Star Citizen Tech Smugglers Guide: QV Station and Warehouse Access

Vanduul-Tech Smugglers takes you from a firefight outside QV Station to its occupied cargo decks, a derelict Polaris and an asteroid facility. InterSec wants evidence of a trade in Vanduul technology linked to ASD’s Onyx experiments. Getting that evidence home means finding five lieutenants, downloading their data and returning to the station to decrypt it.

The difficult part is keeping the investigation moving while you fight. Looting a lieutenant is not the same as downloading their data, the warehouse card has its own encoding sequence, and an open door can conceal an unfinished access objective. Here is how to work through the route, with the warehouse detour and recent workarounds separated from the main contract.

Finding Vanduul-Tech Smugglers in Nyx

Look under Investigation for the InterSec Defense Solutions contract. Its listed reputation range starts at Jr. Contractor. The introductory mission is called Vanduul-Tech Smugglers; the follow-up is Retrieve Additional Smuggler Intel. If you have completed the introduction, search for that second name rather than expecting the original contract to return.

This is the QV investigation in Nyx, not the new Vanduul Incursion combat contracts being tested in Alpha 4.10.3. Those include different station raids and ship battles.

Bring enough for the station and the boarding fights

You need a combat-capable ship for the approach and the trips between sites, then armour, ammunition and medical supplies for the interior fighting. A crew needs somewhere to carry its boarding team; a solo pilot needs to be comfortable winning the space encounters without a turret gunner.

Pack your usual FPS weapon with spare magazines, a sidearm, medpens and a medical tool. A tractor attachment helps with physical items and loot. For the auxiliary facility’s additional access puzzles, bring a fuse and a Cambio SRT salvage tool.

Keep the decryption keys and warehouse card together so you can find them when you reach the next reader.

The QV Station mission walkthrough

The investigation has five data locations: Security, Cargo Deck A, Cargo Deck B, the Polaris and the auxiliary asteroid facility. The two cargo decks can be tackled in either order. Keep the mission objectives visible as you move between them.

view on youtube — Infinite Space’s November walkthrough.

1. Clear the approach and lift the lockdown

Deal with the Vanduul ships around QV before landing. Once inside, take the stairs on the left and cross the boards behind the sign into Maintenance. Pull the reset lever down to lift the lockdown. Expect fighting as you move into the central atrium.

2. Recover the Security lieutenant’s data

Fight through to Security and interact with the lieutenant’s body to download the encrypted data. Then take the decryption key. Use the Security terminal as directed by the objective. This terminal is also where you will bring the rest of the investigation back.

If you want the optional warehouse loot, keep a blank passcode card and read the warehouse procedure below before encoding it. The reported reset starts with a blank card, so this is the point to make that detour.

3. Work through Cargo Deck A and Cargo Deck B

Find a lieutenant on each deck, download the data and collect the key. The decks have hostiles beyond the lieutenant, including mounted positions, and retrieving the data can bring another attack from the entrance. Finish dealing with that threat before spending time sorting armour or loading loot.

After both decks, you should have dealt with the three station lieutenants. Check the download objectives before heading back to your ship; it is an avoidable return trip if you searched a body’s inventory but missed the data interaction.

4. Board the Polaris

The Polaris holds another lieutenant on its bridge. There can be more Vanduul opposition outside as you leave QV. Enter the Polaris through the port docking collar and fight your way to the bridge, then download the data and take the key.

For the optional warehouse card, the Polaris encoding rack is in the hangar. This is the second of the three encoding stops. Collect the card before leaving the hangar.

5. Find the QV airlock card before clearing the asteroid

At the auxiliary asteroid facility, follow the search objectives around the nearby derelicts to find the QV Airlock Access Card. It belongs to the access stage of the mission, not to the warehouse encoding puzzle.

Inside, clear the route to the last lieutenant. Read the laptop for the locked room’s code. If it fails, look for another laptop and check its final email. Use the code from your own mission instance.

Download the last packet and collect the lieutenant’s key. If you are doing the warehouse, use the final encoding rack here before leaving.

6. Return to Security and finish the investigation

Go back to QV’s Security terminal with the downloaded data and the decryption keys. Insert the requested keys and work through the decryption interaction. Check that the contract actually completes: a terminal’s “Process complete” message does not resolve a separate objective you skipped earlier.

You can finish the investigation without opening the warehouse. If you want the extra loot, follow the card-encoding route below.

Which item goes where?

The warehouse card and the 2 GM reset workaround

The normal warehouse route encodes a passcode card at three racks: Security, then the Polaris, then the auxiliary facility. The card progresses through 33%, 66% and 100% before you bring it back to the warehouse at QV.

Recent runs still show broken warehouse interactions. Infinite Space demonstrates the following reset in the November walkthrough; it is a player workaround, not a guaranteed fix for every shard.

1. Start with a blank card. Take it to the warehouse reader before completing the encoding route and insert it.
2. Leave with the whole team. Return to the ship and quantum travel at least 2 gigametres away. Do not leave a teammate waiting inside the station.
3. Come back to QV. Land, return to the warehouse and recover the card from the reader.
4. Encode it through all three racks. Continue the mission through Security, the Polaris and the auxiliary facility, collecting the card after each stop.
5. Return with the completed card. Use it at the warehouse reader to access the loot.

view on youtube — Evenlease’s warehouse walkthrough.

When an interaction stops the run

An item disappears from your hand

If a key disappears when you equip it, try having a teammate handle the remaining keys at the terminal. This helped a group continue decryption in Infinite Space’s run, but it will not recover a lost key.

The final-room code does not work

Check the other laptop’s final email, as described in the asteroid section.

You have the data, but the mission will not complete

Check the outstanding objective for a missing download, an unfinished decryption step or the QV airlock card. The warehouse reset will not complete those objectives.

A required lieutenant or access item is missing

Search the marked area and nearby bodies. There is no confirmed workaround for a missing lieutenant or required access item.

For the separate combat assignments being developed around Nyx, see our Vanduul Incursion guide.