Science is Sick BUT... | Science Skills Analysis & Tier List | Starfield Handbook

[@unclemumble]

What skill tree have you put the most points into so far in Starfield? Any regrets? Important edits: 1. @Diablo12369 brought up a great point I forgot to mention around spacesuit design. You should NOT bother putting a 4th point into the skill as it does not unlock anything new, it only has a chance to save materials which is next to useless given how infrequently you'll upgrade equipment. 3 is the sweet spot, 4 is for people over level 300 with nothing left to spend points on. 2. Outpost cap is actually 24 not 22 and you start with 8. My dumb ass neglected the fact that I had 2 outposts already set up when I was testing on that save. Thanks @rekalty4477 for the catch there!

[@evanpage2540]

Just unlocked level 4 fitness this morning before work. I regret the amount of time I sank into it because the other day I got a magic space power that straight up refills all of my O2. I ran so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn't even matter...

[@Ulgroth]

Did u ever test geo skill with elemental pull?

[@unclemumble]

@@Ulgroth a great question, I thought about it but ultimately didn't bother given how niche it's use would be (though it is kind of op for caelumite deposits). It's so easy to get the 500 resource achievement and still just buy starter resources that the geology benefit would be neglibile even with elemental pull. I'd put money on it working though

[@Ulgroth]

@@unclemumble i figured its prbly not worth it too but sometimes bethesda games have weird interactions. Curious if it would bug out and work too good or just not work at all.

[@Pure_Havoc]

Definitely Tech & Science tree. I focus on maximizing my ship first.

[@purplen33t17]

My favorite starfield content tbh

[@benhaney9629]

Yup he’s actually putting in the work and telling us stuff we don’t know. If I have one more channel tell me “secrets” in Starfield that include stuff like hold down aim when using the cutter for more power of that you can cut down doors that say you can cut them down…

[@justindangersmith]

Hands down. Other content creators are making content based off the first two hours and it's garbage

[@reportmelolz]

Saw a guide “explaining every skill point in depth” and I skipped to Outpost Engineering cause I wanted to see what modules it unlocks and they just read the description and said “yea so this is really good if you’re building outposts” like wow homie thanks

[@lukastrippel669]

So true it’s awesome !

[@xNinjaJesuz]

facts

[@nasifarefin2278]

During your zoology description, you mentioned that it is difficult to find the smaller critters. They are scavengers. Kill a lot of other creatures, go like 50 meters away for a little while, and then come back near the corpses again. You'll find these creatures have spawned in. They are also excellent for ranking up your sneak and concealment skills.

[@pdraggy]

you might also find them in caves, it's been my experience anyway...

[@danjal87nl]

The difficult to find ones are the fish that are claimed to be in multiple biomes but then are only in very specific coastal variants of that biome and even then you might have to run across half the zone to even get to water. >_>

[@nasifarefin2278]

@@danjal87nl Here's a tip, whenever you land on a planet which has fauna in the Ocean Biome, land on the Coastal variations of all the different biomes you need to survey. It's advantageous in multiple ways: you can survey the aquatic fauna, coastal biomes (at least for me) have a respectable spawn rate which makes it easier to survey the fauna in the biome you landed on, and you only need to worry about surveying 3 sides from your landing spot as the ocean occupies one of the slots, so you have to travel less usually to find everything.

[@jameshumphrey869]

u are my hero this has been driving me mad

[@shamrock3957]

5 months late and you may have discovered this yourself by now, but for the little critters if you find a cave there's usually a dead one in it that you can scan. Scan it, leave cave go back in and you can scan it again.

[@cellulanus]

The Med skill actually unlocked a lot of dialog skill checks. I'd rank it higher.

[@unclemumble]

A reasonable but common misconception is that it's not just certain skills that provide dialogue checks but in fact EVERY skill provides unique dialogue. They're almost always flavour, save for a few in actual persuasion instances. I wouldn't say any are common enough to justify ranking it any higher than they currently are but I do encourage a single point in every skill so that you don't miss out on some cool interactions!

[@thevoxdeus]

What was the tangible benefit of those dialog choices? How much did it really help?

[@nihan8554]

@@thevoxdeus Pretty much just added flavor to the dialogue option more or less in my experience.

[@Skyblade12]

@@unclemumble I would love a breakdown of the number of dialogues per skill. Some haven't given me any (I haven't gotten a single line of dialogue from the Combat skills yet, though I hear there's one for dueling in the Ryujin quest line), while others, like Medicine or Ship Design, have given me quite a few.

[@BaeBunni]

your rank in a skill doesn't improve it the dialogue so putting one point in is as good as having 4 for dialogue purposes.

[@New_Identity]

Perfect timing! I loaded up the game, went into my skill tree, thought "wonder when mumble is releasing the science skill video". AND HERE IT IS. Looking forward to what's in store next. Your skill tree videos have saved thousands of us. Your ratings videos are the best! I went ahead and joined your perks program. 26.9k currently, i'll be here to see you at a million!

[@unclemumble]

Welcome fellow Mumbler Member! So happy to hear you're enjoying the series and thanks so much for your support, seriously!

[@Luvilli]

​@@unclemumbleI like how you say "Fellow Mumbler Member" like your also just some random member lol

[@unclemumble]

@@Luvilli I am but a another human who mumbles his way through life

[@Ercomann]

Still watching these vids in June 2024. They’re truly some of the best gaming videos ever made, imo. Nice work Mumble.

