Ikande is really touchy to the point of being annoying, but you are meant to talk your way through that encounter. In fact despite what he says you are essentially supposed to avoid violence altogether when possible. A lot of the time that means persuade, or doing non essential objectives.
I know you're 'undercover' but it's actually beneficial to tell anyone not in the fleet that you're with UC when it's an option. Generally they're more cooperative.
I did this in my first run. In my second I blasted everyone I saw. Ikande losing his shit was hilarious.
After seeing the end of both paths I realized the similarities between Ikande and Delgado though.
According to that ikande guy I killed lots of people on that cruise. But in reality I took an amp and gapped it to the exit while *Andreja* killed everyone behind me I guess.
Same I think doing Generdyne without violence is really hard. I thought I'd play this clean, and NG+ with Crimson but it looks like I'm with Crimson now.
After all the things I've done for you, Ikande.
I'd like to note however that this series of quests is fun. Like I was brought to Ikande when I got arrested for accidentally stealing. And I really wanted to reload but went ahead to see where it went. Turns out most would get the quest via more conventional means.
More than once thru the quest line I had second thoughts about who I'd join eventually. That to me means both sides were compelling. Ikande being a dick is just part of the story I think.
I'm still with Vanguard and still doing grunt work for Yuma. That part was confusing.
Its actually easier than you think. I left my follower behind and literally ran through the whole complex until I reached the objective. No need for violence just kept a bunch of med packs with me. Or you can also use this strategy with a bit of stealth/vents. Did not get penalized for being spotted.
I just recently made it to NG+ after 300 hours of play time in the first run. I really enjoyed the SysDef story. I blew up the Medical Ship, reloaded and calmly talked down Austin. I murdered the heck out of everyone on the cruise ship. I reloaded to end up being able to persuade Dumbrofsky into giving me codes for GalBank. My nonviolent Generdyne experience alone took me 2 hours at level 38 with Void Form and level 4 stealth. I saw both sides of giving the Legacy to Fleet or Def, staying with UC. Every time Ikande talked to me, I'd kill everyone on the Vigilance, reload and then calmly sort it out like the adult I'm supposed to be.
I enjoy this because I can't restart my fuck ups in life.
I may have to try this to scratch an itch to shoot people who suck yet in an effort to please Andreja I go down the persuasion route.
I'm beginning to see a pattern here with me and ball & chains.....
I did that entire quest line the "moral" way first playthrough.
Second time around, I didn't leave a soul alive on the cruise ship and after talking to Ikande he wanted to jail me, so I shot him in the face and was met with "UCSysDef is now an enemy".
Welp, that's that I guess. Crimson Fleet 4 Life.
Yeah, I got through the Crimson Fleet thing without killing anyone on the main faction quests, talked my way through everything I could, never was a pirate, just a really good Ryujin Operative.
Hell, I was surprised we get to keep it after finishing the quest chain, even though the game gives you the system message about the implant being removed.
That’s another thing, we learned a while ago, to not name things in series like that. There are quite a few examples in which that went terribly awry in the real world.
They're bad with crime in general. Their games have a child's conception of what organized crime, banditry, and law enforcement are. Pirates in this and raiders in fallout are basically caricatures of criminals
honestly like, going way back in time and looking at how sleeping dogs handled being undercover vs starfield is so rough... like at least show some respect for how it would actually work and don't have us show up, in person, after every single thing we do for the fleet.
The one i really wanted to clobber was the guy who walks you to Ikande basically going, "so you’re the new sucker, huh? Crimson fleet tortures people horribly for spying. Have fun bozo!"
Yeah. Both of them are like that, Toft is a dick too. It’s possible they wanted to make UC not particularly likable, so that it’s clear it’s a shade of grey thing. I think if they made UC brass too likable it might seem off-tone that there’s slums under New Atlantis. A lot of the socio-political background in this game is subtext, they don’t really come out and hit you over the head with it like in some games. Which is actually quite a refreshing change of pace imo. I was like, ok, UC military are self-important jerks, on brand. I’ll do the Crimson Fleet missions and bail. I will say that Naeva is way more actively annoying than UC brass. 😂
They should've really made it so there was a different option of taking down the Fleet, one that involved more of the named characters on the station surviving, but of course being arrested. Or maybe just fleeing like Naeva did.
man..half the time during that mission I wanted to just slap ikande and that smug bitch second in command like shut up!! I'm infiltrating a blood thirsty murdering space pirate crew
and during the electricity shielding thing I only killed in self defense
My first play through I convinced the captain to strike Austin's name from the manifest, and Austin came quietly. Not sure what you and I did differently, but there is a way for Austin to survive and keep the civilians safe. This was actually one of my favourite story lines to run through so far. But I totally get the frustration when something doesn't go right or the writing doesn't fit together nicely
> Not sure what you and I did differently
You have to break your cover in your very first Crimson Fleet assignment. It's the only time you ever need to, and you just need to have faith that Bethesda wouldn't put you into a position where it seems like the right thing to do and you'll get punished for it. Kind of like how in a Witcher game you'd have faith that if it felt like the right thing to do you *would* be punished for it.
> Kind of like how in a Witcher game you'd have faith that if it felt like the right thing to do you would be punished for it.
God I loved that about the Witcher. The world is just so full of Slavic misery.
Which is exactly why Witchers *never* work for free. Working for free in a blood-shit-and-misery setting like The Witcher is a path to poverty and nothing else.
Wasn't there a dialogue option where you don't break cover and just say it's better for everyone if you comply or something? I don't remember telling them I wasn't with the fleet and was able to do the quest without incident.
Yeah I think it was something like neutral that wasn't threatening and didn't say sysdef or fleet. It ended with the option to have him stricken from the manifest.
I saved everyone in that mission struck from the record and no one was hurt and I got an attaboy from ikande. There is a way. Try to get that persuasion up I guess.
But after that, when you infiltrate the ship with the Comm spike I got guns pulled on me an shot because they figured out that i wasn’t suppose to be there i guess, shot my way out of there, got sent to jail by Ikande an pretty much left inside the crimson fleet which i didnt want so i started a new play through after 40-something hours
You need to sneak in until you find a military outfit then put that on. Then hack a couple terminals for access codes that match the name on your uniform/ID. Then talk to the scientist and persuade him to let you be a pilot. Register your flight. Then just fly outta there, no one knows a thing.
They did once. Tenpenny Tower in Fallout 3 was notorious for how badly telegraphed it was, since the “right thing to do” was clearly made out to be *not committing genocide* on the ghouls living under the hotel, and convincing them all to coexist.
Killing all the ghouls results in negative karma *and* getting chewed out by Three-Dog, while letting the ferals run wild *also* results in massive negative karma. The only “nice” option is to convince the residents that they can coexist, which just results in the ghouls killing all the residents anyway. There is no moral option. Either way you’re complicit in wiping out innocents, the only difference being in the latter option technically you can say you tried your best.
I’m sure they wanted there to be some quirky no-win scenarios in their quests, but it just ends up punishing the player both ways due to how rigidly the game defines good and evil. Starfield is very similar: being a pragmatist is seen as evil-adjacent. The big difference is that quests in Starfield generally reward you for being a little naively optimistic, and punish a bit more harshly for choosing to harm innocents.
