All That Money Can Buy is one of the missions in the Constellation questline that sees you travel to the city of Neon with Walter Shroud. Walter has a lead on another Artifact on Neon but needs your help to ensure the deal goes smoothly.
This mission starts innocently enough in Starfield, as it seems like a simple fetch quest in the beginning. By the end of it, you will have completed a risky deal, escaped captivity, and had the fate of a man’s life in your hands.
Traveling to Neon with Walter Shroud
Once you receive this quest from Walter at The Lodge, head to your ship and set a course for Neon. This city is located in the Volii system on the planet Volii Alpha. Make sure to save your game before continuing in case you run into any bugs.
Upon arriving in Neon, you need to speak to Walter outside your ship, who will give you details on exactly what you’ll be doing. It turns out Walter has set up a meeting with a man, who he doesn’t know anything about, about purchasing another Artifact for a hefty sum. To get the money he needs, you need to escort Walter to the Stroud-Eckland building inside the city.
If this is your first time on Neon, then you will pass by a criminal named Neshar on your way into the city. I waited to hear what happens with Neshar, as that leads to a quest that eventually lets you join a Faction called the Xenofresh Corporation.
Inside Neon, travel to the Stroud-Eckland building and you will meet with Walter’s wife, Issa. The two of them talk for a bit and eventually, Walter tells you to go secure the Astral Lounge, which is where the meeting is set to take place.
If Walter has not spawned in the Stroud-Eckland building, make sure to look at the end of this article for potential bug fixes.
Setting up the Astral Lounge for the meeting
Before you can meet with the seller, you need to make sure the Astral Lounge is prepared for the meeting. To do this, you need to enter the lounge and speak with a man named Boone, who is the bartender at the back end of the room. From here, a few things will happen:
- You can persuade Boone to lower the price of becoming a VIP, which ends up being 1,000 credits.
- If your persuasion fails, then you will have to pay Boone the full 2,500 credits to become a VIP.
- Either way, after you’re done with Boone, make your way up the elevator and into a VIP room.
- Here, you need to hack a terminal inside the room you’re set to meet the buyer. The terminal allows you to change the way the door to the room operates, giving you access to close it upon your command.
- Simply make sure the door controls are configured the right way, and you can exit the room.
Once you’re done setting up the terminal, head back out of the Astral Lounge and follow your quest marker to Newill’s Goods in Neon.
Learning about the seller
At Newill’s Goods, you need to talk to James Newill, the shopowner, and convince him to give up information he has acquired about the seller you’re meeting with. You will need to pass a persuasion check to make James give up the information for free.
If you don’t pass the check, then you have to pay the shopowner a whopping 2,500 credits for the details you desire. In any case, after acquiring the information about the seller, you will learn that they rented out a sleepcrate in the Ebbside part of Neon.
Your next step is to travel to the sleepcrate, which requires you to hack into the room by completing a Novice lockpick.
Inside the sleepcrate, read about the seller via the computer. The computer reveals the mysterious seller is a man named Musgrove and that he is desperate to sell the Artifact, which gives you and Walter an edge in negotiation. You also learn Musgrove has someone after him who wants him dead. With the information acquired, head back to the core of Neon and return to Walter in the Stroud-Eckland building.
Setting up the meeting in the Astral Lounge
When you return to Walter, he and Issa will be talking about their marriage. Wait for this conversation to end, and then tell Walter you’ve set up the lounge for the meeting.
You and Walter will head to the Astral Lounge, where you will need to identify the seller. Walter says that the seller is carrying a briefcase the size of the Artifact, and that’s all you have to go off. Luckily, you can easily find the seller near the bar at the back of the lounge. Speak to Musgrove and mention the secret passcode that Walter told you about, which is “Ramsay and Travers.”
Once Musgrove hears that passcode, he says he will meet you up in the VIP room. Return to Walter and go up the elevator to meet Musgrove.
Meeting with Musgrove and buying the Artifact
The negotiations with Musgrove are short if you know what to say. Here is how the conversation will go if you select the right options.
- Musgrove will start out asking for double the original price, as Walter predicted.
- You need to counter with the fact that you know he’s desperate to sell the Artifact.
- Musgrove will still persist and even threaten to leave the room since he has people after him. You can counter by saying that he might as well get paid for the Artifact now rather than walk away with nothing. Regardless, he will still have people after him.
- If Musgrove threatens to leave in your dialogue with him, you can remotely close the doors behind you. This will cause Musgrove to call for security, but you can tell him you have security in your back pocket.
- In either scenario, Musgrove will agree to sell the Artifact to you for the original price.
Though a deal has been struck, your time in the lounge is not over yet. After leaving the VIP room, you will be stopped by a Slayton Agent, who demands you hand over the Artifact.
