What Does Sensor Contact Mean in Starfield? Answered

During your travels across the galaxy in Starfield, there are countless mysteries to uncover within the game’s numerous star systems. Among them are Sensor Contacts, a landmark that increasingly shows up on your Starmap the more you go exploring. It isn’t exactly clear what they refer to or are used for, and if you’re wondering the same thing, here is our handy little guide for what a sensor contact means in Starfield.

How to Find Sensor Contacts in Starfield (& What They Mean)

As you grav jump from one star system to another in Starfield, you may notice a certain type of landmark orbiting beside a planet or moon, with various symbols such as a flag or a ship, and the words ‘Sensor Contact’ when you hover over it. This technically refers to something unknown that your ship’s sensors have detected upon entering the system. It’s different from other designated orbital landmarks such as star stations and friendly/non-friendly ships that are part of missions you may or may not have picked up yet, and to find out exactly what it is you’ll need to travel to it.

When you reach that destination, what you find can actually be entirely random. It can be a few deserted cargo crates floating in orbit, full of resources for the taking. It can also be a derelict freighter that you can dock at and find an interesting side mission with lore as well as loot.

Other possibilities are uneventful sites such as debris fields, a threatening spacer encounter, or something actually on the ground on a planet or moon just as a ‘Crash Site’ like the one below that we found on Jaffa III in the Jaffa Star System. For ones like this, you’ll need to scan the planet/moon the sensor takes you to and check its surface for the unusual landmark.

So there really is no predictability for when you’ll come across Sensor Contacts in the game. Where you find them and what they’ll be is different from one player to another, but you’ll come across a number of them eventually, and it adds a fun and unique element to exploration throughout the galaxy.

That concludes our guide for what Sensor Contact means in Starfield. We hope you found this helpful, and let us know if you happen to find anything especially unique in those cargo crates.

Be sure to check out all of our other guides for Starfield, as well as our official review of the game.