Summary

• Starfield uses a new lockpicking system with digipicks, moving away from traditional Bethesda games.
• Digipicks in Starfield are single-use, making the lack of rewards more frustrating for players.
• There is no guarantee of rewards in Starfield, causing player frustration as they unlock potential empty loot containers.

Lockpicking has been a part of many of Bethesda's games over the years, letting players access restricted areas or chests full of valuable loot, and Starfield also uses this mechanic. The space ARPG does notably move away from the more traditional lockpicking mini-games of past series such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, eschewing those titles' bobby pins and lockpicks for the more futuristic Digipick.

The Elder Scrolls and Fallout's lockpicking minigame involved turning a pick in a lock to find the correct point, and while this isn't the same in Starfield, the new lockpicking concept is also relatively straightforward, as it involves aligning a series of different pin patterns with their corresponding notches. In practice, however, this can be more frustrating than the older minigame, as it's possible to select the wrong pin configuration, even when it seems to fill some gaps in the lock, and this might not be evident until one of the final sections of the puzzle, forcing players to use a digipick to undo their work or start again.

Digipicks Are Single-Use In Starfield

Making The Lack Of Any Reward More Frustrating

Unlike the other aforementioned Bethesda RPGs, where one lockpick can be potentially used multiple times, each lock in Starfield will force players to use up at least one digipick, no matter what they do. To make matters worse, if players do find out that they have used the wrong combination too late in the puzzle, it is possible to undo a move, but this will cost yet another digipick.

Digipicks can be acquired from the following vendors:

Alpha Centauri System - Jemison, New Atlantis

• Jemison Mercentile General Store in the Spaceport.
• Apex Electronics in The Wells.
• Trade Authority in The Wells.

Sol System - Mars, Cydonia

• UC Exchange in the central shopping district.
• Trade Authority in the central shopping district.

Cheyenne System - Akila, Akila City

• Shepherd’s General Store near the main entrance to the city.
• Trade Authority in Midtown.

Volii System - Volii Alpha, Neon Core

• Sieghart's Outfitters near the terminal.
• Frankie's Grab + Go in the Ebbside.
• Trade Authority in the center of Neon Core.

Kryx System - Suvorov, The Key

• General Goods by the entrance of The Depot.
• Trade Authority by the entrance of The Depot.

The Key is only accessible to those who have aligned themselves with the Crimson Fleet during the mission Legacy's End.

Of course, this isn't the worst outcome of unlocking something in Starfield, as there's no guarantee of a reward by the end of it. This means that players could use multiple digipacks on one particularly complex lock only to open it and find absolutely nothing inside the container or locker. There's also no real indicator of the contents of a locked container, as the lock information displayed only tells players how secure it is and warns them how challenging the corresponding puzzle will be, but normal video game logic would dictate that the harder the lock appears to be, the greater the reward.

Players are able to unlock higher difficulties of locks upon upgrading their Security skill level. Those who begin the game with the Bouncers, Cyber Runners, Cyberneticists, and Industrialists backgrounds already start with the base Security skill unlocked to give them a head start.

This feature has been present in Starfield since its launch last year, causing plenty of player frustration. Because it would be so easy to fix, it definitely seems like having no payout is an option implemented on purpose by a particularly sadistic Bethesda developer. All it would take to resolve this and avoid as much frustration is to make a contingency in the loot table so that it can't be empty. A container could have really terrible gear, but at least it's not completely empty, and having something is better than nothing as these can be sold on at vendors to buy something of more value... Or more digipicks.