To craft items in Starfield, you require raw resources, specific crafting station types, and sometimes relevant research projects completed.
Exploring the vast expanse of Starfield offers many exciting possibilities, including crafting. Have you been wondering, ‘Starfield what do you need to craft items’? The crafting system can feel a little complex at first.
Understanding the essentials simplifies things. Gathering resources is the first step. You will then use these at workbenches to create new gear.
Starfield What Do You Need to Craft Items?
So, you’re ready to become a crafting whiz in Starfield? That’s awesome! Crafting is a big part of the game, letting you make all sorts of useful things, from helpful healing items to powerful weapon mods. But before you start building like a pro, you need to know what it takes. Don’t worry, it’s not rocket science (though you might be crafting some rocket parts later!). This guide will break down all the crafting requirements in Starfield, making it easy to understand. Get ready to gather, build, and become a true crafting expert!
Understanding the Basics of Crafting in Starfield
Crafting in Starfield is more than just slapping things together. It’s a process that involves several key elements. First off, you need the right workbench. These aren’t just any old table; they’re special stations designed for different types of crafting. Think of them as your specialized toolboxes. You also need to gather the raw materials. These are the building blocks for everything you want to create, from simple med packs to complex suit upgrades. Finally, you need to have learned the specific recipe or crafting plan, often found or acquired in the game, or sometimes available just by leveling up the specific skills.
Workbenches: Your Crafting Hubs
Let’s talk about those workbenches first. Each workbench lets you make different types of items:
- Spacesuit Workbench: This is where you’ll improve your spacesuits and helmets, adding better protection or special abilities.
- Weapon Workbench: Here, you modify your weapons. Add scopes, change magazines, and much more to make your guns exactly how you want them.
- Industrial Workbench: This is your go-to for creating resources, building structures at outposts, and other miscellaneous crafting.
- Cooking Station: If you like to play as a chef, or just need to prepare food for healing or buffs, this is where you will create consumables.
- Pharmaceutical Lab: Make various aid items, from healing med packs to performance-boosting drugs at this station.
These workbenches can be found throughout the galaxy, often in cities, outposts, or sometimes even in your own ship. Make sure to explore and find the workbenches that suit your current needs.
Gathering Raw Materials: The Core of Crafting
Once you have found workbenches, you need raw materials. You find these resources everywhere in Starfield. They can be mined from planets, looted from enemies, or purchased from vendors. Here are some of the most common materials you’ll find and how to get them:
- Minerals: Iron, Copper, Aluminum, and many others can be mined with your Cutter tool. You can locate them with the Scanner tool and extract them with your cutter, or you can build an outpost to make resource gathering automatic.
- Organic Materials: Plants and other biological items. Harvest these plants for crafting consumable items, or items related to biology crafting.
- Components: Found by dismantling random objects or from containers, these items are used for many types of crafting.
- Manufactured Resources: You can buy these from traders or find them in containers, often more advanced resources that are harder to find
Keep your eyes open as you play, resources are everywhere! The key is to search containers, loot defeated enemies, and thoroughly explore each planet you land on.
Crafting Recipes: Knowing What to Make
Just finding resources and a workbench isn’t enough. You also need a recipe, or what Starfield refers to as a crafting plan, for what you want to make. These plans tell you what resources are needed and how much. Recipes are often found by:
- Leveling up skills: As you increase your skills in areas like Engineering, Medicine, and Science, you’ll unlock the ability to craft more complex and useful items.
- Exploring and completing missions: Some quests reward crafting recipes or access to new workbench features.
- Buying from vendors: You can sometimes buy plans from vendors, especially in major cities or trading hubs.
- Finding them in the world: Keep an eye out while you explore, some plans are hidden and can be found.
Always keep track of your crafting plans in the menu, as this will save time. Having a large variety of plans, means you can make more items, and be more resourceful.
Crafting Specific Items: Examples and Requirements
Now, let’s look at some examples to give you a clear idea of the type of things you can make and what you need to do it. Remember, these are just a few examples, but they will give you the general idea of how crafting works in Starfield.
Crafting a Med Pack
Med packs are essential for healing yourself in battles. You will be using them often. To make a basic med pack, you will usually need:
- Pharmaceutical Lab: You’ll need a pharmaceutical lab to make the Med pack.
- Organic Resources: You might need a biological item like sealant or fibrous.
- Chemicals: Some chemical components are needed for it as well, usually common ones like Amino Acids or Analgesics.
To craft a med pack, simply go to the Pharmaceutical Lab, find the med pack recipe in the menu, and make sure you have all the required items. If you have them, you can then craft the Med pack. If you don’t, you can always head to vendors or keep exploring for those materials.
