Starfield encumbrance and the ability to carry more is as important here as it is in any Bethesda RPG, as overencumbrance can be a nightmare to deal with, especially if you're collecting all kinds of materials and loot and find your inventory rapidly filling up.
Overencumbrance being what it is, there's multiple solutions to increasing your maximum carry weight in Starfield and avoiding the resultant 02 drain. If you want to bolster your backpack and hoist more items around the universe, here's all the ways to increase your maximum carry weight.
How increase Starfield carry weight and stop overencumbrance
Starfield encumbrance and inventory carry weight can be increased in the following ways:
- Leveling up the Weight Lifting Skill
- Finding stat buffing Magazines
- Giving companion excess items to hold
- Applying the Pocketed or Carry Capacity Mods to a spacesuit or packs
- Consuming certain chems and food
- Acquiring the High School Backpack via the "Kid Stuff" Trait
- Storing excess inventory in your ship's cargo
I'll cover all of these option in more detail below but anything and everything you can do to max out your inventory capacity is a good idea. With a good range of options here to pick between you can either find something that suits your playstyle easily without compromising too much. Alternatively, you can layer on more than one approach to get increased benefits with as little effort as possible.
The Weight Lifting skill
The simplest method to stop encumbrance in Starfield involves Weight Lifting from Starfield skills. It's in the first tier of the Physical Skill tree and levelling it up increases the maximum weight you can carry, as well as other benefits further in. To rank up the challenge just involves sprinting a certain distance with your encumbrance at 75% or higher - which is a pretty easy challenge to farm just generally playing.
Find stat-increasing Magazines
There are a range of magazines you can find that increase your maximum carry capacity by 5kg, a permanent buff that makes them well worth finding. These are what we've found so far:
- Freestar Captain's Log 02: Inside a locker in the crew quarters of the Deserted Mineral Plant on the moon Zamk, orbiting planet Oliva, in Alpha Centauri.
- Peak Performance 02: Found inside the Deserted UC Listening Post on the moon Piazzi VI-B, orbiting Piazzi VI, unsurprisingly found in the Piazzi system.
- Peak Performance 05: found inside the gym area of the Crimson Fleet's Key base.
Obviously there are more to find, and while you'll see a few as you play story missions, there are also ones to be found in random enemy bases and facilities you can discover.
Give inventory to companions
If you've got any Starfield companions with you, talking to them will bring up the dialogue option to transfer items from your inventory to theirs. So, if you have too much to carry, use them act as a pack mule to hold your excess gear.
Put Pocketed or Extra Capacity Mods on a spacesuit or pack
Like in Fallout 4 and 76, the player can mod spacesuits and packs at workbenches. If you have either the "Pack Mods 2" or "Spacesuit Mods 2" research projects completed (read our Starfield crafting and research guide for more on that) players can modify their spacesuit and pack to offer a +10 Carry Capacity when equipped.
Use Chems and Food to increase carry capacity in Starfield
A quick fix for over encumbrance in Starfield is using food and treatments to give yourself a temporary carry capacity boost from consumables like this:
- Bourbon (food) +8 Carry Capacity for 5m/-25% O2 recovery for 5m
- Alien Liquour (food) +10 Carry Capacity for 5m/-25% O2 recovery for 5m
- UC Battlemeal (food) Restores 15 health/+6 Carry Capacity for 5m
- UC Battlemeal Multipack (food) Restores 20 health/+8 Carry Capacity for 5m
However, the weight boost you really want is a drug you can get from completing a mission called Delivering Devils:
- Pick-Me-Up (treatment) +50 Carry capacity for 15m
To get this you'll need to Join the UC Vanguard on Jemison and start the mission Grunt Work to deliver a communications relay. That will develop into a longer mission called Delivering Devils which will see you looking for someone called Percival Walker on Mars, and give you three options to clear his debt. As you follow your objectives, look out for someone called Cambridge Cooper in the Sixth Circle bar who'll offer up some research as a way to pay Walker's debt. Take that option and you'll eventually walk away with the Pick-Me-Up formula.
Use the High School Backpack
If you took Kid Stuff from the list of Starfield traits during character creation, you'll be able to visit your Starfield parents in the Pioneer Tower in New Atlantis – this is marked as an activity once you've visited the Lodge for the first time. In your bedroom you'll be able to find the High School Backpack, a special pack that increases your carry capacity by +10. It is a proper pack however, and not one with a boost ability - so no jetpacking about if you want to use it
Store inventory in your ship cargo
It probably goes without saying, but when you're weighed down the best thing you can do is store whatever you don't need in your Starfield ship inventory, usually accessible through the terminal in the cockpit. There is a limit to what this can hold, but if can be increased by adding more cargo containers to your ship during Starfield ship customization.
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