Motive Force Puzzle Solution
The Motive Force puzzle locks a safe on the lower level of The Upperway warehouse, part of "The Starport" quest on Rykad Minoris in Chapter 1. You will also see it called the Warehouse safe puzzle or the Upperway puzzle; all three names point at the same locked safe and the same power-routing fix. The room runs on steam hazards and you reroute power across the floor in a set order to cut the safe loose.
Work through these six steps in sequence:
- Power the cogitator just to the left of the safe.
- Close the Relay in the south-west, or west, corner of the room.
- Unlatch the damper near the middle, which is the south damper.
- Distribute the Supply of Motive Force in the south-east corner, the south distributor.
- Close the Relay in the north-east corner, over by the stairs.
- Unlock the safe at the terminal next to it.
The order is the whole puzzle. Run the steps out of sequence and the safe stays sealed.
Hazards and Resets
The floor is laced with steam vents and traps. Do not walk a character through live steam or onto a trap tile; deactivate the hazards before you move into a corner. If you misstep or lose track of which switches you have hit, there is a reset near the room's center that puts everything back to the start. As long as you pass the check the puzzle calls for, a wrong guess carries no penalty, so you can take it slow and clear each hazard as you go.
Reward
Crack the safe and you pull a Stubcarbine and a entity:hand-flamer Hand Flamer out of it. Both are useful early-game sidearms, and the Hand Flamer in particular gives a melee-leaning character a way to clip multiple enemies at close range while the rest of your loadout matures.
This is one of several Rykad Minoris gates worth clearing on the way through. The full set of solutions lives on the puzzle and walkthrough hub.