How to Dock With Space Station in Starfield

Lee Stanton December 20, 2023

As soon as you finish setting up your character, Starfield gives you a ship and opens up the whole galaxy for you to roam. There are countless worlds to visit and people to encounter. In space, you’ll often be bumping into fellow travelers, traders, pirates, and the mighty space stations, simply called Star Stations or Staryards.

How to Dock With Space Station in Starfield

Docking with these stations can often prove to be quite a challenge at first. The game doesn’t offer you much by way of prompts and the interface can be confusing. Rather than bouncing off the station to no avail, read on to learn how to successfully dock with any space station, and indeed, any ship in Starfield.

Docking With a Station

Star stations and Staryards are littered across the Settled Systems. Some are inhabited, while some sit abandoned, full of unknown dangers. Some are important to your main questline, while others are just a quick source of credits and experience. All of them should be visible from your Starmap.

To dock with a station, you’ll first have to navigate to it on your Starmap. To do this:

Open your Starmap by pressing the M key (PC) or the View button (Xbox). Alternatively, you can boot up your Starmap directly from your ship’s navigation panel.
Navigate to the station you wish to visit, by accessing the system it’s in.
After a brief cutscene, you’ll arrive in the space surrounding the Star Station. Press the E key or A button to bring up your ship’s reticle.
Hover over the station, and your reticle should pick it up.
You’ll need to be in range of the station before the docking option becomes available. You can increase your flight speed by pressing L Shift (PC) or the Left Stick down (Xbox).
Once within 500 meters of the station (watch the distance counter in your targeting reticle), you’ll see the option appear to Dock or Hail. Press and hold R (PC)

or X (Xbox) to dock.
A brief cutscene will show the docking procedure.

If the option to dock with the station isn’t appearing, ensure that the station is targeted in your reticle and not another ship. If it is, then you can quickly cycle targets by pressing the E key or A button. A blue interface diamond should appear in the center of the station and the docking option should pop up once your ship is in range.

Once you’ve finally docked with the station, a menu will pop up that offers you three options: Board, Undock, and Get Up. Boarding is the quickest way to access a station, while Get Up allows you to stand up from the pilot’s seat and attend to any business on your ship before walking out the docker manually.

Importantly, you can’t fast-travel while your ship is docked to another station or ship. You’ll need to head back to the pilot’s seat of your craft and choose the Undock option from your navigation panel. A brief cutscene will play and you’ll be free to roam the stars once more.

Hailing Stations and Ships

Hailing is a good way to find out more about a ship or station. It can often mean the difference between a friendly boarding and charging in guns blazing. Hailing can open up the dialogue tree and give you the chance to put those smooth-talking persuasion skills to work. When targeting a ship or within 500 meters of a station, you’ll see the “Hail” button appear, sometimes next to the “Dock” button. To hail:

Hover the reticle over the ship or station and press E on your keyboard

or A on your controller to target it.
Once within range, press and hold F (PC)

or A (Xbox) to hail the ship. A voice will tell you a little more about the ship and whether it’s friendly, hostile, or abandoned.

A simple hail may be all you need to access docking at a station. Some hailed ships may also offer you the ability to trade with them. After a successful hail, a dialogue box will appear. Choose the Let’s Trade option, and you’ll be taken to the trading window.

Not all vessels will be welcoming. If you’re wanted by a faction or part of the Crimson Fleet, then don’t be surprised when relations may turn hostile. If you can’t talk your way out of a situation, you may find yourself with a space battle on your hands.

Commandeering a Ship

Maybe negotiations have turned sour. Maybe you want to try your hand at piracy. Maybe you just really like the look of that ship. Whatever the reason, you’ll find yourself in a furious space battle before you can board or capture a hostile ship. The key to effective commandeering is having the right weapons, skills, and tactics before you open fire.

You’ll need to invest in the Targeting Control System skill. It allows you to target different key systems on a hostile ship. You need at least Rank one to be able to effectively immobilize a craft. If ship invasion is going to be a hobby, progressing the skill to Rank four is highly recommended. This will allow for faster lock-on times and a slower rate of return fire by targeted enemies.

Once in combat, you’ll need to destroy the enemy’s engines before you can board. Cycle through the targets on your enhanced targeting mode reticle, until you find the engines. Keep firing until the enemy engine bar (“ENG”) goes red. Be careful though, as you can still be fired on by the target ship’s weapons. Before boarding, make sure no other enemy ships are left in the area. If they attack your ship once docked, you could lose it for good.

The docking procedure will be the same as for a Star Station. Once on board, have your companions and weapons at the ready. You’ll need to kill every enemy on board before you can loot or commandeer the ship.

To commandeer a ship, sit in the pilot’s seat in the cockpit and undock from your ship. You’ll need to have a high enough rank in the Piloting skill to commandeer Class B and C ships, otherwise you’ll be locked out of the vessel’s systems.

The commandeered ship will become your new home ship, with all items and functions automatically transferred over. Don’t worry about the fate of your old ship as you undock from it. It’ll be added to your ship’s roster, and you can easily change it back when visiting a Space Technician. You can have up to nine ships on your roster.

All Aboard

Like most features in Starfield, docking is easy once you know how, but frustrating at first. While the interface often complicates the simplest tasks, you’ll be on and off ships and stations in an instant once you’ve mastered it. Docking with any star station requires it to be properly targeted and your ship to be within range. As long as you’ve got that down, boarding is as good as done.

What’s the hardest part about docking? How often do you attack other ships and why? Let us know in the comments section below.