Starfield player shows “terrible” pilots how to cheat UC Vanguard exam

Rajarshi Acharya
uc vanguard raptor in starfield

A Starfield player has demonstrated how to cheat through the UC Vanguard exam that the game seemingly doesn’t want you to pass.

Starfield lets you explore 1,000s of planets, fight pirates, and meet several companions. However, to do this, you need a ship, and you need to know how to fly one. There’s a quest in the game that apparently wants to teach you exactly this. You need to take a pilot simulator test and pass it, but the problem is the difficulty.

Of course, like with any other Bethesda title, you can use the console to cheat, or you may just try to pass it normally if you love the challenge. However, one player has shared a trick that they claim will help “terrible” pilots cheese their way through the exam.

Redditor ‘duckduckbananas’ discovered a convenient way to avoid the otherwise difficult test and shared it on the Starfield subreddit. To join the UC Vanguard and take part in their faction questline in Starfield, you must pass a pilot’s exam. However, you don’t need to worry if you’re bad at piloting ships.

As the OP demonstrates, you can change the simulation right before the test by stepping out of the pilot seat and going to the ship’s computer. You can equip yourself with stronger shields, more powerful weaponry, and even a teammate to make the fight easier.

All you need to do is just sit in the pilot’s seat, exit, and go back to the computer. All the options will now be unlocked. As one Starfield user said, the exam proctor “basically tells you about it before you go in.” There are literally no repercussions for this either, implying that Bethesda might have intended for players to do this.

Some users believe this is an intentional reference to Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru exam, in which Captain Kirk passed the impossible test by reprogramming it. If you complete the exam normally, the evaluator will say that you weren’t supposed to pass the final level.

Meanwhile, as one Starfield user added, if you use the trick the OP demonstrated, the evaluator compliments you. He says that “they want people who use every possible advantage they’re presented with,” as another user explained.

If you’d like to read more Starfield stories, check out how players have been left puzzled by “absurd” Earth plot hole. Or, read about the long-awaited Community Patch and what it fixes.