The Outer Worlds Tips & Missables Guide

The following guide for The Outer Worlds will outline some general gameplay tips, along with a general progression route for the story in order to get almost all missable trophies / achievements in one playthrough of the story with a bit of reloading saves.

General Game Tips

Theft – Stealing items is entirely based on line of sight and nothing else. That means if no NPCs can see you pick up an item then no one will know that you have it. Stealing also doesn’t mark items as stolen or decrease faction reputation (unless someone catches you stealing) so you can and should grab absolutely everything you come across if you’re able to do so without being seen.

Hacking/Lockpicking – The same line of sight rule applies for both Hacking and Lockpicking. If no one can see you actively doing the pick/hack prompt then no one will care, and you can even then go into locked areas without raising any issues with NPCs. If you crouch while engaging in either of these you will see the awareness meter raise on any NPC that can see you, and you can stop and reposition yourself.

Pickpocketing – When you raise your Stealth skill to level 40 you gain the ability to pickpocket any human NPC while sneaking. This also functions on the same line of sight rules as theft / hacking / lockpicking. If no one sees you do it, then you can take anything you want from any without issue as long as you’re not caught. If you feel like spending the time doing this you can get a lot of extra items and money this way.

Show Base Item Stats Option – If you go into the Options menu then to the UI section there will be an option for “Show Base Item Stats”. It will be turned on automatically, you should turn it off and leave it off. When turned on it only shows the base damage/armor level of items without your stat bonuses, so you should have it turned off so that it always factors in bonuses to the displayed values. This gives you a better idea of what items are better based on your current stat bonuses.

Enemy Patrol/Pathing Areas – Enemies will always spawn and be held to a spawn area that they won’t chase you really far out of. You can use this to your advantage for groups of harder enemies or early in your Supernova playthrough because you can exploit it to pick off enemies. With a longer range gun you can pick off some enemies, and if it alerts the group you can move away and eventually the enemies will hit somewhat of a wall and stop following you.

Enemy Spawning – In this game enemies have a fairly limited spawn setup. Out in the open areas they won’t respawn until a significant amount of time passes or you leave the planet you are on and go somewhere else. In most indoor locations enemies don’t respawn even when you leave and come back. You can use these to your advantage if you’re doing a lot of things in one area, because you can keep going through the same spots safely if you’ve already cleared out the enemies once and they won’t show up again.

Missables Walkthrough

The following will be general steps you can take to get basically all missables in one playthrough with some minor reloading.

For the purposes of your Supernova playthrough if you do a second one you can largely follow the same mission route, but just avoid quests that involve lots of combat or going into overly hostile areas.

Character Creation

When making your character the only thing you specifically might want to do if you choose is lower your Intelligence attribute to below average. This unlocks the [DUMB] dialogue options for you during your playthrough, and you need this to earn one of the missable trophies. (If you wish to not do this you can get the trophy using Arena-Time crash debuff as long as you don’t max Intelligence). Other stats are for the most part up to you, but it would be advised (especially on Supernova) to gives yourself High Perception, Charm, and Temperament, then spec most of your skills towards Dialogue, Stealth, and Tech.

Starting Out / Emerald Vale Area

In Emerald Vale you want to make sure you do everything possible before making the choice where to direct power. This should be the last thing you do before you are basically ready to leave the area and progress elsewhere. For general progression ordering you should:

• Go into Edgewater into the Saltuna Plant, agree to take Parvati with you and agree to what Reed wants
• Speak Vicar Max in the church to get his first quest, which will allow you to get him as a companion when you leave
• Speak to anyone else in the area, hitting everyone in and around Edgewater making sure you pick up all side quests
• BEFORE GOING TO THE GEOTHERMAL PLANT go speak to Adelaide at the Botanical labs. If you go into the Geothermal Plant first it can mess up the quest, so be sure to speak to her first.
• Speak to the other people around the Botanical Labs, getting their few sidequests.
• Complete all sidequests and clear the map out, hitting all points of interest.
• Head into the Geothermal Plant once you need to go in there for side quests, but don’t make the choice of where to send power. You can enter and clear everything out and grab all the side quest items, then leave and come back after you’ve turned in all side quests.
• Once you’ve finished all available side quests go to the Geothermal Plant console and redirect power to Edgewater. (Do this on both your normal playthrough and Supernova.)
• Go to the Botanical Gardens and collect the power core and speak to Adelaide. Go outside and speak to the others and get them to return to town.
• Return to Edgewater and speak to Reed and tell him the deserters are coming back. Don’t talk him into leaving, keep him as leader of Edgewater.
• Assuming that was the last thing you needed to do in the area and you had agreed to let Vicar Max come to your ship you can head there and then leave the planet to the Groundbreaker

