Starfield: How to farm enemy ships and improve your Piloting skill rank quickly

Improving your Piloting skill doesn’t just give you a vast advantage when it comes to ship combat and maneuverability in Starfield. The higher class ships require you to have ranks in the Piloting skill, and after so much time spent in the Frontier, it’s time for a change.

With skill points to spend, you will have to complete the necessary challenges to improve your Piloting skill, which means having to destroy a number of enemy ships. But after jumping between systems for a while, it became very hard to find spacers or anyone else looking to fight. It’s even harder if you’re actively infiltrating the Crimson Fleet because you can’t go after them, and if you have the Mantis’ ship, many spacers will run away rather than take you on.

Thankfully, we found a solution.

How to farm ship kills and increase your Piloting skill

You can make use of the UC Vanguard flight simulator to earn progress toward your Piloting skill by destroying enemy ships.

To join the UC Vanguard, head over to Commander John Tuala, who is at the MAST Center in New Atlantis. Go over to the UC Vanguard sign, talk to Tuala, and enlist. Head down the elevator to the Vanguard Orientation Center, fill out the application via a terminal, then go to the testing center and the flight simulator.

The UC Vanguard flight test requires you to defeat at least three tiers of enemies, but all the virtual enemies count toward improving your Piloting skill. You can complete the simulator as many times as you’d like, and all the ships destroyed will count toward Piloting.

• To reach Piloting rank two, destroy five ships.
• To reach Piloting rank three, destroy 15 ships.
• To reach Piloting rank four, destroy 30 ships.

Keep in mind, you must complete the challenge and use a skill point to rank up before you can start earning progress toward another rank, meaning you will have to destroy 50 ships and spend three skill points to reach rank four of Piloting.

If virtual enemies are less exciting, completing the test will allow you to join the UC Vanguard and complete missions for them, which means more space combat. But no one’s forcing you to join if you just want to get some target practice in. With higher ranks in Piloting, you’ll be able to buy and pilot Class B and Class C ships.