Key Features of Kadara¶

Kadara Port used to be a Kett stronghold, until it was liberated and colonized by the Nexus exiles. Despite this, the Milky Way exiles haven’t exactly made the place much better, as you’ll have discovered during your trip to Kadara Port during the quest “Hunting the Archon”. Kadara Port is now controlled by Sloane Kelly and her Outcasts, but there’s an (unofficial) power struggle between them and the Collective, which is led by the enigmatic Charlatan. While this doesn’t cause too much of a fuss in Kadara Port itself - where Sloane Kelly’s rule is absolute - but out in the badlands of Kadara they’re a little more open with their hostility.

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Not only will you face familiar Heleus wildlife on Kadara (left), but the lawless nature of the badlands makes it home to plenty of ne’er-do-wells (right).

Out in the wilds of Kadara you can expect to face Outcasts and the Collective in the form of the typical three standard classes of enemies - Raiders, Anarchists (replacing Saboteurs) and Sharpshooters, same as the Roekaar. Some quests may have you facing more varied foes, but these are the exceptions, not the norm. In addition you’ll find the obligatory Remnant structures along with their attendant bots, and wildlife including Drall, Eiroch, Rylkor, Shemrys and Wild Adhi.

As for resources, you’ll find Uranium and Iridium nodes lying around exposed on the surface, while Mining Zones will yield Aluminum, Lithium, Beryllium, Copper and Titanium. The latter is the most important, as it’s useful for building tech-related armor and various weapons. Just be sure to drive around and deploy Forward Stations to mark these Mining Zones on your map, and grab whatever mineral nodes you find as you explore and quest.

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Heed SAM’s advice - stay out of Kadara’s water (left). As befitting such a toxic planet, nodes of Uranium and other minerals can be found on the surface (right).

Kadara’s key feature is its acidic water, which is its sole environmental hazard - a level three environmental hazard, at that. Stay out of the water while you explore, especially while on foot, but the Nomad won’t last long, either. Acidic water will be a bother while exploring, and it provides fine incentive for you to see to Kadara’s vault to remove this impediment (see the quest “Healing Kadara’s Heart” for more details on this). There may be some quests you can’t do until after the water is purified, and they’ll be fittingly organized accordingly in the quest list below.

Otherwise, general questing and travel on Kadara is much like post-radiation Eos, albeit somewhat more mountainous than Eos and Voeld were, but there’s still plenty of driving around in the Nomad to be done, punctuated by unmarked enemy camps, Remnant ruins, the odd scrap of civilization and moderate amount of wildlife.

It should also be noted out that the politics behind Kadara Port play a fairly important role in the questline for Kadara. You’ll certainly be drawn into the fight between Sloane Kelly’s Outcasts and the Collective if you seek to do everything on Kadara, and while these questlines are fairly linear and unburdened with narrative branches, you will have a choice to make at the end. Don’t worry about working for or against any particular faction, however, your choices in side quests throughout Kadara won’t play a significant role in the final outcome.

Kadara Geography¶

You’ll start your explorations in the center of the Kadara operational zone, right outside of Kadara Slums, which comes complete with a Forward Station. From here is a road running generally east/west, with the greater part of exploration to be done to the west. To the east, however, you’ll find one of Kadara’s three monoliths (reachable by a circuitous route to the north) while to the southeast are numerous shelters, camps and other buildings, most of which are part of some quest or another.

If you follow the road west (technically northwest) of the Forward Station outside of the Kadara Slums you’ll find a wind farm, where a few quests (“Gone With the Wind”, “Packaged Deal”) can be started. The wind farm is unmarked on your map, but it’s between two Outcast/Collective camps, in an area named “Varren’s Scalp” - the blue hexagonal quest markers should give it away.

Further northwest from the wind farm you’ll find a fork in the road near some Remnant ruins. If you follow the northern fork you’ll eventually reach another fork, one branch of which leads northeast into some highlands - named “Haarfel” - north of the wind farm. By following this northeastern fork you’ll find a Forward Station, near which a few quests (centered around isolated structures) are clustered. The other fork, on the other hand, takes you northwest up a narrow mountain pass that eventually opens up into a relatively large, open area (for Kadara, at least), named “Kurinth’s Valley”. Along the way up the narrow mountain path you’ll pick up the quests “Emergency S.O.S.” and “Something in the Water”.

Back to the fork northwest of the wind farm, if you head down the southern branch from this fork you’ll find… another fork! This one is less consequential, however, as it’s just a loop around a toxic lake - the lovely-named “Sulfur Springs”. At this fork if you head southwest you’ll find a Forward Station, at which you can turn northwest to find another fork, which leads to the second (western-most) monolith and the settlement site for Kadara. In the fact, the whole Sulfur Springs area consists of the entire southwestern edge of the map, where numerous Outcast/Collective camps can be found (good places to hunt for the quest objects required to advance “Task: Cold Hard Cache” and “Task: Kadara’s Ransom”), but relatively little else of interest. From the Sulfur Springs Forward Station, if you make your way southeast you’ll find an area named “Draullir”, notable for its numerous caves. You can also find another Forward Station and the third (southern-most) monolith here.

Many of the quests on Kadara will use these geographic areas to help guide you, usually centered around their respective Forward Stations. The Kadara Slums Forward Station, the Haarfel Forward Station, the Sulfur Springs Forward Station, Draullir Forward Station, etc.