How to complete First Contact in Starfield

The First Contact quest will see Starfield players taking on the role of a diplomatic go-between for two parties: One established colony run by a morally questionable board, and a ship full of Earth Colonists looking to settle on the same planet. There’s a pretty big moral choice to make here, with the most reward coming from the evil option, of course.

The ethical option will come at great personal cost, credits-wise (unless you're specialising in persuasion and gathering wealth), though you can bag a neat pistol and some baseball memorabilia. Otherwise, there's an arduous fetch quest route with little reward, which I don't recommend.

This guide contains spoilers, so leave now if you don’t want to ruin the game for yourself.

Where to find the First Contact quest in Starfield

If you've picked up the Activity that directs you to Paradiso, you'll have the option of starting First Contact almost immediately. After entering the Porrima system, a transmission from one Chief Sugiyama of Porrima 2 sets the mission in motion. They will direct you to check out a craft orbiting the planet, but hailing it won't work as the comms system is garbled, so simply wander over and dock with the ship to chat with the would-be settlers inhabiting it.

After welcoming you to the Earth Colony Ship Constant, Captain Diana Brackenridge sends you off on a diplomatic mission, so that they might have a chance to complete their own mission to settle on the planet their ancestors intended them to. Head on down to Paradiso on Porrima 2 to start the next part of the mission. 

Speak with Chief Sugiyama then head to the hotel via the waypoint. Check in with Keavy at the reception—or try to enter the board room and be forced into a conversation with her—then speak to Paradiso CEO, Oliver, who will tell you the "aliens" are causing issues for their fancy resort. He will present you with three options:

• Convince them to settle somewhere else, and outfit their ship with a Grav Drive so they can find a new home.
• Convince them to take a temporary settlement deal in which they would need to work off their boarding debt.
• Or have them "cease to exist entirely."

The easiest and cheapest option is the latter, though it might upset certain companions.

Convince them to settle somewhere else

This option is the most morally acceptable, and potentially the most complex and costly. 

Oliver will direct you to Bennu St. James at HopeTech, who has access to an ancient Grav Drive he reckons will be compatible with their ship, after some modifications. The combined cost of parts and labour will set you back 40,000 credits. However, rolling high on a persuasion check could see that cost reduced to 25,000, since it's for a good cause.

Heading back to the ECS Constant, you don't need to speak to Diana—you can head straight to Amin in engineering who already knows about the incoming upgrades. A high Astrodynamics will let you impress him with your knowledge of Grav Drive tech. Either way, he’ll ask you to help him prep the ship for the mods. 

• First, head to the Engineering Control Computer Alpha panel and reroute power from the port turbopump (scroll down to find it) to the auxiliary cryogenic radiator—that’s the top option.
• Next you’ll need to turn the plasma run-off inhibitor function to 5% at Engineering Control Computer Beta.
• Then, at Engineering Control Computer Gamma, decouple the magnetic flange pipe enclosures from the auxiliary module assembly.

That’s that. Just speak to Diana to complete the quest. And since the Constant is now free to roam, and you'll get a quest to come back to visit—though at this point it hasn't left the current system for me, so it might be a while before I have an update for that. She will give you a decent pistol and a bunch of old-timey baseball stuff for your troubles.

Convince them to take a temporary settlement deal

This option is the biggest time sink, though it does mean you don’t have to spend out on an expensive Grav Drive. It’s the middleground morally since they’ll essentially have to live in servitude during their stay, but there's a good chance some companions won't like it.

For this one you have to get hold of:

• 40 fiber 
• 20 sealant 
• 80 iron 
• 10 lithium

It takes a decent chunk of time to do all this, so I don't recommend this option.

Make them disappear

The most morally corrupt option involves rigging the ship’s reactor to blow; it also happens to be the most profitable option. You’ll need at least one rank in pickpocketing, and some stealth skill to get the job done.

It’s risky, but if you can pickpocket the engineer (or kill him) to get the key, you can then sneak over and set the reactor to self-destruct by selecting emergency reactor overdrive. Then it’s just a case of running back to your ship in time before it blows. Grim.

In return, Oliver will pay you 6,500 credits, and will grant you unrestricted access to the resort. It's ot a lot of credits for killing a whole ship of Earth's colonists.