From here, you have a few options. The first is you can tell Neon Security to make the agent leave you alone, which is the easiest. You can also persuade the agent to leave or attack him immediately. All of these choices end in the same result, though, so whichever option you pick, just take the elevator down after you’re done.
Aftermath and dealing with Slayton
Unfortunately, that was not the end of Slayton. When you leave the lounge, Issa Eckland will tell you your ship has been impounded by Slayton himself, and you need to speak to him to resolve the situation.
After this happens, you need to travel to Slayton’s office and speak to the secretary. You need to persuade her to let you see Slayton, but even if you don’t pass, you can simply steal an access key from a nearby office and take the elevator up to Slayton’s office.
No matter which route you take, Slayton will trap you inside the elevator and come over the intercom saying the Artifact you have is his property. Luckily, Issa is here to save the day, as she comes over the intercom after Slayton is done talking. Issa has found a way for you to escape the elevator and the building.
All you need to do from here is follow Issa’s instructions down to the letter. Make sure you’re using stealth mode when possible, as you will be sneaking past dozens of guards. Alerting even one of them will result in the entire building becoming hostile toward you.
After a few close calls, Issa leads you outside of the building and you need to make your way up the stairways and catwalks to reach the executive floor of Slayton’s office. When you walk in, you’ll be confronted by Slayton and several guards. You have a couple of options from this point:
- You can choose to attack Slayton and his guards, which leads to all-out chaos, but eventually results in you walking away for free.
- You can let Walter make a deal with Slayton to allow Slayton’s products to be sold at Stroud-Eckland stores. Walter will make this deal on his own, so you can simply let the two businessmen speak and reach an agreement.
- The deal option is easiest, as it doesn’t require any work from you and no one gets killed.
Either way, your next step will be dealing with Musgrove, who Slayton captured. Musgrove is in the back office and you have three choices with him: kill him, send him to jail, or let him walk.
If you’re looking for a mass appeal option with your companions, then sending Musgrove to jail will make most of your followers the happiest. Any option you choose doesn’t have a major impact on the story, though.
Make sure to save at this point in case a game breaking occurs during the final part of the mission.
How to escape The Helix
Once you’ve decided Musgrove’s fate, head back to your ship at Neon’s spaceport, speak with Walter on board the ship, and then take off from Neon. All of this needs to be done manually, so you won’t be able to fast travel anywhere.
This is because after you take off into the atmosphere, you are stopped by a mysterious ship called the Helix. The Helix’s captain will say the Artifact you have belongs to them. The captain doesn’t appear to be human and won’t reveal anything about themselves.
After some squabbling with the Helix, you have three options to resolve the situation:
- Escape using your Grav Drive.
- Jettison the Artifact to the Helix.
- Destroy the Helix ship.
I used my Grav Drive to escape, as I didn’t want to lose the Artifact, and destroying the Helix ship was nearly impossible.
If you want to choose this option, select the “Evasive Maneuvers” dialogue line, and then as soon as the transmission with Helix ends, open your galaxy map and travel to anywhere you can reach. With enough luck, you’ll escape before the Helix attacks you and disables your Grav Drive.
All That Money Can Buy mission bugged? Here’s what to do
During the start of the mission, there’s a common bug that may occur where Walter is not at the Stroud-Eckland building after a lengthy ride on your ship. This bug causes Walter to spawn back at The Lodge as you enter the building and makes the mission impossible to finish.
Fixing the early mission bug on PC
On PC, this bug has an easy fix using console commands. Opening Starfield’s console is easy, you just have to press the tilde (~) button located above the Tab key and start typing the below command.
- 00005998.moveto.player
Once you’ve typed out this command, press Enter and the tilde key to exit the menu and Walter should spawn directly behind you. If you’re in the lobby of the Stroud-Eckland building, Walter should walk to his designated position and the mission should progress as normal.
Fixing the early mission bug on Xbox
If you also own a PC capable of running high-end games, you can download the Microsoft Store version of Starfield for free with your saves intact. Opening the game on PC allows you to access the console to spawn Walter at the Stroud-Eckland building.
Unfortunately, if you’re relying on the Xbox version to fix this bug, there are no guaranteed solutions. Bethesda is aware of this bug and is working on fixing it in a future update.
Wait there’s another bug?
Walter Stroud is a notoriously bug-ridden character who can get stuck during a later part of the mission where you fly off with Walter to escape The Helix. Some people have reported that your ship will get stuck when The Helix stops you.
Fixing the late mission bug
Fortunately, this bug has a likely fix on both Xbox and PC. This bug was caused during a prior conversation with Walter Stroud involving puns. The fix involves quickly swapping to a new home ship immediately after the conversation before he enters the cockpit.
Published: Sep 23, 2023 11:27 pm