Gives complete and seamless control over which if any companions are selected to meet the fate determined by the quest “High Price to Pay.”
I have always wished for more control over the major plot decision during the quest “High Price to Pay.” While I understand the devs intended this to address such concepts as loss and sacrifice, inevitability and perseverance in the story, I feel that as an RPG the game has room for a broader choice and control over how these events unfold.
To that end, My Price will present you with a menu during the lead-up to this major story event that allows complete control over which IF ANY companions will suffer the fate this quest normally imposes. (See below “Spoilers” section for more details).
First, you can manually choose which companion remains on the Eye and which goes to the Lodge.
Normally the game will automatically choose your favorite and second favorite companion for these respectively, and their fate once selected is permanent for that play-through. My Price gives you an in-game popup menu to bypass the game’s auto selection so you can quest with any companion whenever you like without having to think about this choice happening later.
Regarding the changes detailed in the Spoiler section, the mod handles the alterations to the story in a natural and subtle way, creating alternate AI packages and dialog scenes where necessary or appropriate to seamlessly blend into the flow of events such that ideally you won’t even notice unless you have seen how these events normally unfold.
Changes:
Receive a pop-up notification when the major story choice is about to happen so you can make a manual save in advance.
Allows you to choose which companion stays on the Eye and which goes with you to the Lodge (and the follow-up quest “No Sudden Moves”).
Allows you to decide whether any of your companions are selected for the major (and permanent) fate the story normally selects them for.
(See below for details only if you don’t mind potential spoilers describing what normally happens and how the mod lets you avoid it!).
Spoilers:
The mod also gives you an option to select “Nobody Dies” (see below).
All main quest options are preserved (see minor exceptions below).
Skips the funeral/memorial service scene as it doesn’t make sense if no one died.
Skips the mini quest to retrieve your dead companion’s belongings if no one died.
Skips the “wants to talk” companion dialog that talks explicitly about a Constellation member dying after the attack if no one died.
Avoids or subtly modifies random dialog that explicitly references a member of Constellation dying if no one died.
When opting to have no one die, seamlessly modifies Noel’s dialog with Vladimir after defending the Lodge (see below).
When opting to have no one die, sets the companion who normally would have died to appear later as the Emissary.
When selecting “Nobody Dies” you will still receive the follow-up quest to get the artifact from the Scow (“No Sudden Moves”), which is normally skipped in New Game+ when using Starborn powers to prevent anyone dying. Also, both options to either defend the Lodge or go to the Eye are fully compatible and seamlessly blended into the quest experience when selecting this option.
After the story path where you choose to defend the Lodge, after returning to the Eye to check on your companions where one normally would have died, Noel normally asks Vladimir where the companion is who died, to which Vladimir responds “they’re gone” and Noel starts sobbing. If you selected “Nobody Dies” she instead comments “He’s letting us go?” as you approach her and Vladimir, followed by “God, I hope they’re OK.” She then briefly catches her breath instead of sobbing while you talk to Vladimir.
After recently suffering the loss of my younger brother at a young age (just 28) and dealing with a bleeding brain cavernoma from a poorly healed sports injury, mortality is very much on my mind. I feel that being able to continue the journey with all the members of Constellation as I explore the galaxy in Starfield has provided some minor sense of comfort and continuity in a sea of chaos and I hope you find this added level of choice helpful as well.
Installation:
IMPORTANT: This mod needs to be installed BEFORE you complete the quest “Further Into the Unknown” and begin “Short Sighted.”
Obviously mods should never be removed from existing save files as this often leads to problems with the game engine unrelated to what a mod actually does. However if you do choose to do this for whatever reason, it must be removed either BEFORE starting the above quests, or after completing “High Price to Pay.” The edits it makes are generally safe and take up no resources once the quest is complete, so there is no technical need to remove it.
Compatibility:
The additional AI package and conditional checks are handled through quest aliases not the base game NPC reference, so this mod should be compatible with any mods that change NPC companion stats. The only thing it would conflict with, is other mods that change alias, dialog, and script values for quests 201 and 204 or the script fragments for quest 206, which should be extremely rare.
My Price - No One Left Behind-1-0
