Social features have always been a part of HoYoverse's games, and Honkai Star Rail isn't any different. There might not be any open-world co-op here like in Genshin Impact, but players can still enjoy a few benefits when it comes to having a stacked list of friends on standby.
Having friends in Honkai Star Rail makes sorting through the Support system, a mechanic that lets players use other people's characters, a lot easier and much more consistent. Instead of sifting through a randomly-generated list of strangers, players will constantly be able to use their buddies' characters in case they need someone to patch up their team compositions. Thankfully, adding friends is easy to do, but it does require players to jump over a very particular hurdle early in the game.
Adding Friends in Honkai Star Rail
Firstly, players must reach the Astral Express in the "Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow: The Voyage Continues" main story quest. This is part of Honkai Star Rail's lengthy prologue section, which features the Trailblazer's awakening and the Astral Express crew's attempt to push back the Antimatter Legion's attack on the Herta Space Station.
Finish this quest, and the game will let players start adding friends. To do this, press ESC to bring up the active character's Phone screen, and click on the Friends button on the first row from the top. All available friends, including pending requests and the list of people players have blocked, will appear here.
To send a friend request, click on the second button at the top of the screen. Here, players will see a random list of strangers as well as a text bar where they can input the UIDs of other people. Ask friends for their UIDs, then copy and paste them into the search bar. Their Honkai Star Rail profile will appear on the results screen shortly after. Since UIDs are unique to each user, players can be sure that the search results are accurate.
Having friends makes it easier for everyone to access each other's Support characters. Every time these units are used, their owners gain a small sum of Credits that they can use for anything they want. With that said, assign a Support character that has the highest odds of being used by somebody else. Healers or rare Quantum damage-type units like Seele are very helpful in many scenarios.
Honkai: Star Rail is available on PC and mobile devices. PlayStation versions are in development.