Starfield: How To Sell, Hide And Smuggle Contraband

As you venture out into the vastness of space in Starfield, you'll come across lots of very valuable contraband, illegal goods that can often be sold for large sums of sweet, sweet intergalactic credit. However, getting this hot property to a marketplace isn't quite straightforward.

As you approach settled star systems you'll have your ship scanned by local authorities who'll throw you in the slammer, make you pay a fine or - if you're not in the mood to go to jail today - engage you in ship to ship combat to alleviate you of your ill-gotten gains.

Of course, there are a number of ways to ensure you can pick up and sell contraband without all of this violence and shouting. Let's take look!

Starfield: How To Smuggle Contraband

First up, the most straightforward way to successfully just get rid of contraband is to take it straight to The Den space station in the Wolf star system. This is Starfield's official hive of scum and villainy, you won't get scanned on the way in so there's no chance of getting any grief from the space bacon, and there's a Trade Authority Vendor who'll buy your goods near to the ship docks. Easy!

Now, smuggling your goods into settled systems is another story. You can choose the Deception trait at the start of the game to give yourself a better chance of scans not picking up your hidden stash, this trait can then be upgraded as you play so it becomes pretty useful for space thieves over time.

You can also go get yourself a Shielded Cargo Hold installed on your ship, this also reduces the chances you'll get caught on a scan. The best choice for getting a Shielded Cargo Hold early in the game, if you don't want to buy one straight-up, is to do The Mantis quest, which you'll get access to in the first few hours and rewards you with a fetching new spacesuit and the Razorleaf spaceship. Oh, and it's worth just doing this quest anyway, as it's an absolute belter.

Finally, there's a Scan Jammer you can pick up from Lon Anderssen at the Red Mile, on the planet Porrima III in the Porrima system. Have a chat with Lon and dive into the ship upgrade menus to grab one of these and note that they come in various forms, with low level jammers only giving you a 10% increase to your chances of not being caught, whilst high quality ones increase this chance to 50%. Lon also sells Shielded Cargo holds too, so you'll definitely be getting acquainted with this fella if crime is your thing.

Work with all of these various aspects, your trait choices, the jammers, shielded cargo holds and so on in order to ensure the odds are as stacked in your favour as possible.

Starfield: Where To Sell Contraband

The best place to get rid of your goods (besides The Den) is at Trade Authority Vendors. You can find these in most reasonably sized settlements and hub worlds, but remember to take your goods into the actual building itself and get rid face to face, as the Trade Authority Terminals dotted around the world won't accept them. Also note that vendors have a limited amount of cash that you can see onscreen when you interact with them, so they won't be able to give you that fortune you were expecting if they don't have it on them.