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As you are exploring the vast reaches of space inStarfield, naturally there will be a seemingly endless amount of things to collect and loot on your journey. Most of the items you get will consist ofweapons, ammo,gear, and resources you may use when crafting.
Related:Starfield: How To Increase Carrying Capacity
Occasionally, you will come across some illegal materials categorized as contraband. The last thing you want is to be caught with them, so here’s everything you need to know to hide and sell it without getting caught.
Updated by Emma Ward on September 14th, 2023: This guide was updated with additional links to helpful related topics, additional information on where to sell contraband, and some minor corrections to the content.
What Is Contraband?
As you explore the random bases, sack the abandoned research facilities, and loot the corpses of your enemies, you’ll eventually come into contact with contraband. These items are typicallyhoused in a conspicuous briefcaseand will be easily recognizable by the nature of their contents. Contraband items will also bemarked with a yellow tagnear the name, as seen in the image above.
Common contraband includes experimental AI components, stolen files, and even harvested organs. These items are typically wortha lot of credits, which makes keeping them around enticing. But you’ll need to make sure you are smuggling them properly unless you want to get caught.
Related:Starfield: Crime System Explained
How To Smuggle Contraband
Each time you grav jump into a UC or Freestar-regulated system, the guard ships circling each planet will scan your ship for contraband.If you so happen to have it in your personal inventory, you will always get caught during this scan.
To successfully smuggle contraband, you’ll want to first make sure your ship is equipped with ashielded cargohold. Most ships do not have shielded cargo by default, so you will need to either find or commandeer a ship that does have one. You can also install a Scan Jammer to help prevent detection, though these are even harder to come by.
Once you acquire the contraband and first make it back to your ship,move any contraband you have to your ship’s cargobefore making any jumps into UC or Freestar-protected systems. By doing so, you will now have a percentage chance of it being discovered during the scan. To increase your chances of not getting caught, you’ll want to keep in mind your total shielded cargo capacity compared to the total weight of the contraband stored. The closer the contraband weight is to the total shielded cargo capacity, the greater chance you’ll have of the scan detecting the contraband.
Related:Starfield: How To Increase Ship Cargo Capacity
How To Get Shielded Cargo
With the exception of theRazorleafspaceship you can get through an early side mission, most of the ships you can purchase or acquire early on in the game do not come with shielded cargo. In order to get what you’re looking for, you’ll need to go out of your way to install it on your own ship.
Currently, there are two known vendors who will sell you shielded cargo. The first, and likely the easiest to get to, is located at the Red Mile on Porrima 3 in the Porrima system. Once you enter through the Red Mile airlock, you’ll see Lon Anderson in an office across from you. Speak to him, and he’ll allow you to purchase the upgrades via the shipbuilder.
The second method to acquire the shielded cargo upgrade is by joining the Crimson Fleet. Once you are a member, you’ll be able to use their ship vendor to install your shielded cargo on any ship you want.
Related:Starfield: How To Join The Crimson Fleet
Where To Sell Contraband
Being able to successfully smuggle contraband is only half the equation. As you can imagine, most shop owners don’t have an interest in buying illegally harvested organs or care to risk the ramifications that follow being caught with them. If you want to offload these goods, you’ll need to be smart about it.
While you can run into interested buyers in systems not governed by the UC or Freestar, finding them is like searching for a needle in a galaxy-sized haystack. If you have yet to get shielded cargo and want to avoid your ship being scanned, you’ll want tohead over to theWolf system. Not only will you not be scanned when entering the system, but you’ll also be able to sell the contraband at The Den. Alternatively, you can head to theRed Milein the Porrima systemand sell the contraband to the bartender there.
Once you are equipped with shielded cargo, theeasiest place to sell is actually at the Trade Authority. You won’t be able to do so at the kiosks, but any location with an actual merchant will work. If you are looking for one of the better locations to offload a lot of contraband, the best place to sell is at theTrade Authority shop onNeon. The merchant here will even allude to being open to buying illegal goods when you first speak with him. Just don’t expect him to match the price you’re hoping to get. You’ll often have to settle for a fraction of the value until you level up your Commerce skill a few times.