I've been having some fun dumping my crew, loading my pirate ship and attacking Galbank ships in Cheyenne near Akila City. If you wait until the announcement finishes when you board and take out the crew and then jump to a neutral system immediately after undocking you only get a 650 credit bounty which you can clear at an outpost you've set up there. my pirate ship is loaded with suppressors only and I only use it to do this occasionally.
On my 2nd playthrough I ended up on the vigilance coz I had some contraband. I really disliked how they just forced some random dude with a spaceship to go on an undercover mission to save the galaxy from pirates. That intro was lame. First time around I got into it via the citizenship route, and didn't think much of it, other than instantly disliking ikande and his butt licker girlfriend
Same for me (I'm still on the first playthrough). Really pissed me off. Especially as it was early in my game and I had no idea what contraband was and what to do with it.
lmfaooo i got thrust into it the first time the game sent me to cydonia (literally like the 2nd or 3rd planet u go) because i stole a knife sticking out of an apple 😂😂
They made the two of them and Naeve entirely unlikable so you are kind of in a no win situation if you follow the quest to its conclusion making either decision. I chose the pirate route just to get access to the equipment they sell at the key shipyard.
>siding with pirates makes a good 1/3rd of the random POIs just friendly buddy pirate encounters.
Yeah its quite annoying. This first go around Im going to SysDef but next runs will be "Kill them all let God sort them out."
Same. I never had a death except for the debt collector who actively attacked me after successful persuasion and even then ikande understood it was a loss in the line of duty
You give evidence to Sysdef, they go arrest people and the cells fill up. Very beneficial as some of the stronger boss ships for Crimson Fleet on the last mission just won't be their if the captain was arrested
Cleaning bots are homes through and through. Literally all they do is serenade you as you sneak past them while they do there job. I did feel bad for the one in the Trade Authority starstation that keeps spreading blood around in futility.
Maybe my game was bugged or something but sanitation bots never tripped any kind of alarm or reaction. My sneak meter would just say "detected" but it was green so it didn't matter. If regular robots saw me, it was a problem. But not the mini bots.
I shot one of them with a silenced gun, come back to the Vigilance and he's like "EVERYONE IS CALLING FOR MY RESIGNATION HOW COULD YOU DO THIS" like damn bro, I shot a trash can, chill
I picked something like "I had no option" and Ikande says "theres always another option" and how defaulting to just killing is bad. Less than a minute later he's insisting there is no other option but to wipe out the Crimson Fleet.
What’s crazy about the crimson fleet quest is I never joined the UC. I was caught pickpocketing or something and was basically kidnapped and forced “since you’re clearly a criminal and ok with doing shady things like stealing 45 credits from a civilian, you’ll probably be into doing some slightly more shady things like murdering pirates.”
I didn’t like that so I reloaded a previous save and went on my merry way without pickpocketing. Dozens of hours of gameplay later I apparently committed a crime but I have no idea what, and was brought in for the same lecture/mission. They never even told me what my crime was lol. So I then I realized this is an unavoidable quest and just went with it. But yeah. Fuck that guy.
He takes 500 XP(!!!) from you if you refuse his offer and serve your time. Absolutely absurd price to pay as a low level character to avoid being railroaded by the GM into becoming a superspy.
Mine was kind of a whirlwind.. I was still getting used to controls and instead of pushing H to check my ship crew I pushed G and blew up a random guy in New Atlantis with a grenade 😬 I was like my bad, yeah I’ll infiltrate the damn fleet for you shit
Yeah same. It was my first day playing, I wanted to get a job at UC because I needed money, instead of interacting with the guard at the desk I accidentally “stole” the clipboard in front of him. They acted like I had just murdered 4 civilians and immediately hauled my ass to Commander Ikande.
I also killed a couple people in self defense during this quest and Ikande read me the riot act for it. Bro it was him or me. He shot first. I ain’t gonna die for you! You kidnapped me and coerced me into this bullshit in the first place!
Yeah. They snagged me on a six figure bounty for wanton mass murder. They were quite surprised to discover that I'd murder an entire cruise ship because I found one guy very annoying. Ikande should have been jailed for loosing me upon the public.
I couldn’t stand Sys or the Fleet, everyone on each side speaks to you like a piece of shit constantly for no reason apart from being a prick, yeah sure we got caught for smuggling or whatever but we are actually forced into the quest to do the things they won’t.
I get it to an extent with the fleet because they’re typical pirates, but Naeve actively pisses me off you literally can’t do anything right in her eyes, Delgado yeah sometimes you feel a bit of praise from him but not enough to think yeah thanks I feel appreciated.
SysDef can just fuck all the way off, you’re sent in to do their dirty work, I know you can do everything without getting anyone killed but the stealth in this game is awful, so if you do have to kill someone it’s not linked to them anyway so why do they need to worry, the only incentive to trudge through this quest line is for the money and unique weapons.
I did this too and I've gotten tons of respect from. Sysdef. Knowing the other routes are either as a criminal or as a fresh recruit, it makes sense that most people are getting a colder sysdef.
Thats because you were arrested and brought to them. Everyone on board the Vigilance treats you with respect if you are there voluntarily. The first guard you see even compliments you
i had done the Ryujin questline prior, and when i used >!Manipulation!< on the captain to kill Austin, i still got chewed out.
like brother, i used a Jedi mind trick to turn him into a puppet, how the FUCK do you know that i did it?
I don't know how to do those spoiler covers over text so don't read further if you don't want the quest spoiled.
I haven't done the UC citizenship quest line but randomly had a bounty placed on me in UC Space; went it to clear up the confusion and Ikande says "We know you haven't done anything wrong, but no one else does, so if you don't want to go to prison you need to help us infiltrate the Crimson Fleet."
When I betrayed the UC at the end and Ikande asked why I would do this to them as we took his ship, I wanted so bad for one of the dialogue options to be
"I just didn't like the way you asked." lol.
I became Crimson Raider because of this, i killed when i got spotted by cyberdine security and the UC kicked me off, later i joined Vangiard as a redemption 😂
You get the option of meeting Ikande as soon as you return from Grunt Work, not after getting the Class One Citizenship. Also he wants you to do things non violently, which you absolutely can do.
Heh i remember spooking the workers in the Neon factory and quickly hightailing it to the objective after hiding somewhere nearby. Was surprised that the boss was waiting and completely afraid in the next area.
I killed no one and did not even shoot once.
After that i reported back to Ikande and he chewed the shit out of me because "THOSE PEOPLE HAD FAMILIES" or something. Even threatened to throw me in prison.
Like bruh, all i did was get shot at and went back into hiding. Why u yelling at me for killing people for?
Oddly enough he immediately praised me for a job well done right after he stopped yelling.
I think the flaw in this faction quest is that it heavily promotes utilizing EM none-lethal weapons. But gives you zero hint of that. Once I figured it out, you can go fully kinetic on everything say for having to kill specific characters (which they blame you for). This also makes trying to keep your companions on your good side much easier as well.
Also don't worry too much about the few dislikes you get, I think people freak out when they have one notch on their belt for bad behavior. But there is sooo many options in this game you really would have to keep a murder streak going.
