When you first arrive at Akila City in Starfield, you will notice quite the commotion going on at the center of town that will lead you to the Job Gone Wrong mission. There is a good old-fashioned standoff taking place between the Marshall from the Freestar Collective and the Shaw Gang, who are trying to rob a bank. You can step in and try to save the day, and if you persuade the bank robbers to surrender, no blood will be spilled.
How to persuade the bank robbers to surrender in Job Gone Wrong
This all boils down to making the right dialogue choices, potentially spending some skill points if you have them, and a bit of luck. Head to the intercom near the front door of the bank and prepare to chat with the leader. When you are trying to persuade a character, you have a limited number of turns to get them to agree with you. You need to earn a specified total value of points, and each turn, you will have the choice to pick from a variety of dialogue options. The easier the option, the smaller the points value that it is worth. Unfortunately, the actual odds of any option working are not visible to us.
If you are lucky and started your game with the Wanted trait, you will get the chance to tell the robbers that you understand their position, as you have trouble with the law yourself. It’s the easiest way to turn this job gone wrong into a job gone right. This will go some way to winning their trust. If not, just dive straight into the persuade options.
There are actually two different persuade segments here. First, you need to get the robbers to trust you. This is actually quite tough, as you need a high score, and at some point, you’ll need to pick a +5 difficulty option. Save this for the last turn. Folks who are Wanted can skip this entirely by picking the special Wanted dialogue option and automatically progress to the second persuasion challenge.
After you have convinced them to trust you, it’s time to talk business. They want a ship and to leave with the hostages, who they will leave on a nearby planet. This is highly unlikely, so you need to make them see sense. I actually ran this scenario a few times, and usually, it let me pass if I focused on the +3 difficulty options. +1 difficulty would fail surprisingly often. As you need six points to complete this part, use two +3 dialogue choices, and you should be good. If you really struggle with this and want to try your best to keep everyone safe and sound, consider putting some skill points into the Persuasion social skill to increase your odds.
After that, the bank robbers should quit, and if you are playing the Empty Nest quest with Sam Coe, you’ll be able to head inside and visit the bank. You will also get an invitation from the Marshall to visit the Rock and can potentially join the Freestar Collective. This is a good idea, as there is some pretty cool loot to be had after a series of missions are completed.
