The Domed City - possible outcomes, many questions. Veterans help!

[Triosek]

My first playthrough through The Domed City questline resulted in the Albs taking control over the city. Back then I didn't really take sides and just did things that felt right at the moment.

Here are my questions about the outcomes:
1. Are there only three? Meaning that one of the three factions wins.
2. Do I need to side with anyone to end this questline as intended, saving half the people from the Albs? I heard about the balance ending (with no conflict). Isn't it simply a bug or people didn't finish the whole questline so nothing happened?
3. Isn't balancing between sides supposed to just let the Albs take over the city? If not, is there a particular thing that makes the dome break so they kill everyone later?

[kris.aalst]

I'll share my notes on this topic but they are extensive because this is a very dynamic quest in Elex to the point where there are so many elements involved and so many choices it may even bug out according to some (didn't experience this myself). Hope it helps somehow...

• The most important factor that may lead to the destruction of the city is allowing Riley, during the side quest Security Measures, to reprogram the energy regulator. He’ll tell you that the regulator malfunctioned and disabled the entire dome. This made the city an easy picking for the Albs.
• Another important factor is how much assistance you provided to various factions in the side-quests of their respective members. For example, if you’ve helped Paige during the Shady Dealings side-quest (delivering weapon supplies) and Darrell during the Making Contacts side-quest (installing a listening device), you may have strengthened the Outlaws in the city and encouraged them to organize an armed insurgency against the Clerics.

1) For starters I see a lot of players get upset that the dome falls despite not sabatoging the dome directly for Riley. While sabatoging/not sabatoging definitely plays the biggest role. Its not the end all be all. There's other things that keep the city standing like turning in Paige's guns to Alios and killing the gun dealer, Choosing the beserker to help vivian, helping Caleb kick out the Separatists, not planting a listening device, turning in the fake IDs, killing Baxter's old outlaws (Hunter) for Gustav, and maybe beating up Riley for Barback though I'm only saying that because it pops up with a message of choosing sides in the conflict.
2) A lot of people will help the Separatists and the Clerics and are confused how the Outlaws end up destroying the city. I think that in game, the sides are the Clerics/Berserkers vs. The Separatists/Outlaws so helping the Seps but not the outlaws can still result in a destroyed city.
3) There's a point system I assume. The problem is that we have no idea what quests count for what points. I know a lot of people will say that they played relatively neutral and helped each faction a little so why did the city get destroyed since you never favored a particular side? Well assumably because some of the quests you did counted more for one side while the others counted less. If you want a specific outcome then it'd be best to purely favor the Clerics/Berserkers or the Outlaws/Separatists and not to play the field and risk getting an outcome you dont want.
Additionally there's probably a few bugs so its best to minimize the risk that a quest counts for a disproportionate amount t of points to one side by always siding with the two factions that lead t your preferred outcome.


-Kill the Alb Gun smuggler
-Give the smuggled guns to Clerics.
-Don't give Riley the shield module and let the clerics install it.
-Don't bug the Communications Tower and fix it.
-Give the Fake ID to Cleric and let them escort outlaw out.
-Kill the outlaws outside for Gustav
-Get the Mech reinforcements for Gotfried.
-Don't let Darrell become the mechanic.

This leaves the following:
-Fenk Quest (Use suggestion on Caleb, and the berserk/separatists will live in peace together)
-Mechanic Quest (Use Nyra and tell Vivan to keep an eye on her)
-The bully quest (This one i don't know but assuming all outlaws as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ just beat up Riley anyway)
-This results in the outlaws getting owned badly and separatists will not help them.
Things that don't play apart of it.
-Thieves guild (They are neutral and have no love or albs or any factions)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/411300/discussions/0/1479856439026119874/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/411300/discussions/0/1479856439038289223/

* i told the breserker guy to tell the truth and not say the seperatists were meeting some albs
* i killed all the outlaws outside the city for the town guard
when i got a fake id card i told the city guard that it was fake and he gave me a real one
* i choose the breserker as the technician
* didnt give the tech thingy to that outlaw to mess with the shields
* beat up the breserker in the bar and told him to not touch riley
* gave the weapons to the clerics


If you help the Outlaws, the albs roll in, seemingly with the help of the separatists. Seems like no matter what, if you let them stay, they will either die or let the albs come in.

I've done testing and it looks like no matter what, either two things will happen: The clerics remain in control, and kill off the separatists and outlaws, or only a few outlaws remain alive outside of Domed City.

The only variable I haven't checked is if you side with Outlaws *and* kick out separatists (that would send my save abit too far back), but I doubt they'd gain control.

[Triosek]

Correct me if I'm wrong. To wrap this all up:
1. Two endings: either the Clerics win or the Outlaws turn Domed City into Doomed City.
2. Balanced ending does not exist. Some players just didn't make enough questline progress or the game is bugged. That's because there aren't any dialogues after completing quests, indicating that the story progressed.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Two endings and some nuances with regard to who survives it all when the outlaws revolt and the Albs attack. There have been patches to this big side-quest and topics where the separatists survived, because everyone turned against the outlaws.

[Triosek]

Damn, I don't like how this questline goes. But the whole Elex is like that - do your best but don't have expectations. Things will turn into sh*t if an NPC feels like f*cking things up.

Thank you both for clearing this out for me. What confused me were people with their "balanced ending" crap and both "Abessa to the Outlaws" and "Abessa to the Clerics" missions on Elex fandom: https://elex.fandom.com/wiki/Government_Affairs - at the bottom. But yeah, there's no "Abessa to the Albs" mission

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Triosek:

What confused me were people with their "balanced ending" crap and both "Abessa to the Outlaws" and "Abessa to the Clerics" missions on Elex fandom: https://elex.fandom.com/wiki/Government_Affairs - at the bottom.

Those two are no endings, but just a report of what can happen before the Albs attack the Domed City. Regardless of Jax's support, the outlaws will revolt, and the separatists may join them versus the clerics - possibly with help from the berserkers. Since the Alb attack is a timed event, turning against the clerics explicitly may be necessary before the Albs arrive. I don't know the exact details about when the outlaws start fighting. That may have changed in one of the major patches. But with the energy shield manipulated, neither the outlaws nor the clerics won't be able to defend the city anyway, so supporting the clerics is the only interesting choice for Jax when he has joined the clerics.

[Corin]

The sides being separatists/outlaws & clerics/berserkers makes more sense I think than anything else. For example, I helped the clerics in pretty much every way, I completely ruined the Outlaws in every choice and went above and beyond to make sure they had no resources, even killing the Outlaws outside of town (as an outlaw myself), and they still rebelled and fought.

So either the Outlaws always fight (and then get killed, in my case, by the Clerics, leaving the place a wasteland populated by a ton of Clerics and a few berserkers), or helping the Separatists at all results in the Outlaws being helped moderately.

It's weird to me that doing like 9 choices for clerics and then 1 choice for separatists somehow gives the nonexistent Outlaws in the city the ability to attack, but whatever. My only real quibble if we just assume its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ world where everything bad always happens is that the way the Separatist leader talks is somewhat inconsistent with this. He really makes a compelling case that he has no reason to cause trouble and they genuinely want to be accepted. He could be lying of course, but Albs tend to be super logical and straight-forward throughout the game elsewhere and it just doesn't seem like he is since we hear it nowhere else, and in this outcome we never even hooked the Separatists up with weapons.