A comprehensive guide to successfully smuggle and sell illicit contraband items in Bethesda’s Starfield.

Starfield does quite a lot of handholding when it comes to quest objectives, but some of the mechanics in the game are only poorly explained. And some, like the time-honoured tradition of smuggling contraband, are left entirely for the player to figure out for themselves. If you’re struggling how to best emulate Han Solo or Malcolm Reynolds with your character, after having found some contraband on a ship or some dirtside cave, then this guide is for you. I found a lot of these contraband items early in my Starfield experience and had no luck trying to turn a handy profit with these myself, so I thought I’d write this blog post to help other wannabe smugglers out there in the black.

Aside from joining the pirate faction, the Crimson Fleet, and availing yourself or their illicit ship tech and stores to turn smuggled goods into credits – which involves a long questline and would be worth its own tutorial – there are two main ways to turn illegal goods into money as an independent pilot in Starfield. There’s an easy way (which you’d only find by accident or if someone tells you about it) and a hard way (which is hinted at sometimes in the game itself).

The general idea of smuggling in Starfield is that you are trying to sell contraband items you have stolen somewhere, but that you can only do this at a Trade Authority shop – meaning that you need to speak to a human in the place, the automated kiosks at landing pads will not work for this. The problem with this is that these Trade Authority stores are in populated systems and that these systems are patrolled by security craft in orbit of the settled planets. These ships will scan you as soon as you come in range of the planet. They will then catch you with the goods and you will lose your contraband and go to jail or have to fight your way out, which in turn nets you a hefty bounty that will make the whole endeavour pretty unprofitable.

So, how do you get around this?

The Easy Way

First, let’s talk about the smart way of doing this. You won’t even need special ship tech to do this. You just need to know where to go to sell your stuff. Because, here’s the thing: There’s an unpatrolled system that has a Trade Authority shop that’s open to everyone. Unlike the special Trade Authority at the Crimson Fleet base, you don’t have to belong to a specific faction to visit this store.

What I’m talking about is the starstation by the name of The Den in the Wolf¹ system. This is a military installation of the UC Navy in United Colonies space, but for some reason you won’t get scanned when you enter this system or approach the station. Maybe they can’t afford the patrols, as this system is apparently on the fringe of UC settled space.

The Den is a military space station in a UC-controlled system that is not patrolled by security ships. Because it’s on the frontier of UC space, I guess?

The Wolf system is very conveniently located right next to the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems.

So whenever you pick up contraband, you simply need to figure out how to get to Wolf without entering any part of a system where you might get scanned. And you need to go there immediately, before doing anything else that might mean you need visit a planet that is patrolled.

You can do this by either avoiding systems like Alpha Centauri, Cheyenne or Volii altogether or, if you don’t have the jump range to bypass them completely, by jumping into orbit of an outlying planet or moon that doesn’t have any patrols. Usually the further away from the settled planets and the star, the better. Gas giants usually work well, too.

The Trade Authority shop on The Den is the only one (aside from the one located in the pirate stronghold of The Key) that you can get to without being scanned by the system authorities.

Once you get to Wolf, dock with The Den and go to the Trade Authority shop (which is on the left on the level that you enter on). If the trader runs out of money but you still have contraband to sell, plop down on one of the nearby chairs and wait for 48 hours for the inventory to restock. Et voilà: Profit!

List of Contraband Items

What follows is a reference of all contraband items I have come across, listed by the amount of credits that is given as their worth in the game in ascending order (you only get a fraction of this amount when actually selling the contraband, as with other items you sell to a vendor): Aurora, Va’Ruun Heretic Writings, Mech Components, Harvested Organs, Sentient AI Adapters, Stolen Artwork and Xenowarfare Tech.

Contraband items, which are marked by a yellow icon, will only appear in the sales window if you find a buyer who specialises in acquiring illicit items. Which mostly means finding a Trade Authority rep.

Aurora is a special case here, because it is actually legal in the city of Neon (which is in the Volii system) and you can use it in combat – it slows down time for you, akin to the V.A.T.S. system in the Fallout games. Be aware that your character will be scanned for Aurora when trying to leave Neon.

