How to fix Afflictions and Status Effects in Starfield

Starfield’s universe is a dangerous place. You can be slashed by predators, shot by pirates, and cooked by radiation on inhospitable planets. In-game, these injuries are recorded as Afflictions that can apply some annoying and damaging Status Effects to your character.

If you’re not careful, these effects can stack up quickly. Puncture wounds, broken bones, infections, venom, and other horrible ailments can drag your character down in Starfield. It’s the last thing you want to worry about when space pirates are gunning for you.

Don’t worry, for every space disease there is a space cure. Here’s your guide to how to fix Afflictions in Starfield.

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If you’d like more help in your galactic adventures, visit our Starfield guides, tips and tricks page.

How Afflictions and Status Effects work in Starfield

Basic Afflictions apply one negative Status Effect to your character. Acute and Severe Afflictions can apply multiple Status Effects. If you gain an Affliction you already have, its severity will be upgraded.

Afflictions are noted as triangular symbols on the left of your watch display. To find out how the Affliction is affecting your character, highlight Status Effects in the Status Menu for a description.

Afflictions also have a Prognosis rating that improves over time from Poor, to Stable, to Good, and finally Excellent. With each rating improvement above Poor, there’s an increasingly good chance that the Affliction will heal. If you receive the same Affliction again before it has healed, its prognosis will reset to Poor.

This is how it works in practice - a mean space dog slashes you with its claws! This gives you a basic Affliction called Laceration. You head into the Status Menu, highlight Status Effects, and see that Laceration causes Pain, which drains 02 whenever you take damage. The Prognosis is poor, so it might be a while before the Affliction heals.

Nobody wants to stay Lacerated for long, so what can you do?

How to fix Afflictions and Status Effects in Starfield

You can let the prognosis gradually improve, of course, and if an Affliction’s prognosis is Excellent you might want to wait for it to heal quickly rather than waste healing resources. If you want an instant fix any time, you need Aid items.

To quickly find the right Aid item for your Affliction, head to the Aid section of your Inventory and pick one with a triangular icon that matches the one on your watch. You can also read Aid item descriptions for a list of Afflictions that they can heal.

For example, let’s say you have waded into a frozen lake and gained the Frostbite Affliction. This appears as an orange triangle with black droplets on your watch. Head into the Aid section of your Inventory and skim the list for an item with the same orange triangle (Heal Paste, for example), and apply it to cure your Frostbite immediately.

Alternatively, visit a Doctor. Doctors can heal Afflictions right away, and can sell you Aid items for use in the field.

We’re still discovering the many Afflictions and Status Effects that can befall your character in Starfield, and we'll put together a list as we go. In the meantime this quick explainer will hopefully help you shake off some of the nastier injuries that can occur on Starfield’s dangerous frontiers.