How To Get A Free Class-C Ship In Starfield

The Starfield Overdesigned mission starts many hours into the campaign. The wait is totally worth it, however, since it yields one of the best ships in the game. Our Starfield Overdesigned mission guide discusses how you can acquire a gigantic Class-C ship known as the Kepler-R.

How to get a free Class-C ship in Starfield

The Starfield Overdesigned mission happens shortly after a main quest called A High Price to Pay. That’s where Walter Stroud makes a speech, and he mentions that he might need your help soon enough. Eventually, Walter will tell you of his plight: Stroud-Ecklund is planning to build a new ship. Unfortunately, all the members of his team can’t see eye to eye. It’s up to you to step in.

For starters, you’ll want to head to the Stroud-Ecklud Staryard. It’s located over Dalvik, a moon of the planet Deepala, in the Narion system. Go to the boardroom and talk to Jules, who’ll introduce you to the rest of the R&D team.

Budget proposal and market research

First, Jules will talk about the budget proposal. Here are the options:

• “A smaller budget will help us focus on the design.”
• “We can build whatever we want with a larger budget.”

We chose to have a larger budget. Then, we had to successfully pass the Persuasion check to convince Jules.

After this, there’s an optional task where you can talk to the other NPCs in the room. Everyone has their own suggestions ranging from making a recreational vessel to constructing a cargo hauler. For the most part, we just gave positive responses to their ideas.

Mission board tasks

The next objective in the Starfield Overdesigned quest is to complete at least two tasks from the mission board. In our case, we saw two “destroy” assignments and two “transport” assignments, but these may be procedurally generated. Jules mentions the following:

• If you fly one type of mission, they can build a more focused ship.
• If you take on a variety of missions, the ship can handle a variety of scenarios.

We decided to complete the two “destroy” missions instead. We felt that doing so would lead to a ship that’s battle-ready.

Concluding the project

Once you’re done with your combat missions, return to Jules. She says that people still can’t get along, and you’re presented with two choices:

• “The only fair thing to do is make everyone give up one compromise.”
• “Let’s try teambuilding. Maybe group meditation to calm everyone so they can work with each other.”

We tried both methods here, with varying results, which you can see in the next two images. For the “compromise” reply, the other team members ended up reducing or removing parts. That yielded the Kepler S, which has the following stats:

• Reactor: Class-B
• Crew: 3
• Cargo: 3,200
• Jump: 30 light years
• Shield: 570
• Weapons: None

Getting the Class-C Kepler-R

The above result was genuinely disappointing, so we reloaded our save to try the “teambuilding” method. That was followed by our character giving a speech to motivate the group. We prioritized the top responses among the choices, which were often the most positive ones--i.e. “By working as a team, we can conquer any challenge!”

We believe that all these factors gave us what we consider the ideal outcome for the Starfield Overdesign quest:

• Budget: Pick the larger budget and pass the Persuasion check.
• Optional: Talk to everyone in the group and positively reinforce their ideas.
• Missions: Complete two “destroy/combat” missions.
• Conclusion: Choose to use teambuilding and pick the most positive/motivational responses.

We ended up with a free Starfield Class-C ship, the Kepler R, which has the following stats:

• Reactor: Class-C
• Crew: 6
• Cargo: 3,550
• Jump: 30 light years
• Shield: 805
• Weapons (Las/Bal): 38/44

As you can see, it’s an absolute chonker of a spacecraft. The only possible ship upgrades that we can think of are shielded cargo holds (for contraband), extra crew capacity (to reach the maximum of eight), and an extra weapon system. It easily outclasses most vessels that you can acquire in the game.

To claim it, simply talk to any ship services technician, select it among your vessels, and make it your home ship. Since it's a Class-C vehicle, you do need to max out your Piloting skill.

Can you get the free Kepler-R ship in New Game Plus?

As of the time of this writing, we're unable to acquire the free Kepler-R in our New Game Plus run. While we don't want to spoil everything in this article, we can simply state this: There's a pivotal decision that you make at the start of your New Game Plus playthrough, which will alter how you progress through the campaign.

In doing so, Walter will no longer give you the Overdesigned quest. Moreover, the team in the staryard doesn't have any related dialogue. We can't confirm if this is a bug or if it's working as intended.

In any case, that’s all you need to know about how to get a Class-C ship in Starfield. Bear in mind that this is just one of several free ships that you can find in the game.