon damage and reduces the cost of Targeting mode.
Targeting Control Systems	Targeting Control Systems unlocks the ability to target a certain part of an enemy ship, and lets you deal more damage while targeting.

Advanced

Skill	Brief Description
Payloads	Payloads increases your ship's cargo capacity significantly, up to 50% at rank 4.
Energy Weapon Systems	Energy Weapon Systems increases the damage of your ship's energy weapons amd reduces the cost of Targeting mode.
Engine Systems	Engine Systems improves your ships engines by making it move faster and gain longer boosts.
Shield Systems	Shield Systems increases your ship's shields by up to 60% at rank 3, and has a chance to ignore damage altogether at rank 4.

Expert

Skill	Brief Description
Starship Engineering	Starship Engineering increases your ship's survivability by making repairs faster and take less damage
Particle Beam Weapon Systems	Particle Beam Weapon Systems increases your ship's damage with particle beam weapons, and reduces the cost of Targeting mode.
Robotics	Robotics lets you deal more damage to robots and turrets, and it lets you command a robot to fight for you.
Missile Weapon Systems	Missile Weapon Systems increases your ship's missile weapons damage, and reduces the cost of Targeting mode.
Starship Design	Starship Design lets you install higher tier ship modules while you customize or build ships.

Master

Skill	Brief Description
Boost Assault Training	Boost Assault Training lets you deal damage with your boost pack and hover in the air while aiming down sights.
EM Weapon Systems	EM Weapon Systems increases your ship's damage with EM weapons and reduces the cost of Targeting mode.
Automated Weapon Systems	Automated Weapon Systems increases you ship's automated weapon damage and buffs your ship while you use Targeting mode.

List of All Tech Skills

How the Skill Tree Works

Spend Skill Points to Unlock More Skills

Players will need to invest a certain number skill points in a skill tree to unlock skills in a higher tier. All the Novice skills are available at the start, but you will need to spend 4 skill points in the tree to unlock the Advanced tier, spend 8 skill points in the tree for the Expert tier, and spend 12 skill points in the tree for the Master tier.

How to Level Up and Farm Skill Points

Do Skill Challenges to Unlock Skill Upgrades

Each skill also has 4 ranks of upgrades you can invest your skill points into. The upgrades can increase the effectiveness and efficiency, or it can add new effects depending on the skill. However, you need to complete a challenge before you can unlock a skill upgrade.

Character Backgrounds Have Pre-Selected Skills

The backgrounds during character creation also grant you pre-selected skills as soon as you start the game. This helps you start off with some useful skills for your build without having to spend any skill points for it.

List of All Backgrounds

What Are Skills?

Abilities that Improve Capabilities

Skills are the main way to improve your character in Starfield. Learning and upgrading skills will make your character more effective in many ways, such as increased damage when using weapons or new abilities.

Starfield Related Guides

Starfield Walkthrough and Guides Wiki

Starfield Wiki
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