This simple trick helps you farm Starfield legendary weapons

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Starfield doesn’t offer players the biggest variety of weapons. It’s similar to Fallout 4 in that respect. However, it makes up for this by offering multiple variants of these weapons—and some are pretty powerful.

Take the Maelstrom, for example. This basic assault rifle appears early in the game. The standard variant of this gun leaves much to be desired. Even fully modified, it’s underpowered and lethargic.

However, if you encounter a legendary variant, it’s a different matter. These variants include attributes that give the player a special edge in battle.

We’ll run through what you need to know about legendary weapons in Starfield and how to increase the chances you’ll get one.

Legendary weapons are worth picking up

Legendary weapons in Starfield look like their basic versions, except they come with differently-colored names and handy perks.

Take the Titanium attribute, for example, which makes the gun incredibly light — giving you extra room for crafting resources and looted objects. Or the Shattering perk, which effortlessly breaks through NPC armor as though it’s made of tinfoil.

Another handy perk is Exterminator, which gives the gun a damage boost when fighting alien creatures. This proves especially helpful as you start surveying planets (a handy source of income).

The most habitable locations often have aggressive fauna that regularly attack in packs. Without the right firepower, it’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed.

In addition to encountering legendary guns, you’ll regularly stumble upon souped-up helmets, backpacks, and spacesuits. These similarly include attributes that help during exploration and combat.

Chameleon, for example, makes the wearer invisible when standing still. This is especially useful when lockpicking or performing a steal attack.

Equally useful is Mechanized, which increases your carry capacity. And with the Liquid Cooled perk, you’ll take less thermal damage.

Legendary items: A quick explainer

Legendary items come in three categories: Blue, Purple, and Gold.

• Blue legendary items have one effect and are also the most abundant. Even when playing on the lowest difficulties, you’ll find ‘blue’ gear in closets and on the bodies of fallen NPCs.
• Purple legendary items–have two legendary effects and are slightly less common than blue items.
• Gold legendary items–These items are the rarest of them all and have three legendary effects. As you’d expect, you’ll typically find them on the bodies of the most challenging enemies.

As I hinted earlier, Starfield is more likely to spawn legendary enemies (and, thus, legendary gear) when played on higher levels.

Of course, these spawns are totally randomized. While your odds are higher when played on Very Hard, Starfield makes no guarantees.

There’s a trick for more Starfield legendary drops

But what if you’re a casual Starfield player (or an FPS novice) and you don’t want to play on the highest difficulty? Well, there’s a handy trick worth knowing, which I learned courtesy of the Starfield Subreddit.

A trick, I add, that will probably be patched out of existence in the coming weeks. So pay attention.

• Before you enter a new location with enemy NPCs, make sure your difficulty level is set to Very Hard.
• Once you’ve entered the building (or cave. Or space station. Whatever), crank the difficulty down to your preferred level.

It’s as easy as that. You’ll get the benefits of better armor and weapons, but without the hassle of repeatedly dying. We tested this trick on the Xbox version, although there’s no reason why it shouldn’t also work on PC.

One thing to note: Legendary spawns are totally random. The item you’ll receive depends on how lucky you are.

And so, if you don’t mind grinding until you get the perfect gun or helmet, consider quicksaving before you enter the location. This gives you the option of trying again.

You’ll likely want to do that because some perks are better than others. Titanium, for example, is incredibly useful. Starfield doesn’t give players much carry capacity — even as you advance through the levels.

By contrast, the Space Adept perk is fairly pointless. It gives the weapon a boost when fighting in space (like when boarding a space station or enemy ship), but a massive debuff when on the ground.

Know where you spend most of your fighting time? Yeah, on solid ground.

Even if this perk appears on a gold-tier gun, with two other solid effects, it’s still worth ditching the next time you stumble across a vendor.

Don’t forget, you can mod legendary items to improve their usefulness further. As you progress throughout the game, you’ll want to invest in your crafting skills, as well as the Special Projects skill, which unlocks even more powerful mods.

Starfield gives you a literal universe to explore

Hopefully, increasing the chance you get legendary weapons will improve your Starfield experience. Many of the other staff here have also been playing, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

Being able to farm some higher-quality weapons and armor early on will make the rest of the tasks easier. We can’t do anything about making the ship-to-ship combat easier yet, but be sure we’ll have a guide if we discover anything.

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