The Outer Worlds guide: Come Now the Power main quest walkthrough

Before you can get in your ship and fly away for the first time in The Outer Worlds, you need to complete two major quests. Come Now the Power is the second of those quests, and one you’ll pick up fairly early in your adventure through Edgewater.

Here’s how to complete the Come Now the Power main quest in The Outer Worlds.

Picking up the quest

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• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon

You’ll pick up this main quest through Stranger in a Strange Land. When you go up into the Saltuna Cannery tower to talk to Reed, he’ll offer you this quest. He wants you to reroute the power from the Geothermal Plant to Edgewater, stranding a group of deserters without power. But you have other options to think about.

Speak to the Vicar (optional step)

When you leave Reed’s office, your new companion Pavarti has something to talk to you about. She suggests you go speak to the Vicar in the nearby church. This step is optional, but you’ll get another quest for your trouble.

Turn left out of the door and walk toward the east gate. Look around until you see a circular building devoid of filth. Go inside and look into the office on the left. The Vicar doesn’t have any great advice for you, but he’ll offer you a new quest for your trouble: The Illustrated Manual.

Deliver Reed’s message (optional step)

Before you head to the Geothermal Plant, you can stop by and talk to Adelaide in the Botanical Lab settlement. This step doesn’t say it’s optional, but it is.

Go here and talk to Adelaide if you want some context about her settlement. Note that you can also come talk to Adelaide about some of this stuff after you’ve entered the Geothermal Plant but before you’ve rerouted the power.

Divert power from the Geothermal Plant

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• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon

When you’re ready to make your decision and divert power from either Edgewater or the Botanical Lab, head into the Geothermal Plant through the broken gate and front door. Turn right and go down the long hall. Here you’ll find the master computer. Walk up to it and try to redirect the power. The computer tells you there’s some kind of malfunction, so let’s go fix that first.

Return to the entryway of the Geothermal Plant and move down the center hallway, down the stairs and into the room on your right. Walk in and look to your left. There’s a small panel attached to a big pipe. Flip the switch on the panel to get the lava flowing.

Leave this room by continuing forward into the circular red room. Walk to your right and head down some stairs. On the second level, head out the door on the left. Follow the path and you’ll find the next two panels. The first is on a walkway, attached to another pipe shooting into the air.

Keep going along the path until you reach a room filled with pipes. Climb up on the far walkway and walk across the metal surface to find the third and final vertical pipe. Flip the switch.

When you’ve activated all three lava flows, head back to the central computer. Now you need to choose. Will you remove power from Edgewater, stranding the corporate citizens and dooming them? Or will you do the same to the free-thinking deserters at the Botanical Labs? The major factor in your decision here is which side is going to be mad at you.

Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon

If you choose to reroute the power away from Edgewater and to the Botanical Lab, Reed will force you to kill some of his personal guards to get the power regulator from the cannery.

If you choose to give Edgewater the power, most of the Botanical Lab citizens will speak about returning to Edgewater, while Adelaide swears to stay behind, refusing to give up her cure for the Edgewater plague. However, if you can convince Reed to leave, Adelaide will return.

When you ask Reed to leave, he suggests this is the end for him, and that his failure likely means his death. If he leaves, everyone else should live, and the town of Edgewater will continue — with Reed likely your only casualty.

Neither decision is good or evil, but it seems that you’re actually dooming far more people if you side with the Botanical Lab.

Reprogram the automechanicals (optional step)

Grid View

• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon
• Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon

If you’re struggling getting through all the robots in the Geothermal Plant, head back to the circular red room and go down the ladders until your reach level four. Higgins, a former Geothermal Plant worker, is hanging out alone and talking to himself about eating rats.

Convince Higgins that you aren’t a phantom, and he’ll suggest a way for you to shut down all the robots in the plant and give you his access code.

Return to the first level of the red room, and go back to where you activated the first lava pipe. Climb the stairs in this room until you reach the security office above. Activate the computer in here and set the robot’s target parameters to themselves. If there are any robots left, they’ll kill each other instead of you.

Step 2: Return to Reed or Adelaide

Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division via Polygon

When you’re done in the Geothermal Plant, it’s time to face the music. Return to whichever settlement you deprived of power and speak to Reed or Adelaide to finish the quest.

When they’re done reprimanding you, you’ll get a new objective to pick up the power regulator you’ve been searching for all this time.