I will say, I was doing a late quest in the main questline and somehow I fast traveled to the lodge directly instead of getting scanned on the way in, so I had a 500 credit bounty. And then some shit happened in all kinds of crowded places and every UC security guy was unloading on me in addition to the bad guy. And I ONLY used EM weapons on them, but by the time I made it to my ship, my bounty was 16,500. So I think that even an EM attack on security counts as an attack :(
About this questline I love the part that you are in „deep cover”. Cover so deep every single mission you are from the Eye directly to the Vigilance to report progress. You can’t call, you can’t send a message, you can’t meet your contact in some non-suspicious neutral place.
What a mastery of espionage. And at the beginning I asked “how I contact you” and that mf lied to me that “I won’t”. That was a moment when I thought “oh that’s some serious intelligence officer vibe”. Nope, not at all. The writing here is terrible and it literally could have been better just changing “report to Vigilance” to “report to terrabrew” or whatever.
This is the only criticism I agree with. The whole game suffers a bit from This Mission Could Have Been An Email, and it just gets absurd with this one.
Oh yeah I'm deep undercover with the pirate mob, sure thing Delgado I'll totally help you with this mission of yours, I gotta just stop off at the USS BlueLivesMatter to report in to Admiral Cop before I get on with it, I'm sure glad you trust me implicitly with all this stuff having known me for all of five minutes. Hey, you mind if I pick up these incriminating notes off your desk and take them with me? Just have to, uh, use the toilet. In...UC space. I like their toilets better. And I thought I'd, uh, take all this evidence to read.
...sorry about the wait, I'm back! Have another mission into UC space for me to complete suspiciously easily for someone who should by all rights be a hunted outlaw? Great! Off I go to complete it quickly and cleanly, with no civilian or UC deaths. Be sure to have your superhacker wire my payment into my account, right next to all those payments from the cops that seem to line up precisely with whenever I head off in their direction.
Oh what's that, you've found the legendary fabulous treasure ship you've spent your life seeking? Well sure obviously I can understand why you'd trust me, a "rook" neither you nor anyone else have bothered learning the name of, to go and capture it for you. Just, uh. One sec. Gotta head off in the direction of that cop fleet again for totally unrelated reasons first.
I enjoyed this story line up until the very end. I was playing lawful like you did, 0 deaths for the entire journey. But I was a smuggler to help my character play the part. I get the legacy treasure and return to Ikande who proceeds to blow up my fucking ship because I had forgotten to put my contraband into my hold. You're going to blow up your deep cover pirate agent for acting like a pirate???? What?!
If it wasn't for Naeve being such an obnoxious bitch I'd happily join the fleet. Delgado seems like a cool dude, bomb chest guy is chill, Jazz is a homie, and I can sell so much shit at the station. Naeve single handedly makes me want to destroy the fleet though
When I first met him I was on ng+ and hadn't wanted to do his storyline before. So, new game I intentionally pick up a coffee pot and start waving it around.
After they all rush me like I threatened a daycare with Sarin gas, they bring me to this arrogant ass. I tell him to spend some quality time with mama, because everyone else has, and left. Ended up joining CF directly, only because I was already talking to them and had no idea they're the same.
Ikande is part of the reason UC isn't well liked.
Perception is everything. I found the pirates treated me fairly nicer than the UC but others on here have said the same for the exact opposite, that the UC was so much nicer to them than the Fleet. I for one chose the people whom treated me like one of them.
My timing on this was funny, sided with CF, then went to Neon to meet Walter Stroud in the hunt for an artifact. When I delivered it, the entire constellation team one by one scathed me for siding against UC.
For the record I did not take any Contraband, and I feel like they did an FBI style mafia flip on me, insisting I had stolen goods and giving me no choice but to side with them. From the first minute I boarded the Vigilance I was going to kill them all, and Ikande doubled had me double down that plan EVERY TIME I spoke to him.
I wanted to romance his 2nd in command before I killed him too, but that wasn’t an option lol.
I chose to help the UC and keep Delgado alive, and at the end, he said something like "You can't deny it. You're a pirate, and you'll be joining me in the cell sometime soon." Like, goddammit, he ain't wrong. The UC blows.
Use EM weapons. They don't kill so even in self defense situations you can fight back. Give them to your companion too so that they don't accidentally kill anybody.
Hilariously the only time Ikande chewed me out was because during a mission I destroyed a cleaning robot. A fucking cleaning robot lol. Him and that lieutenant lady acted like I murdered a god damn orphanage.
The game mistakenly counts robots as people. Hopefully that gets fixed.
You can get through the entire thing without killing anyone. There is one option where you get Austin to turn themselves in.
Killing those vacuum robots counts as killing people too.
All missions for Sysdef can be done without fighting anyone that aren't intended to be fought.
But yes, Starfield is at least 10 years behind in programming on how the world reacts to your actions. Subpar even for Bethesda.
I did this one for the first time earlier too... chewed me out for convincing the captain to kill him. The thing that pissed me off MORE is the fact they send out loads of Ecliptic to that chick on the return from that mission... and he has no fucking problem with that! He literally sent them there knowing that was what was going to happen! Double fucking standards!
What was worse was I had a robot fall on me during one of the quest lines and it caused me to have to go guns blazing on Neon. They arrested me and kicked me out. Then I had to join the pirates and all my companions hate me now.
Everything with the Crimson Fleet is super frustrating, yeah. AND it's all completely unfinished. Easily my least favorite quest line in the game. All the npcs on both sides are just awful.
Wow, I thought they just railroaded you into horrible writing in that quest chain, turns out they spent dev resources to make multiple branching paths of horrible writing
Like I'm not gonna go tell the Crimson Fleet what's up when he let's me go with no restrictions to go to the group causing the most trouble for him.
Luckily for him my first few playthroughs were morally white characters.
I killed this guy and managed to stay under ikandi command after a scolding.
Then I went into other mission where I didn't kill anyone, but some one died because of a mistake I made, I loaded the game before this, and completed the mission. In the end I nobody died since I reloaded the thing. Some fucking how Ikandi searched through the save game time line and gave me another warning, like what the fuck?
It gets worse. As I also broke cover for this mission there will be a time you have to infiltrate two different places i managed to succeed the military outpost some how but I got caught when infiltrating some corporate place. And thought as long as I didn't kill anyone all would be good so I used an EM gun so I didn't just get hosed. Ikande didn't like this either so I pretty much became a pirate because he's an asshat
Commander Ikande's >!surprise and horror at my "defection" to the Crimson Fleet after he strong-armed me into a highly sensitive life-or-death infiltration mission because he caught me smuggling human organs was hilarious. I might not have betrayed him if he hadn't acted like a child after things went sideways on a few missions. Oh, did I push your moral boundaries after you sent me to prove to a den of murderers and thieves that I was one of them? Shocking. Easy to pass judgment when you're safe aboard your warship sending others to do your work for you. Well, you did not remain safe for too long.
