Best Starfield ship weapons – the best starship weapons for every category

Spending most of your time in a starship means you need to be kitted out, which is why it’s important to know about the best ship weapons in Starfield. Ship weapons are a major part of your ship’s customisation options and will help you deal with dogfights, so you’ll want to ensure you’re armed to the teeth to take down any pilots in your way. We’ve picked out a few of the best ship weapons in Starfield, so let’s take a look at them.

The best ship weapons are the Torch-P 250MW UV Pulse Laser, the KE-42 Cannon, the ATLATL 280C Missile Launcher, the Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojector, and the Nullifier 1750 Suppressor. We’ve found great success using these ship weapons out of the five weapon types available.

Ship Weapon	Type
Torch-P 250MW UV Pulse Laser	Laser
KE-42 Cannon	Ballistic
ATLATL 280C Missile Launcher	Missile
Nullifier 1750 Suppressor	EM
Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojector	Particle Beam

Best Laser ship weapons

We found the Torch-P 250MW UV Pulse Laser to be the best Laser ship weapon in the game. It offers huge shield damage and a high rate of fire. This is incredibly useful later in the game when you come up against groups of enemy ships, as being able to destroy shields quickly will be what wins you these fights.

Best Ballistic ship weapons

As for Ballistic weapons, we recommend the KE-42 Cannon. Just like the Pulse Laser above, it offers the same high damage and good fire rate combination, except with a focus on hull damage. You’ll want a high rate of fire, too, as our final weapon has a much slower fire rate, but makes up for it with huge damage.

Best Missile ship weapons

The best Missile weapon, and our choice for the best overall ship weapon is the ATLATL 280C Missile Launcher. This requires Rank 3 in the Starship Design skill to unlock and will cost you a pretty penny, but it’s worth it. A massive 264 damage per hit, both to shields and hulls, means that it can be used throughout space combat, and will decimate even the highest-health ships. If you’ve got the skills and the money to get one, you won’t ever need to upgrade your missile launcher again.

Best EM ship weapons

Our pick for the best EM weapon is the Nullifier 1750 Suppressor, while the EMP-500 Suppressor comes in at a close second. These two weapons are fantastic when it comes to disabling ships. The Nullifier is the best one out of these two, but you should use the EMP-500 for the majority of your time until you unlock the Nullifier.

Best Particle Beam ship weapons

The Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojector is our pick for the best Particle Beam weapon. Just like the Ballistic Vanguard weapon we recommend, it comes with great Hull and Shield damage, along with a decent rate of fire. To unlock this weapon, you need to complete missions in the UC Vanguard chain and then buy it from ship technicians.

Starfield ship weapon explained

Each weapon type deals a different kind of damage depending on the type of weapon used, with each having a different purpose. Energy weapons deal extra damage to shields (Shield DMG), ballistic weapons deal extra damage to a ship’s hull (Hull DMG), and EM weapons damage a ship’s systems. Using the right assortment of weapons will be key to success when taking on enemy ships, so play around with the weapons to find a combination that works for you.

You’ll want to use your energy weapons first to destroy the enemy shields. Once the shields are down, you can use a combination of your ballistic and missile weapons to quickly destroy the hull, blowing up the ship in the process. Every weapon also has its own stats, such as range, fire rate, and hull and shield damage. This way, you can easily see what weapons are more suited to your needs and swap them out depending on the better choice.

In Starfield, you can attach up to three different weapons to your ship. When visiting a spaceport, you can purchase, upgrade, and assign weapons to one of three weapon slots in the shipbuilder mode. One thing to keep in mind is weapon assignment, as you are unable to confirm your changes while you still have unassigned weapons. It’s a complicated system at first, so check out our guide on how to assign weapon groups to help get you started.

Autocannons and Turret ship weapons 

Some ship guns in Starfield will fire automatically – Turrets – while some are called Autocannons. While it might be a little confusing, you can easily remember it since the Autocannons are using ‘automatic ammo’, while Turrets will fire on enemies automatically. Each of these ship weapons can be swapped interchangeably depending on what type of weapon you want to use. Additionally, they can be upgraded at spaceports to increase their stats.

✓ Good to know

To cut a long story short, your ship’s Turrets will automatically fire on enemies when in combat, whereas Autocannons can lock onto specific parts of ships and are fired manually.

Ship weapons, character skills, and companions

When you first fire up Starfield, you won’t have access to all ship weapons. To unlock them all, you’ll need to level up your character and invest points into specific skills, namely those under Tech Skills. Here’s a list of the Tech Skills needed to gain access to all ship weapons along with damage multipliers:

• Tier 1 Ballistic Weapon Systems
• Tier 1 Piloting
• Tier 1 Targeting Control Systems
• Tier 2 Energy Weapon Systems
• Tier 3 Missile Weapon Systems
• Tier 3 Particle Beam Weapon Systems
• Tier 3 Starship Design
• Tier 4 Automated Weapon Systems
• Tier 4 EM Weapon Systems

Once you’ve unlocked all ship weapons, you can further boost your ship’s damage by assigning companions and crew members to man the ship. We recommend Barrett, Gideon Aker, Andreja, and Moara Otero are all great options to heighten your ship’s weapon abilities.

Multiple weapon allocation

Each ship weapon type has what’s called an allocation, which allows you to install several instances of the same weapon until you max out that allocation. You can’t mix and match different weapons in the same category, but can always install duplicates of the same exact weapon for a small weight penalty but a big boost to damage output. For example, if you’re running a ATLATL 280C Missile Launcher, you can install up to three of them on the same ship. Repeat for each weapon category – EM, Laser, Particle Beam, and Ballistic.