The Hard Way

There is also a second, more complicated way to smuggle, which is probably the one that was intended as the primary method by the Starfield developers. For this, you need to equip your ship with special technology – or steal a ship that already has this tech installed. There are two kinds of ship modules that are useful for smuggling:

• Shielded cargo holds have a certain capacity for contraband items and give you a 55% base chance to evade scans by system patrol ships.
• There are three different scan jammers you can buy (depending on your Starship Design skill) which raise your scan evasion chance by either 10%, 30% or 50% – you only need one of those at a time, the bonuses do not stack

You can further improve your evasion chance by investing into the Deception skill, gaining 10% of additional evasion chance at every one of the four ranks of the skill.

It is important to understand that all contraband needs to be in your ship’s cargo hold for any of this to work. The total mass of the contraband also shouldn’t exceed the total storage capacity of your shielded cargo hold. As far as I understand, if you put contraband items into the ship’s hold, they will automatically be placed in the shielded compartment.

If you equip your ship with special tech, like shielded cargo holds and a scan jammer, you have a chance to evade scans by system patrol ships.

To acquire a ship that has some of this smuggling tech, you can board and take over a vessel belonging to the Crimson Fleet pirates. These ships usually have a shielded cargo hold and sometimes even scan jammers. You could also go on the side quest Mantis which at the end gives you a pretty neat ship that has a shielded cargo hold. You should have picked up clues to this mission very early on in the game and those will appear under the mission name “Mantis” in your Activities list.

The Mantis' ship, the “Razorleaf”, includes a shielded cargo hold. Aside from that, it is also a pretty badass starter ship you can get pretty early in the game by completing a relatively straightforward mission that simply requires clearing a single outpost overrun by Spacers.

But let’s assume you already have a ship and want to mod it for smuggling runs. To do this, you need to go to the Porrima system and land at an outpost called The Red Mile. Porrima is a bit out there, but there’s at least one side mission that has you going to The Red Mile and there’s also another pretty fun side quest you can pick up while you’re in the system, too.

Porrima is a neutral system at the edge of inhabited space, next to Freestar Collective territory. You can get to it from Volii pretty easily.

Land at The Red Mile (don’t forget to wear your suit!) and visit the ship technician inside the outpost for a fine selection of smuggling gear.

Once you get to The Red Mile, head inside the base and you’ll see the ship technician post directly as you enter the place on the right side. Talk to the grumpy slob in the little office and ask to view and modify your ship. You will now be able to buy a number of shielded cargo holds and scan jammers.

My modified Deimos Aegis with a da Gama 1000 shielded cargo hold. I’ve smuggled a lot of things in this ship. As a bonus, it’s hefty weaponry gets me out of almost any scrape I’ll find myself in.

I’ve also added a basic scan jammer to my ship to increase my evasion chance.

Install any of these modules as you see fit, but be aware that you only need one scan jammer, as their bonuses do not stack. And that’s it! You’re ready to earn some extra cash with those nifty hidden compartments in your cargo hold. Just be careful with any passengers you take along for the ride, dong ma?

Of course, it’s worth to keep in mind that all of this only gives you a chance to evade scans. You will probably still go to jail at some point. But if you’re playing a smuggler character, I feel that it’s all part of the fun and adds to the immersion. Just go with it and roleplay that bit too, instead of reloading the save. Believe me, it’s more fun that way. If you really don’t want to get caught on a particular run, you can always revert to option 1 and go to The Den to sell your stuff.

Bonus Tip

This is not specific to smuggling, but if you invest points into the Payload skill, you get 10% extra cargo space in your ship for every one of the four ranks of the skill. Since this includes your shielded cargo space, it enables you to smuggle more stuff. Unless you’re mass producing Aurora, however, I’m not sure that you’ll ever find the amount of contraband you’d need to make this worthwhile by using it regularly. But if you also transport a lot of legit cargo quite often, you might as well profit from the added bonus for your smuggling runs.