Better Boarding Encounters
By StaticMeth0d
Community Rating
When docking to hostile enemy ships, there is a chance for: A hazard to be present on board Enemy crew may decide to board your ship.
In the presence of a hazard, the chance of the enemy boarding your ship is increased.
When the enemy boards, some cut enemy dialogue is revealed - pirates may complement you on your ship, and assert that it now belongs to them!
To trigger the end of the encounter, you can take over the enemy ship or travel in your current ship to a new location.
At the end of the encounter, all hazards will be cleared from the enemy ship and any corpses found inside the player's ship will be jettisoned. (corpses will remain in the enemy ship as per normal base game behaviour).
PSA for those that enjoy decorating their ships with loose junk: You may want to bolt your stuff down! Or at least go easy on the grenades if you don't want to make a mess ;-)
The probabilities for a "better" boarding encounter are: Hazard on enemy ship: 50% Enemy boarding: 25% Enemy boarding multiplier: 2.4x (this gives a 60% chance of enemies boarding whenever a hazard is present)
In the Gameplay Options, you can set Better Boarding Encounters to "ALWAYS" - this should give a 100% chance for a hazard, and a 100% chance for the enemy to board. This is mainly for my own testing purposes, but I have left the feature there for those who want it.
Good to know:
- This mod applies specifically to docking encounters - not surface or dropship encounters.
- It does not modifiy any vanilla records, or override any vanilla script files.
- It has been tested with Starfield version 1.14.x and the latest 1.15.x update.
- Safe to add and remove mid-playthrough.
- To be extra sure, please turn off the mod in Gameplay Options before removing.
Known issues: If Vasco is on your crew, on rare occasions he will appear inside the ship and join in the fight. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective! I am not yet sure how to fix this.
The enemy ship captain will become a "Security Captain" when they board. They will still appear as a pirate/spacer/ecliptic, just with a different display name, and harder to kill. This is caused by how faction information is inherited by NPCs based on their location. I am not sure if this can be fixed.
Your companion may scold you for firing stray bullets inside the ship just as combat comes to an end (although they will not become angry).
There may be rare occasions when the vanilla quest does not trigger, enemy crew was not spawned correctly by the base game, or something about the enemy ship was not configured correctly, causing Better Boarding Encounters not to trigger. This is unavoidable, as it is practically impossible for me to test all ~100 ship encounters that exist in the vanilla game.
Support / Feedback You can find me on Nexusmods at the below URL. Come say hello: https://nexusmods.com/profile/StaticMeth0d
Release notes
Xbox
-
1.05Uploaded for PlayStation
-
1.0.5A re-upload of 1.0.4 as the changes in that version were somehow not applied. Apologies for the inconvenience.
-
1.0.4Allows global variables to be modified by via scripts (removed Const flag)
-
1.03- Prevent alarm sounds from overlapping.
- Hazard will now spawn in a random module instead of the c0ckpit.
- No further enemies can board if the ships become undocked.
- 100% chance of boarding if the PlayerShip is being docked to (accommodates other mods that cause enemies to initiate docking).
- Slight refactor of quest startup logic.
- Ensure an error-free cleanup when the enemy ship is not destroyed, but also not taken over by the player. -
1.02Various bug fixes and improvements based on feedback from the Nexus community.
-
1.00First release.
Playstation
-
1.05Uploaded for PlayStation
PC
-
1.05Uploaded for PlayStation
-
1.0.5A re-upload of 1.0.4 as the changes in that version were somehow not applied. Apologies for the inconvenience.
-
1.0.4Allows global variables to be modified by via scripts (removed Const flag)
-
1.03- Prevent alarm sounds from overlapping.
- Hazard will now spawn in a random module instead of the c0ckpit.
- No further enemies can board if the ships become undocked.
- 100% chance of boarding if the PlayerShip is being docked to (accommodates other mods that cause enemies to initiate docking).
- Slight refactor of quest startup logic.
- Ensure an error-free cleanup when the enemy ship is not destroyed, but also not taken over by the player. -
1.02Various bug fixes and improvements based on feedback from the Nexus community.
-
1.00First release.
Additional Screenshots Available
This mod has 4 additional screenshots available on the official Bethesda.net page.
View All Screenshots on Bethesda.netYouTube Videos
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Mod Information
- Published
- May 30, 2025
- Last Updated
- Apr 12, 2026
- Platforms
- Playstation, PC, Xbox