Alban Lopez is a Starfield NPC that will give you a pretty long side mission in which you must help him take out a bunch of Spacers that started raiding him and other settlers.
The mission is named Failure to Communicate, and it involves a lot of space fighting. Also, you’ll get to dock an enemy Starstation and clear it of enemies.
Note that you’ll need a potent ship for this mission, and if you want to obtain a decent one at the beginning of your Starfield journey when you don’t have that many credits, it would be best to complete the Mantis side mission.
Also, check the walkthrough below just to make sure you don’t get stuck with any of the Starfield Failure to Communicate mission objectives.
How To Start the Failure To Communicate Mission in Starfield
The starting location of the Failure To Communicate mission is random, and whenever you travel to a new system, you can get a distress call from a certain Alban Lopez.
The message is addressed to any LIST vessels, and his request is to come to his farm urgently.
Starfield Alban Lopez Location in Failure To Communicate
The location of Alban’s farm is also random, but now that you’ve started the mission, you can select it from your menu and press X on your Xbox controller to SET COURSE.
Then, land on the planet at Lopez’s Farm, which should have a blue marker, provided you’ve tracked the mission from your menu.
Once you’ve landed, follow the blue marker to find Alban Lopez in front of his home.
Alban can’t believe you are real because nobody hears a distress call and flies all this way to check it out.
However, he is willing to pay you to help him with his problems.
Lopez says that there used to be four families helped by LIST to set up in this system.
The problem is that Spacers started raiding, and it’s only a matter of time before all of them are dead.
If you agree to help, the first order of business is to fix his satellite so he can get in touch with the other families.
Where To Find the Lopez Communication Satellite in Starfield
To continue, take off with your ship to find Alban’s satellite in orbit with some Spacers flying around it.
First, take out the Spacers, then head to the satellite, which has a blue marker above it.
You need to get close enough to the satellite to repair it by pressing X while aiming at it, just like in the image below.
Now you must repair the other satellites, which belong to the other families.
Other Satellites’ Locations in Failure to Communicate Mission
When you’re done with Lopez’s satellite, open the map of the system to see three blue markers that indicate the location of the rest of the satellites.
You must fast-travel to each of them and repair them as you did with Alban’s one.
Keep in mind that you might encounter more Spacers you must take out so you can repair the satellites in peace.
Also, when you fix Wen’s family satellite, Alban gets no answer, which means the Spacers must have already got to them.
After repairing all the satellites, you must head to the Family Rendezvous, which is in the same system, also with a blue marker.
Upon traveling to the Family Rendezvous location, you must approach Lemaire’s ship and hold X to dock.
Now that you are on the ship wait for the family meeting to end, then talk to Alban.
He will give you some credits for the help you’ve provided so far; then he will tell you that he can pay you more if you aid them in kicking the Spacers out of the system.
However, all the families should cooperate to have a bigger chance of defeating the Spacers.
Therefore, it is your responsibility to convince them to get into a mutual Defense Pact.
Convincing the Bandas will be easy, but because of the bad history between Alban and Jacquelyn, you have your work cut out for you to make the Lemaires join.
So, talk to Chanda Banda, then to Jacquelyn Lemaire.
With Jacquelyn, you have multiple dialogue choices:
- Persuade her to join the Defense Pact.
- Pay her to join the Defense Pact.
- Tell her you don’t need her.
Note that if you choose to pay her, you can negotiate to give her a smaller amount of credits.
If you want to try to Persuade her to join you, keep in mind that you need to accumulate six Persuasion points in three turns, so plan the lines you pick carefully.
You can try to use two +3 Persuasion lines or two +1 and one +4; don’t forget you need a total of six points.
No matter if you are successful in convincing Jacquelyn or not, you must go speak with Alban.
He will ask you if you want their ships to aid you in destroying the two Spacer groups their sensors have picked up.
How to Clear Out the Spacers
Whether you are a lone wolf or accept their help, you must undock and open the system’s map to spot the two Spacer groups with the help of the blue markers.
Travel to each group and defeat the Spacers, but proceed cautiously because, depending on your game’s difficulty and your ship, the fight can be intense.
Of course, if you managed to convince Jacquelyn to join, the battle could go more smoothly.
When you are done with the Spacers, you need to return to Lopez’s Farm and talk to the family leaders.
While you were fighting, Alban discovered an old derelict Starstation the Spacers use as a base.
Hence, you need to pay them a visit and kick them out of the system once and for all.
Now, if you open your map, you’ll be able to see the retrofitted Starstation in question with a blue marker above it.
To continue, travel to the Starstation, defeat all the Spacers’ ships around it, approach it, and hold X to dock.
Your objective now is to clear the Spacers from the retrofitted Starstation, which can be done by following the blue markers and shooting all the hostiles.
Once you’ve dealt with all of the Spacers, you have to follow the blue marker one more time to find Alban Lopez and talk to him.
He will thank you on behalf of the families and reward you for your effort, not much, but it’s all some dirt poor farmers and miners can chip in.
Before leaving the Starstation, make sure to check our Retrofitted Starstation Stolen Safe Key Location guide here to learn how to unlock the Safe Boxes and grab the loot.
You’ve done it, friend! You are the hero once again because you’ve helped the people in need and completed the Starfield Failure to Communicate mission. However, there are plenty more missions you can tackle, and if you need assistance, don’t hesitate to check our Starfield Wiki Hub Page.
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