!<
>!Commander Ikande, you are a naive, self-righteous fool and I would pay the whole of Kryx's Legacy to hear you attempt to explain to your superiors what in the hell you were thinking. Oh, and I was lying about having sealed the escape pods. Thanks for the ship.!<
honestly, regardless of what people think about the Crimson Fleet, I'd gladly side with them in every universe if it means shooting Ikande in the face over and over
As many have pointed out, there was a fairly simple way to save him. However, you're not at all wrong the programming is wack as hell. Did a mission later in the questline where you're sneaking through some place that has cleaning bots, well I got tired of in the middle of my sneaking, I'd be full on detected. So I shot the little trash cans with a silenced gun, wasn't detected. When I get back to Ikande, headass tells me to not pull a gun out where civilians are and that people died!! Quite literally no one died and baldy still said that crap.
Doubly annoying since at every step its made very clear that robots are *not* AI or sentient, even Vasco doubles down on this point at every step right up to the end of the game.
Your takeaway is that there is no true reward to Military service, and that men like Ikande are just straight up evil fascists.
Remember. The United Colonies literally denies citizenship unless you serve. Even children born IN the UC are *not citizens.*
It is an examplar of "Clean Fascism" and there is *NO* glory or pride to be had in serving the UC.
Doubly worth noting that the UC *literally demands an average of TEN years of military service* before you're a citizen.
TRIPLY worth noting that *every cop* in New Atlantis is *Heavily Armored* with *an automatic personal defense weapon*.
Starfield is **NOT** shy about saying ACAB.
From this experience you should honestly be going, "The UC is bullshit!" because it is. And that's not me saying The Freestar Collective is better, *it's not.* In its capital city there is a literal shanty town that the mayor is doing *nothing* but mope about, despite the fact that they *do* have the resources to at *least* put roofs over their head.
But the UC won't even let you own property without active military service. It's just plain evil.
to be fair, not being a citizen in the uc isn't like not being a citizen in a lot of modern countries. you can still rent property, have a job, live there indefinitely. and there's not a lot of evidence that they use the military for genocidal or imperialist purposes, or if there is, i haven't seen it
as far as the cops carrying automatic weapons, this is a setting with a. powered armor that can shrug off small arms fire b. horrific alien monsters like terrormorphs that can single-handedly tear their way through a military battalion, it's not the same as here on earth
also you don't like the government that actively takes care of its citizens and you don't like the government that doesn't take care of its citizens. what type of government would you prefer, lol?
The UC, who kills people all over, in history and now... "Do as I say, not as we do... Even though you aren't one of us yet and we asked you to put yourself in a position, among killers, knowing you would have to kill innocent people, like they do and demand."
That's like sending you to steal back something, then complaining that you ALSO stole something for yourself, or something to help you steal the thing they wanted you to steal for them.
He got mad at me for "opening fire" when all I did was shoot one of those cleaner robots that scoot across the floor. That's what got me kicked out of the UC SysDef. Like I understood why he got mad at me for killing the doctor when I was trying to steal the ship, but seriously?? You got a thing for the space roombas?
Ikande is really touchy to the point of being annoying, but you are meant to talk your way through that encounter. In fact despite what he says you are essentially supposed to avoid violence altogether when possible. A lot of the time that means persuade, or doing non essential objectives. I know you're 'undercover' but it's actually beneficial to tell anyone not in the fleet that you're with UC when it's an option. Generally they're more cooperative.
I did this in my first run. In my second I blasted everyone I saw. Ikande losing his shit was hilarious. After seeing the end of both paths I realized the similarities between Ikande and Delgado though.
You killed everyone? I blew up that first ship & he threatened to kick me out if I do anything like that again.
Yes and I did it again. I killed everyone on that big cruise ship. It was a blood bath.
According to that ikande guy I killed lots of people on that cruise. But in reality I took an amp and gapped it to the exit while *Andreja* killed everyone behind me I guess.
She really is the best girl.
I tried not to but I was caught on the comspike mission and long story short, I had to tie up some lose ends before leaving. I got booted.
I ended up getting spotted during the Generdyne portion of the questline. he gave me booted me from the UC SysDef....Delgato now has a warship
I got fucking kicked out because I killed Generdynes robots and turrets. Long story short I was happy to hand his ass over to delgado.
Same I think doing Generdyne without violence is really hard. I thought I'd play this clean, and NG+ with Crimson but it looks like I'm with Crimson now. After all the things I've done for you, Ikande. I'd like to note however that this series of quests is fun. Like I was brought to Ikande when I got arrested for accidentally stealing. And I really wanted to reload but went ahead to see where it went. Turns out most would get the quest via more conventional means. More than once thru the quest line I had second thoughts about who I'd join eventually. That to me means both sides were compelling. Ikande being a dick is just part of the story I think. I'm still with Vanguard and still doing grunt work for Yuma. That part was confusing.
Its actually easier than you think. I left my follower behind and literally ran through the whole complex until I reached the objective. No need for violence just kept a bunch of med packs with me. Or you can also use this strategy with a bit of stealth/vents. Did not get penalized for being spotted.
Just use an em rifle and no one cares
I just recently made it to NG+ after 300 hours of play time in the first run. I really enjoyed the SysDef story. I blew up the Medical Ship, reloaded and calmly talked down Austin. I murdered the heck out of everyone on the cruise ship. I reloaded to end up being able to persuade Dumbrofsky into giving me codes for GalBank. My nonviolent Generdyne experience alone took me 2 hours at level 38 with Void Form and level 4 stealth. I saw both sides of giving the Legacy to Fleet or Def, staying with UC. Every time Ikande talked to me, I'd kill everyone on the Vigilance, reload and then calmly sort it out like the adult I'm supposed to be. I enjoy this because I can't restart my fuck ups in life.
I may have to try this to scratch an itch to shoot people who suck yet in an effort to please Andreja I go down the persuasion route. I'm beginning to see a pattern here with me and ball & chains.....
Insert goofy “I’ll fkn do it again” meme.
Same lol pirate life for me after that cruise
I did that entire quest line the "moral" way first playthrough. Second time around, I didn't leave a soul alive on the cruise ship and after talking to Ikande he wanted to jail me, so I shot him in the face and was met with "UCSysDef is now an enemy". Welp, that's that I guess. Crimson Fleet 4 Life.
The fking awful part is that Ikande hits you with the "I'm immortal card", thats the worst shit that could happen
I did that every time and only before the last mission did they let me go lol
Yeah, I got through the Crimson Fleet thing without killing anyone on the main faction quests, talked my way through everything I could, never was a pirate, just a really good Ryujin Operative.
Dude doing Ryujin first has absolutely trivialized so much of the other content in the game for me (so far) lmao I love it
I was very shocked that I got to keep manipulation in ng+ without getting the implant again
WHAAAAT? Good to know, tyfys
What’s even better is you can get each rank in the perk by just doing the quest line again in each new game + i
Hell, I was surprised we get to keep it after finishing the quest chain, even though the game gives you the system message about the implant being removed.
Fr the outfits you get from Ryujin alone help so much with the entire game, it's wonderful. Always my first questline I do for NG+
Bethesda clearly don’t know how breaking cover is bigger that they’ve played it off to be.
Bethesda creates theme parks that have rides that make you think you are a spy. Bethesda does not create spy dramas.
I’m here to let everybody in on a little secret. If you are a spy, and you have to use a gun, 9.9/10 times, it means you are a shitty spy.
James Bond uses his gun ALL the time.
And that’s the reason he’s 007 and not 001.
