Which origin should you pick? All five Starlane origins, compared

The first thing Starlane asks you is where did you come from? There are five answers. It's the one choice you can't take back, so it's worth knowing what each one actually means.

The short version: none of them is the strong pick. They differ in where you wake up, the skill and licence you already have, and who's pleased to see you. They don't differ in how far you can go.

What an origin decides, and what it doesn't

Every origin gives you four things:

a home: the station you wake up on, and the only system on your chart;
a skill at level 1, already trained;
a licence, so you have a line of work from your first hour;
sometimes a standing with one of the factions, for better or worse.

It also gives you some starting credits, and that spread is deliberately small. Within a day of play it's noise.

What an origin doesn't do is lock you into anything. Careers are things you qualify for, not things you pick. Nothing stops a Belt Prospector becoming a smuggler. It just costs them the head start.

And nobody starts with a ship. Each origin suggests a hull that suits it, which you buy yourself. Until then the dockmaster will lend you a Skiff on credit when you're ready to fly.

The five

Dock Rat

You grew up on Sol's freight decks, loading other people's cargo. You know a manifest, a hold, and exactly how much a docking clerk will overlook.

Home: Sol, in the core, under the Terran Directorate.
Starts with: Haulage 1 and a Freight Handler's Licence.
Suits: the Loader's Mule.

The gentlest start in the game. You're in the safest space there is, and the freight board is open to you from your first minute. If you're not sure, start here.

Belt Prospector

Raised in the belts. You can read a rock face at a glance, and you have never once been comfortable inside a station.

Home: a mining system in the core, under the Terran Directorate.
Starts with: Prospecting 1 and a Prospector's Permit.
Suits: the Prospector's Tug.

The only origin that can mine from day one. The permit normally costs a few thousand credits and a trip one jump out of Sol, so this is a real head start for anyone who wants the extraction career. Take the dockmaster's Skiff and it comes with a small mining laser already fitted.

Navy Washout

Two years of Directorate flight training and no commission at the end of it. You can shoot, and someone in the Directorate still returns your calls.

Home: a farming system in the core, where a Directorate squadron is based.
Starts with: Gunnery 1 and a Reserve Commission.
Standing: in good with the Terran Directorate.
Suits: the Directorate Picket.

The Reserve Commission pays half a posted bounty on any pirate you drive off. There are no pirates in the core, so the Washout's work starts one step out, in patrolled space. A full bounty career comes with the Bounty Licence, a rung up the ladder.

Company Courier

You ran documents for the League until the contract ended. You know the lanes out of the League's first port and roughly what each one is worth.

Home: the League's first port, in patrolled space rather than the core.
Starts with: Navigation 1 and a Freight Handler's Licence.
Standing: in good with the Free Traders League.
Suits: the League Runabout.

A trader's start one step out from the core. The League remembers you kindly, the freight board is open to you, and Navigation shortens every transit you fly.

Fringe Smuggler

You've been running cargo nobody declared since you were old enough to reach the controls. The rim knows your face. So, unfortunately, does the Directorate.

Home: a lawless station on the rim.
Starts with: Subterfuge 1 and a Black Market Contact, plus the most credits of any origin.
Standing: in good with the unaligned rim, and in poor standing with the Terran Directorate.
Suits: the Skiff.

The origin that trades safety for tempo. The convoys passing through are yours to raid from the start, and what you take sells through your contact on the rim. But you wake up in lawless space, where other pilots can attack you, and the Directorate's stations will remember you. It's the most exciting start and the least forgiving one.

The face is yours, and it decides nothing

After the origin, you choose a face from that origin's own set, and every origin offers several. Not every face is human. Out here you'll meet synthetics, people rebuilt with replacement parts, and two other peoples who live and work in human ports: the stocky, high-gravity Hesk and the slender, low-gravity Lirr.

A face carries no rule. Nothing in the game reads it, and it changes nothing about what your pilot can do. The face says who you are; it still decides nothing. Choose the one you'd like to see beside your callsign, because other pilots will. It's fixed once you launch.

What happens next

Whichever you choose, the rest of your first evening has the same steps: a dock shift, a trade, a lane into the dark, a hull of your own, and a licence you earn. But you won't walk it alone. Each origin is greeted by its own contact: a dockmaster, a foreman, a quartermaster, a League agent, or someone who only calls themselves the Fixer. Each has its own two-chapter story of where you came from, and the second chapter opens the first time you see somewhere new.

After that, the licence you hold opens your career's own story. For freight, that's the climb to bonded hauling. For the belt, it's the deep core. For the smuggler, it's the outlaw's road to earning your colours.

So which one?

Not sure? Dock Rat. It's the safest start, with work from the first minute.
Want to mine? Belt Prospector, which saves you a permit and a trip.
Want to fight? Navy Washout, though you'll go looking for pirates one step out.
Want to trade? Company Courier: League friends and freight from the start.
Want risk? Fringe Smuggler. Read the warning twice, then enjoy it.

Then spend your first evening finding out what that life is like. Once you've done something worth showing, your pilot page is where it goes.

Create a pilot. It's free, and you choose your origin on the first screen.