If you play Starfield on the PC, you can get more out of your boost pack and fly further with a simple button assignment.
The lack of vehicles can make exploring a planet in Starfield quite sluggish, as you have to walk long distances and your stamina is not unlimited.
Your boost pack can come in handy when exploring planets – and jumping is a lot more fun than running, especially in low gravity. There is a trick that allows you to fly further distances with your boost pack without changing anything in your equipment.
Jump further with an alternative key
How does the trick work? In Starfield on the PC you have the option of specifying a main and an alternative key assignment on the keyboard for each action – such as jumping, melee or sneaking.
For some reason, your jetpack’s boost is noticeably more horizontal when you use the alternate button instead of the main button. With the main button your boost is correspondingly more vertical. This means that you can cover a greater distance in forward movement with the alternative button.
We captured how big the difference is in a short video:
Jumping with the boost pack in comparison
More videos
In our test, we left the main key on the “space bar” and set the “Alt” key (left) for the alternative assignment.
During the boost itself, we could see that the character jumped a few meters further from the same jump point (a gray line on the ground) when we pressed “Alt” instead of the “Spacebar”.
To do this, we measured how long we need to cover a distance when we sprint, jump with the normal boost pack configuration or with the alternative boost pack configuration.
What is the trick good for? As we discovered, the trick makes it possible to cover greater distances with the jetpack and get from one point to the next more quickly. This allows you to cover longer distances more quickly, especially when gravity is low.
You can also combine the two jumps and first reach a higher point with the vertical jump and then cover further distances with the horizontal jump without having to land.
Additionally, the increased horizontal boost allows you to move between higher objects more easily. For example, you can try to jump from your outpost’s airlock to your landing site without having to land in the meantime and, if necessary, use the stairs.
If you don’t have an outpost yet, we’ll explain how to build one here:
Starfield: Build Outposts – This is how you build your own base on an alien planet