Absolute Power Walkthrough - Starfield Guide - IGN (2024)

Absolute Power is the sixth Mission for the Crimson Fleet Faction in Starfield. This mission is a straightforward one, and will have you infiltrate a power company in the city of Neon to obtain plans for their Conduction Grid to modify your ship to reach Kryx's Legacy. This page includes tips on where to find your contact Estelle Vincent, how to gain access to Generdyne by way of Ayumi Komiko, how to sneak through the power plant, and where to find incriminating evidence along the way.

• Rewards: Experience, Credits, Conduction Ship Module
• Evidence Slates: Meeting with Bayu, Ayumi's Offer, The Big Score

Meet Your Contact on Neon

After getting your orders from Naeva, she'll have you head for the planet Volii Alpha in the Volii System, to the right of the Olympus/Aranae systems. Odds are you may have already visited this major hub - the city of Neon - but if you haven't, here's quick refresher:

The city of Neon is perched on a fishing platform, the sole landing spot in the watery planet of Volii Alpha. It's quite well known for its cyberpunk aesthetic, and home to gleaming (but cutthroat) corporations and the ebbside slums that surround its main central pavilion. While under the protection of the Freestar Collective, the people of Neon are largely independent and are beholden more to the mega corps found in the Trade Tower. It's also the only city where the drug known as Aurora is legal to purchase and use - but not legal to enter or leave the premises with.

After you land on the outskirts of Neon, head down the walkway and past the security checkpoint checking for drugs and up the elevator to Neon's Core - Bayu Plaza.

The sights and sounds can be a bit overwhelming, but luckily the place you need to go first isn't far. Simply turn left from the elevator and look behind you (left of the Mining League) to spot a small path to a door marked Ebbside to head to the outer part of Neon.

Entering Ebbside, you'll find your destination directly in front of you to the right - Madam Sauvage's Place. This trendy bar is full of patrons, special drinks, and even a few potential crewmates.

Head the stairs in the bar to the second floor to find Estelle Vincent alone, and tell her your here on business. She'll get a little heated, but you can tell her to take it up with Delgado and Estelle will start getting to the point.

In order to get the Conduction Grid tech, you'll need to sneak into Generdyne's power plant facility in the underbelly of Neon, and steal the plans directly from their power core. If that wasn't a daunting enough task, she'll also demand you upload a virus into the system as a favor for her. The good news is you'll be promised an increased profit for doing so.

However, before you can slip into Generdyne, you need a way in, and Estelle has one in mind: Ayumi Komiko. She's an executive at the company who not only has a pass to get in, but potentially compromising dirt you can hold over her head to get what you want -- and you won't be able to get in without her help.

Get Komiko's Generdyne Storage Room Pass

To get things started, Estelle will point you to the Euphorika Lounge on the other side of Neon's Ebbside to find her, and that the owner, Myka, will probably know where she is. She'll also mention that Komiko has an office in the Trade Tower by the Astral Lounge, and may be worth scoping out for dirt.

Before heading to Euphorika, it's best to go find some incriminating evidence on Ayumi Komiko unless you plan to shell out a lot of cash (or get violent). You can find the Generdyne Office at the Trade Tower at the bottom end of the Bayu Plaza, just to the right of the stairs up to the Astral Lounge.

Once inside, speak to the helpful receptionist, Ji Nashina. Unfortunately, they don't do Conduction Grid tours, but you can hear him out on his complaints - including weighing in on whether he should send complaints about how the brother of Administrator Bayu is tanking the company into the ground through his incompetence.

Whichever your decision is, ask about his boss and you can try to persuade him to loosen his tongue about anything illegal he's seen. If successful, he'll point you to a safe in her office that has an audio recording between her and Benjamin Bayu. He'll also unlock the safe for you automatically!

If you fail the persuasion check, you'll still have a few options: One is that Ji Nashina carries the Safe Key on him, and can be pickpocketed from behind to get it for yourself.

You'll find her office to the right as you enter the room beyond, and while the other employees and guard won't stop you, you should be sure to press the button next to the safe to close the blinds, giving you some privacy. If you weren't able to persuade or pickpocket, the safe has a master-level lock, so it won't be an easy alternative.

Ransack her safe for the Meeting with Bayu (Evidence) Audio Slate as well as any other goodies she has inside, and help yourself to the fancy displays she has in her office if you like (the other terminals in this office have nothing of interest), then exit the Trade Tower.

To find Euphorika, enter the opposite door to Ebbside in the plaza found just past the Terrabrew Coffee shop. The lounge entrance will be right in front of you, and inside you can find Myka.

She will refuse to help you at first, show flash your Crimson Fleet credentials and she'll immediately fold - giving up the intel that Ayumi Komiko is in their VIP Lounge. The bad news is that she won't fold on barring access without you buying a pass for a non-negotiable one-time fee of 5,000 Credits. There doesn't seem to be any other way to circumvent this cost, so you'll have to part with the money if you want to progress this mission.