[@jeppie12]

After putting in a zillion hours on this game, here's some comments on your excellent video: * Scanning - I think it's more vital than you make it, if you either do a lot of ship combat or do the outpost and harvesting of inorganic materials. You'll have a very tough time finding rare/exotic/unique materials without some scanning. And for ship combat, knowing the ship class will often determine whether I'm interested in boarding/taking it or just blowing it up. Especially early in the game when you don't have piloting 4. * Astrodynamics - I just can't imagine a scenario where this makes sense. 1 point is nothing, and it's so easy to just upgrade those things in a ship services shop or if you're not a ship builder, just capture of buy a ship that has what you need. Even one level of ship design will give you more benefit than 4 points in astrodynamics. Definitely F-tier. * Astrophysics is definitely F-tier also, and I'm very much an explorer. If you're interested in getting complete scans, it's pretty much worthless. Such a low chance of getting a trait, that, lets face it, you'll pretty much always fail. And you can't even re-attempt unless you get a higher level of scanning (of all things!). So you'll scan a bunch of the universe just levelling, achieving nothing with astrophysics, and then you'll have to re-do all those planets the "old fashioned way" even when you get higher in the skill. F-tier garbage, even for explorers. * To me planetary hab is the same as so many skills where you get most of the benefit with the first point, and diminishing return after that. Getting 4 more outposts plus the very hot/cold planets is huge for one point investment. I'd say A-tier * Unless you love setting up fabricators, I'd say special projects is A tier. like other stuff, 1 point in it gives you 90% of the benefit, and diminishing returns after that. Only S-tier if you want to fabricate the really exotic components.

[@Wayntortle]

A small time saver for those scanning all nearby planets, you can quickly switch between planets by pressing the menu button while looking at the next planet. This avoids zooming out and back in between scans and instead takes you straight to the next planet/moon. I know this isn’t mind blowing but it has definitely saved me some time scanning an entire system.

[@unclemumble]

Yeah this is a great tip that I constantly used when I scanned every system. Easily saved an hour+

[@Sohexmetphospha]

Harvesting from living animals only seems to work on some of them, but it definitely is functional. If they're a valid target when you walk up to them you'll get the normal 'harvest' popup.

[@davepeesthepool]

Your scanner information window will indicate animals that can be nonlethal harvested, it's listed around the same place where it will tell if you if an animal is able to be domesticated or not.

[@Ulgroth]

u can also just see it by holding the scanner over creatures

[@ah64jimbo81]

What they said above. To be clear, only select creatures will have the non-lethal harvest attribute, which can be discovered using your hand scanner.

[@jonathangwilliams6825]

I could only manage to get it to work on the creatures that spawned close to my husbandry facilities in my base, personally.

[@Izzy-sj3ck]

Im waay too late for this discusion but whatever, i belive the non-lethal harvest only works on wild animals but not on the domesticated ones, considering they already produce their resouce passively on the animal husbandry

[@Moe_508]

I almost forgot how it feels to see a KZbinr with an informative content, no bullshit for the sake of video length. You are the best ❤️

[@BigAlboski]

Seems rare anymore!

[@PhenomenoRonaldo9]

Anyone else been waiting for these to come out and not spend their skill points lmao? Thanks for the hard work.

[@Spoopball]

The worst part? 1/3 of the skills don't even work correctly, Aka nearly all social skills are bugged not to work. Ship shield doesn't work. Regeneration lvl 4 doesn't heal in combat. I've killed over 10k humans, and lvl 4 scavenger has also never provided an extra medpac AND I've been using a gun with +medpac drops. I have 200 medpac but that is buying nearly all of them over +100 hours of gameplay. It's ridiculous how a bunch of stuff just doesn't work

[@Citizen5101]

​@@SpoopballScavenging 3 only affects med packs in containers, not on dead bodies. Rank 4 highlights tagged items, has nothing to do with med packs. No wonder it isn't working for you.

[@Spoopball]

@@Citizen5101 thank you for explaining. I now remember why i was pissed after I was 3 skill points deep. It still doesn't excuse why melee skill are abysmal. Which are like 4 different perk trees. Or UI for social skills glitching npcs in combat nearly 100% of the time.

[@phutureproof]

No I been making all the mistakes because I paid a lot of money and dont want a walkthrough

[@zetsubouda]

A lot of the small creatures are scavengers. The game does appear to model basic foodchains. One method that isn't foolproof but often causes a lot of the scavenger type mobs to pop is to kill a large pack of some other wildlife, give it a few, and search the area.

[@nickllama5296]

People keep saying this, and I never can get it to work. I've literally killed a horde of 30-40 critters in one area, waited 30 mins, still no scavengers... :|

[@jcase6199]

@@nickllama5296you probably need to actually wait like a day or two “in game,” not just 20 minutes… 🤷🏻‍♂️ just a thought.

[@mlahut]

The way this mechanic was explained to me is that it only works on creature vs creature combat. Most planets have a "carnivore" / "hunter" species, an herbivore species, and a scavenger species. I think the scavengers are more likely to arrive from carnivores killing herbivores rather than you killing them.

[@zecuse]

@@nickllama5296 Be sure to get the Sense Star Stuff power unlocked to ensure you don't miss these flat bastards in grass.

[@zetsubouda]

@@nickllama5296There's a comment below that it only works with creature on creature combat. That might be true and would explain why I find it to be inconsistent.

[@juanitoburrito2825]

Appreciate the grind you put in to get these vids out, big help.

[@Hatterboot24]

New to your channel. I appreciate the no BS, straightforward reviews. I honestly think that Starfield modders should review your channel and find a real good set of stuff that needs improvement/change. Great stuff!

