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You’re going to feel overwhelmed withStarfieldsometimes. 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.
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‘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.
Updated July 12, 2025:We’ve added a video guide to this article, so you may acquire that sweet Razorleaf ship.
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 thatevery Spacer you kill will have a chance of wielding this key item until you’ve found it, at which point you need toread 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 toDenebola 1B,a star system you may reach fairly early onsince 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, grabbingjournal entries from the corpsesto paint a clearer picture of what is, honestly, a pretty cool story. These journals are titledLair 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 namedLivveynear 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 wemake a quick save before beginning to solve the puzzlein 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 onuntil 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 actuallydisable the turrets altogetherby 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 buttonnear the door here which will nix those pesky turrets henceforth. Steel yourself for battles not only against a few straggling Spacers, butpowerful robot enemies. Past them all are the following rewards:
