The Starfield Freestar Rangers questline takes you around Freestar space investigating minor extortion that balloons into a larger conspiracy. Somehow, this is all handled by you - a fairly out-of-your-depth deputy just trying to get their space cowboy badge in Starfield. If you play through the main story, avoiding the start of this quest in Akila City is pretty much impossible, so once you get started, I can guide you through the rest of the Freestar Rangers questline in Starfield. Yee-haw.
Job Gone Wrong
The first mission is obtained as you enter Akila City on Cheyenne, capital of the Freestar Collective, as a big crowd has clearly assembled outside the building ahead of you. Bandits have taken over the local bank with hostages after a robbery has been botched, and are at a standoff. You have the choice to either talk the bandits down bloodlessly, or if that fails, try and sneak your way inside to kill the bandits without losing any hostages. Whichever you do, you'll attract the attention of the Marshall Daniel Blake, head of the Freestar Rangers.
Deputized
You start by heading to the Akila City building known as the Rock, aka Ranger HQ, and getting the cowboy equivalent of a provisional license from ranger Emma Wilcox. At this point you have to complete a mission of your choice from the random Freestar mission board, and when complete, you're given a follow-up where you go to a farm on a nearby moon to help a woman who's being threatened to sell her farm.
You'll have to fight some local aliens and even a few angry sunflowers as you track the extortionists down - then kill those ruffians too (I recommend some long-range Starfield weapons to counter their shorter-range shotguns and SMGs). After picking some evidence off their bodies, it'll reveal info about a stolen ship.
Where Hope is Built
Now investigating the stolen ship, you first need to save a fellow Ranger, Nia Kalu, by boarding her ship and repairing it (don't worry, it's just pressing A over some highlighted panels). Then there'll be some space combat with the outlaws who attacked her, so make sure you have the best Starfield ship weapons possible ready to go, or consider a refresher on how to dock in Starfield and board ships if you want to loot them properly.
After that's done, Nia will lead you to the company settlement of Hopetown, aka the headquarters of HopeTech, and meet Ron Hope (hopefully), who'll explain the particulars of his stolen ship and explain it was seen at the planet Neon.
Shadows in Neon
This quest takes you to another of the major Starfield cities: Neon, to pursue the stolen ship and confer with the local Ranger, Jaylen Pryce. The two of you go to an informant named Clayton, but he'll need helping with his own problem first: an extortionate loan shark. This is one of those problems that can be solved multiple ways - convincing the loan shark to back down with the Starfield dialogue system, paying the loan yourself, or just putting a bullet in the lender's head and calling it a day. Whatever you choose, Clayton will lead you to a woman named Grace Early, who gives you evidence pointing towards a mercenary group of disgruntled Freestar soldiers called the First. Take the evidence back to the Rock at Akila to be decoded and start the next mission.
Surgical Strike
This is a big mission broken into two halves: first, chasing up a lead to find a suspect called Maya Cruz by going through a space station medical facility called The Clinic. Maya's not there, but after either questioning suspects or using the Starfield lockpicking skill on the marked computer, you can trace Maya's path to a VIP wing she left filled with angry turrets and mines, which you'll need to be careful around.
Maya's not there either, but evidence now points you to the second half of the quest: to find Maya in an abandoned mine on an asteroid. The mine's location is easy to get to, but the mine itself is a big place full of enemies: you'll need to be ready for both violent and extensive combat with local aliens, hostile robots and numerous turrets if you go down here, with Maya having turned the mine into a fortress. At the end you fight and defeat Maya to get a new dataslate of evidence (keep in mind that the room where Maya's hiding has a lift that'll take you straight back to the start, so you don't have to backtrack).
First to Fight, First to Die
This is where you take the fight to the First, and you'll need to be ready for a LOT of combat here. After a quick briefing with the Rangers where they run through your experiences so far, you'll travel to Arcturus II, fighting the First in space, ship-to-ship (and you should steal one of their Pterosaurs while you're up there, as it made it onto our list of Starfield best ships).
After that you'll land and fight through an old mech factory to confront Paxton Hull, their leader, ending in a fight with him. The mix of long and short sightlines in the factory means you'll want weapons to deal with both, and ideally a good Starfield boost pack - the First were very grenade-happy when I fought them, and the ability to rocket away from a ticking bomb might help you keep your legs.
Once Paxton is killed, make sure to loot his office and the general area, but you'll also get a dataslate with evidence against the real criminal mastermind...
The Hammer Falls
The last mission of the Freestar Rangers' questline takes you back to Hopetown - as all the evidence points at Freestar governor and Hopetech CEO Ron Hope being the one responsible for this whole mess. You'll have a choice about whether you want to try and arrest him, or let him go for the sake of Freestar unity and not rocking the boat (plus a nice bribe). It's a decision I've actually gone into full detail on in this Starfield Ron Hope choice guide.
It won't change what follows: after that, you head back to the Rock and Marshall Blake to debrief on the whole thing, and finally get your stripes, becoming a full-fledged Ranger. You'll get a lot of credits along the way, a special long-range rifle, and a Star Eagle ship for free, which also made it onto our best ships list!
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