Inside the VIP Lounge, you can find Ayumi Komiko at the back, flanked by two Syndicate guards. She will balk at your idea of trying to steal the Conduction Grid tech from her company, at least not without even more compensation. Normally, she'd ask for 4,000 credits in exchange for the storage entrance pass - which when added onto the 5,000 credit fee just to see her is a bit much - but luckily the evidence slate you hold will be enough to get the pass for free (and still keep the evidence).

Of course, there's also nothing stopping you from buying some Aurora from the nearby bartender, zoning out in slow-mo and wasting her and her guards before they can react, and while the City of Neon doesn't seem to react much if you choose the "Attack" dialogue option and let them draw weapons first, UC SysDef will absolutely hear about this and punish you accordingly.

Speaking of the bartender, be sure to look behind his counter at the shelves full of Aurora and alcohol to find Ayumi's Offer (Evidence) Audio Slate that you can use to implicate both Ayumi and Estelle when turned into UC SysDef for evidence.

Reach Generdyne's Power Core

Now that you have the pass, leave Euphorika and turn right, heading down the alley until you reach an elevator taking you down to Neon's Underbelly.

Take a right out of the elevator and head all the way down the platform to the giant Generdyne sign. Don't bother going in through the front door, as the receptionist is beyond unhelpful, and there's no way to open the secure door here to the rest of the plant.

Instead, head right around the building to find the Generdyne Storage Door. You'll be on the other side of the reception area, with a window into the facility where several employees and armed guards are facing away from you.

While excessive violence is always an option if you don't really care what the UC SysDef will do, this guide will focus on getting through without raising any alarms - and if you follow these routes you won't run into too much trouble, but having points in Stealth or using chems to reduce your noise from creeping about will likely help.

From the storage room, you can grab a boost pack on a rack, then look right past a storage crate to find a large vent to crawl through. Yes, this mission will also involve vents a lot.

At the other end of the vent, you'll see stairs leading up where a Generdyne Guard is posted, but facing away, so as long as you move slow or make little noise, he's not likely to turn around.

Stick to the lower walkway, and move carefully along to the end where it turns right, where you can spot another guard watching some workers. There's a stairway up ahead to enter a hall and bypass them, but if you're worried someone might spot you making a break for it, take the immediate right into a Research and Development Lab.

The lab itself doesn't have much to loot inside, but is a safe haven from guards or employees -- and you can jump and boost up the gap in the center of the room to reach the second floor, which is also devoid of guards except those facing away outside. It also has Technician Wanyan's Computer in the middle that you can read.

If you went up the stairs and through the door instead, you'll be in a long hall also devoid of people - save for a sanitation bot

Note - sometimes the game will decide that sanitation bots detecting you is a bad thing, and may mess with your stealth bar if you have that skill unlocked. The good news is that nobody really cares what happens to them, and you can fire off a quick silenced shot to deactivate them and better orient your stealth meter to see if you're in danger of detection by actual hostiles.

The hallway with the lone sanitation bot leads off to the right past some mannequins in display cases you can loot all the way to the door to the Research and Development lab, but it's the path to the left you'll want to focus on next - carefully.

Crouch and slowly peek around the opening and down the flight of stairs, and you should eventually spot a Security Robot Model A patrolling to the foot of the stairs, and then heading away. The good news is attacking him doesn't seem to alert the rest of the staff as long as you are quick, but if you want to keep things sneaky, there's another way around this.

Wait for the robot to patrol away from the stairs and sneak down quickly, and at the foot of the stairs you should spot an open hole in the ground with some yellow caution floor signs around it.

Hop down into a tunnel that runs below the robot's patrol route, and watch for it to move past you back towards the stairs. When it does, hop up through the grate at the end of the tunnel and look behind you to spot the robot's terminal, where you can both reconfigure it's friend/foe setting and disable it to call it back into its pod and avoid unwanted attention later.

Past this area is the Conduit Control Room, where you may spot a worker at their terminal on the far side of the room. Resist the urge to move straight towards them, and instead duck left around the large square case that divides the room, as a security officer and other employee are also in the room and may spot you as you advance.

By sticking to the left wall, you can avoid them entirely and slip out through the maintenance tunnel that's empty save for another sanitation bot.

Further up and down some stairs, you can find a novice-locked terminal that unlocks a secure door to a custodial supply room.

The closet not only has assorted spacesuit armor, digipicks, and packs, but ammo and even Black Market Antiquities contraband on a shelf near the door (just remember to sell it at the Trade Authority before leaving Neon, or back at The Key)!

Past the custodial supply room, you'll enter a larger hall with your view blocked by a large container. Crouch down and peek through the gap to spot workers on both sides of the hall with a security officer between them. It may seem dicey, but there's a way to evade these guys too.

Keep moving left and look for a narrow alcove on the far left wall - you might want to stick close to the back wall to stay out of earshot until you can get on the other side of a barrier, and then look along the back wall for another grate to sneak up.

When you reach the far side of the vent, don't open the grate here just yet, as a guard will likely be resting against it. Wait until he fully moves away and down the hall before opening the grate yourself and scrambling across to the far side.

As you approach the Master Control Room, don't open the door just yet. If you peek through the glass, you can see a guard on the other side, so instead look left to find a new grate to enter behind a desk that has an unlocked weapon case.

