Starfield: All Weapon Types And Effects, Explained
Learn about Starfield's weapon types and damage effects with this in-depth guide.
Starfield is the first new IP from Bethesda in 25 years. While this game borrows many familiar elements from previous Bethesda games, Starfield has many unique systems that can be somewhat confusing to understand. One such system is weapon types.
Weapons in Starfield come in all shapes in sizes, ranging from old-school revolvers to particle cannons. Finding the right weapon for your build can be tricky, especially with the game’s plethora of unique damage types, but understanding how weapons are categorized is surprisingly simple. This guide will give a rundown of all weapon categories available in Starfield, and we’ll explain what every damage type does.
All Weapon Types In Starfield
Starfield’s weapons are broken down into one of six categories:
- Pistols
- Rifles
- Shotguns
- Heavy Weapons
- Melee
- Throwables/Explosives
Pistols are one-handed weapons that are a jack of all trades. Starfield has a wide range of pistols including handguns, revolvers, machine pistols, and energy pistols. Most pistols deal ballistic damage.
Rifles are two-handed weapons with a wide range of fire modes and archetypes. Assault rifles, sniper rifles, burst-fire weapons, SMGs, and two-handed energy weapons all count as rifles. If there is a playstyle or damage type you can think of, there’s a rifle for it.
Shotguns are two-handed weapons that fire multiple projectiles with every trigger pull, typically ballistic pellets. Legendary weapons with the One-Inch Punch affix do not count as shotguns.
Heavy Weapons consist of mining equipment and massive two-handed weapons that slow the user. Some examples include rivet guns, miniguns, grenade launchers, and the cutting laser.
Melee Weapons refer to anything used in hand-to-hand combat. Knives, hatchets, and swords all benefit from melee-related perks.
Throwables, sometimes called Explosives, consist of grenades and mines which are used by holding the grenade input. Grenades detonate after a short delay and come in many varieties, while mines only detonate when an enemy is within close proximity.
How Can I Tell What Weapon Type I’m Using?
A weapon’s item card will display all information about itself, including its archetype. The gun’s archetype will always be listed under its name. For example, the Keelhauler Legendary weapon showcased above is listed as a “pistol” under its name, meaning it is affected by all pistol-related perks and item modifiers.
Determining a weapon’s damage type is slightly more tricky. Generally, any weapon that deals physical damage is a ballistic weapon, while most weapons with energy damage count as laser weapons. Particle weapons deal both physical and elemental damage, and explosive weapons are usually throwable items or heavy weapons.
Damage Types Explained
Every weapon in Starfield deals at least one type of damage, sometimes multiple due to Legendary effects or through specialized ammo types. You can view a weapon’s damage types by inspecting it in your inventory. Its base damage will display what type of damage the weapon dishes out. More exotic damage types such as radiation and telsa are reserved for Legendary affixes.
Weapon Damage Types
Excluding Legendary affixes, every weapon in Starfield deals one of two damage types: physical or energy. Physical damage is what most weapons deal, including ballistic weapons, particle weapons, explosive weapons, and melee weapons. Energy damage is found on energy weapons, EM weapons, and particle weapons.
| Ballistic Weapons | Exclusively deals physical damage.
Ballistic perks affect their damage. |
|---|---|
| EM Weapons | Deals energy damage, but it cannot kill organics.
EM and energy perks affect EM damage. |
| Energy Weapons | Exclusively deals energy damage.
Energy perks affect their damage. |
| Explosive Weapons | Deals physical damage, energy damage, or both.
Explosive perks affect their damage. |
| Melee Weapons | Deals physical damage, energy damage, or both.
Melee perks affect their damage. |
| Particle Weapons | Deals a hybrid of physical and energy damage.
Particle perks affect their damage. |
In general, shotguns, heavy weapons, and most particle weapons tend to deal the most damage in Starfield. All three categories tend to have high base damage, scale well with combat perks, and gain the largest benefits from higher-level variants.
Elemental Damage Types
| Bleed | The target takes continuous physical damage over time. |
|---|---|
| Corrosive | The target’s armor is reduced for 10 seconds. |
| Explosive | The weapon deals damage over a small area. |
| Incendiary | The target takes continuous energy damage over time. |
| Poison | The target becomes slowed. |
| Radiation | The target becomes demoralized, fleeing from combat temporarily. |
| Tesla | The weapon releases electricity, damaging and slowing targets hit. |
Elemental damage types are reserved for weapons of blue quality or higher. These damage types only appear on item affixes with a random chance of activating. Nearly all elemental damage types inflict a large burst of damage when they trigger alongside their listed debuff. A target may be affected by multiple elemental damage types simultaneously.
Spaceship Damage Types
| Ballistic | Fires a massive projectile, dealing bonus hull damage.
Reloads between every shot. |
|---|---|
| EM | Fires a massive projectile, dealing bonus shield damage.
Reloads between every shot. |
| Energy | Fires smaller projectiles rapidly, dealing bonus shield damage.
Recharges shortly after you stop firing. |
| Missile | Fires an explosive projectile that tracks locked-on ships, dealing bonus hull damage.
Reloads shortly after you stop firing. |
Spaceships use a similar damage system to infantry combat, utilizing physical and energy damage for all weapon types. Physical damage is used by ballistic weapons and missiles, increasing their damage output against a ship’s hull. Energy damage is used by EM weapons and energy weapons like laser cannons, which are ideal for breaking a ship’s shield. EM weapons also have a chance of disrupting a ship’s engines if you have the EM Weapon Systems perk at max rank. Since ship parts do not have legendary variants, there are no elemental damage types present in ship combat.
