Shade's Ship Stealing (Authorize Restricted Ships)
⚪ Last updated 2023⚠️ Install Order · 2 steps
Install in this order, then this mod last — most mods fail to load without their framework and dependencies in place.
Preview
🔍 Analysis
- 👍 1.5% endorsement rate — high engagement, a strong quality signal
- 🏆 #217 of 531 Gameplay mods in this game by downloads
📋 About This Mod
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Most of my mods are completely free for use, but if you like you can donate via:
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[]Donate on Patreon
[
]Paypal donations here!Main Features
Overrides the "You are not authorized to Pilot this ship" message when trying to steal a ship you've cleared out, enabling you to actually steal it.
Ships that have this limitation are often part of some scripted events and random encounters like bounty hunters from what I've been able to learn on forums & Reddit.
Quest related ships - unsure if there's any impacts of side-effects if you were to steal a quest related ship as yet. Be careful with quest-specific ships and please let us know in the posts section if you see any issues. Note that there are still vanilla game bugs being reported for some ships that you can steal even without this mod.
Coming soon - I'll be adding the ability to steal more ships that are typically un-stealable such as some unique and quest related ships. I'd like to also include M-class ships at some point, but that would need a lot of testing...
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[]Hurst's ship can be stolen, but will never repair. When I overrode this you could fly the ship, however you could never set it as your home ship - even with the "Sit to styeak ships mod" and even if you made modifications to it. The same occurred when trying to spawn a separate copy - I cannot find what stops this from being able to be set as home ship and I spent hours digging through scripts and xEdit. If anyone figures this out - please let me know.
For now I am giving up trying to make this ship viable to steal as it just won't work.[
]UC Vigilance - currently you can steal the ship with minimal fuss, however I need to add some kind of combat / crime trigger for this to make sense. This might also break some of the UC or Crimson quest line so I don't advise doing this. If you decide to do this anyway.... please let us know any long term effects. - Siren of the Stars - cannot be stolen - not a "real" ship as there is no actual cockpit. The "cockpit" door is fake and doesn't lead anywhere when forcibly unlocked.
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Installation
Just install anytime with Vortex / MO2.
You can install manually as well if you really want.
Archive invalidation
Like most mods in Bethesda games - you'll probably need to enable "Archive Invalidation" so that the game engine allows files to be overridden.
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[]Hurst's ship can be stolen, but will never repair. When I overrode this you could fly the ship, however you could never set it as your home ship - even with the "Sit to styeak ships mod" and even if you made modifications to it. The same occurred when trying to spawn a separate copy - I cannot find what stops this from being able to be set as home ship and I spent hours digging through scripts and xEdit. If anyone figures this out - please let me know.
Shade's Ship Stealing removes the authorization requirement for piloting cleared ships in Starfield, letting you keep any vessel you've boarded and looted. A simple gameplay tweak for pirates and fleet builders, with 507 endorsements and 34,550 downloads, last updated November 2023.
✨ Key Features
📊 Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Community-approved with 507 endorsements and 34,550 downloads—clearly a popular fix.
- Directly addresses a common frustration for players who want to commandeer ships without hassle.
- Lightweight and focused—does exactly what it says, no bloat.
⚠️ Cons
- Last updated in November 2023—may not be compatible with the latest Starfield patches.
- Only affects the authorization message; doesn't add new ship-related features or content.
For Starfield players who love boarding and stealing ships but hate the authorization roadblock. Perfect for pirates and fleet collectors who want to expand their hangar without jumping through hoops. Skip if you're looking for deeper ship mechanics or new content—this is a quality-of-life tweak.
💡 Beginner Tips
- Make sure you've fully cleared the ship of enemies before attempting to pilot it—the mod only works on ships you've already looted.
- If you're using a mod manager like Vortex, install this mod through it to keep your load order clean and avoid conflicts.
- After installing, test on a small ship first to confirm the authorization message is gone before trying to steal a capital ship.
📊 Mod Details
- Game
- Starfield Mods
- Author
- Shadedness
- Version
- v1.0
- Downloads
- 34,550
- Endorsements
- 507
- Category
- Gameplay
- Created
- 11/17/2023
- Updated
- 11/17/2023
🧩 Commonly Used Together
Users add these mods to the same collections — a real compatibility signal, not an AI guess.
🔧 How to Install Starfield Mods
Download from Nexus.
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