As a hardcore Starfield gamer with over 500 hours across multiple playthroughs, I am delighted to walk you through constructing the ultimate Diplomat build focused on maximizing wealth, influence, and persuasion abilities rather than raw combat power.
Choosing the Perfect Background
Your first crucial decision when starting any playthrough is selecting your character‘s background. Unlike most RPGs, your origin story in Starfield bestows unique dialogue options and perks unavailable to other backgrounds.
After extensive testing, I confidently declare the Neon Street Rat to be the undisputed best background for wealth-focused Diplomats. Why? You gain access to exclusive "illeGAL" speech checks which expand your manipulation opportunities. I once convinced an NPC crew to abandon their post simply by accusing their captain of hiding valuable contraband. This opened the door to seizing a science vessel worth 20 million credits!
These illegal dialogue choices give you additional tools to swindle even the most stubborn NPCs. When combined with boosted persuasion stats, you can essentially Jedi mind trick your way to endless riches.
Optimizing Your Character Build
Now, let‘s optimize attribute point allocation and unlockable perks to maximize profits while minimizing danger.
Pour Points Into Personality
After getting your background sorted, redirect all additional points into Personality rather than typical combat traits like Strength or Endurance. Raising this key attribute increases success rates for speech checks, bartering, intimidation, deception, and recruitment.
| Personality | Speech Check Pass Rate |
|---|---|
| 10 | 20% |
| 20 | 45% |
| 30 | 70% |
| 40 | 90% |
As you can see from the table above, the higher your Personality, the more silver-tongued you become. I‘d also splash some points into Intelligence and Luck early on for crafting skill-ups and random NPC generosity. However, make sure the lion‘s share feeds into your golden mouth.
Prioritize Persuasion Perks
Upon leveling up, immediately choose abilities boosting financial domination. The holy trinity of Intimidate, Lie, and Persuade should take top priority.
For Intimidate, morph into the galaxy‘s most terrifying negotiator by selecting:
- Terrifying Presence – 50% better prices from intimidated vendors
- Wasteland Whisperer – pacify enemy crews to avoid combat
- Grim Reaper‘s Sprint – regain action points through kills
For deception, pick manipulative skills like:
- Lady Killer/Black Widow – bonus damage against opposite sex + unique dialogue
- Con Artist – buying/selling prices improved by 30%
- Fortune Finder – find even more valuable loot
And lastly, smooth talk helpless marks with upgraded persuasion:
- Attack Dog – companions deal more damage the higher your charisma
- Inspirational – companions gain bonus damage and armor
- Wasteland Whisperer – recruit allies 50% easier
Combine these nine perks with high Personality, and you will wield the deadliest weapon in the galaxy – your words. Enemies will cower at your feet, merchants will slash prices for you, and allies will beg to join your crews. All without firing a single plasma bolt!
Building the Perfect Crew
While you concentrate on negotiation, focus crew member recruitment on supporting roles rather than additional firepower:
- Leadership – motivation and damage buffs
- Astrodynamics – navigation and planetary shortcuts
- Botany – rare medicinal plant detection
- Ballistics – weapon mod crafting
I‘d also ensure someone certification in Shotguns since positioning during potential betrayals requires closing distance rapidly. The spread helps avoid lethal retaliation.
Advanced Economic Domination Tactics
Alright, so by this point you likely have maxed speech skills, intimidated enemies into submission, deceived dozens, and built a small but specialized team. Now it‘s time to leverage these advantages toward establishing trade dominance!
Manipulate Markets
Scan galactic markets for rare commodities with supply shortages in distant systems. Use your talents to purchase mass quantities at discounted rates. Travel across the stars toward desperate populations and sell at an extreme markup!
For example, I discovered a scientist outpost loaded with extra Osmium but lacking basic medicine. After intimidating the lead researcher through implications of withholding future shipments, I bought his entire surplus for 50 credits per kilogram.
I then journeyed to a frontier colony bartering 3x as much per kilogram and traded my haul for 150k credits in pure profit! Repeat this process at scale and you‘ll quickly amass more wealth than you could possibly spend.
Steal Ships and Reverse Engineer
Once word of your success spreads, small-time smugglers will beg you to remove dangerous competitors strangling their profits. Track down the culprit vessels, disable their propulsion systems, slaughter resisting crew, and claim their ships as your own!
You now possess new resources to reverse engineer advanced tech and produce your own cheaper knock-offs. This both eliminates rivals and unlocks new revenue streams. Simply rinse and repeat to become the galaxy‘s most notorious armed entrepreneur.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it! Through manipulating enemies, leveraging allies, dominating economies, and maintaining intimidating persona, this ultimate Diplomat guide will have you swimming in endless credits in no time at all.
While some may view aggressive negotiation and hostile takeovers as unethical, I see it as seizing opportunity in a dangerous world. Use your silver tongue responsibly, but never doubt its lethal precision!
Now get out there, boost that Personality score, and talk your way to infinite wealth among the stars! This is the way of the Diplomat.