You’re going to feel overwhelmed with Starfield sometimes. It’s a Bethesda RPG thing, and it’s rather by design. So many quests will come flinging your way, and so many of them are going to lead to similar situations. That’s not a knock on the game; there’s plenty of unique fare in here. But sometimes, finding it is the hardest part.
‘Mantis’ is one of the many early quests that can be feasibly flung your way, and the rewards are seriously worthwhile. But before you can claim that terrific ship and equally neat spacesuit, you’ll need to solve Starfield’s most challenging puzzle.
Getting The “Secret Outpost!” Datapad
We call ‘Mantis’ one of Starfield’s earlier quests, but it’s actually an odds game how true that’ll hold up for you. In our experience, most players tend to get this datapad within the first few times they come into conflict with Spacers. The reality, regardless, is that every Spacer you kill will have a chance of wielding this key item until you’ve found it, at which point you need to read it to unlock the mission.
Don’t feel down in the dumps if it takes a few abandoned facilities, hijacked ships, you-name-it, before that special slain Spacer comes along for you. It shouldn’t take too long in any case.
The slate should send you to Denebola 1B, a star system you can reach fairly early on since it’s just ‘east’ of Cheyenne on the galaxy map. Set a course, or set course for wherever you need to get before you can reach Denebola. Either way, follow the quest marker from there.
The outpost you’re heading toward has foes as high as level 30, so you might want to hold off until you’re around 15-20. That said, a lot of these encounters are narrow enough to become one-on-ones, and even a level 10 Starfield character can bypass a level 30 Starfield NPC if you’re careful.
Reaching The Mantis Floor Puzzle
Slay your way through the base, grabbing journal entries from the corpses to paint a clearer picture of what is, honestly, a pretty cool story. These journals are titled Lair Slates. One of these Lair Slates contains the words ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ in its title. This is important.
You’ll probably bump into a fellow named Livvey near a door leading to the letter puzzle. There’s no persuasion check here, and if you’ve been reading entries, you’ll know he’s a rotten guy who sent people to die as he attempted to solve the upcoming puzzle. We killed him, but you do you.
Take a moment to acquaint yourself with this long hall. There are eight rows of letters, and enough cleverly placed turrets to annihilate you in seconds if you do something wrong, so it’s important that we get this right. Perhaps more important is that we make a quick save before beginning to solve the puzzle in case things do not go right.
Solving The Mantis Floor Puzzle And Earning Your Rewards
Recall ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’. If you observe the eight rows, you’ll notice that each one has a successive letter belonging to ‘Tyrannis’. Thus, step over the ‘T’ in the first row, the ‘Y’ in the second row, and so on until your boots have effectivelly spelled out the word ‘TYRANNIS’ on your way to the far end of the room.
There’s another way to handle the situation, although you may still need to step on the letters in the proper order. You can actually disable the turrets altogether by accessing the computer terminal to the right of the corridor just prior to the door leading to the letter puzzle. This is a master-tier lock, however, so you’re out of luck if you don’t have that many ranks in Security yet.
Activate the button near the door here which will nix those pesky turrets henceforth. Steel yourself for battles not only against a few straggling Spacers, but powerful robot enemies. Past them all are the following rewards:
- Razorleaf, a Class A starship and the main prize here. While it’s only a two-seater, it comes with shielding for your cargo, which is a huge help when smuggling contraband across the Settled Systems.
- Mantis Spacesuit, which appears to have random mods installed; ours is the Repulsing Mantis Spacesuit, and if you poke around the web, you should find at least one other writer with the same result. But there have been others!
- Mantis Pack and Mantis Space Helmet, which appear to follow the same randomness regarding mods. But boy, do they look cool, and these stats are nothing to scoff at.