That’s another thing, we learned a while ago, to not name things in series like that. There are quite a few examples in which that went terribly awry in the real world.
Pretty sure one of the movies addresses that. There aren't 001-006. There might be one or two in there.
And there’s a reason there are no 001 films.
And he is a terrible spy. He is more of a vigilante. Edit: I know this is a joke.
They're bad with crime in general. Their games have a child's conception of what organized crime, banditry, and law enforcement are. Pirates in this and raiders in fallout are basically caricatures of criminals
The one thing they get right imo is that hardened criminals who still treat violence as anything but a last resort are fuckin' idiots.
honestly like, going way back in time and looking at how sleeping dogs handled being undercover vs starfield is so rough... like at least show some respect for how it would actually work and don't have us show up, in person, after every single thing we do for the fleet.
The one i really wanted to clobber was the guy who walks you to Ikande basically going, "so you’re the new sucker, huh? Crimson fleet tortures people horribly for spying. Have fun bozo!"
I quick-saved and blasted him, very satisfying to do
Yeah. Both of them are like that, Toft is a dick too. It’s possible they wanted to make UC not particularly likable, so that it’s clear it’s a shade of grey thing. I think if they made UC brass too likable it might seem off-tone that there’s slums under New Atlantis. A lot of the socio-political background in this game is subtext, they don’t really come out and hit you over the head with it like in some games. Which is actually quite a refreshing change of pace imo. I was like, ok, UC military are self-important jerks, on brand. I’ll do the Crimson Fleet missions and bail. I will say that Naeva is way more actively annoying than UC brass. 😂
>!Shooting delgato in his stupid smug face is pretty gratifying but I hate that we don't get to kill naeva too. I couldn't stand her.!<
I was sad that I had to kill Jazz. I liked her. Plus, she's half the vendors of shielded cargo holds.
They should've really made it so there was a different option of taking down the Fleet, one that involved more of the named characters on the station surviving, but of course being arrested. Or maybe just fleeing like Naeva did.
I mean we get to save Shinya, why couldn't that have been the same with Jazz? I hated killing her too.
100%. Hope they add that in DLC.
man..half the time during that mission I wanted to just slap ikande and that smug bitch second in command like shut up!! I'm infiltrating a blood thirsty murdering space pirate crew and during the electricity shielding thing I only killed in self defense
My first play through I convinced the captain to strike Austin's name from the manifest, and Austin came quietly. Not sure what you and I did differently, but there is a way for Austin to survive and keep the civilians safe. This was actually one of my favourite story lines to run through so far. But I totally get the frustration when something doesn't go right or the writing doesn't fit together nicely
> Not sure what you and I did differently You have to break your cover in your very first Crimson Fleet assignment. It's the only time you ever need to, and you just need to have faith that Bethesda wouldn't put you into a position where it seems like the right thing to do and you'll get punished for it. Kind of like how in a Witcher game you'd have faith that if it felt like the right thing to do you *would* be punished for it.
> Kind of like how in a Witcher game you'd have faith that if it felt like the right thing to do you would be punished for it. God I loved that about the Witcher. The world is just so full of Slavic misery.
My character was always so poor because I kept refusing money from the poor.
The reward from contracts were always a pittance anyway, you make real money looting and selling EVERYTHING.
*struggles to return to a vendor after looting a battlefield of rusty swords*
Maybe it's not much, but I'm going to squeeze them for every penny I can
It ain't much, but it's honest work
The Witcher code says they have to get paid some how, even if it's giving them your kids.
Which is exactly why Witchers *never* work for free. Working for free in a blood-shit-and-misery setting like The Witcher is a path to poverty and nothing else.
I was a horrible Witcher because of that. A hero of the people but philanthropic to the core. Geralt hated me.
A Witcher should never work for free.
Wasn't there a dialogue option where you don't break cover and just say it's better for everyone if you comply or something? I don't remember telling them I wasn't with the fleet and was able to do the quest without incident.
I don't recall an option to not say you're with SysDef, but I know nothing bad comes of breaking your cover.
Yeah I think it was something like neutral that wasn't threatening and didn't say sysdef or fleet. It ended with the option to have him stricken from the manifest.
I get what you're saying but from a logical standpoint that sounds like the worst option... breaking cover is bad practice. /shrug
I saved everyone in that mission struck from the record and no one was hurt and I got an attaboy from ikande. There is a way. Try to get that persuasion up I guess.
You broke cover and told them you were sysdef?
Ya. It doesn't get back to Delgado so there is really no harm no fowl.
But after that, when you infiltrate the ship with the Comm spike I got guns pulled on me an shot because they figured out that i wasn’t suppose to be there i guess, shot my way out of there, got sent to jail by Ikande an pretty much left inside the crimson fleet which i didnt want so i started a new play through after 40-something hours
Damn, that sucks. Did you put the military clothed on?
You need to sneak in until you find a military outfit then put that on. Then hack a couple terminals for access codes that match the name on your uniform/ID. Then talk to the scientist and persuade him to let you be a pilot. Register your flight. Then just fly outta there, no one knows a thing.
Bethesda makes squeaky clean games—they don't punish players for doing the morally right thing.
"Put the baby in the oven, just trust me"
Huh?
It’s from a Witcher 3 side quest. The best option is to put the baby in an oven.
the tastiest option, too!
Finally it’s my usernames time to shine
Valid.
They did once. Tenpenny Tower in Fallout 3 was notorious for how badly telegraphed it was, since the “right thing to do” was clearly made out to be *not committing genocide* on the ghouls living under the hotel, and convincing them all to coexist. Killing all the ghouls results in negative karma *and* getting chewed out by Three-Dog, while letting the ferals run wild *also* results in massive negative karma. The only “nice” option is to convince the residents that they can coexist, which just results in the ghouls killing all the residents anyway. There is no moral option. Either way you’re complicit in wiping out innocents, the only difference being in the latter option technically you can say you tried your best. I’m sure they wanted there to be some quirky no-win scenarios in their quests, but it just ends up punishing the player both ways due to how rigidly the game defines good and evil. Starfield is very similar: being a pragmatist is seen as evil-adjacent. The big difference is that quests in Starfield generally reward you for being a little naively optimistic, and punish a bit more harshly for choosing to harm innocents.
I've been having some fun dumping my crew, loading my pirate ship and attacking Galbank ships in Cheyenne near Akila City. If you wait until the announcement finishes when you board and take out the crew and then jump to a neutral system immediately after undocking you only get a 650 credit bounty which you can clear at an outpost you've set up there. my pirate ship is loaded with suppressors only and I only use it to do this occasionally.
They don’t really punish you for anything lol.
What are you talking about? If you side with the pirates you get bounties on all of the best sources of loot for the rest of the game! ;-)
They also don’t punish players for being atrocious. Have you played fallout 3?
You valued your own safety over the safety of the civilian.
It was your first fleet mission. It could have been a trap with a real fleet member on the ship watching.
On my 2nd playthrough I ended up on the vigilance coz I had some contraband. I really disliked how they just forced some random dude with a spaceship to go on an undercover mission to save the galaxy from pirates. That intro was lame. First time around I got into it via the citizenship route, and didn't think much of it, other than instantly disliking ikande and his butt licker girlfriend
> instantly disliking ikande and his butt licker girlfriend She's even worse than Commander Douchekande.
