If you want to be a space pirate on the wrong side of galactic law, you can certainly do that in Starfield. Not only can you steal from people, you can even commit piracy and take the cargo from others or smuggle illegal goods. Doing so will cause you to carry contraband in Starfield, which can get you in a world of trouble.
How to avoid being caught with contraband in Starfield
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid being caught with contraband in Starfield. On the one hand, you could avoid going to places where contraband gets you in trouble, such as planets in the United Colonies or Freestar Collective. You can sell directly to places like the Trade Authority and Crimson Fleet, who don’t care about your less clean goods. However, you can even pass contraband to risky places like New Atlantis, and some quests will even ask you to.
The only way to get contraband to more strict spots is to have shielded cargo on your ship. This shields the items from scans that would otherwise show your illegal goods. Shielded cargo doesn’t usually come on ships by default, so you’ll have to pony up the credits for this upgrade.
Worse still, you can’t just get a shielded cargo upgrade from any ship technician in the galaxy. You’ll need to join the Crimson Fleet and visit Jasmine at The Eye. She offers this upgrade for several thousand credits, depending on how much shielded cargo space you want. You could steal a ship from someone that already has shielded cargo, but this is riskier.
You can then store a limited amount of goods there and you have a much better chance of getting through scans without being caught. I still suggest saving before visiting places in the UC or Freestar Collective in case Lady Luck isn’t on your side.
Starfield is available for Xbox Series X and PC.