This new path will take you above the control room where you can look down from your hiding spot above. Should you choose to blast your way in, you'll find a locked safe behind the large desk at the top of the room.

Otherwise you should continue to sneak to the far side where it will drop you out of sight by a doorway to the left.

Continue to sneak past the lockers into the main core room -- thankfully all the security guards in the control room have their backs to the window, and you can snipe any sanitation bots if they get in your way. Look for a far elevator door at the end leading to Power Storage past a weapon case, and take it down to the bottom floor.

You will now be in the Power Core room, far below where you were just previously. On the left table is An Unfortunate Situation Slate, and on the right you can find the terminal you need to download the data for the Conduction Grid, but there's just one problem - it's encrypted.

Find Breyson Bayu

The only person has access to the decryption key for the plans is the company's chief technician - a nepotism hire and brother to the guy who basically runs all of Neon, Breyson Bayu. Luckily, he's not too far away in the facility itself, so leave the power core behind and head up the stairs.

Feel free to look around and loot the storage crates in the next room before slowly entering the next doors. Ahead is a door to Research and Development Lab 3, but you don't want to open those just yet.

Looking through the glass, you can spot another Security Robot stationed just outside the door, with a few employees and security guards also in a circle around the door.

Instead, go right past some lockers and down a hallway. Pass the second door to the lab, as there's another security officer posted just beyond, and head through the grate straight ahead.

The vents will lead left and to another grate to put you on the other side of the room, behind all the hostiles looking the other direction. You'll also be under the stairs leading up to the Chief Technician's Office, but before you do so, you can sneak directly across to the Research Director's Office provided your stealth and noise level is pretty decent.

Inside the Research Director's Office, you can help yourself to a large storage crate, several shelves full of expensive decorations and books, a case with some booze in the back, and a small advanced-locked safe tucked under the desk by Supervior Deshmukh's Computer that you can read from.

Behind the desk, you can also find another grate leading to a vent up to the second floor, putting you in striking distance of the CTO's office where Bayu is waiting.

Luckily, the room is technically unconnected to the rest of the lab, so you don't have to worry about sneaking anymore, and Bayu will have his hands up the moment you walk in (or he may not even notice you enter). Make use of this by looting anything of value you find here, and then talk to Breyson.

It turns out he hates his job just as much as everyone hates him, and will be happy to give you the cipher to steal the tech. You can chat him up about his differences with his older manipulative brother, or just head straight to Breyson's Terminal and run the decryption routine.

While you're in his system, you can also click Upload Subsystem Data Input to install Estelle's little virus (regardless of how you feel about Estelle, you have to upload the virus to proceed with the mission), then head towards the elevator at the end of the hall (stopping to loot the Science Crate on your way out.

Reconvene with Estelle at the Astral Lounge

The lift will take you right up into the Trade Tower in Neon, which just happens to be down the stairs from the Astral Lounge, where Estelle told you to meet her after the job was done.

Enter the lounge, and look for a lift to the left to go up to the VIP Booths, and head over to Booth 2.

However, Benjamin Bayu, the clever jerk that he is, will already be waiting for you. The virus you planted alerted him to your impending arrival, causing Estelle to flee. Rather than start a fight, Benjamin will give you a choice: Tell him who gave you orders to plant the virus, and he'll let you leave:

• You can choose to lie and tell him it was your idea, which will gain you respect from Estelle Vincent for not throwing her under the bus, but he'll warn that a bounty will soon be issued for you if you don't leave Neon soon.

• You can choose to lie and pin it on Breyson Bayu, his own brother, and he'll have a "talk" with him later.

• You can choose to pin it on Estelle Vincent, who will be made to "disappear"

If you're playing the good guy route, you can take the blame (Bayu doesn't seem to really make good on his threats to you anyway if you leave shortly), otherwise you can pin it on someone else. After he lets you go, head back to Madame Sauvage's place and give Estelle the news in Sauvuge's back room behind the bar - particularly what happened with planting the virus and whether or not you told Bayu about her.

As long as you didn't give her a death sentence, she'll ask if she can get a cut of your reward for this job considering her scheme fell flat, and if you choose to toss her some credits, she'll be very thankful. If you decline to cut her in on any of the pay, she'll call it quits with the Crimson Fleet, and you won't be seeing her again.

If you did rat her out, you'll be skipping this section entirely, and you shouldn't expect to see her supporting the Crimson Fleet, or see her alive for that matter.

While you're in the bedroom area at the back of Sauvage's Place, look on the small table to the left of the tiny bed, and you can find The Big Score (Evidence) Audio Slate if you end up wanting to turn Estelle into the authorities, rather than sicking Bayu on her.

Return to The Key

Now it's time to head back and give the Conduction Tech plans to Delgado at The Key.

Your welcome home will be an incredibly short one, as Naeva will tell you to immediately meet up with Jazz and Delgado at the Repair Bay. The race to find Kryx's Legacy is reaching a breaking point, and you'll soon be forced to pick a side when deciding who gets the treasure.