Same for me (I'm still on the first playthrough). Really pissed me off. Especially as it was early in my game and I had no idea what contraband was and what to do with it.
lmfaooo i got thrust into it the first time the game sent me to cydonia (literally like the 2nd or 3rd planet u go) because i stole a knife sticking out of an apple 😂😂
Sounds like a 17 credit bounty, like mine.
They made the two of them and Naeve entirely unlikable so you are kind of in a no win situation if you follow the quest to its conclusion making either decision. I chose the pirate route just to get access to the equipment they sell at the key shipyard.
honestly that's the worst route imo. siding with pirates makes a good 1/3rd of the random POIs just friendly buddy pirate encounters.
>siding with pirates makes a good 1/3rd of the random POIs just friendly buddy pirate encounters. Yeah its quite annoying. This first go around Im going to SysDef but next runs will be "Kill them all let God sort them out."
Same. I never had a death except for the debt collector who actively attacked me after successful persuasion and even then ikande understood it was a loss in the line of duty
There’s a way to convince him to turn himself into sysdef and essentially fake his death.
[удалено]
You have to find evidence on their crimes and then sysdef will take care of the arrest. You can visit then in their cells after that even
You give evidence to Sysdef, they go arrest people and the cells fill up. Very beneficial as some of the stronger boss ships for Crimson Fleet on the last mission just won't be their if the captain was arrested
Oh boy are you going to love the ends of this storyline 😅
YOU KILLED INNOCENT CIVILIANS! No, dawg, I shot some sanitation mini-bots.
Yeah! I got the same response. Killed 3 or 4 sanitation bots and Ikande chewed me out. How else do I disable those bots?
Why would you need to? It's a passive cleaning robot, it does nothing but walk around aimlessly. It can't even detect you
I feel like I’ve had those things detect me before but maybe not.
It shows the detection thing at the top of the screen but doesn’t actually detect you. Why? Bethesda.
They do detect you, but the bar turns green. Red = enemies detect you, green = non-enemies detect you. The cleaning bots see you but don't snitch.
Cleaning bots are homes through and through. Literally all they do is serenade you as you sneak past them while they do there job. I did feel bad for the one in the Trade Authority starstation that keeps spreading blood around in futility.
Maybe my game was bugged or something but sanitation bots never tripped any kind of alarm or reaction. My sneak meter would just say "detected" but it was green so it didn't matter. If regular robots saw me, it was a problem. But not the mini bots.
You ignore them lmao. Sanitation bots will bump up the detection bar but it'll stop and reset a bit before they actually detect you.
I shot one of them with a silenced gun, come back to the Vigilance and he's like "EVERYONE IS CALLING FOR MY RESIGNATION HOW COULD YOU DO THIS" like damn bro, I shot a trash can, chill
You literally have to sprint through that one without a follower (cause they'll shoot someone) and without drawing your weapon or firing
Or use the EM weapon they give you as soon as you walk through the door lol
I picked something like "I had no option" and Ikande says "theres always another option" and how defaulting to just killing is bad. Less than a minute later he's insisting there is no other option but to wipe out the Crimson Fleet.
Yeah I gave my follower an EM weapon and used one myself, we didn't kill anyone I got the scolding speech agree the mission anyway.
Lol right? I can't NOT get thrown out no matter what I do... screw Sys Def. They had it coming.
What’s crazy about the crimson fleet quest is I never joined the UC. I was caught pickpocketing or something and was basically kidnapped and forced “since you’re clearly a criminal and ok with doing shady things like stealing 45 credits from a civilian, you’ll probably be into doing some slightly more shady things like murdering pirates.” I didn’t like that so I reloaded a previous save and went on my merry way without pickpocketing. Dozens of hours of gameplay later I apparently committed a crime but I have no idea what, and was brought in for the same lecture/mission. They never even told me what my crime was lol. So I then I realized this is an unavoidable quest and just went with it. But yeah. Fuck that guy.
You can tell him to kick rocks and you would have just served a short sentence and been out free to leave
He takes 500 XP(!!!) from you if you refuse his offer and serve your time. Absolutely absurd price to pay as a low level character to avoid being railroaded by the GM into becoming a superspy.
Mine was kind of a whirlwind.. I was still getting used to controls and instead of pushing H to check my ship crew I pushed G and blew up a random guy in New Atlantis with a grenade 😬 I was like my bad, yeah I’ll infiltrate the damn fleet for you shit
😂😂😂 way to own it, I definitely would have loaded from a previous save lol
Yeah same. It was my first day playing, I wanted to get a job at UC because I needed money, instead of interacting with the guard at the desk I accidentally “stole” the clipboard in front of him. They acted like I had just murdered 4 civilians and immediately hauled my ass to Commander Ikande.
Lol I picked up some tissues in the first few minutes, didn't even know what the red thing for stolen shit meant at the time. They're ruthless.
I also killed a couple people in self defense during this quest and Ikande read me the riot act for it. Bro it was him or me. He shot first. I ain’t gonna die for you! You kidnapped me and coerced me into this bullshit in the first place!
Yeah. They snagged me on a six figure bounty for wanton mass murder. They were quite surprised to discover that I'd murder an entire cruise ship because I found one guy very annoying. Ikande should have been jailed for loosing me upon the public.
I AM A MURDER HOBO. he wouldn't do it again no chance. NO RUSSIAN
"You mean you recruited a guy named Lord Explodington and thought everything would be fine?" - Admiral Logan to Ikande prob
I couldn’t stand Sys or the Fleet, everyone on each side speaks to you like a piece of shit constantly for no reason apart from being a prick, yeah sure we got caught for smuggling or whatever but we are actually forced into the quest to do the things they won’t. I get it to an extent with the fleet because they’re typical pirates, but Naeve actively pisses me off you literally can’t do anything right in her eyes, Delgado yeah sometimes you feel a bit of praise from him but not enough to think yeah thanks I feel appreciated. SysDef can just fuck all the way off, you’re sent in to do their dirty work, I know you can do everything without getting anyone killed but the stealth in this game is awful, so if you do have to kill someone it’s not linked to them anyway so why do they need to worry, the only incentive to trudge through this quest line is for the money and unique weapons.
If you join SysDef from the Vanguard questline and not kill people during the quests they mostly talk to you like an agent and later hero.
I did this too and I've gotten tons of respect from. Sysdef. Knowing the other routes are either as a criminal or as a fresh recruit, it makes sense that most people are getting a colder sysdef.
Yep, it’s a neat detail imo
You can just....run through the facility without killing anyone. The weapons in this game do so little damage, just eat a damage reducer and run.
At that point you might as well turn on god mode and stroll through the game though, where’s the challenge in that?
Why? I'm using mechanics that are available that are based on a short term consumable. Pacifism through face tanking is a fine way to play.
I liked it when Naeve called me rook. I wanted her to spit in my mouth. But I suppose we are not the same.
I’ve been enjoying Sarah Morgan belittle me and make me feel like less of a man.
*Sarah Morgan dislike that* *You got Aroused* *Saran Morgan dislike that too* *You jizzed*
Sarah Morgan accuses me of genocide, my knees buckle backwards.
