The Starfield First Contact side quest throws in quite the moral dilemma putting both your persuasion and decision-making skills to the test in the game. Taking place in the Porrima Star System, you are to act as a mediator between two parties feuding over their settlement rights in the Porrima II planet.
While there are a total of three outcomes to the First Contact mission, not every outcome yields the same results. From the best to the absolute worst, here are all the choices and their conclusions for Starfield first contact side quest.
What is the Starfield First Contact Quest?
The Starfield First Contact mission starts automatically as you enter the Porrima Star System and make your way toward the Porrima II planet. A distress call from Jiro Sugiyama will make you aware of the unidentified ship floating in the planet’s orbit. After several failed attempts to contact the ship, Sugiyama will instruct you to investigate it.
Upon docking and boarding this unknown ship, you will be greeted by Captain Diana Brackenridge and her crew. Diana will explain that the ship, called the ECS Constant, and the original crew fled the desolate Earth and now have been in space for over 200 years.
They planned to settle on the Porrima II but found the place to already be inhabited by the Paradiso crew. Now both parties want the other gone, but your job is to come up with a solution.
All Starfield First Contact Choices
Diana’s plea for a solution takes you to Paradiso CEO Oliver Campbell’s board meeting where the members come up with three different choices for this newly arrived issue at hand:
- Let the ECS Constant Crew settle in Porrima II under the condition that they obey the corporate laws of Paradiso.
- Purchase a Grav Drive for the ECS crew so that they can journey to another location.
- Destroy the ship’s reactor and make this problem go away.
Choice 1: Settlement
If you choose the settlement route, you will be tasked with gathering materials for the ECS crew’s housing. The materials include 40 fiber, 80 iron, 10 lithium, and 20 sealant. You can persuade Diana to help with the materials through a couple of dialogue choices.
She will then ask you to speak with Daisuke Levits who will give you 50 iron, 12 sealant, 15 fiber, and 6 lithium. You can gather the rest of the materials by either scavenging nearby planets or buying them from Paradiso shops.
After everything is gathered, Diana Brackenridge will ask you to escort her crew to Porrima II and reward you with some XP, several Old Earth items, an XM-2311 pistol, and .45 bullets.
Choice 2: Grav Drive
Choosing the second option for the Starfield First Contact side quest will put quite a dent in your pocket. Oliver Campbell and his board members might suggest the grav drive option but they are unwilling to split the cost to buy one. So, you have to buy it yourself. Head to Polvo planet’s Hopetown to speak to Bennu St. James who works in HopeTech.
James is willing to sell the Grav Drive for 40,000 Credits but you can persuade him for a lower price. Convincing him to help people in need, he will drop the price to 25,000 Credits. Buy it and return back to the ECS Constant’s Engineering Officer Amin Kazemi.
Now all that’s left to do is follow Kazemi’s instructions to install the newly acquired Grav Drive on the ship. Here are the steps:
- Go to Computer Terminal 1 and interact with the Magnetic Terminal, then the Decouple, and finally the Auxiliary Module Assembly.
- Go to Computer Terminal 2 and interact with the Turbopump port, then the Cryogenic Radiator Auxiliary.
- Go to Computer Terminal 3 interact with the Plasma Run-off Inhibitor and switch it to 5%.
After fully installing the grav drive, you can report back to Diana and claim the Old Earth artifacts, and the XM-2311 pistol as rewards.
Choice 3: Blowing up the Reactor
If you choose to get rid of Diana’s crew, Oliver Campbell will be happy to present you with the idea of overriding the ship’s reactor to trigger a blast. To achieve this, sneak up on Amin Kazemi and steal a key from him.
This key will grant you access to the ECS Constant’s reactor computer. Hop on that computer and set the overdrive to Emergency Overload. Next, locate Diana’s computer in the command bay and hack into it using your Security skill. Accept the Confirm Request for the override and quickly make your way back to your own ship.
By the time you are done with overriding the reactors, ECS Constant’s security will be on high alert. So, make sure not to get caught. Once you’ve undocked your ship and flown far away from the ECS, it will blow up into pieces.
You can collect 6500 Credits and get an unlimited entry pass to Paradiso from Oliver after completing the task.
Fair warning, this blowing up the reactor and killing innocents plan might not be the best play if you have morally upright companions like Sarah Morgan or Sam Coe. If you’re planning to choose this option, let an evil companion accompany you during this side quest instead.
What is the Best Choice for Startfield First Contact Mission?
Although all three choices are perfectly valid and will not cause any disruption to your main storyline in the game, some of them have better rewards and are morally the correct thing to do.
The best choice for the Starfield First Contact side mission would be the Settlement route and asking Diana to compromise with the Paradiso folks for shared land. Choosing to settle the issue not only gets you tons of rewards and experience points but also deals with the matter diplomatically.
The worst choice would be blowing up the reactor since it’s the least rewarding and also the guilt of killing the whole crew might haunt your conscience for a while.
