Starfield armor

Starfield armor can offer protection against aliens and incoming bullets, it can also save you from hazards on inhospitable planets.

Starfield armor isn’t just about how your character looks when exploring or fighting, it can protect you from incoming damage and even make exploration possible in otherwise lethal environments.

We’ve seen a ton of armor options, including recognizable armor pieces for the numerous Starfield factions, and we even have some official armor names to analyze. We have also seen that you can upgrade your armor using the Starfield Research Laboratory.

Here are all of the confirmed Starfield armor parts:

• Explorer Space Helmet
• Ground Crew Space Helmet
• Mercenary Space Helmet
• Navigator Space Helmet
• Pirate Assault Space Helmet
• Shocktroop Space Helmet
• Space Trucker Space Helmet
• SY-920 Pilot Space Helmet
• Trackers Alliance Space Helmet

How does armor work in Starfield?

Crucially, armor can make some Starfield locations accessible. Much like in Fallout 4, Starfield armor can also offer environmental protection buffs to make less hospitable planets more welcoming. This has been confirmed by Todd Howard in an interview with Lex Fridman. Among the environmental elements that Todd lists are gases, toxicity, and extreme temperatures.

Armor will likely be divided into numerous categories like head piece (helmet), chest (suit?), arms (gloves or bracers?), legs, and a number of slots for further customization like jewelry or eyes (glasses). We’ve seen similar systems in both the Elder Scroll and Fallout series, but whether Starfield will be as multilayered as previous installments remains to be seen.

Keen viewers of the Starfield release trailer will have spotted not just the confirmed helmets on offer, but also stat lines.

Starfield Armor Stats

Helmets have the following stats:

• Primary Stats
  • PHYS – likely physical resistance to ballistic damage
  • ENGY – resistance to energy weapons like lasers
  • EM – the most vague, EM most probably means Electro-Magnetic, but which weapons inflict this damage type are unknown
• Secondary Stats
  • THERMAL – with the associated numbers being positive and negative, not a specific temperature, it’s unclear if certain armors are needed for hot and cold environments or if one glove fits all
  • AIRBORNE – with numerous Starfield creatures possessing the ‘diseased’ tag, we can assume some worlds will be very noxious and require special protection
  • CORROSIVE – acid rain may not have featured in the the Fallout series without mods, but corrosive resistance may shield you in chemical wastelands and similarly toxic zones
  • RADIATION – the most familiar to Fallout players, radiation can quickly whittle away your health without the appropriate armor
• Tertiary Stats
  • Mass – the weight of an item which will affect the carry limit of your Spacefarer
  • Value – how much the item is worth to vendors (though vendors in previous installments never seem to buy our junk at these prices!)

We’ll update this guide as soon as we have seen full armor stats and sets, so in the meantime here are some of the Starfield weapons, traits, and backgrounds that will also impact your combat effectiveness.