Starfield:Weapons

Weapons are the most efficient way to deal with lifeforms and robots, hostile or otherwise. There are many different types of weapons in the Settled Systems to utilize and modify. Each weapon (excluding melee weapons and throwables) also has a damage type, which includes Ballistic, Laser, EM (electromagnetic) and Particle Beam.

Weapons differ from one another in 5 distinct ways: 1) Weapon Type, 2) Model, 3) Traits, 4) Modifications and 5) Tier Level.

Weapon Types
Unless playing in an Unarmed style, weapons are essential for delivering damage and prevailing over adversaries. That damage can be delivered through a variety of weapon types:
 * Pistols: examples are Eon, Sidestar
 * Rifles: Grendel, Maelstrom
 * Shotguns: Coachman, Pacifier
 * Heavy Weapons (grenade launchers, nail guns): Arc Welder, Cutter
 * Throwables (grenades, mines): Frag Grenade, Fragmentation Mine
 * Melee Weapons (daggers, swords): Combat Knife, Rescue Axe

Weapon Traits
Weapon traits are beneficial enhancements or buffs that are sometimes present on weapons the player acquires through looting, buying, stealing, or receiving as quest rewards. Traits appear randomly on spawned weapons, and unlike mods, are permanent and cannot be added or removed by the player.

Weapon traits belong to three categories or “slots”, and each weapon can have one trait from each slot, up to three total. Having three traits makes the weapon a “legendary”. Depending on how many traits appear on the weapon, it displays with a different color in inventory lists and containers:


 * 3 traits - Gold - “Legendary”
 * 2 traits - Purple - “Epic”
 * 1 trait - Blue - “Rare”
 * No traits - White - (no label)

Weapon traits are as follows:

Weapon Modifications
Weapon modifications (mods) are beneficial enhancements the player can install on their weapons at a Weapon Workbench to cause more damage, faster damage, better aim or to otherwise improve performance. Modded weapons can also appear in normal loot. Mods are grouped into slots: barrel mods, muzzle mods, grip mods, and so on. To install a mod, the player must first learn about that type of mod by completing research at a Research Laboratory. Higher levels of weapons mod research require assigning points into the Weapon Engineering skill. Once a certain class of mod has been researched, those mods can from then on be installed at a Weapons Workbench.

Weapon slots and their corresponding modifications include:


 * Barrel: Short Barrel, Standard Barrel, Extended Barrel, Long Barrel, Stabilizing Barrel, Tech Barrel.
 * Laser: Laser Sight, Recon Laser Sight, no mod.
 * Optic: Iron Sights, Glow Sights, Reflex Sight, Short Scope, Medium Scope, Long Scope, Recon Scope.
 * Muzzle: Compensator, Muzzle Brake, Suppressor, Stealth Lasers, Shock Charge Band, no mod.
 * Grip and Stock: Standard Grip, Tactical Grip, Standard Stock, Ergonomic Stock, Stabilizing Stock.
 * Magazine and Battery: Small Magazine, Standard Magazine, Large Magazine, Tactical Magazine, Small Battery, Standard Battery, Large Battery, Tactical Battery, Explosive Rounds, Armor-Piercing Rounds, Depleted Uranium Rounds, Penetrator Rounds, Whitehot Rounds.
 * Cover: Removed Cover, Standard Cover, Amplifier.
 * Internal: Hair Trigger, High Velocity, High Powered, Overclocked, Precision Tuning, no mod.
 * Receiver: Semi-Automatic, Binary Trigger, Burst Fire, Fully Automatic.
 * Skin: default skin.

Note: Not all mod variants are available on every weapon type. For example, melee mods don't appear as an option for ranged weapons, laser-specific mods aren't shown for ballistic weapons, some rifle barrels cannot apply to revolvers, etc.

Weapon Tiers
When the game spawns a weapon it does so with a quality tier, loosely correlated with player level. All tiers of a weapon look identical, but higher tiers have increased damage and monetary value. As the player progresses better tier weapons will naturally start to appear in-game.

Higher is better:
 * Tier 4 — "Advanced"
 * Tier 3 — "Refined"
 * Tier 2 — "Calibrated"
 * Tier 1 — The basic tier with no name mentioned.

The name of the weapon generally indicates what tier it is. For example an "Advanced Regulator" pistol is a tier 4 weapon which does approximately 100 PHYS damage per shot and has a weapon value above 11000, while a tier 1 "Regulator" pistol only does 35 PHYS damage and has a base value of 4450.

Most weapons have all 4 tiers available, however the Eon, Equinox, Rattler, and Sidestar, only have tiers 1-3 available. Other weapons only have the first tier available, for example the Novablast Disruptor.

Every weapon has its own set of tiers available for attachment. You can view a complete list on the Object Modificiations page.

Weapon Naming Conventions
Weapon names are formed by combining the name of the last-slotted Trait (if present), plus any Modifications, plus any Tier name, plus Model Name. (Last-slotted means visually in the list of traits: slot 3 trait if present, else slot 2 trait, else slot 1 trait, else none.)

Weapon Name = [Trait] + [Mods] + [Tier] + Model

Examples:
 * Eon: No Trait, no Mods, basic Tier, model name.
 * Refined Eon: No Trait, no Mods, Refined Tier, model name.
 * Explosive Assassin's Equinox: Legendary (gold) because of 3 Traits: Anti-Personnel, Lacerate and Explosive; the final trait forms the prefix "Explosive." "Assassin's" because of suppressor and maybe other mods. "Equinox" because it's the model name.
 * Extended Mag Commander's Advanced AA-99 Rifle: Only one Trait (blue): Extended Magazine, so "Extended Mag" prefix. "Commander's" because of certain mods. "Advanced" because it is Tier 4 Advanced. "AA-99 Rifle" is the model name.
 * Lacerate Modified Calibrated Grendel: Two traits so Epic (purple): Extended Magazine and Lacerate which is last slot so "Lacerate". "Modified" because of the presence of several mods, which are not spelled out in the title. "Calibrated" because it is Tier 2 Calibrated. Grendel is the Model Name.

Weapon Manufacturers

 * Allied Armaments
 * Arboron
 * Combatech
 * Kore Kinetics
 * Laredo
 * Crimson Fleet
 * Old Earth
 * Va'ruun

Tips

 * Advanced-level weapons will appear in stores many levels sooner than they would normally drop in-game. They will usually be expensive, and often worth it.
 * Some Advanced-level weapons like the Solstice, AA-99 and Urban Eagle can be found at abandoned structures (UC listening posts and Helium-3 mines) before you're high enough level to buy them.
 * Removing a mod from a weapon in Starfield actually destroys the mod, unlike in Fallout 4 where removing a mod will bank it for later reuse.