Each of Bethesda's massive open worlds are meant to be playgrounds for the player to explore, with none as ambitious as the one in Starfield. However, that doesn't mean you're allowed to go everywhere and anywhere -- at least not without breaking in. Locked doors and terminals are all over, so thorough players will no doubt want to invest in the lockpicking skill to make sure they can access all the best loot. Even with the ability to attempt a lockpick, the system Starfield uses is different from any Bethesda has made before. Here's how lockpicking really works.
How to pick locks
Once you find a lock and have at least one Digipick, which is Starfield's equivalent of a lockpick, you can attempt to crack it.
Step 1: Interact with the lock and enter the lockpick screen.
Step 2: Depending on the difficulty of the lock, you will see a ring with slices cut out of it on the left, and various combinations of pips in a ring on the right.
Step 3: You need to use the provided pips to completely fill in the rings on the left by figuring out which combination perfectly slots in without leaving you with patterns that don't fully fit in.
Step 4: You can, and will need to, switch which pattern you're using since locks have multiple layers, so some patterns won't work on the first, but will on later ones.
Step 5: After all layers are completely solved, the lock will be cracked.