[@unclemumble]

Welcome, glad you're enjoying! I hope it can help inspire some positive changes around the flawed facets of the game

[@Citizen5101]

I play on Very Hard but one rank of Medicine took me from chugging med packs every couple minutes during every single combat to using them once in awhile and being super happy with the healing each one provided. Maybe I'm just bad at shooters, but definitely helped and being a Science skill it helps speed up getting the even better Science skills instead of say Wellness because most of those skills aren't helpful if you aren't melee or stealth.

[@thevoxdeus]

It's a 10% difference, so how does it help that much?

[@Citizen5101]

@@thevoxdeus it's enough of a difference that when I'm healing I only need one instead of almost always needing two. If I heal at 20% health, , getting to 70% feels much better than 60% does

[@null6634]

That's a good use case. I almost always play games on normal difficulty. I don't see the need for making med packs or the medicine perk. But that's because I barely take real damage. On the harder difficulties healing is a lot more important.

[@divinityai]

@@thevoxdeusit's not a 10% tho, it's way less, you heal 10% more but healing time is reduced for 10% so you heal like the same. That's why medicine is pretty bad.

[@phatdog]

@@thevoxdeus it also unlocks unique dialogue options that help out and can lead to extra credits etc

[@ViridianFlow]

Doubling chem effects would be OP as hell. You'd end up with -100% movement noise, double damage and double accuracy with easily hoardable chems like frostwolf.

[@seanamullen]

Extending duration time would be good though.

[@nickchivers9029]

Oh no balance issues in my single player game 😢

[@AlbonitumG]

Sounds reasonable to me. In my first playthrough, I never bothered using something other than Amp to traverse planets faster and battle stim in combat. Everything else was just hoarded, because "ah, it's cool, but only for 2 mins, and I'm doing fine without it anyway". This skill could've been a gamechanger for me. I used chems in Fallout 4 (especially Jet, lol) much more often.

[@Verchiel_]

And it wouldn't be any kind of issue to program it since. Skyrim alchemy skill exists with a bunch of decent effects that make alchemy a worthwhile skill to invest perks into (even aside it being one of the most broken ways to break progression)

[@Skyblade12]

Amp with 4x jump height combined with Gymnastics. Wheeeee!

[@stuarthall9854]

The Med Pack skill is honestly a high B to an A for me. On higher difficulties, the rate of healing just makes you feel nigh invincible and allows you to rank pretty much tank through anything, especially when you pop three med packs at once when for the heal-stacking when clearing out a room.

[@randelclawson7695]

Exactly and him rating Research higher when you can just use Neurajack to cut material Research costs boggles me a bit.

[@supa3ek]

Or.....you can just pop 1 damage debuff aid to tank it up instead of using all those skill points !!!

[@MacesGamingandVideos]

@@randelclawson7695but imagine having that ranked max and using that chem

[@DGootz]

Medicine - does open up some additional dialog choices

[@ajm317]

Astrodynamics is mostly useful because it allows you to use a lighter grav drive on your ship. This can allow you to stack more cargo while maintaining mobility. Also, in my experience you cannot find unique tier resources anywhere in a relevant biome. The other resources yes, but not the unique ones. I have not been able to find them unless you're in a location where you can see it from orbit.

[@gwouru]

the non-violent harvests, are for wild creatures only, not farm spawns.

[@pdraggy]

I think the OP was thinking of those nights in Sri Lanka where you wake up without a liver :0

[@chokethewoke3412]

My OCD is soo bad I can't leave a planet till it's fully scanned😔 2-3 hrs later yaaay only another 1000 to go😢WTF is wrong with me?

[@Ubermensch_Salazar2]

You're not alone brother/sister We're on the same boat However on the bright side you get a lot of credits, ressources equipments/weaponns + you upgrade your character faster. In only one planet i nearly reach level 8/9 and i was only starting my journey throughout the game.

[@MisterGuyMan]

Me too. Add the Starshards and Science Skills Exploration mod. I just leisurely surveyed the first system, Alpha Centauri and Akila System and ended up being Level 100 as an explorer. You have to focus on science skills as they raise exploration XP but it feels like what SF was intended to be, a game of exploration. And with Starshards you get a new skill point every other planet if you explore everything.

[@AverageGreaseMonkey]

Yeah same.....I burnt out fast lol.

[@BeardedGuy_Tawhid]

You missed a heap of stuff on them planets too… heaps of little added stuff like the cups in all the caves.. did you collect all the … cups? … .. MISSION INCOMPLETE!!!

[@devcor]

Sincerely, thank you man. I just spent an hour looking at your videos even though I've already put significant amount of time into Starfield and have most of the things figured out. It's just interesting to watch!

[@theravada9289]

Chem 4 is the only way to unlock craftable items that boost Starborn power generation (Small tip concerning Caelumite, you can harvest decent quantities fast in your NG+ runs if you use the Elemental pull power in the caves that contains Artifacts). That being said, you re 100% right about consumables (both chems and food) not lasting long enough and not providing enough value for the 12 points skill commitment.

[@cristianvogelfang5670]

I'm on Ng+ 9 can you explain me that?

