It should be no surprise for a Bethesda title, but Starfield’s carry capacity and weight system can be brutal. Especially when you first start your adventure in the stars, and are excited and wanting to pick up literally everything. Unfortunately, Starfield doesn’t really let you do that. Your carry capacity and inventory weight limit are pretty low at the beginning, meaning you have to be picky about what you bother picking up. Thankfully, there are more ways to increase your carry capacity and up your mass limit as you progress. Here are all the ways we know how to carry more and increase carry capacity in Starfield.
How to temporarily increase carry capacity in
If you find yourself picking up something heavier than you expected, and suddenly encumbered, there’s usually a quick fix. Typically this comes in the form of consumables like the one shown in the screenshot above. For example, this UC Battlemeal Multipack restores 20 health while also giving you +8 carry capacity for eight minutes. Sure eight minutes isn’t too long, but it should be long enough for you to get where you need to and figure out your crowded inventory issue.
Also, I know this probably seems like an obvious answer, but be a little more picky about what you’re picking up. Keep in mind that the value of things shown is nowhere near how much you will actually get for selling them. In fact, you will often get just a fraction of the price. Therefore, I typically only pick up things that are valued at 10,000 or more credits if my goal is to sell them.
Keep in mind things like resources can be pretty heavy as well. There’s actually some specific clothing and suits that will help with that. Most of the time I’m wearing a suit that lowers the weight of all my resources since I love mining everything I see. Make sure to check the stats on every suit you come across, as one might be just what you need to deal with carrying more.
How to permanently increase your carry capacity in Starfield
Thankfully, there’s also a way to permanently increase your carry capacity in Starfield. One of the first skills you can put points into is Weight Lifting in the Physical tree. This skill increases your total carrying capacity. The first rank increases it by 10kg, the second rank by 25kg, the third rank by 50kg, and the final rank by a whopping 100kg. At rank four you also gain 50% resistance to stagger, which is nice.
Weight Lifting is actually one of the first skills I maxed out. An extra 100kg carry capacity is massive as it nearly doubles how much you can carry. Also, the challenge of unlocking each rank is actually very easy. All you have to do is sprint while you have at least 75% of your carry capacity filled up. This will actually come naturally, just make sure you’re learning each rank to enable the next challenge.
Other ways to carry and store more in Starfield
There are several ways to sort of increase how much storage you have in Starfield. First, is your outpost. As you build up your outpost, you can add storage containers, and warehouses, and even transfer containers between your outpost and ship. This is one of the best ways to essentially increase how much you can store. Sure, you can’t take the storage with you on the go. However, if you’re feeling like your inventory is a bit too full before or after embarking on a mission, just fast-travel to your outpost and drop off some items.
You can also beef up the storage on your ship to make it a pretty nifty mobile storage device. Well, mobile in the sense that you have it with you on every planet, moon, or station you visit. Most of the early ships have a cargo size of 300-400 which is triple your carry capacity. You can also find bigger ships with larger cargo holds. I stole a cargo ship early on called the Pik Up that has a cargo hold of 1,200. As you can imagine, I don’t have trouble storing things anymore.
Another temporary solution is your companion. If you’re already deep into exploration or on a mission and can’t get back to your ship, have your companion hold some things temporarily. Just make sure you take anything important off them before you switch to another companion, as they each have their own unique inventory.
