SWTOR Kessan’s Landing Ord Mantell Secret Datacron & Lava Problems Quest Guide

To get the secret Kessan’s Landing Ord Mantell datacron, you must complete a series of quests and solve a series of puzzles introduced with Update 7.4.

Before You Start – Complete the Geothermal Shielding Quests

SWTOR Kessan’s Landing Geothermal Shielding Guide

Geothermal Shielding is a set of “secret” quests on the Kessan’s Landing area of Ord Mantell. Once completed, you get use of the Geothermal Shield Unit, which lets you explore areas of Kessan’s Landing on Ord Mantell you might not otherwise be able to safely walk through. If you ever lose the Geothermal Shielding buff from this questline, remember you can refresh it back at Ardak Point, near the heroic terminal where you land!

Worn Access Card

You may need to find a Worn Access Card before you start this quest, as it seems to be required for one of the steps. It is hidden out and about in Kessan’s Landing. You may have alright found it and right-clicked it while exploring or questing.

Once you click it, you get an item, and you can only picked up one. They seem to disappear when you pick them ,and move locations. Here are some of the locations I found.

A) Upstairs in the speeder workshop in the main city, on a shelf

B) Upstairs in the speeder workshop in the main city, on the floor

C) Underground, in the Security Mainframes area on a box/crate

Step 1 – Enter the Secret Lava Tunnel

To access the secret datacron, we first have to get to the secret tunnel that leads to it’s instance. Head down to Solitude’s Laze and head west across the lava’s delta to a larger platform just outside the lavafalls concealing the path. Stay mounted or use whatever movement-enhancers you have access to as you charge through this tunnel, as the shielding does not last forever! It is a straight path to the instance so there’s little risk of getting lost and burning to death.

Step 2 – Pick up Lava Problems Quest

Once safely off the lava you will see a Medical Droid and a Personal Phase with a small mission box next to it. This is Lava Problems! Leaving seems to reset the whole phase and this phase seems to be truly personal like the “Indiana Jones” Datacron over on Onderon, so at the time of writing this you won’t be able to get a friend’s help. Rest assured there’s nothing aside from the Geothermal Shield needed from outside the phase to complete the mission, so pick up the mission and head on inside.

Step 3 – Input the Correct Sequence

There’s a lot of room in this hall to explore (including a sneak peak of the datacron behind a gate!) but the first step to advance takes place in the immediate area on entry. To trigger an alarm and open a door at the far end of the tunnel we are now in, the interactable objects on the north end of the cave need to be activated in a certain order. The order is demonstrated on the map below along with a visual aid of what each object looks like.

1. System Access Terminal
2. Operation Control Station
3. System Flush
4. Safety Release
5. Routine Execution Unit

Though the timer is generous, dying or taking too long on Step 4 below may require you to come in and repeat Step 3 again, so keep the solution handy.

Step 4 – Savrips

As soon as the Routine Execution Unit is pressed after inputting the correct order of operations in step 3, an alarm will trigger and a door at the far end of the tunnel will open. You will also immediately get attacked by 3 very tiny Savrips! They are labelled as babies on the map below. There is nothing special about these smaller guys so just beat em up quick and keep running. Take note of the red circles on the vented floor as you go, as getting caught in these may slow you down. The intersection has two more babies ambush you. Use your movement-abilities to cross the lava ahead quick, and pick up the missiles on the other side before advancing.

These missiles will appear as a temporary ability that you can spam throughout this area. This is very important for the gauntlet ahead of you, with many more savrip babies and larger savrips of Gold difficulty that can cast a “Stunning Leap” ability. This stun is pretty lengthy and is sure to get you killed or make you run out of time getting to the door if they are allowed to do it. Advance carefully until you pull the first Large Savrip and get familiar with the missile ability by using it when he’s about to leap to interrupt it. You can repeatedly use the missiles to keep them stunlocked while you kill them, though it’s likely faster to only reach for it when needed. Near the door at the end of the hall is the last big wave of Savrips. Keep an eye on all the large ones to interrupt any leaps and pass through the open doorway to the “Goal” on the map to ensure you aren’t getting locked out, before finishing them all off. Alternatively, a stealth character can run through this whole gauntlet without using the missiles if you simply let your companion tank the savrips. While they are distracted, run past the door and use your Combat Stealth to drop out of combat and continue on to the next step.

