Prey guide: ‘The Blackbox Project’ optional objective walkthrough

In the same lab where you first pick up the q-beam during "Through a Glass Darkly," you’ll also uncover some intra-office drama involving a secret project. Your search for what’s going on between Josh Dalton and Lane Carpenter will take you on a bit of a journey around the station. But it’s worth the time, because you’ll walk away with the fabrication plans for the q-beam and its ammo.

Blackbox Shipment email

When you make your way into the beams and waves lab to pick up the q-beam during "Through a Glass Darkly," you’ll find an email on Lane Carpenter’s computer about a missing shipment for the Blackbox project. This will start the optional objective, and direct you to GUTS to find the thief, Josh Dalton.

Find Josh Dalton

Backtrack to the security booth near the entrance of the hardware labs foyer. You can find Josh’s entry in the crew tab under hardware labs. Doing this makes him (or, more accurately, his tracking bracelet) an objective on your HUD. You don’t technically have to do this step, but it makes your task infinitely easier.

How to find Josh Dalton in GUTS

We’re going to follow the path you take through the GUTS during "Detour." You start at the GUTS entrance after passing through the live exam room in psychotronics. Keep going straight through the various sections of GUTS until you get to the area where you first pass through the typhon coral.

The pipe ahead of you will curve to the right (assuming you’re still more-or-less oriented the same way as when you started). Shortly thereafter, you’ll come to a T-intersection.

To the left is the arboretum — your destination during "Detour." Instead, you’re going to turn right and head toward the cargo bay. ("Left" and "right" are kind of relative terms here, since there’s no up or down in GUTS. Just orient yourself as best you can, and watch for the signs on the walls.)

You’re not actually going to go all the way to the cargo bay, though. Watch for a huge gray pipe to appear ahead of you — and watch the signs on the wall for subsection 19. At the same time, GUTS will turn straight down, before turning back and going straight again. If you hit subsection 16, you’ve gone too far.

Follow GUTS and that gray pipe down to the bottom of the dogleg, then look straight back up at the pipe. You can squeeze around the elbow of the pipe here. Josh Dalton’s corpse is behind it, surrounded by cystoids when you first enter, so tread (float?) carefully.

Loot Josh Dalton’s corpse for the Blackbox lab keycard, some q-beam ammo and a TranScribe. You can listen to the TranScribe to hear Lane and Josh’s confrontation.

Find information on the Blackbox project

All that’s left now is to make your way back to the beams and waves lab in the hardware labs. When you get there, the keycard you just picked up will get you into the back room — the Blackbox lab.

When the door opens, the phantom of Lane Carpenter will probably be waiting for you. You can shoot him in the face. He’s kind of got it coming.

Sweep the room for a bunch of q-beam cells, then check out the computer to download the q-beam and q-beam cells fabrication plans. Do that, and this objective is done.