Groundbreaker

The Groundbreaker is the first area where you can start branching out to different main factions you’ll deal with the rest of the game. Doing so doesn’t lock you into either path at all, so you should do this for progression on both your normal playthrough and Supernova.

• Before going out onto the Groundbreaker go into your room on the second floor of the ship and grab the disguise off the table.
• As soon as you step foot on the Groundbreaker you ship will be impounded, this is fine you’ll get it fixed later.
• Stop and speak to the group of three people in your path towards the front gate, tell the guard you’ll deal with the man in red. This is Felix who is one of the potential companions, basically agree to his dialogue and then he can join you later.
• Speak to the guard at the front, exhaust most of his dialogue so you get some objective markers. Speak to the lady in the next booth to get the bounty for the area.
• Directly across from the nearby Workbench you should see a Mardet ID on a box, which lets you use that disguise. You can get into the guard room and the medical room using this, which allows you to hack the computer for Max and get into the medical area for Jessie.
• Go speak to Gladys like you are supposed to, ask her about all her different work ideas before leaving.
• Go to the Medical Bay, agree to help Ellie, then go back and talk to Jessie in the back of the medical bay, talk your way in then agree to help her.
• Go over and speak to Junlei like Parvati wants, going through her dialogue then agreeing to help her out with the heat problems.
• Go over and speak to Udom Bedford, attempt to turn in Phineas. He says to do so he needs his seal, which you can buy back from Gladys for 8000 bits. Alternatively you can get yourself in a position in her room to pick thr safe without anyone knowing if you have high enough lockpick. Once you have it he’ll give you the coordinates to Byzantium to speak with Sophia. Ask him to compromise on Jessie to get her out of her bounty.
• Go back and speak to Ellie, which will now be with Jessie. Ellie agrees to come with you now and you should agree.
• Complete any side quests here before you leave. DON’T BUY THE STELLAR BAY NAV KEY FROM GLADYS. You won’t be able to get the Sublight questline yet, you can do it later (You can get it now if you stole the NavKey from her) .
• On your way out speak to Felix, he should now ask to join your crew.
• On the ship speak to Parvati immediately about Junlei, if you don’t do it here the quest seems to auto fail and you can’t earn all companion quests in one playthrough. Once you’ve spoke to her and got the objective to go to the bar you can’t fail it from waiting.

Byzantium

Her you will be following what would be the Board faction side by turning in Phineas. You can’t actually lock yourself into only doing Board objectives and miss anything else if you do this though, and you want to do this first because you get one of the missable trophies and you get a free Nav Key for Stellar Bay.

• Agree to do the quest for Sophia dealing with the Cartographer. During the quest deal with her however, you want (best option is killing her and taking the papers, but you can talk the other guy down and take the papers and it doesn’t cause issues). This earns The Cartographer
• Sophia gives you a Nav Key for Stellar Bay and the objective to shut down the radio broadcasts. What you can do here now is go back to the Groundbreaker and get the Sublight quest (you can ignore the Sublight stuff on Supernova, they involve a decent amount of combat and heavy enemy areas).

Phineas Lab

• Instead of going to Monarch you should go to Phineas Lab first and tell him you got a Nav Key. He will then give you basically the same objective as Sophia to go and shut down the broadcasts. You can then go over to his computer and install the tracking on it, this doesn’t really matter at all but gives some extra XP.

Monarch

While on Monarch you should basically follow the Phineas side of this quest. The objective is effectively the exact same as the Board quest, you just want to make sure you are doing Phineas’ side for missables.