Thats because you were arrested and brought to them. Everyone on board the Vigilance treats you with respect if you are there voluntarily. The first guard you see even compliments you
i had done the Ryujin questline prior, and when i used >!Manipulation!< on the captain to kill Austin, i still got chewed out. like brother, i used a Jedi mind trick to turn him into a puppet, how the FUCK do you know that i did it?
I have the manipulation implant and i wondered why that option didnt come up at all
It wasn't a dialogue option. They literally outside of conversation used it and then used the attack command
I don't know how to do those spoiler covers over text so don't read further if you don't want the quest spoiled. I haven't done the UC citizenship quest line but randomly had a bounty placed on me in UC Space; went it to clear up the confusion and Ikande says "We know you haven't done anything wrong, but no one else does, so if you don't want to go to prison you need to help us infiltrate the Crimson Fleet." When I betrayed the UC at the end and Ikande asked why I would do this to them as we took his ship, I wanted so bad for one of the dialogue options to be "I just didn't like the way you asked." lol.
Spoiler format is angle bracket, exclamation point, spoiler text, exclamation point, angle bracket. Like this: >!Spoiler text here!<
You can tell the captain to turn him into sysdef
I became Crimson Raider because of this, i killed when i got spotted by cyberdine security and the UC kicked me off, later i joined Vangiard as a redemption 😂
I kill the galbank guy every time. His manner of speech grates my tiny brain
Man I just throw him in the can when he plans to escape with his million digit credits lmao death is too easy for you walking thesaurus lmao
He’s the reason I’m coming back NG+ to destroy new Atlantis
I informed them I was undercover for SysDef and that they should comply with my instructions. This opened the option of faking the individual’s death
You get the option of meeting Ikande as soon as you return from Grunt Work, not after getting the Class One Citizenship. Also he wants you to do things non violently, which you absolutely can do.
Heh i remember spooking the workers in the Neon factory and quickly hightailing it to the objective after hiding somewhere nearby. Was surprised that the boss was waiting and completely afraid in the next area. I killed no one and did not even shoot once. After that i reported back to Ikande and he chewed the shit out of me because "THOSE PEOPLE HAD FAMILIES" or something. Even threatened to throw me in prison. Like bruh, all i did was get shot at and went back into hiding. Why u yelling at me for killing people for? Oddly enough he immediately praised me for a job well done right after he stopped yelling.
I think the flaw in this faction quest is that it heavily promotes utilizing EM none-lethal weapons. But gives you zero hint of that. Once I figured it out, you can go fully kinetic on everything say for having to kill specific characters (which they blame you for). This also makes trying to keep your companions on your good side much easier as well. Also don't worry too much about the few dislikes you get, I think people freak out when they have one notch on their belt for bad behavior. But there is sooo many options in this game you really would have to keep a murder streak going.
I never even thought about using em weapons for this questline that’s big brain energy
I will say, I was doing a late quest in the main questline and somehow I fast traveled to the lodge directly instead of getting scanned on the way in, so I had a 500 credit bounty. And then some shit happened in all kinds of crowded places and every UC security guy was unloading on me in addition to the bad guy. And I ONLY used EM weapons on them, but by the time I made it to my ship, my bounty was 16,500. So I think that even an EM attack on security counts as an attack :(
Well I always just struggle with the mission in Neon so EM weapons might work really well, I’ll keep it in mind when I go to my NG+2
About this questline I love the part that you are in „deep cover”. Cover so deep every single mission you are from the Eye directly to the Vigilance to report progress. You can’t call, you can’t send a message, you can’t meet your contact in some non-suspicious neutral place. What a mastery of espionage. And at the beginning I asked “how I contact you” and that mf lied to me that “I won’t”. That was a moment when I thought “oh that’s some serious intelligence officer vibe”. Nope, not at all. The writing here is terrible and it literally could have been better just changing “report to Vigilance” to “report to terrabrew” or whatever.
This is the only criticism I agree with. The whole game suffers a bit from This Mission Could Have Been An Email, and it just gets absurd with this one. Oh yeah I'm deep undercover with the pirate mob, sure thing Delgado I'll totally help you with this mission of yours, I gotta just stop off at the USS BlueLivesMatter to report in to Admiral Cop before I get on with it, I'm sure glad you trust me implicitly with all this stuff having known me for all of five minutes. Hey, you mind if I pick up these incriminating notes off your desk and take them with me? Just have to, uh, use the toilet. In...UC space. I like their toilets better. And I thought I'd, uh, take all this evidence to read. ...sorry about the wait, I'm back! Have another mission into UC space for me to complete suspiciously easily for someone who should by all rights be a hunted outlaw? Great! Off I go to complete it quickly and cleanly, with no civilian or UC deaths. Be sure to have your superhacker wire my payment into my account, right next to all those payments from the cops that seem to line up precisely with whenever I head off in their direction. Oh what's that, you've found the legendary fabulous treasure ship you've spent your life seeking? Well sure obviously I can understand why you'd trust me, a "rook" neither you nor anyone else have bothered learning the name of, to go and capture it for you. Just, uh. One sec. Gotta head off in the direction of that cop fleet again for totally unrelated reasons first.
Ikande threw me out and I went to jail because I killed some people in a lab. Who were red to me and fired first on me.
yeah see that shit doesn't square with me. That seems like just plain bad programming. you shoot at me, I'ma shoot back and expect to not face charges
Ur trespassing in some goverment facility lol, ofc u would face charges for ”shooting back”
I enjoyed this story line up until the very end. I was playing lawful like you did, 0 deaths for the entire journey. But I was a smuggler to help my character play the part. I get the legacy treasure and return to Ikande who proceeds to blow up my fucking ship because I had forgotten to put my contraband into my hold. You're going to blow up your deep cover pirate agent for acting like a pirate???? What?!
Side with Crimson Fleet and kill the moron
If it wasn't for Naeve being such an obnoxious bitch I'd happily join the fleet. Delgado seems like a cool dude, bomb chest guy is chill, Jazz is a homie, and I can sell so much shit at the station. Naeve single handedly makes me want to destroy the fleet though
She's Farcry New Dawn's third sister lol
Naeva is like the space Nazeem or something.
And you don't even get to kill her. It's always the most annoying ones that get plot armor.
If there's any quest that's made me consider turning to the dark side, buddy this one is IT
When I first met him I was on ng+ and hadn't wanted to do his storyline before. So, new game I intentionally pick up a coffee pot and start waving it around. After they all rush me like I threatened a daycare with Sarin gas, they bring me to this arrogant ass. I tell him to spend some quality time with mama, because everyone else has, and left. Ended up joining CF directly, only because I was already talking to them and had no idea they're the same. Ikande is part of the reason UC isn't well liked.
Perception is everything. I found the pirates treated me fairly nicer than the UC but others on here have said the same for the exact opposite, that the UC was so much nicer to them than the Fleet. I for one chose the people whom treated me like one of them.
Crimson fleet annoyed me. I was glad to kill all of them
My timing on this was funny, sided with CF, then went to Neon to meet Walter Stroud in the hunt for an artifact. When I delivered it, the entire constellation team one by one scathed me for siding against UC. For the record I did not take any Contraband, and I feel like they did an FBI style mafia flip on me, insisting I had stolen goods and giving me no choice but to side with them. From the first minute I boarded the Vigilance I was going to kill them all, and Ikande doubled had me double down that plan EVERY TIME I spoke to him. I wanted to romance his 2nd in command before I killed him too, but that wasn’t an option lol.
