Starfield Crime Overhaul
By korodic
Community Rating
Starfield Crime Overhaul expands Starfield’s crime mechanics with a fully reworked witness system and new configurable crime types, giving crimes clearer cause-and-effect and allowing individual incidents to be resolved independently.
How does the witness system work?
Whether on foot or piloting your ship in space, each time a crime is committed, any NPC who can directly see the player is added as a witness to that specific incident. Each crime is tracked separately, along with its own associated witnesses, rather than being combined into a single running total.
Witnesses are carefully filtered. Potential witnesses will be excluded if they are under the effects of social skills, in bleedout, incapacitated by EM damage, part of the player’s faction, an active crew member, or an active follower.
This means each crime stands on its own; witnesses only affect the specific incident they observed.
How are witnesses removed?
Witnesses can be neutralized in several ways:
- Persuade them to stay quiet using social skills such as Diplomacy, Intimidation, or Manipulation
- Incapacitate them (knockout or bleedout state)
- Kill them
Each witness only affects the incident(s) they observed.
What happens when witnesses are removed?
When all witnesses to a specific incident are removed, the bounty associated with that incident is cleared.
This allows you to resolve individual crimes independently, rather than being forced to clear all witnesses from every crime committed in the same session.
For example, if you steal an item and are seen, then later assault someone else with a different witness, each bounty can be cleared separately by dealing with the witnesses to each specific crime.
How can I tell if someone is a witness?
Witnesses in direct line of sight are highlighted in yellow when viewed through the hand scanner, making it easy to identify who can report your crimes.
What new crimes does SCO add?
All new crime types are configurable through Gameplay Options, allowing you to enable or disable them individually.
If witnessed, the following actions are considered crimes and are enabled by default:
- Indecent exposure
- Aiming your weapon at a nearby NPC
- Firing your weapon near a nearby NPC
Compatibility & Extensibility
Starfield Crime Overhaul is not compatible with Leave No Witnesses. Additionally, Starfield Crime Overhaul edits the HumanCrowdRace, reducing their HP to 1 to avoid a vanilla bug/unexpected behavior where non-hostile NPCs add assault bounties per hit.
Release notes
PC
-
4.1* Updated Game Options descriptions and label.
-
4.0* Bug fix: Corrected and refined witness detection conditions to ensure witnesses are properly identified and tracked.
* Bug fix: Bounty tracking is no longer lost due to unexpected OnLanding events, such as ship editing, changing the homeship, or exiting an interior cell.
* New feature: Added configurable Gameplay Options allowing you to enable or disable all newly introduced crime types.
* Enhanced yellow highlighting of witnesses when using the scanner for better visibility.
* Replaced the session-based bounty tracking system with a new per-incident witness system. Bounties are now tracked individually for each crime, along with their specific witnesses, instead of being merged into a single accumulated total. Previously, all crimes committed in a session were grouped together. Clearing your bounty required eliminating or neutralizing every witness from every crime in that session. Now, each crime is tracked separately. Resolving the witnesses for a specific incident will clear only that incident’s bounty, regardless of other active witnesses or crimes. For example, if you steal an item and are witnessed, then later assault someone else with a different witness present, each bounty can be cleared independently by dealing with the witnesses to that specific crime. -
3.00* Bugfix: Indecent exposure will no longer trigger when a space suit is worn with no clothing underneath.
* Bugfix: When paying a bounty, prisoner clothes (or just equipped if already in possession of prisoner clothes) will be added to the player if the player is indecent.
* Bugfix: Player will no longer get a fine for being indecent while in their home ship or piloting a ship.
* Hand Scanner witness FX has been updated to be more visible (a yellow highlight). Additionally, the FX will only be applied based on direct line of sight. -
2.00* Removed surrender and forgiveness mechanic. Unfortunately, the surrender mechanic appears to have been problematic. While I've tried many attempts to remedy this issue it seems none behave as expected. A bug report has been submitted.
* Improved witness tracking logic. Space stations will no longer count as witnesses.
* Prison clothing is equipped if jailed. Besides being immersive, this will also prevent additional indecent exposure fines after just being jailed.
* Added exception to indecent exposure for chronomark watch scene when first entering the Lodge. -
1.00Initial release.
Xbox
-
4.1* Updated Game Options descriptions and label.
-
4.0* Bug fix: Corrected and refined witness detection conditions to ensure witnesses are properly identified and tracked.
* Bug fix: Bounty tracking is no longer lost due to unexpected OnLanding events, such as ship editing, changing the homeship, or exiting an interior cell.
* New feature: Added configurable Gameplay Options allowing you to enable or disable all newly introduced crime types.
* Enhanced yellow highlighting of witnesses when using the scanner for better visibility.
* Replaced the session-based bounty tracking system with a new per-incident witness system. Bounties are now tracked individually for each crime, along with their specific witnesses, instead of being merged into a single accumulated total. Previously, all crimes committed in a session were grouped together. Clearing your bounty required eliminating or neutralizing every witness from every crime in that session. Now, each crime is tracked separately. Resolving the witnesses for a specific incident will clear only that incident’s bounty, regardless of other active witnesses or crimes. For example, if you steal an item and are witnessed, then later assault someone else with a different witness present, each bounty can be cleared independently by dealing with the witnesses to that specific crime. -
3.00* Bugfix: Indecent exposure will no longer trigger when a space suit is worn with no clothing underneath.
* Bugfix: When paying a bounty, prisoner clothes (or just equipped if already in possession of prisoner clothes) will be added to the player if the player is indecent.
* Bugfix: Player will no longer get a fine for being indecent while in their home ship or piloting a ship.
* Hand Scanner witness FX has been updated to be more visible (a yellow highlight). Additionally, the FX will only be applied based on direct line of sight. -
2.00* Removed surrender and forgiveness mechanic. Unfortunately, the surrender mechanic appears to have been problematic. While I've tried many attempts to remedy this issue it seems none behave as expected. A bug report has been submitted.
* Improved witness tracking logic. Space stations will no longer count as witnesses.
* Prison clothing is equipped if jailed. Besides being immersive, this will also prevent additional indecent exposure fines after just being jailed.
* Added exception to indecent exposure for chronomark watch scene when first entering the Lodge. -
1.00Initial release.
Playstation
-
4.1* Updated Game Options descriptions and label.
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- Published
- Jan 21, 2025
- Last Updated
- Apr 09, 2026
- Platforms
- Playstation, PC, Xbox
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