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How to fast travel in Starfield

Though it works similarly to the developer's other games, the Starfield fast travel system can be a little hard to understand in the context of space travel.

How do you fast travel in Starfield? Like a spaceship traveling at warp speed, you’re able to get around the infinite cosmos of Starfield quickly by relying on the relatively simple fast travel system. For the most part, you won’t need to manually visit a solar system or its planets to unlock them as fast travel points. Suddenly, space doesn’t seem so daunting.

Before we jump into the details, get a good look at the Starfield companions you can bring along for the ride. With their very own Starfield skills, they can patch a weak point in your own build. Beyond being good for your Starfield research projects, they’re also potential Starfield romance partners, too.

Using the Starfield fast travel feature to get to New Atlantis.

How to fast travel in Starfield

You can fast travel in Starfield by loading up the map, selecting your destination, and hitting the ‘fast travel’ or ‘set course’ button prompts you’ll see around the bottom-right of your screen. You might have to zoom out of your current planet or solar system to find your destination.

The option you’ll see will depend on your current situation. If you’re on foot and want to travel between destinations on the same planet, you’ll see the ‘travel’ option. If you’re floating around outer space, you’ll see the ‘set course’ option for planets you haven’t explored, or the ‘land’ option for destinations you’ve previously visited.

Using the Starfield fast travel feature to quickly move between planets.

What’s the difference between fast travel, set course, and land?

The difference between fast travel and land in Starfield is minimal. The former is instantaneous, whereas the latter is a little more involved for the sake of facilitating space travel.

No matter where you are, you can fast travel to a location you’ve visited before by opening up the map, finding the place and planet you want to visit, and selecting ‘Land.’ If you’re traveling between points on the same planet, like different Starfield cities, you’ll see the ‘Travel’ option instead. They work the same way by dropping you outside of your ship at the chosen location. You won’t even need to see space or deal with the grav drive timer.

If you’re looking to fast travel to new Starfield planets, you’ll have to do a little bit of space travel. When you set your course between planets across different solar systems, your ship automatically rotates to face the destination and engages its grav drive.

You’ll have a few seconds to reallocate points to the engines if you want to speed up the timer, but the end result is the same: you’ll warp to the solar system of the planet you set as your destination. From that point, you’ll have to manually set the landing point.

The 'set course' Starfield fast travel option.

How to fix ‘fast travel is currently unavailable’ in Starfield

If you’re getting the ‘fast travel is currently unavailable’ error in Starfield, the most likely solution is to progress the last quest you picked up. Companions assigned to you by the main story quests can sometimes have this effect without warning. Just do as they ask and you should soon have a reason to leave your current location, freeing up the Starfield fast travel system again. 

Aside from that, you’ll typically be told why Starfield fast travel is unavailable. More often than not, it’ll be when you’re in combat. Finish the fight and you’ll be able to leave.

If you’re looking to escape the authorities, you might want to learn how to remove a Starfield bounty instead. That can sometimes be the faster solution.

Now that you’ve got the hang of things, why not start looking into the best Starfield research projects? Through Starfield materials and the Starfield weapon mods they unlock, you’ll have plenty of reasons to upgrade or create your own Starfield ship design and unlock more fast travel locations.

Still looking for more? While a good Starfield wiki can be a handy source of information, our new Starfield Database goes further, offering you daily news, searchable databanks, and even interactive tools.