• Speak to Nyoka instead of the board contact, agree to help get her pills, then get them however you see fit (can steal them from upstairs very easily, doesn’t affect anything really).
• Agree to take Nyoka with you as a companion. The first time you leave Stellar Bay with her speak to her and agree to help her out with her companion quest.
• In Stellar Bay go around and speak to all available people and pick up all side quests, complete any in the city if you want. Head out following the road and go into both Amber Heights and Fallbrook as you go by to open them up. In Fallbrook you can go speak to Catherine who is head of Sublight and agree to help her with her issue related to the C&P Factory. When completing this quest you can deal with Clive however you wish, you just have to complete it for the Sublight trophy.
• In Fallbrook you can complete the next part of Vicar Max’s companion quest, talk him out of hurting the man you find.
• Continue heading to the Radio Tower, get inside and speak to Hiram to progressive your main objectives.
• For the Iconoclasts go back to Amber Heights and agree to help Graham. For the first quest for the option given by the supplier choose the extra food and supplies like Zora wants. For the second quest you should talk to the Twins outside the building, don’t tell them to help you, then agree to find their medic. Go get the medic bag from nearby, take it back to them then they’ll return to Amber Heights. Go complete the rest of the quest and you will be finished the Iconoclasts half.
• For MSI Sanjar asks you to find him a BOLT. Go to the location and get, then on the terminal downstairs read all the files but don’t erase them like he asks. For the second quest go speak to Catherine, then go to the location of the UDL lab. Take everyone out and get the info for Sanjar (there is a science weapon in here too).
• Now that both factions have stopped broadcasting go speak to Hiram again, go through his dialogue twice and you should get him to agree to help Phineas and agree to help the board. You then go cycle the antenna for him to progress both quests for Phineas and Sophia and earn Pirate Radio . You then also have the UDL ship drop out of the sky.
• Go to the UDL ship and get the Targeting module. After that you should first go to the Iconoclasts and speak to Zora, if you did both prior missions the way you wanted she will give you a quest to research something, which will provide some information on Graham. After you get that information return to her, then agree to back her up in overthrowing Graham and kill him. Speak to her about the possibility of working things out with Sanjar and she should agree.
• Go speak to Sanjar and bring up the possibility of working with Zora. He wants to see her report, which is at the Rizzo factory on the far South end of the map. You can head there to get this and do the first Sublight quest for the Alta Vitae gel at the same time. Once you have this you should go back to Sanjar and make a save backup.
• Give Sanjar the targeting module, you will then engage in an assault on the Iconoclast forces. Once you reach the marker and kill Zora you will earn the trophy Monarch Abides   , then reload your save.
• Give Sanjar Zora’s report and he will agree to talk about compromise. Meet them at the church and give largely agreeable answers and they should agree to work together, earning you the trophy Peace in Our Time  
• At this point you can work on clearing any other side quests related to Monarch, then you should head back to Byzantium and speak to Sophia.

Byzantium Part 2

• Before going back to Sophia make a save. Speak to her without doing anything else and she’ll tell you about how well Edgewater is doing and make you’ll earn Mightier than the Sword
• Reload your save, then go to Edgewater and kill Reed. After that you can now go talk to Sophia, and she will task you with dealing with the Deserters who have taken over the town of Edgewater since you killed Reed. Head there and do the quest, then return. This earns Ludwig was Right  
• She will task you with going and skipping the Hope. DON’T DO THIS YET. This is the point where you basically stop following the Board related objectives. You will also earn The Audience Gasps at this point instead of later if you hadn’t been helping her.
• Go back to Phineas Lab and speak to him again, he’ll now task you with going to Byzantium to get the needed chemicals for the ship. This is the point where you basically just follow his objectives for the rest of the game.
• On Byzantium speak to Phineas’ contact, then head into the main area. Talk to the guy who calls to you and agree to staring in a picture. Complete this side quest when you want to earn A Star is Born  
• Go up the stairs to the upper area overlooking the globe device and go into the clothing store. Speak to the clerk and agree to help her out to get a quest, complete this at your leisure to get one of the two items you need for Well Dressed (the other is “A Fancy Hat” which is found in the ruined church just outside Stellar Bay).
• Proceed along the main objective for Phineas. You can get into Minister Clarke’s house with a UDL disguise if you got one already, or speak to the guy out front to learn about the package then go steal that, then use it to get inside. Speak to Minister Clark to get his office key. Go up there and get the required items out of his office.
• Proceed to the objective to steal the chemicals, however you see fit. You take just some or all of the chemicals, it doesn’t actually matter. You can then take this over to Phineas and he will ask you to go to the Hope

The Hope

The Hope is the point where you make the proper decision which faction you ally with. Because of going along with Sophia though you get an easier time getting through the ship itself because the Board soldiers won’t attack you and you just have robots you need to get by, which you can do with a disguise.

