Starfield: How to Lockpick

Lockpicking in Starfield works pretty similar to several other Bethesda games if you’ve played any. That being said, some of the mechanics are a little different, and for newcomers who have never played a game with lockpicking that works like this, it can definitely get overwhelming really quickly.

The type of lock, your skill, and your understanding of how lockpicking works in the game can all influence your lockpicking success rate. While the game does give everyone a basic tutorial on the subject, it doesn’t cover a lot of the important points that you’d want to know before attempting the act.

Lockpicking is something you’ll definitely want to get good at, especially for the Shattered Space DLC. Don’t stress, as we’ll teach you exactly everything you need to know about how to lockpick and some tips that’ll save you time and energy.

The Basics of Lockpicking in Starfield

As you explore the hundreds of planets that the game has to offer, you’re sometimes going to come across locked items that you can’t just unlock with keys. You’ll need to pick open the locks.

Starfield has four types of locks: Novice, Advanced, Expert, and Master. In the lockpicking screen, you’ll see a few rings with holes on a few sides, each ring having a different set of holes. The difficulty of the lock determines how many rings it’ll have.

On the right side of the screen, you’ll see the number of Digipicks you have (your lockpicks), and the different patterns you can insert your picks in. You need to select the correct patterns to insert the picks, and each pick must enter a hole.

You can rotate the picks to line up with the holes. When you use a pattern, you can’t use it again for the same lock.

Some rings will have multiple suitable patterns, but you’ll realize once you get to the next ring that you don’t have any of the correct patterns available. In that case, you can redo the previous ring, but it’ll still use up your Digipick.

As you go up the lockpicking difficulties, the game will start adding pick patterns that aren’t meant to be used for the lock at all as a sort of red herring, so be mindful of that.

You can obtain Digipacks by finding them through natural exploration, completing missions, and buying them from vendors. Sometimes you can get stuck on a single lock and end up depleting your Digipick stock, so it never hurts to carry more than you think you might need.

If you’re low on funds, we have a guide on selling survey slates that should take your balance out of the red zone.

Tips for a More Convenient Lockpicking Experience

One of the biggest and most important tips is to take your time and not rush the lockpick. This is especially important when you’re dealing with Expert and Master level locks, which have 3 and 4 rings you need to account for.

The best way to deal with these locks is by solving for all the rings at once. Either grab a notepad, take some screenshots, or mentally account for the holes in the rings and the patterns. Then, match the picks to the rings without doing it in-game.

If you do it this way, you’re less likely to make mistakes. If you’re trying to lockpick someone’s belongings, failing this mini-game will make surrounding NPCs detect you and they’re not going to like what they find when they see you.

Nine out of ten times, you will only need two patterns for a ring. On some rare occasions, you can get by with a single pattern matching the entire ring or three, but no more. Approaching the solution with a two-pattern mindset will make things easier.

Leveling your Security skill is recommended to attempt lockpicks of higher difficulties, but it also gives you more auto-attempts. If you can solve the outer rings and use auto-attempts for the inner ones, it’ll make your life easier.

As you advance the Security skill, it’ll also start highlighting the rings with blue colors if the pattern you’re selecting can fit in the slot with some turning.

As we mentioned before, though, sometimes a ring can have multiple solutions, but the pattern you pick could have been intended for the next ring, so it might not be the ‘right’ one.

That’s it for our Starfield guide on how to lockpick. We’ve got a ton of other Starfield guides for a variety of subjects in the game, and more coming up.

If there are any other Starfield guides you’d like to see, leave us a comment down below!