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On your travels around space, you'll soon find yourself being scanned for Starfield contraband, and you might wind up in some trouble if you have some with you. However, there are ways of smuggling this valuable loot past cargo scans. Naturally, though, you don't want to shout about it even once you're past the scanners, and getting your goods out in the open in the middle of New Atlantis will result in the local authorities chasing you down for your crimes.
Keep things subtle, though, and there are ways to sell your smuggled Starfield contraband for some very good prices - as long as you're willing to deal with the right (rather, wrong) people in Starfield. I've been smuggling these virtual goods for a while, so let me explain how contraband and smuggling in Starfield works, and how to make credits from it.
Where to find Contraband in Starfield
Starfield contraband is most easily found in enemy bases and ships, whether it's the Crimson Fleet, Spacers, Ecliptics or so on. Look for a yellow arrow marker in the item information box when checking items - you can see an example in the image above. More conspicuous contraband can also be found in big, black containers literally named Contraband Caches.
The easiest way to obtain contraband, then, is to start the Starfield Freestar Rangers questline and use their mission board to hunt pirate ships. As long as you learn how to dock in Starfield and board ships, you can then fight your way onto you targets and steal whatever loot they have. Nobody experiences vice like a vice cop, after all.
There are nine specific types of contraband item you can find, so you'll also know you've got illegal goods if you have any of these in your possession:
- Aurora
- Black Market Antiquities
- Harvested Organs
- Mech Components
- Sentient AI Adapters
- Mr. Soods Package
- Stolen Artwork
- Va'ruun Heretic Writings
- Xenowarfare Tech
What to do with Starfield contraband
First off, if you've got some contraband on board and you don't want to deal with the authorities, you can simply eject that stuff into space. You can also use it to get caught on purpose, if you're looking to join the Crimson Fleet pirate faction.
However, if you do want to try and earn some money from it, you need to smuggle contraband past the scanners on entry into any planet, then find a vendor who will buy it off you, and this isn't always easy.
How to smuggle Starfield contraband
Smuggling in Starfield is a system that requires a very specific sort of ship module, and some understanding about how it works.
If you want to smuggle contraband in Starfield, here's how to do it:
- Equip your ship in the Starfield ship customization with a "Shielded Cargo Hold".
- Obtain the contraband and place it inside your cargo hold using the terminal from the cockpit.
- Plot a course and fly into the orbit of the planet you want to smuggle it to (for a flight refresher, check our guide on how to fly and grav jump in Starfield.
- As you enter it, the law enforcement ships from the local Starfield factions will scan your ship.
- There will then be a percentage chance of how likely your contraband is to go undetected (determined by factors we'll explain below).
- If successful, you'll be waved through and permitted to land on the planet as usual.
If the scan fails then you can either pay a fine and give up the contraband, get dragged to jail, or try and blast their way through, none of which is ideal. Frankly, we found the best move was simply to quicksave before step 3 and reload if we got caught.
You can increase your chance of success in a couple of ways. One is by using shielded cargo space. The more space you have for "Shielded Cargo" (determined by the size of the hold and how many units you have installed), the greater chance of success. Equally, the less contraband you have hidden in here, the less likely you are to be caught.
You can also install scan jammers to your ship, and they also increase your chance of smuggling successfully when installed, though they only improve the odds of success and can't be used as a substitute for a Shielded Cargo Hold. The more, and better, scan jammers you have, the more likely you are to succeed.
For example, if you have a Shielded Cargo Hold that can hold 200KG of cargo and fill it with 200KG of contraband, you're pretty likely to get caught. However, if you only have 10KG of contraband in there it's much less likely to be detected. Any scan jammers then add a little extra chance to succeed.
There are two ways to get a shielded cargo hold and scan jammers in Starfield:
- Steal a ship with them already installed. If you know how to steal ships in Starfield, try stealing a pirate ship from the Crimson Fleet - they usually have at least a basic Shielded Cargo Hold installed.
- Buy them from Pirates. Vendors at The Key, the pirate base, sell Shielded Cargo Holds. No legitimate and legal seller will distribute these things, so the more regulated Starfield cities aren't likely to be much help.
How to sell Starfield contraband
Once you've got it onto the planet, you then need to work out how and where to sell Starfield contraband. You can sell contraband with any Trade Authority, and, if you side with the Crimson Fleet when choosing which Starfield Factions to team with, you can easily sell at The Key on Suvorov.
There are also a few planets you can enter without worrying about being scanned for contraband. Firstly, you can take Aurora onto Neon no problem, as it's not outlawed there, though that means you probably won't make as much. You can also try The Den in the Wolf system, and Red Mile on Porrima III.
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