Step 5 – Cross the Chasm

Past the Savrip Gauntlet and safely on the other side of the door; you will come to a large basin of lava with a collapsed bridge. By climbing down the cliffs on your left you can start making a run across the lava to the path on the other side of the basin, in the far-right. This will be complicated somewhat by hidden “Monitor Droids” that will appear and cast a slow-debuff on you if you get too close during your run, however. This can quickly lead to death and a long restart due to how short-lived your lava shield is. Activate the glowing blue terminal at your initial perch to see the locations of these probe droids and try to memorize this, as avoiding the first few should increase your odds of survival dramatically. Start the run with rocket boots. If you are caught by one and slowed, do not panic. The rocket boots will be cancelled by combat, so use your movement-speed enhancing abilities (roll, force speed, whatever you can do IN COMBAT) to quickly finish your dash to the first safe zone, the large island. From here, rest and let your lava shield reset, then dash over to the north wall and make a big jump over a small lavafall to safety.

NOTE: Lava damage has a tendency to drop your Sprint buff, so at each resting point, double check you still have it on, especially before the last jump.

Step 6 – Malfunctioning Probe

Next comes the most likely place to die and start over. Continue along the path and clear some more baby savrips out of the way. Between the first two packs of babies, in the cave, is a metal platform with a clickable console. This will power down the shielding around the door at the far end of the basin that we are working towards (check out the map below) and will spawn a tough enemy called the Malfunctioning Probe up ahead that must be defeated for its lootable detonation unit.

This fight takes place on the platform shown in the image above; The large probe will be just infront of the character in the image, and will consistently try to do a large blue-circle knockback on a 2 second cast. On it’s own, this attack is not too troublesome and most players with a healing companion should be able to defeat this. The difficulty comes partway through the fight, when the probe summons two smaller grappling probes on the corners of the platform. The grapple will root you in place for a moment after dragging you to the edge, which is a deadly combo once the Boss Probe does its knockback.

Luckily, the grapple probes do not spawn immediately in combat, so if you stay on the front-side of the probe, away from the smaller ones, they may never enter combat to assist. All ranged players should engage this probe at maximum distance to avoid being grappled, and melee should stay on the opposite side of the probe from the grapplers to stay safe. You can probably interrupt every 2nd knockback. Experienced players that can deal lots of damage may even want to set their companion to Tank, just for some extra reassurance if the grapple probes end up aggressive, though the Boss Probe does pretty respectable damage, so kill it fast.

Once this is done, loot the green Detonation Unit and continue on down the path, through some more baby savrips, and over another jump, into a group of 3 grapple droids that must be killed. Right click the unshielded doorway to plant the explosives and step back for detonation!

Step 7 – The Lava Halls

This is the last section before getting to loot the datacron; and it is quite dangerous. There are no stealthed monitor probes to catch you in this lava, so you may safely run to the first safe platform on the south end of the map before engaging the first group of grapple probes. If you have any abilities to knockback or pull, or can set a companion to pull, get the probes to safe spots while you quickly try to kill them. This way, if you are pulled, it is less likely to be into lava directly. Follow the path outlined in the map below, stopping to let your shield recharge in safe spots. Most debris in the middle of the lava is not truely safe to stand on, but the mesh platforms are. On your left as you advance, you’ll see another glowing missile stockpile for savrips. Pick this up because shortly after making a run for the next safe patch, you’ll be ambushed from a savrip leaper both ahead of and behind you. If you’re extra unlucky, you’ll also pull the grapple probes at the same time. In this event, your priority should be:

1. Get to safe ground
2. interrupt any savrip leaps
3. kill probes that are in an unsafe spot
4. kill savrips
5. kill probes that are remaining on safe ground

Whenever something in the priority list is done, move on to the next, and always stop to reprioritize if something comes up until you are out of combat and safe. Stealthers, you can also set a companion to tank and try to make a run straight to the datacron to immediately stealth and drop combat – but this is risky. Make sure you don’t overestimate your lava shield duration.

Step 8 – Datacron!

Enjoy your well-earned datacron!

To exit quickly, there is a gate-switch just behind the datacron to open the shortcut back to the start.