Starfield:Skills

Skills provide a variety of boosts to your character. Your Background gives you three starting skills. You gain a skill point every time you level up. Each skill has 4 tiers. The first tier can be unlocked by spending a skill point; further tiers can be unlocked by completing a challenge and spending a skill point.

Skill ranks can be differentiated based on the border of the skill. A darkened icon with a gray border means the skill is still locked. If the icon has a gray border and gray design it is Rank 0, a colored design means Rank 1. If the icon has two gray borders it is Rank 2. Finally Rank 3 and 4 have a gold border with one or two lines respectively.

Skills are arranged 5 categories (physical, social, combat, science, tech) of 4 tiers each (novice, advanced, expert, master). Initially only novice-tier skills are accessible, but every 4 points spent in a category unlocks a new tier, up to master.

Physical Skills
Physical Skills help keep your body in peak physical form. There are sixteen skills in this category, which:
 * Improve movement and stealth: Concealment, Stealth, Weight Lifting, Gymnastics, Fitness
 * Increase health and health regeneration: Nutrition, Rejuvenation, Wellness
 * Improve unarmed combat effectiveness: Boxing, Martial Arts, Neurostrikes
 * Reduce damage and infections: Pain Tolerance, Energy Weapon Dissipation, Environmental Conditioning, Decontamination, and Cellular Rejuvenation.

For details on physical skills, see Physical Skills.

Social Skills
Social skills help you interact with and manipulate others. There are sixteen skills in this category, which allow you to:
 * Convince others to do your bidding: Diplomacy, Instigation, Intimidation, Manipulation, Negotiation, Persuasion
 * Have an edge acquiring, moving, and trading goods: Commerce, Deception, Scavenging, Theft
 * Improve your relationship with companions, using Leadership and Ship Command, or go solo with Isolation
 * Use fauna and flora to your advantage with Xenosociology and Gastronomy
 * Manage many outposts with Outpost Management.

For details on social skills, see Social Skills.

Combat Skills
There are seventeen skills in this category.
 * Most Combat Skills improve your ability with a specific type of weapon: Ballistics, Demolitions, Dueling, Heavy Weapons Certification, Incapacitation (EM weapons), Lasers, Particle Beams, Pistol Certification, Rifle Certification, Shotgun Certification, and Sniper Certification.
 * Others improve abilities across weapon types, such as Armor Penetration, Rapid Reloading, Targeting, critical hit chance with Marksmanship, and downing chance with Crippling.

For more information, see Combat Skills.

Science Skills
There are sixteen science skills:
 * Many sicence skills help with scanning and surveying: Astrophysics, Botany, Scanning, Surveying, Zoology.
 * Botany and Zoology also help with resource collection, together with Geology.
 * Crafting and research are a major focus of science skills, and can be improved with Chemistry, Research Methods, Spacesuit Design, Special Projects and Weapon Engineering.
 * Ship operation is improved by Aneutronic Fusion, Astrodynamics, while Outpost construction is helped by Outpost Engineering and Planetary Habitation.
 * Finally, Medicine increases the effectiveness of many aid items.

Tech Skills
There are seventeen Tech Skills:
 * Most tech skills improve ship capabilities: Automated Weapon Systems, Ballistic Weapon Systems, Energy Weapon Systems, Engine Systems, Missile Weapon Systems, Particle Beam Weapon Systems, Payloads, Piloting, Shield Systems, Starship Design, Starship Engineering, Targeting Control Systems.
 * Two skills affect the Boost Pack: Boost Assault Training and Boost Pack Training.
 * Robotics increases damage against robots.
 * Security improves hacking capabilities.