There’s never a quest or errand too small to fit in a puzzle in Rogue Trader, case in point being the Valve Puzzle you can find during Abelard’s Companion quest Dark Echelons. This page will discuss how to start Dark Echelons, reach the Lower Deck area, and solve the Valve Puzzle in Rogue Trader.
How to Reach the Lower Deck¶
This Valve Puzzle can be found in the Lower Deck section of your voidship. Despite being the Lord Captain of this mighty capital ship, you can’t just traipse around the vessel whenever you want - presumably the ship is too large and dangerous for you to bother wasting time and resources exploring its depths on a whim. You’ll find an excuse to visit the Lower Decks during Abelard’s companion quest Dark Echelons, which will start during Chapter 1. Just complete any main quest, return to your void ship and fly around. This quest unlocked for us after completing The Starport. You’ll know the ball is rolling when you’re summoned to the bridge to mediate between an insubordinate officer named Avrilla Vent, who is at odds with Abelard’s heavy-handed approach to dealing with unrest among the rabble.
Agree to mediate (picking the option “This matter is not worth the Rogue Trader’s time.” will fail the quest and prevent you from visiting the Lower Decks), and when you arrive you’ll need to complete the majority of the quest by either exterminating the rebels or conceding to their demands to one degree or another. Check out our walkthrough for this quest if you need any help.
How to Solve the Lower Deck Valve Puzzle - Rogue Trader¶
After dealing with the unrest, search behind where you encountered the protesters (near the southeastern edge of the area) to find a “Manometer”. It required an [Awareness] check to spot this, and a [Tech-Use] check to actually interact with it successfully. Assuming you pass both checks you’ll subsequently be able to interact with numerous Valves located across the area. There are nine Valves in total, and they must be pressed in a specific order to complete the puzzle.
Fortunately, unlike many puzzles in Rogue Trader there is no fail state, nor are there any penalties for just guessing. If you select the wrong valve, you’ll just get a message informing you that Nothing is happening. Perhaps turning a different valve will work. That said, there are some dummy Valves that never need to be turned - around half of them, in fact - and instead of wasting your time running around clicking on every Valve to solve the puzzle, why not take advantage of the time we wasted doing the same? Check out the image below to see what Valves to turn and in which order:
The red Valves in the image before are, fittingly enough, red herrings, and are just there to waste your time. The blue ones can all be turned… eventually. Start with the southeasternmost Valve (near the “Manometer”), then hit the westernmost one near the depression just south of the area’s exit. The third one is in the same room, to the northeast. The fourth is in a room to the east and the fifth is in a hallway in the north-center of the area. Once you hit the fifth Valve the pressure will blow a hatch open, revealing a locked container. Open it [Tech-Use] and you’ll be able to grab some goodies, including 3x Multikeys, 3x Melta Charges, 1x Krak Grenade and 3x Force Grenades. Nothing unique, or even all that special, but loot is loot.
In any event, that’s one less puzzle you have to worry about. Check out the following pages for more puzzle solutions in Rogue Trader:
No Comments