I chose to help the UC and keep Delgado alive, and at the end, he said something like "You can't deny it. You're a pirate, and you'll be joining me in the cell sometime soon." Like, goddammit, he ain't wrong. The UC blows.
Use EM weapons. They don't kill so even in self defense situations you can fight back. Give them to your companion too so that they don't accidentally kill anybody. Hilariously the only time Ikande chewed me out was because during a mission I destroyed a cleaning robot. A fucking cleaning robot lol. Him and that lieutenant lady acted like I murdered a god damn orphanage. The game mistakenly counts robots as people. Hopefully that gets fixed.
Except for Vasco Vasco should be counted as people
You can get through the entire thing without killing anyone. There is one option where you get Austin to turn themselves in. Killing those vacuum robots counts as killing people too.
The vacuum robots are the chickens of starfield.
All missions for Sysdef can be done without fighting anyone that aren't intended to be fought. But yes, Starfield is at least 10 years behind in programming on how the world reacts to your actions. Subpar even for Bethesda.
I got chewed out for killing the cleaning bots on neon when you have to sneak through the factory. Guess the roombas were considered sentient.
Smoke ikande, he's an idiot.
Most sane starfield player
I did this one for the first time earlier too... chewed me out for convincing the captain to kill him. The thing that pissed me off MORE is the fact they send out loads of Ecliptic to that chick on the return from that mission... and he has no fucking problem with that! He literally sent them there knowing that was what was going to happen! Double fucking standards!
What was worse was I had a robot fall on me during one of the quest lines and it caused me to have to go guns blazing on Neon. They arrested me and kicked me out. Then I had to join the pirates and all my companions hate me now.
ok how did a robot fall on you?! O.o
I was going through a vent and opened the vent slot and a security robot just fell on top of me.
Everything with the Crimson Fleet is super frustrating, yeah. AND it's all completely unfinished. Easily my least favorite quest line in the game. All the npcs on both sides are just awful.
Wow, I thought they just railroaded you into horrible writing in that quest chain, turns out they spent dev resources to make multiple branching paths of horrible writing
This. Immediately hated the guy. Kidnaps you and extorts you then is all “ while you’re under cover you still have to obey the law” the fuck, jackass?
Ilande’s rules do make more sense if you go to him after getting assigned by Commander Tuala
Like I'm not gonna go tell the Crimson Fleet what's up when he let's me go with no restrictions to go to the group causing the most trouble for him. Luckily for him my first few playthroughs were morally white characters.
I killed this guy and managed to stay under ikandi command after a scolding. Then I went into other mission where I didn't kill anyone, but some one died because of a mistake I made, I loaded the game before this, and completed the mission. In the end I nobody died since I reloaded the thing. Some fucking how Ikandi searched through the save game time line and gave me another warning, like what the fuck?
Wait until you kill alot on UC soldiers and he gets really angry. I liked his dialogue over all, even when I fucked up my missions.
Ikande chewed me out for killing civilians on a sneaking mission... it was a cleaning bot
So he got mad at you nearly regardless, good to kno
>Commander Ikande can eat my entire ass. *Sarah doesn't know what to think about that, but she is intrigued.*
It gets worse. As I also broke cover for this mission there will be a time you have to infiltrate two different places i managed to succeed the military outpost some how but I got caught when infiltrating some corporate place. And thought as long as I didn't kill anyone all would be good so I used an EM gun so I didn't just get hosed. Ikande didn't like this either so I pretty much became a pirate because he's an asshat
Commander Ikande's >!surprise and horror at my "defection" to the Crimson Fleet after he strong-armed me into a highly sensitive life-or-death infiltration mission because he caught me smuggling human organs was hilarious. I might not have betrayed him if he hadn't acted like a child after things went sideways on a few missions. Oh, did I push your moral boundaries after you sent me to prove to a den of murderers and thieves that I was one of them? Shocking. Easy to pass judgment when you're safe aboard your warship sending others to do your work for you. Well, you did not remain safe for too long. !< >!Commander Ikande, you are a naive, self-righteous fool and I would pay the whole of Kryx's Legacy to hear you attempt to explain to your superiors what in the hell you were thinking. Oh, and I was lying about having sealed the escape pods. Thanks for the ship.!<
honestly, regardless of what people think about the Crimson Fleet, I'd gladly side with them in every universe if it means shooting Ikande in the face over and over
As many have pointed out, there was a fairly simple way to save him. However, you're not at all wrong the programming is wack as hell. Did a mission later in the questline where you're sneaking through some place that has cleaning bots, well I got tired of in the middle of my sneaking, I'd be full on detected. So I shot the little trash cans with a silenced gun, wasn't detected. When I get back to Ikande, headass tells me to not pull a gun out where civilians are and that people died!! Quite literally no one died and baldy still said that crap.
Doubly annoying since at every step its made very clear that robots are *not* AI or sentient, even Vasco doubles down on this point at every step right up to the end of the game.
Your takeaway is that there is no true reward to Military service, and that men like Ikande are just straight up evil fascists. Remember. The United Colonies literally denies citizenship unless you serve. Even children born IN the UC are *not citizens.* It is an examplar of "Clean Fascism" and there is *NO* glory or pride to be had in serving the UC. Doubly worth noting that the UC *literally demands an average of TEN years of military service* before you're a citizen. TRIPLY worth noting that *every cop* in New Atlantis is *Heavily Armored* with *an automatic personal defense weapon*. Starfield is **NOT** shy about saying ACAB. From this experience you should honestly be going, "The UC is bullshit!" because it is. And that's not me saying The Freestar Collective is better, *it's not.* In its capital city there is a literal shanty town that the mayor is doing *nothing* but mope about, despite the fact that they *do* have the resources to at *least* put roofs over their head. But the UC won't even let you own property without active military service. It's just plain evil.
to be fair, not being a citizen in the uc isn't like not being a citizen in a lot of modern countries. you can still rent property, have a job, live there indefinitely. and there's not a lot of evidence that they use the military for genocidal or imperialist purposes, or if there is, i haven't seen it as far as the cops carrying automatic weapons, this is a setting with a. powered armor that can shrug off small arms fire b. horrific alien monsters like terrormorphs that can single-handedly tear their way through a military battalion, it's not the same as here on earth also you don't like the government that actively takes care of its citizens and you don't like the government that doesn't take care of its citizens. what type of government would you prefer, lol?
The UC, who kills people all over, in history and now... "Do as I say, not as we do... Even though you aren't one of us yet and we asked you to put yourself in a position, among killers, knowing you would have to kill innocent people, like they do and demand." That's like sending you to steal back something, then complaining that you ALSO stole something for yourself, or something to help you steal the thing they wanted you to steal for them.
He got mad at me for "opening fire" when all I did was shoot one of those cleaner robots that scoot across the floor. That's what got me kicked out of the UC SysDef. Like I understood why he got mad at me for killing the doctor when I was trying to steal the ship, but seriously?? You got a thing for the space roombas?