If you have sticky fingers, you may get a reward Star field. If you are caught stealing when you are not hidden, or smuggling illegal goods, you could be thrown in jail. There are a few ways to avoid this. We’ve tested them all so you don’t have to.
The first time you are arrested by the United Colonies, you actually embark on a mission called ‘Deep Cover’ where they blackmail you into going undercover for them. After you start this quest, getting arrested again will bring the normal results, which we talk about below.
How do bounties work in Starfield?
Bounties in Star field work very similar to Skyrim premiums. If people see you pickpocketing or stealing, you will get a bounty on your head for that region. If you get caught stealing anything on Neon, you get a 500 credits bounty for Neon. If you’re caught stealing again, you’ll get another 500 credits added, and so on.
Smuggling contraband, such as Aurora, will also add a reward to your head.
If you have a bounty, the security of that planet will chase you. However, you can pay a fine, choose to go to jail or fight your way out. You cannot travel fast while guards are chasing you.
(Ed. remark: We ran into a problem when we were massively pickpocketing people on planets and loads of guards would show up. They followed us everywhere, but never started with the “you’re under arrest!” prompt, unless we interacted with them. Use this knowledge however you like, but we don’t think it will work as intended.)
How to pay premiums
There are some kiosks that will allow you to collect your bounty without speaking to anyone, but it depends on the region where you have that bounty. Based on our testing, you will only be able to unlock your bounty if you are not currently in the territory associated with the faction that is giving you a bounty.
For example, if you have a bounty with the Freestar Collective and you use the kiosk in the Freestar Collective room, you will not be able to pay off your bounty. You’ll have to find one outside of the Freestar Collective room.
There is also a slight markup. Clearing a bounty of 500 credits cost us 550 credits, so it’s slightly more expensive than just paying your fines.
Bounty kiosk locations
These kiosks are usually located in bars, but you can also find them in random outposts and smaller settlements, such as HopeTown. You can find bounty kiosks in the following hub locations, but remember the line about faction affiliations before you chart your gravity jump:
- Akila City (Freestar Collective): Connecting rod
- Neon (Freestar Collective): Astral lounge
- New Atlantis (United Colonies): Viewport bar
- Cydonia (United Colonies): Broken spear rod
What happens if you get caught by guards in Starfield?
The easiest way out of this situation is through pay a fine (the cost of your premium) and hand over your stolen goods.
Specifically on Neon you can do that too bribe the guards to let you go, with the cost of the bribe being higher depending on your premium. The initial cost to pay them off is 3,000 credits. Paying off the guards will allow you to keep your stolen goods, but you cannot bribe guards on many other planets. (There may be more planets that allow bribery, but we haven’t found any others at the time of publication.)
Even if you pay these amounts, you’ll still be teleported to jail, though you’ll be free to go once you get there.
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
You can also agree serving a prison sentencewho actually surrenders all your stolen goods and Subtract some XP. With the base bounty of 500 credits, we had to serve five days in prison and lost 500 XP. At a bounty of 1,000 credits, we had to serve seven days in jail and lose 900 XP. So you can say with certainty that the higher your bounty, the more jail time you have to serve (and the more XP you lose). Your XP cannot go below zero and you will not lose any levels.
You can also choose to fight the guards, which you probably don’t want to do in places like Neon or New Atlantis, as there’s a ton of security to battle, and this probably isn’t worth it.