[@theravada9289]

@cristianvogelfang5670 if you have unlocked the Elemental Pull power, you can use it to instantly harvest all minerals around you. The higher the level the bigger the range and the cheaper the activation. Its way faster than using the mining drill, especially on Caelimite. So if you are at cave with an artifact, you just activate the power and you will get between 10 to 30 of it with one tap. So you will have around 250 semi-passively while you are collecting the artifacts in NG+

[@SilverBrumby165]

If you like surveying as I do I'd recommend the zoology skill before the plant one - those critters are not only hard to find sometimes but also hop around a lot and it can be frustrating chasing a mob of galloping whatsits so you can scan them. It's great for birds and fish too.

[@rekalty4477]

You can't harmlessly harvest outpost domesticated animals, because they're already "empty", probably to avoid you just harvesting/killing and looting them, and then respawning them by changing animal in the husbandry controls panel. You can harvest wild animals, if you harvest and then kill them, they won't have whatever you harvested, you can consider it "looting" or stealing the resource from their inventory. Your scanner will tell you if the animal can be harmlessly harvested, seems to mainly be for passive/unaggressive animals.

[@unclemumble]

Hmm interesting, you're probably right on the domesticated part but I've also tried on wild animals and it hasn't worked on the one's I've sampled. Granted it was only around 5-6 different species so it must be specific ones? In any case I prefer getting some xp if I harvest soooo.... sorry animals no harmless harvesting this time around :(

[@rekalty4477]

​@@unclemumble Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd even want to harvest them without killing them for the exp. Another one of those "let's throw in another bonus to this skill so it looks better than it actually is" deals they've done with several skills.

[@overlordea8464]

The Scanning skill has another benefit of allowing you to scan and rescan planets for new information which in turn gives XP and if you use it in combination with the Astrodynamics skill you can easily rack up tons of XP to level up fast with, even if you're using the same planets with each new rank of these skills

[@Euler13]

This video series is amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to research the skill trees so thoroughly and share your insights.

[@cadenjohnson4844]

Geology gets a looooot better once you get Elemental Pull though. Picking up every rock in an artifact room (caelumite) instantly and getting bonus rare minerals on top of that is reeeal nice

[@luisgerardocervantesjimene8575]

Yes exactly what I was thinking! It’s pretty fun to pull the elements to you. The only thing that bothers me is overweight.

[@joshuab7737]

@@luisgerardocervantesjimene8575that’s what personal atmosphere is for

[@Gurkon]

​@@luisgerardocervantesjimene8575get the suits that half the weight of resources

[@jimmayus3211]

The zoology perk: if you scan the creature it will occasionally say “non-lethal harvest available”, mostly a gimmick

[@inkarozu2309]

Personally I didn't want any of the first tier skills but since you need to dump 4 points to unlock further, I went full into medicine as it is the skill that will have an effect the most often. If you aren't playing a stealthy character, you will get shot at a lot and therefore chug med packs rather regularly. I only got it to rank 3 through natural gameplay and had to spam feed med packs while suffocating in over-encumbrance to get the last unlock. It has given me dialogue options a few times as well so no regrets having leveled it. Suit and Weapon mods are easily the most important part of the science tree and MUST rank 4s for everyone. If not for these skills, for players who don't want to bother with outposts the entire tree could be skipped! Weapon modding is soo impactful I'm surprised it wasn't made the middle master tier skill. Looking forward to the Tech tree breakdown, it is by far my favorite and what I have invested the most points into.

[@SleepyGraugans]

Totally agreed. I'm level 80 something now, and some of these level 95 space pirates almost 1-shot me through 400+ armor. But it depends on the difficulty. Easy to normal probably won't benefit too much from increased healing as much as on very hard. But still, you can't go wrong with incread healing rates. Though I'd say you can skip rank 4 in Spacesuit Design, as it won't unlock any new parts and just gives you a low chance not to consume materials when upgrading your equipment.

[@Betamax954]

Exactly, players need to dump 4 points in the first tier, so all or most may as well go into medicine. It may only provide a minor benefit, but it’s a minor benefit that will be experienced repeatedly throughout the game, so the points aren’t wasted. I put 3 points in medicine and one in scanning, with no regrets.

[@Sotanaht01]

Definitely ranking Medicine much higher in my Very Hard playthrough. I really felt it when I started investing there, especially since I was always out of meds even when buying out vendors. A tier all the way. Research Methods is mostly useless on crafting. Crafting is either something you do in very small quantities, such as with weapon and armor mods, where the difference between 1 and 4 of a resource is effectively negligible. If you find a source (ie a vendor) you'll probably find as many as you need at that scale, OR it's something you do in huge quantities (eg adaptive frames) where any resource you can get from an outpost you will have in infinite amount. The few resources, mostly in pharmaceuticals, you can't get through outposts are already only 1 required. Research Methods is solidly in the QOL category helping save time on one-time-only research and not at all necessary in a power build, C tops. Suit Mods 1 is kind of good for the Medic trait on your pack, otherwise mods are going to be in the nature of +10 carry, +10 armor etc. None of those actually matter, even on very hard the +10 armor is nothing compared to what you already should have +meds. Rank 3 is good for boostpack types as you mentioned, but only if you find that perfect legendary boostpack that just happens to have the wrong boost type, otherwise it doesn't do anything at all. Regen 1 is just too small. I'd rank 1 as a B tier, and the rest as 2 and 3 at D tier, and rank 4 is just F Outpost skill is almost entirely self-serving. As you mentioned, you can do a frame build with 0 in the skill. In fact, you can gather every single base resource (not manufactured) with 0 points. Spending points lets you mine faster, but you can just advance time more to accomplish the same thing. Unless you are building outposts as an end in itself (decorating them etc as your intended gameplay), I'd call it D tier. Building better storage does have a slight convinience for most level 0 functions which is why it isn't F. Obviously if building outposts IS your endgame, than it's S. All the resources crafted through Special Projects can also be crafted through Outpost Skill (above). You need both to do a proper endgame XP farm, automating everything except the last step (which is generally not even a need-to-have since frame farms work just fine), but other than that I think there might be a small number of researches that require the advanced components? First tier is A, specifically for how it interacts with Pharmacology and Weapons, everything else is C to F. I would rather build resources this way than through outposts given the choice, especially for small quantities.

