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How to increase your pilot class - Starfield

If you want to start flying Class B and Class C ships, you're going to need to increase your pilot class in Starfield.

Bill Lavoy

September 1, 2023 12:04 PM

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Just like you need special licenses to drive special vehicles on the road, you need to unlock certain pilot classes to captain some of the more elaborate ships in Starfield. If you’re finding yourself unable to pilot Class B and Class C ships, here’s how you can upgrade your pilot class.

How to upgrade your pilot class

To upgrade your pilot class in Starfield, you’ll need to unlock the Piloting skill found in the Tech skill tree. This skill is on the top row, which means you can unlock it in the early hours of the game. However, you’ll need Rank 3 to unlock the ability to fly Class B ships, and Rank 4 to unlock the ability to pilot Class C ships.

Once you have the Piloting skill, upgrading it becomes a matter of destroying ships. You’ll do plenty of this as you play the quests in Starfield, but if you want to expedite the process you can do so by jumping from one system to another, rolling the dice that you get a random encounter with some hostile ships. You could also just attack any ship you see, but this might bring about some legal troubles for your character or result in you being destroyed by much more powerful ships.

The benefit of being able to pilot both Class B and Class C ships is that you can commandeer hostile vessels of a higher class and keep them for yourself, or you can start building better ships through Starfield’s ship building system. For example, the game let me install a Class C reactor for the ship I was building, but it then required me to use Class C components for the rest of my ship, effectively turning into a Class C ship that I wasn’t allowed to fly. If you want to feel bad in Starfield, try building a ship you can’t pilot. I actually don’t know if the game would have let me finish building the ship, but you get the idea.

Now that you know how to get your Class B and Class C pilot’s license, be sure to visit our Starfield Strategy Guide. You’ll find lots more help for all your star-trekking needs. See what I did there?

Bill Lavoy

Managing Editor

Bill, who is also known as Rumpo, is a lifelong gamer and Toronto Maple Leafs fan. He made his mark early in his career through guide writing and a deep understanding of editorial SEO. He enjoys putting in the work to create a great content, be it a wild feature or grinding out an in-depth collectible guide. Tweet him @RumpoPlays if you have a question or comment about one of his articles.