How to unlock the Star Eagle ship in Starfield

Starfield's Star Eagle spaceship during spaceflight.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

While you can customise your own ship, buy a new one, and even steal a ship in Starfield, there's a beast of a spaceship called the Star Eagle that's worth pursuing. There's a catch, though: You'll need to side with one of the factions if you want to unlock it, but it does come with a hefty cargo hold, seats five crew members, and has a shield that'll hold up against an increase in attacks from rival factions, so here's what you need to do.

How to get the Star Eagle spaceship

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Inspecting the Star Eagle in Starfield's shipbuilder interface. — (Image credit: Bethesda)

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To get your hands on the Star Eagle, you'll need to join the Freestar Rangers faction, i.e. become a space cowboy. You can join ranks in Akila City and there are eight missions to complete, ending with The Hammer Falls quest that will unlock the Star Eagle—after you make a big decision, of course.

Your first step toward acquiring the Star Eagle is to talk to the Marshal of the Freestar Collective—you'll find him near the entrance of Akila City outside Galbank. He'll ask for your help dealing with the gang robbing the bank, which will lead to a quest called Job Gone Wrong. Complete that quest and you can join the Rangers, which will kick off the rest of the faction quests. Once you've completed those quests and gained the approval of the Rangers, you'll get the ship alongside some other Freestar Rangers goodies like a unique spacesuit, boost pack, and helmet.

The Star Eagle is one of the best pre-made ships in Starfield, with a high-powered EM weapon, a well-stocked grav drive, and a powerful engine to boot. It also has a carry capacity of around 2280 pounds, meaning you can store every bit of junk, I mean, necessary resources in the cargo hold—it makes it a formidable smuggling ship if you get the right cargo shields, too. It's even big enough that you can stick on a couple of extra cargo bays without throwing off the handling or needing to add more powerful engines. It also lets you carry five crew members which means you can tour around space with all your favourites right there.

The only downside is that flying around in it makes you a target for enemy factions and pirates, but honestly, there's always someone waiting to attack you in space so you might as well be in a unit like this.

The first three games Lauren played on PC were Star Wars: X-Wing, Zoo Tycoon and Barbie Fashion Designer, which explains her love of all things space, strategy and aesthetically pleasing. Lauren recently took over as PC Gamer's Guides Editor after three years of writing many dozens of Destiny 2 guides at VG247, as well as casually trying to shoehorn in The Witcher 3 articles wherever possible. When she's not trying to force everyone to play as a Warlock in Destiny 2, Lauren is either mastering her SEO abilities to help smash the competition, or patting one of her red sons.