[@dr.ergungurer8996]

I agree with all of the above. Especially medicine. Healing more per item and doing it quick is a must for higher difficulties especially when you are face to face with an elite mob in close quarters.

[@DSlyde]

The biggest issue with Chemistry is that some of the best chems (Amp, Pick Me Up, STEVE, etc) dont require the perk and are already know, gotten from quests or from books.

[@Skyblade12]

I love S.T.E.V.E. Aurora is contraband everywhere and super restricted, but a flat out better Aurora? No problems.

[@colinkennedy1461]

Yeah the chemistry perks would be a lot more attractive if they let you brew the purchase-only precursors.

[@DIGITALGH05T]

i also cant see aurora being too profitable, getting it by hand is kinda a pain rn and buying from stores is only profitable if you already have bezene, hallucinogens & stimulants laying around whilst selling items to vendors u then go through all that trouble for what? 75 cred profit for an ingredient that sets YOU back 350, if 1 chasmbass oil made like 5 - 10 units of aurora tho, that'd be way better (and besides, chasmbass are HUGE fish, u telling me an entire fish's only got enough juice to get someone high for 10 SECONDS???)

[@mf_foxy]

Dude dude the amount of anticipation I have for these videos in this series is uncontrollable at this moment. Soooo stoked for this!

[@jdub-replicant]

ty much for these skill tree breakdowns... besides summing it all up for us, the most beneficial insights are the ones where you recommend just dumping a point vs investing 3-4 points in a particular skill and the benefits of doing so either way! thanks for keeping it short and sweet but incredibly helpful for those of us who can usually manage a single playthrough on some of these games!!!

[@nicksanchez2041]

Medicine perk should be a bit higher since if you have the alien dna trait the perk counters the debuff the trait gives you

[@BrentDnD]

Alien DNA is a trait you shouldn't choose in the first place. It's really only useful in the very beginning of the game, and even then, it's barely even noticeably useful. There are much better traits to play with that don't actually require you to pick a perk to counter the negative effect.

[@nicksanchez2041]

@brentmcpeek2096 yes it helps early game cause you get 50 bonus in health and oxygen which combine with wellness and fitness perks makes it even better. With medicine negating it early game you basically have no downsides

[@nicksanchez2041]

@brentmcpeek2096 combine it with the other trait terra firma which also increases our health and oxygen while on a planet which most of the time we are fighting on planets creates a very good surviving early build

[@irrelevantfish1978]

But should you get Alien DNA? Probably not. Terra Firma offers the exact same benefits but with a less-impactful negative (space stations are not only uncommon but too small for O2 to matter much), and if you want _another_ O2-boosting trait, then you should probably take Extrovert or Introvert, as they're multiplicative. Unless it's for RP, you don't want to take Introvert/Extrovert, or you're willing to spend all three of your traits boosting your O2, then Alien DNA is a suboptimal choice.

[@crazy-tommy]

​@@BrentDnDWhat traits are better? I actually consider Alien DNA as one of the better traits.

[@universal_wisdom3416]

I can’t even keep track of the subs anymore. You’ve blown up bro. Absolutely deserved. Love your vids as always my dude :)

[@johndang55]

How is faster healing and more heals not S. You will always take a lot of damage, and it effects all the other types of med packs like trauma pack and emergency kit. Wellness does not invalid medicine, in fact they work together. Let’s say you have 1k health and med pack heals say 30% so that’s 300 hp in 10 seconds. Maxing wellness and medicine means you can heal 45% of 1400 hp for a 630 hp heal in 5 seconds, so you get more than 4x healing per second it’s on. And another thing is for science tree to unlock the next tier of skills like space suit design, chemistry and weapon mod design you need to invest 4 points somewhere and medicine is the best one for this, especially from a combat perspective.

[@jameshiggins9062]

Mate this video was boss. Excellent research and presentation. A lot of work went into that review, dude, and I surely appreciate it. I’ve been trying to find comprehensive coverage of Starfield’s intricacies and am thoroughly impressed with finding your Channel. Subscribed 👍

[@astroboy314]

Love these videos! And Science is by far what I've invested in the most... tier 3 spacesuit design health regeneration essentially makes food obsolete.

[@joshuahunt3032]

I honestly don’t understand why they bothered giving food direct healing effects, considering it’s a lot better at entirely different effects (I use Barbacoa wraps for damage resistance, for example)

[@MISTAKEWASMADE4live]

You mean medicine right? Cause foods healing is atrocious no matter the investment.

[@joshuahunt3032]

@@MISTAKEWASMADE4live I mean food. My point is, food is really only useful for providing damage resistance (and maybe some movement/reload speed buffs for some booze forms). The difference is, the high-level food seems to be about half as effective as some chems, in exchange for not being addictive and being cheaper to make.

[@joshuahunt3032]

@@MISTAKEWASMADE4live That is to say, you shouldn’t be using food for healing in the first place.

[@milordas]

i prefer passive regen from skill, spacesuit design is not worth imo as in NG+ you get prety decent suit, didnt found better

[@jonmack1487]

You’ve absolutely killed it with these videos man. So helpful and well thought out. You rock!