Modifying a Weapon
Upgrading your guns is very helpful. It lets you customize them to be powerful. To do that you need the weapon workbench, and you will need the components for the weapon mod.
- Weapon Workbench: First, you will need a weapon workbench.
- Components: Like Polymer, Adhesive, or other components that match the weapon mod you are trying to install.
To modify your weapon, just interact with the weapon workbench and find your weapon and the correct mod. If you have all the materials you can install the mod and increase your gun’s power.
Building an Outpost Structure
Outposts are amazing, as you can have your own base in Starfield. To build them, you will need resources as well. Most of the time you will use the Industrial Workbench for this kind of craft, here is the general requirements.
- Industrial Workbench: You will need to use an industrial workbench for outpost crafting.
- Mineral Resources: Iron, Copper, Aluminum are used for basic structures. You can often use these resources that can be found on the planet you are building on.
- Specialized Resources: Depending on the outpost structure you will also need other special resources, like polymers, or more complex manufactured goods.
To build a basic structure, just find a good spot with the outpost menu, and then build using the resources you have.
Tips for Efficient Crafting
Crafting can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t have a good plan, so here are some tips to help make crafting a smooth and enjoyable experience.
- Always scan your environment: When you land on a new planet, use your scanner to identify plant life, mineral deposits, and other resources, this way you will know where to go when gathering specific materials.
- Keep a stockpile: Don’t just craft items as you need them, store any spare resources that you have, so you will be ready when you need them.
- Visit Vendors: Vendors often sell resources, and they are very helpful when you need specific crafting materials in bulk.
- Complete Factions Missions: Often the faction missions will unlock new crafting plans, or give you access to workbenches, and they can be very beneficial for players looking to improve their crafting.
- Focus on Your Skills: Investing in skills related to crafting can dramatically increase the variety of things you can make.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment: Try different recipes and combinations. You never know what hidden gems you might find through experimentation.
Managing Your Inventory
One of the biggest problems of crafting in Starfield is managing your inventory, there are so many resources to keep. Here are some useful inventory tips:
- Use your ship’s storage: Your ship is a great place to store all of your resources and items.
- Create outpost storages: Outposts can be a great place to store your items in bulk and keep them all organized.
- Sell Unwanted Items: If your storage is getting too full, sell any materials or items you don’t need to free space.
- Keep a Specific Storage Space: Having a dedicated storage space for your resources will help keep you organized.
Advanced Crafting Techniques
As you dive deeper into Starfield, you’ll want to explore some advanced crafting techniques that can give you a big advantage in the game.
Research Projects and Upgrades
Some of the best items in Starfield aren’t crafted directly at the workbench, but require research. Research projects are completed in research labs. In these labs, you will spend resources to unlock new crafting plans and new upgrade tiers for your gear.
- Unlocking New Crafting Recipes: Research projects can unlock recipes for powerful weapons, high-tech spacesuits, or valuable consumable items.
- Upgrading Existing Gear: The research can also let you install further and better upgrades to weapons, armors, and other types of items.
Using Outposts for Resource Generation
Setting up outposts can make resource collection much easier, instead of mining resources by hand you can let the machines do the job. This can dramatically increase your resource supplies, and let you craft complex items without needing to scavenge all day for resources.
- Automated Resource Gathering: Build resource extractors and storage to automatically collect minerals and other resources.
- Outpost Specialization: Design outposts to focus on certain resources, making you a master of specific crafting elements.
Combining Crafting and Trading
Crafting is not just for using items for yourself. You can craft goods, and trade them for money. This is a very effective strategy that can help you make more money for items you want to buy. Here are some things you can do:
- Selling Crafted Goods: Craft med packs, weapon mods, and other valuable items to sell for profit.
- Trading Resources: Trade surplus resources with other players or vendors, for resources you need.
Remember, crafting in Starfield is an evolving experience, and new patches may add new items. Always try and experiment and enjoy your crafting experience.
By understanding these key aspects of crafting in Starfield, you will be well prepared to make the most of the game. With the right resources, workbenches, and recipes, you will be able to build anything. Remember to be resourceful, manage your storage space, and keep an eye out for new materials. Have fun exploring and crafting!
Do this to Craft the BEST Weapons & Armor Sets Early in Starfield!
Final Thoughts
To craft in Starfield, you primarily need raw materials gathered throughout the world. These materials range from common metals to rare organic compounds. A scanner reveals the composition of different objects and creatures, letting you target specific resources.
‘Starfield what do you need to craft items’ boils down to this: resources, a crafting table, and the correct recipe. Find these resources by exploring and scanning everything that you see. Then, use tables to create weapons, modifications, or useful consumables.



