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Wondering how to reach The Key in Starfield? Grav jump into the vicinity of The Key orbiting Suvorov in the Kryx System and you’ll be met by a barrage of fire from both turrets and ships. You can try taking them on, but a swift death is pretty much on the cards whatever ship and weaponry you have. This all makes reaching the Crimson Fleet headquarters a little tricky.
We’ll walk you through everything you need to know to dock at The Key in Starfield. For more tips to help you on your adventure across the Settled Systems, we have guides for the Starfield Lair of the Mantis puzzle solution, how to dock in Starfield, and a Starfield beginner’s guide full of tips and tricks.
How to enter The Key in Starfield
To reach The Key in Starfield, you’ll need to complete the Deep Cover Crimson Fleet faction quest and then make your way through the Rook Meets King quest until you’re summoned to The Key. The Deep Cover mission takes you to Cydonia on Mars to smuggle a parcel of Aurora via Saoirse Bowden and Adler Kemp to get an in with the pirates.
Once you’ve completed Deep Cover, you’ll unlock the Rook Meets King faction quest. In this one, you’ll meet up with Crimson Fleet second in command Naeva Mora. She’ll send you to a ship called the Ragana to deal with a deserting pirate, Austin Rake. You can choose to hand him over to the UC or kill him. Either way, returning to Naeva drops you into a dogfight against the Ecliptic, a group of mercenaries.
Naeva Mora will then invite you to The Key. Travel there and you’ll see that the aggressive ships and turrets have now turned blue and are friendly. You can safely dock, and after a tour of the facilities led by Naeva, you’ll can come and go from the Key in Starfield as you see fit.
What is on The Key in Starfield?
The Key is effectively its own little city on a space station, and with that comes its own collection of NPCs, quests and vendors to take a look at once you become a member of the Crimson Fleet. Without a spaceport, there is a fairly small Ship Services Technician area compared to bigger cities, but has some decent stock. Here, you can buy a Crimson Fleet Haunt and Crimson Fleet Ghost, as well as get some parts from Nova Galactic, Stroud, and HopeTech.
The Key is one of the best places to sell contraband in Starfield. This is because of a Trade Authority located on the station, and the lack of scanning for contraband as you enter. Anytime you want to sell some illegal cargo or really just any loot at all, you can simply come here and get your credits.
As well as that, the Reckoner’s Core Depot area is full of other shops like Isra’s General Goods, Aludra’s Weapon Shop, The Last Nova bar, and Zuri’s Essentials, TK’s Tactical Gear, and a MedBay, where you can buy all the resources, medical supplies, weapons and ammo you need. There’s also the Gym, a shooting range for you to test out your new weapons. There are also plenty of Crimson Fleet pirates milling around who you can pickpocket for some quick and easy ammo.
Head to the Operations Center if you want some quests, which you’ll get from the group’s leader Delgado. You’ll also meet several NPCs throughout the station in these quests such as Shinya Voss, who is in charge of the group’s finances. These quests each offer some great EXP and rewards, so are worth taking on.
Lastly, the Bunks area is full of beds, and largely hosts some nice tidbits of lore, but is worth poking your nose around for a quick look.
For more Starfield help, check out our Starfield Alternating Currents side quest walkthrough, our Starfield quest list, the Starfield Pilgrim’s Computer answers, and our guide on how to unlock powers in Starfield, which also features a Starfied powers list so you can get a sense of what these cosmic superpowers can do and where to find them.