[@danschmidt6206]

Outpost building rank 4 is super helpful for NG+, since it cuts down on supply runs needed to get started. Also the power generators (not thr helium-3 ones) are super helpful on planets far from the sun with no atmosphere. Instrad of spamming like 20 solar arrays, you might just need 1-2 generators.

[@nilsd2112]

Generators are also useful for just temporarily building an outpost for whatever stuff you need right now , waiting a day or two, and then packing up (100% refund for outpost mats on deconstruction) and leaving without caring for pesky stuff like outpost build limit or having everything locking nice. 1 generator instead of a bunch of solars ist just that much faster.

[@chibynite]

Great job! I love the deeper dive with examples of different levels. Your presentation is quick but not too fast, clear, and thorough. Thanks

[@Citizen5101]

Sarah is a completely free Companion for your crew so if you aren't playing evil it really makes Astrodynamics useless for most players.

[@BiomechanicalBrick]

astrodynamics is good for that jump range, which sarah doesnt give you afaik also i think having more jump range would mean being able to put more cargo modules on your ship without losing access to the far flung systems

[@Citizen5101]

@@BiomechanicalBrick I'd still rather invest in Piloting and get a bigger Grav Drive. You only need to get the system. So a smaller farther jumping ship is all you need. Once you've been there, you can fast travel across the entire settled systems for free in one jump. You just can't be encumbered and also not sitting in the pilot's seat.

[@Citizen5101]

@@BiomechanicalBrick the real cost of more mass (usually from additional cargo) is the cost to mobility when you're flying around. You lose significantly less jump distance than you do mobility.

[@cretinousmartyr3522]

My Sarah died. :(

[@crazy-tommy]

You have to invest into a tier 1 skill to unlock the higher tiers. As Geology, Research and Suveying are mostly useless, you are left with Astrodynamics and Medicine. Out of these I prefer Medicine, but I can see some use for Astrodynamics on optimized ship builds as it allows using a lighter Grav drive, which might drop the total mass enough to get away with fewer engines so you can have more power for weapons.

[@ZeSgtSchultz]

I don't even know why there are other starfield KZbinrs. It's all right here, no bs, just info.

[@-_-DatDude]

Considering that rejuvenation is bugged in combat. Medicine is easily A tier, its arguably a S tier skill for Ronins like me who need to take damage to do damage.

[@PurrsPlace]

Well done! This is precisely the kind of thoughtful and skeptical review that I was looking for. Thank you for not wasting any time, getting to your points, communicating clearly, and still making the experience an enjoyable one. *Liked* =)

[@twistedtxb]

The amount of effort you put on these videos is frankly astonishing. Thanks for making these! Best Starfield ressource on YT, no contest

[@FatDadman]

been checking yt like 10 times a day to see if u uploaded another one of these

[@abucketbrigade1217]

You know I'm something of a scientist myself.

[@cwidtsoe]

The fourth tier zoology skill does let you harvest from animals either by just walking up to them or stunning them first, however the only times I have been able to do this is after completing the UC Vanguard quest line and talking to the other scientist that is not Hadrian. He will give you radiant quests to collect samples from animals where this skill allows you to not have to kill the creatures which nets a minuscule amount of xp when you complete each radiant quest. However you will get more xp just outright killing the creatures. For space suit upgrades the gravitic components on both the spacesuit and helmet are solid S tier for stealth builds. With those and the first stealth skill maxed you can have enemies walk within 3 meters and them not detect you. This is without any mods for stealth and does help explain why stealth seems so awful. Those gravitic components practically make you invisible, but with the second stealth skill maxed you are a ghost in the wind.

[@puma51921]

They need to buff most of the skills. Many are worthless

[@RuthwikRao]

the game needs a "Cyberpunk 1.6" type update in a month or two, then entire systemic level updates over the coming year or two.

[@null6634]

I don't want or need to be over powered. It would be better if a lot of these useless skills were play style focused. In the future I expect a Hardcore option that will make food crafting and maybe Chemistry useful.

[@MrArchilus]

Yeah, some definitely deserve a buff

[@vulpes133]

The Zoologist perk for harvesting parts without killing them only applies to certain animals. When you scan something wild it might have the tag 'Non-Lethal Harvest', and if so you can then just interact with them to gather what their drop.

[@KILAH4716]

Think about this skill tree in a different way: When you start New Game+, you bring ALL YOUR SKILLS WITH YOU. With that in mind, there needs to be a serious re-evaluation of a lot of these skills. While you don't start off with all the researches unlocked, you DO start off being able to research everything if you get the appropriate perks. You can also start planting outposts on more extreme and valuable planets right away, and you can spend less time surveying and scanning. You'll get yourself QUICKLY back up to speed with a lot of these skills.

[@RG-rm9jt]

This is the best skill guide I have seen it so far. Really good at explaining hard benefits vs fluff skills for the various playstyles. Thank you so much!

[@JaviAirwraps]

Your Starfield vids have so much more to offer than most others lol thanks for the content!

[@bt0694]

I am so glad I found your channel in my first few days of playing after launch. This is by far one of the most informative and entertaining Starfield experiences to be found on KZbin. Great job dude!

[@danshive4017]

Taking a few seconds to think of something is easy. Actually playtesting it, and trying to make the game balanced, is a whole different matter.

[@sofajockeyUK]

Playing on 'Very Hard' difficulty I'm taking a couple of ranks of Medicine as a means to unlock the Suit and Weapon modification skills, alongside a couple of ranks of Scanning.

