What Is the Engineering Bay in Starfield Used For? Explained

Out of the many ship modules you can buy in Starfield, an engineering bay appears useless at first. It may seem like nothing more than a cosmetic option, a way to vary up the design of your ship with tubs and dials. Well, that’s part of it. However, it isn’t the whole picture. If you’re just as confused as we were, we’ll clue you in on what the engineering bay is used for in Starfield.

Does the Engineering Bay Have a Use in Starfield?

Yes, absolutely. Engineering bays come in handy when you want to increase the number of crew stations on your ship in Starfield. They aren’t there just as a cosmetic ship module!

What that means for you is the option to assign more crew to the ship, which is quite beneficial if the companions have ship-based skills, like Sam Coe and Vasco.

If you’ve been adding passenger slots to the Frontier in an effort to bring more companions, you’re using the wrong ship module. Passenger slots are for ferrying NPCs to different star systems, not companions!

Are Engineering Bays Worth Using?

The better question is: are engineering bays worth using in Starfield? At most, a single engineering bay increases your crew stations by one, like the Deimos Engineering Bay A 3×1. Some variants don’t even do that. So depending on the use, you may just want to ignore these components all together.

Engineering bays are also generally heavier when compared to a control room ship module. You’ll gain far more crew stations with a control room than you would an engineering bay. If you need more companions tagging along, go with a control station or, better yet, a battle station ship module.

And that’s what the engineering bay is used for in Starfield, folks. It doesn’t hurt to use one if you only need a single crew station and want to vary your ship’s interior. Otherwise, there are better options available. After all, you can have more than one ship!