Red Tape Blues is a seemingly simple mission players can pick up in Cydonia on Mars in Starfield. It starts with a simple request to help miners get some new equipment and leads into a series of quests that contains blackmail, pirates, and ship to ship combat.
This is one of the game’s quests that players may hear about and ignore for hours while the instigating action sits in the Activities log. We recommend picking it up early because it’s a wild ride we’ve loved being a part of.
Related: Starfield Complete Guide – Quest, Lore, Story & Trailers
How to Start Red Tape Blues in Starfield
To start Red Tape Blues in Starfield, players must speak with Trevor Petyarre in Cydonia on Mars. He’s located on the main floor players enter Cydonia on, at the bottom of the staircase where all the miners are cutting out ore.
We got this quest as an Activity, which simply told us to speak to Trevor. It’s clearly one that players will pick up while running around Cydonia based on a conversation NPCs are having. There’s no need to seek out that conversation. It’ll happen organically. If players just want to start the quest, they can hop down and speak to Trevor directly.
How to Complete Red Tape Blues in Starfield
The first step in completing Red Tape Blues is using a Cutter to mine 10 pieces of Iron Ore. This is incredibly easy because the area around Trevor, where the quest begins, is littered with the stuff. Trevor needs players to do this to bump up the team’s output so he can put in a request for some new gear.
We suggest players pull up their Scanner to help them see all the Iron Ore. Then, they can use the Cutter’s secondary fire to quickly mine all the ore they need and dump it into the nearby container. After that, players should report back to Trevor.
Now that Trevor can put in a request for more gear, he needs the player to get it approved. This requires them to become Peter Brennan’s assistant. To do this, they’ll fly to a nearby space station, where they’ll have to answer a specific set of questions.
What Answers Should You Choose for the Executive Assistant Application in Red Tape Blues in Starfield
There are no wrong answers to the Executive Assistant Application. We chose the worst answers possible, such as plying executives with alcohol and helping to cover up how drunk the boss might get. Players can choose whatever they want, and then return to Trevor.
The reason no answer can be wrong in this application is that Trevor wants players to make it so that they’re the only option Brennan can pick. This requires them to delete every other application. To do that, players must head upstairs to the office and wait for happy hour to start.
How to Wait for Happy Hour in Starfield
To wait, players need to sit in a chair and press the Wait button. They’ll be given an option for how many hours they want to wait, and then that time will pass. We waited for 1 hour after 5 PM to get the staff to leave the office for the Red Tape Blues quest in Starfield. Another great way to wait and pass time is sleeping, which also recovers health.
How to Delete the Applications in Red Tape Blues in Starfield
The final part of this quest requires players to delete those other applications. This is pretty simple once the staff have left the office for the day at happy hour. First, players can use the password they got from Trevor to access the computer.
Next, players need to go through every application apart from their own, marked by their character’s name, and delete them. Once all of the applications have been deleted, the objective will change, telling players to report to Trevor.
When players return to Trevor, he’ll congratulate them on a job well done. This completes the Red Tape Blues quest but starts a brand new quest called Red Tape Runaround. That quest follows the story of this one, but presents players with far more decisions to make.