[@jonathanmueller9062]

I'm an explorer. So this video in particular has been very useful. And I agree with your evaluation with a lot of the skills. If you are an explorer, you will value some skills more.

[@ArtemisShanks]

Aneutronic (the elite skill) is amazing when you reach NG+ and are using less than amazing ships in the early parts of each NG+.

[@unclemumble]

Oh that is a fair point! There are a few other skills with some great ng+ start benefits. If you don't want to use the SBG then aneutronic definitely helps early on

[@SarDeliac]

Really enjoying this series, so thank you very much for that. For Astrodynamics, one of its "hidden" benefits is it gives you more options when shipbuilding--you can buy lighter/lower-power grav drives and lighter/smaller fuel tanks and your skill will supply the rest. You don't always have to pick the biggest, most powerful, and heaviest equipment to get full performance. Same kind of thing with Medicine--med packs weigh nothing, so having high Medicine lets you stop carrying emergency kits and trauma packs entirely, and that can save a considerable amount of weight. Thanks again for the breakdowns. Very very useful.

[@TheVoidWanderer]

This is why I can't wait for proper mod tools, there will very quickly be a skill overhaul mod, or even just a skill buffs mod. One thing I kinda hope they add for a mod (or even bethesda themselves) is for you to do different challenges for ranking up skills, instad of the same thing. Some of them can be the same, like the weapon crafting ones to JUST mod weapons, but for something like stealth, instead of just hitting stealth shots, do like melee stealth kills, or sneak a total distance, etc.

[@nickchivers9029]

EnaiField incoming.

[@chubbuck35]

Your content is unbelievably in depth and easily adds the most value of any video series about starfield. Thank you.

[@faithminion]

You are the only person I watch for starfield skill tree tips. You go the extra mile researching each one. Can't wait for the tech tree!

[@iamyourgod76]

Great content. Im a New subscriber. Keep it up!

[@learnmyname123]

Just want to take a second to say thanks for making these long(er) videos going into detail on each skill tree. This is exactly the kinda research I was looking for and am glad I found you!!

[@armageddonchampion]

While situational, I find several skills useful to unlock multiple dialogue options. Case in point, the medicine skill lets you choose an option both for ryujin and rangers questline that lets you skip other persuasion and theft options. Not a huge deal, and similar things happen with other skills too if you want to open options. Maybe not enough to increase your ranking, but for my playstyle I found medicine rank 1 the best single skill point spent for an easier time with quick playthroughs and limited med packs. Edit: for zoology, not all creatures can be non-lethally harvested. You get a pop up like with plants telling you to press a button to harvest when you can, and scanning info says non-lethal harvest possible.

[@unclemumble]

Yeah I actually think 1 point in every single skill is justifiable for that exact reason. All skills provide these unique dialogue instances and they're cool to have popup during quests!

[@armageddonchampion]

@@unclemumble While I've found quite a few funny ones, my favorite is meeting Vlad and using the fitness option to complement his guns lol.

[@RAKKAR7]

Agreed, the Science Skill Tree is amazing! Also, dam man, I've only listened for a few minutes and I really like some of your suggestions! Sub earned! Also, one of my upgrade sections is blocked 90% sure its shield. Any idea why?

[@Cronoo]

Astonished at how thorough these videos have been. Turly impeccable work.

[@dahow22]

I love this series. Good information and your analysis is solid. I enjoy watching and reading a lot of different opinions on skills because people have vastly different opinions about what is good, average, or crap and it shows how any skill can be good or crap depending on preferred play style and RPG build. And I think this makes the Starfield skill system so good and more encompassing than almost any other game.

[@LyraelRayne]

One thing to be aware of with skills like medicine is that it also unlocks special conversation options (having the skill essentially causes some NPCs to think you’re a qualified medical doctor)

[@jaydenjohner6901]

The most thorough skill ranking videos on KZbin, and its not even close I watched some others and they just read out the skill description with basically zero insight beyond that. What a joke lol Thank you for making genuinely helpful and well thought out reviews of each skill

[@ExOhz]

Already binge watched his other skill videos, now just to wait for the tech one and potentially a "best skill build" video which utilizes the knowledge he's gained from researching all these. To best explain where we should put our points

[@guitaoist]

Honestly this 24 minutes saved me 24 hours

[@alexandercuthbertson]

All of these skill analysis videos are so helpful!!! Thank you so much for making the rest of our playthroughs smooth. Excited to see the tech tree soon!!!

[@BrentDnD]

This is the best explanation of skill usefulness I have seen for Starfield. Period. You understood the assignment. 100%.

[@Saidenz]

A tip about scanning wildlife. Creatures are generally classified in 3 categories, Herbivores, Predators, Scavengers. If you've got that one small creature that just doesn't want to appear, kill a heard of herbivores and wait a minute, 1 or 2 of the scavengers will usually pop up.

[@Hidan056]

Honestly the space jam puns made me chuckle and I gave you the sub. I was going to anyway because I’ve watched every episode of this series so far but that sealed the deal

[@ProjSHiNKiROU]

Science and Tech tend to support Starfield-exclusive game mechanics (planets, ships, outposts) while other trees are mostly for standard RPG gameplay (combat, movement, looting)

[@kgriffin1032]

I just recently started a Scientist character that is heavily focusing on the science tree. Been loving it so far and this was a great watch. Helped confirmed how i was feeling about each skill i unlocked.