• At the front of the ship make a save. If you set yourself up with low Intelligence from the start you can just speak to the console, if not you should use a bunch of Adrena-time and let its effect run out and gain its debuff to drop your Intelligence temporarily, then speak to the console. You need to choose to skip the Hope yourself to either location, then pick the [DUMB] option when prompted. This causes you to send the ship into the Sun, earning you the last proper missable, Sunburn
• Reload your save and choose to send the ship to Terra 2. Have ADA do it, and you will then skip the Hope, earning you Lost and Found
• Skipping the Hope to Terra 2 locks you into the ending going against the Board, but that’s fine now because you can’t miss anything related to this and you want this path when on Supernova difficulty.
• Go to Phineas’ Lab again after you get his call on the ship, and get his items out of the safe. Now is where you can go to the point of no return.

Side Quest Cleanup

When you’ve reached this point now is when you want to go around and cleanup all possible side quests in remaining locations for the couple other side trophies and companion quests. Nothing can be missed from progression now aside from going to Tartarus, which locks you into doing the ending.

• Complete the remaining Sublight quests for SubLight to the End . During the one where you are tasked with killing the scientist you can choose not too and it will still count as completing the quest when you turn it in and earn the trophy, even though you are basically fired from Sublight and don’t finish a couple more quests.
• When you travel to Roseway to answer the distress signal you get the quest to retrieve the scientist’s toothpaste recipe. For the trophy Dentastic you need to obtain the recipe from the Marauder in the facility by whatever means, then give it to the scientist. If you let the Marauder keep it or sell it to Gladys you don’t earn this trophy.
• Companion quests for the most part you can complete as you see fit, though I would recommend following along in a positive way to the companion doing what they seem to want you to do.

Tartarus

When you are completely finished everything else you need to do for trophies in this playthrough (including any of the misc kill/grinding/etc) you can travel to Tartarus. The game warns you before you go there that it is the point of no return, as once you actually go there in your ship you are stuck there through the game ending.

Due to being on the track where you’re against the Board going through Tartarus is very easy. If you are bringing your companions set their behaviour to defensive so that they don’t attack anyone, then you can basically just run through the entire area in Disguise. As long as you don’t shoot any of the Board soldiers you can go through the whole level with your disguise up, only needing to stop if you need to do a speech check. Any factions that are supporting you will break into the areas and attack Board soldiers along the way, you can largely ignore them as this won’t cause your disguise to fail as long as you don’t attack anyone yourself.

When you reach Chairman Rockwell you can talk him down without needing to attack him if you have any of Level 80 Lie, Intimidate, Persuade, or High Temperment. You can then proceed to the top floor to deal with Sophia. If you want to avoid fighting the final boss, the recommended skills to have are Level 100 Persuasion, Level 90 Science, and optionally Level 100 Intimidate. If you had your Temperment at High like recommended you can drink alcohol before getting into the conversation to boost it one point (try to do one of the ones that lasts 1 minute 30 seconds) then rush through her conversation to get through to the Temperment check. If you meet these you can then go to the end of the area, let Phineas out and complete the story.

If you can’t meet the speech checks there is also a Level 100 Lockpick door you can get through to use a hack console right before the fight. If you can’t do that then you’ll have to fight the final boss (on Supernova this is absolutely not recommended). The boss is one of the large mechanicals like you’ll have ran into elsewhere. It has about 4000 health, and summons drones through the fight once its health gets down certain amounts. If you can avoid it I’d honestly recommend not dealing with the boss and going for the skill check routes, as the boss isn’t very fun and is more frustrating than anything even on Normal. If you do fight it and destroy you can then head out the door on the opposite side of the area from where you entered, then you will have to kill Sophia in the final room.