The Datura is a secret ship in Starfield that you can easily miss. If you miss this ship for the first time, you won’t be able to get it until you start the New Game Plus. To get the quest for finding the Datura, you must climb the ranks of the Ryujin faction.
Do enough tasks, and eventually, you’ll land a meeting with the head of operations, Ularu Chen. Speaking to her will add the quest Top Secrets to your mission log. This quest will take you to Simon Ryczek on Cydonia, Mars.
When you reach Cydonia, follow the quest tracker straight to him. Dialogue choices here will be important for the rest of the quest, especially to obtain the Datura.
Getting the Datura ship in Starfield
When speaking to Simon, he will mention something about the Universal Championship this year. Pick the option ‘Razor Derby is the only real sport’ to progress the dialogue smoothly. Keep talking until you reach a dialogue prompt to pay, persuade, or hear about a side job. Pick the option ‘Let’s hear about this side job.’
Once you do that, a new objective will appear in your Top Secrets quest log. You must fly to Saturn to find the Datura ship in Starfield space. Finding it isn’t hard since fast traveling to Saturn will put you near the Datura.
At this point, you’ll intercept a transmission from the Datura asking you to keep your distance or risk hostilities. From here, you have three separate chances to get the Datura.
1: Ignore the Transmission and attack the Datura
You must disable the ship’s engine and then board it. Once on board, you’ll have to kill the captain, Malai Liskova, and you can claim the ship yourself.
2: Open the Transmission and engage in dialogue
This method is smoother and takes relatively little time. If you want to board the Datura, you must answer some questions. Here are the answers to each of these questions in Starfield:
- Are you looking for a man named Simon Ryczek?
- I’m here to save your life.
- I can stop Simon Ryczek from hunting you.
- Simon will stop if he believes you’re dead.
- Simon wants your gun as proof of death.
Pick these answers, and the captain will ask you to board her ship and take her gun. Of course, things couldn’t have been that simple. As soon as you dock, you must speak to captain Malai Liskova. When you ask her to hand over the gun, she’ll refuse and say she intended to kill you.
At this point, you have a few options. You can either persuade or kill her to get the gun. Ember is a pretty nice pistol, too, with 6 pre-installed mods. However, to acquire the Datura in Starfield, you must avoid persuasion and kill her. You can loot Ember from her body, so it’s a win-win.
3: Random encounter with the Datura
This is a bit of a strange one. Many have claimed to encounter the Datura randomly while exploring space after the quest. Some users have reported three encounters in random star systems, not just once. Another matter is whether it’s a glitch, a deliberate design choice, or tied to having Ember in your inventory.
In any event, there are a few things that can happen. You’ll find the Datura with some UC Security personnel or Malai herself. It will be hostile from the get-go, so simply repeating option 1 is the only real choice.
In case it’s the UC Security staff, killing the captain in any way causes your companion to abandon you. Meanwhile, if it’s another Malai, there’s a chance you’ll get a prompt saying you are not authorized when you try piloting the ship in Starfield.
Some players have reported successfully claiming the ship, adding a second Datura to their arsenal. However, there’s too much uncertainty, especially with potentially losing a companion. Therefore, sticking with Option 2 is the foolproof method.
Once you get your hands on the Datura, it does classify as a stolen ship. Therefore, make sure to register the Datura as quickly as possible.
Is The Datura Ship worth it?
If we’re being realistic, there’s nothing practically noteworthy about the Datura besides helping with ship-collecting achievements. As a Class A ship, it holds 455 shield capacity, 4 crew capacity, and a 17 Light Year grav jump.
Even if you try selling it, you only get a fraction of the whole value. If you’re looking for a more practical free ship for combat and resource-gathering utility, the Star Eagle works. Moreover, it has no history of weird bugs like the Datura ship in Starfield. These include taking off without the player, softlocking the game, random cargo loss, etc.