[@mike_d_melb_music_fan5229]

Scanning 3 and 4 is required to find exotic and unique resources respectively. Not just to see them in the planet scan, but to actually SEE them on the ground. Without it, they are invisible I'm sure. I landed back to the same place after getting scanning 4, and hey presto! Rothicite veins ! So if you're aiming for high value mining/crafting, scanning 3 and 4 are a must-have.

[@Space_Racer]

You have the best SF skill videos on YT. They are straight to the point with a lot of useful info.

[@rap33042]

Thanks for doing all the hard work so I don't have to. This series of Skils videos are awesome! Thanks again...

[@TruFalco]

I ended up picking up Astrophysics because of this video and that XP from scanning planets is amazing. Very easy way of leveling up.

[@AdamJohnstone-dk4gt]

This is the best starfield content so far, great series very informative and factual, could you possibly do a ship design/best parts video/videos too?

[@MrSonic43]

This is hands down the best person to watch for Starfield content! Thank you so much broski

[@benhaney9629]

As we know from previous Bethesda games you can’t just trust the skills description so it’s a pet peeve of mine when KZbinrs reviewing the skills just take them at face value and don’t put in the research and testing. So good job. Actually relevant info. Not just another channel telling me a “secret” you can aim on the cutter to increase its power or cut down the doors that say you can cut them down…

[@denimdan14]

Scanning skill has become very profitable on my second playthrough. I can grab Constellation missions from the mission board in the basement of the lodge that will pay around 10k to discover a specific trait on any planet in a certain system. Lvl 4 gives 50% chance to discover traits while scanning, so decent chance to cash in the quest by only scanning from your ship. Depending on how hard you want to farm you can dump the quest, save scum the scanning, or actually land on a likely planet and run around a bit checking out the features. I think this is the most fun 'exploring' I've had in the game trying to guess which planet/moon will have the trait I'm looking for before mounting an expedition. Then, yeah, go grab more quests from lodge, drop loot, and so on...

[@SparkFct]

Baby wake up, new Starfield skill guide has dropped by Uncle

[@zombieblaster5754]

id like to see something like ark where we could tame creatures and ride them, maybe even a mount bay on your ship for planets its safe on or maybe even have creature suits? a large glass bay on your ship with a creature in it would be dope af.

[@daphats56]

The first 3 seconds of this videos sum up exactly how I've been slapping this game around on VH dif. The final terramorph at the end of the UC quest got annihilated before the dialouge about hitting the switches even finished. Absolutely busted, especially with and extended mag/lacerate/concussion legendary coachman

[@malohn2068]

Playing as a build that only wants the mods/engine in science, medicine seems to be the best bet especially when i am alien dna, terra firma and very hard difficulty.

[@rekalty4477]

Can confirm, scanning/destroying ships only shows/rewards whatever was in the cargo hold, not placed inside the ship (be it loose items, containers or the captain's hold, which seems to be considered just another on-ship container)

[@unclemumble]

Thank you fellow researcher!

[@RandomCBRN]

In my experience, zooming with the scanner allows you to ID ships from further away. I don't remember exactly what my scanner's level is, but right now I can ID a ship from about 130m.

[@universal_wisdom3416]

You know I was just as hyped as you were about Starfield, and I gotta agree that I’ve tried my absolute best to disregard the negatives that are so blatantly obvious. But it’s stuff like most rank 4 perks that make me put my head in my hand. The modding community is going to have a full time job when full support goes live.

[@unclemumble]

Yeah there's too much to simply look past and it's a shame. The game still has classic Bethesda charm and discovery elements which I enjoy but the game feels so disjointed because of all the loading screens. Don't get me wrong I have no interest in manually flying to a planet for 4 hours but it just isn't the same as being in a self contained region like Skyrim where you slowly familiarize yourself with the world in its entirety rather than 1000 bits of mostly nothing. The hand crafted cities are great though apart from the death stares lol

[@universal_wisdom3416]

@@unclemumble Yeah I agree, but I still think the modding community will put handcrafted areas into most of those empty worlds, and add more areas of interest within your landing radius, and get rid of those god awful stares, etc. We just need those mods asap, I’m on Xbox so I gotta wait regardless -_-

[@MrSirHenryMF]

Pro tip for stealth characters: Spacesuit Design lets you craft an upgrade that makes your spacesuit practically noiseless. Now you don't have to take it off when sneaking around, you can just be a ninja jumping through the shadows in a 20kg suit.

[@rickyjanzen6684]

Astrodynamics can give you a little more freedom on ship building, too. You can equip a smaller grav drive or fuel tank and get the same effective range, letting you tweak just a bit more manueverability out of a larger ship. Also, Sarah likes to slack off and not pull her weight a lot (she bugs and won't take a crew slot, but also doesn't give her bonus despite it being highlighted).

[@Skyblade12]

She does, the crew just have different bonuses than you do. Sarah’s skill only reduces the fuel cost, doesn’t increase the range. Similarly, piloting on crew is a flat speed buff.

[@greenjacketguy3759]

In my experience, The Perks in the Science tree on average have the most dialog options when playing through missions. so that's another bonus even a perks like medicine seem useless.

[@teamjackedsolutions8465]

I'm probably late finding this channel, but it contains by far the best analysis of Starfield-esque topics. Sincere thanks for the time and effort you put into these tests @UncleMumble .

[@unclemumble]

better late than never, welcome aboard!

[@biggusgibbus8144]

This is a great series, maybe an essential series of videos for anyone playing the game, and I salute you for doing it. It's really helped me a lot.