Watchtower is a clandestine organization that has taken it upon themselves to monitor for threats that are bigger than humanity's public governments are set up to handle. They have Satellite Arrays in nearly every system of the galaxy.
Once the player crosses their radar and proves to be a threat, they will frequently attack the player when traveling within systems they are monitoring. The player can cut off Watchtower's eyes in any system by hunting down the Array there, making it nearly impossible for them to find the player again in that system.
Watchtower is actively monitoring for persons of interest, particularly those they believe to be Starborn (or Deviants as they call them). The more activity a player does that draws attention, or ties the player to the Starborn, the more likely Watchtower is to attack them.
The player’s “wanted” status among Watchtower can be viewed on the Galaxy Map. In the upper right corner of any system, or while highlighting a system, will be a box that lists the Watchtower Status. If the status is greyed out and shows “Array Destroyed”, that indicates the player is safe to act in that system without fear of Watchtower.
Due to a UI limitation of the base game, this information will not display while piloting a ship. A solution has been proposed to Bethesda and once it's been adopted, the Watchtower UI hook will be updated to accommodate.
Otherwise, the box will list “Monitored System” and the border color of the box indicates the likelihood of being attacked when traveling in the system. The color coding matches the level difficulty color coding: Green, Teal, Yellow, Orange, Red. The further across the scale, the more likely an attack will occur when entering the system or traveling in orbit between planets/stations within that system.
Inside any system that is Monitored, the following activities will increase the player’s perceived threat level to Watchtower (each System is tracked independently, so the player can be severely wanted in one System, and not in another).
Killing Watchtower troops slowly reduces the player’s threat level in a system, giving the player the ability to “clear their name” by taking out the watchers.
During the quest The Stars Have Eyes, the player learns of the Watchtower Arrays throughout the Systems. When these are destroyed, the “Deviant” tracking status for the player resets to 0 in that System, and the player no longer has to fear being attacked by Watchtower while traveling there.
Once the player destroys an Array, they will find "Watchtower Intel" in either the Array's loot or one of the Watchtower Ships that jump in to defend it.
As part of the main quest, the player will take out their first Array, guaranteeing they have a piece of intel to continue the cycle.
The player can take these intel items to Harper, who can reveal the location of a Listening Post on some planet. Somewhere in that Listening Post, the player will find a terminal they can use to identify the location of the Array's orbit in that system.
The player can also find these Listening Posts by random chance, as the Watchtower posts are part of the dynamic POI system.
Outside of finding and destroying individual Watchtower Arrays, the player can also track down the Major Array. This array is linked to a series of small ones - this information is available on the Galaxy Map with a new button that toggles between showing the Major Array’s system and the linked orange lines to the corresponding systems that hold smaller arrays. While the individual locations can’t be tracked, the player can use their options to find a Listening Post in those systems to track down the precise location of the Array.
Taking out a Major Array causes all of the linked smaller Arrays to shut down as well, allowing the player to take out a large swathe of monitoring in one go. The caveat is that the fight will be incredibly difficult.
To make the fight more manageable, the player can destroy some of the linked smaller Arrays first, to draw some of the Major Arrays’ fleet away.
After the player takes out a Major Array, the next one will be revealed, giving the player a clear path to purge the Settled Systems of Watchtower monitoring. There are 5 Major Arrays in total.
In order to make Watchtower feel like a very real threat - and the Array system to have meaning - they will attack fairly frequently until the player takes out the Array monitoring the system they are operating in.
Most players find this thrilling the first time, but don't necessarily want that experience every playthrough.
This setting allows the player to control the likelihood of those attacks.
The settings below do not list a percent chance of them appearing in the description because the system is more complex than that. It's heavily influenced by the actions of the player. See the Threat Level Tracking section above for more details.
| Setting Value | Description | XP Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Very Easy | Ambushes are very rare | -4% |
| Easy | Ambushes are infrequent | -2% |
| Normal (Default) | Ambushes occur at the normal rate | N/A |
| Hard | Ambushes occur more frequently | +6% |