Starfield: Cydonia’s ‘hours without incident’ counter updates in real-time

There are a lot of fun aspects of Starfield that, while they aren’t integral to the main story, add some fun moments to the overall gameplay experience and bring Starfield to life. One of these aspects is Cydonia’s ‘hours without incident’ counter, which updates in real time. If you haven’t noticed the real-time changes of Cydonia’s ‘hours without incident’ counter or wonder if your actions affect it, here is everything you need to know!

Cydonia’s ‘hours without incident’ counter in Starfield updates in real-time

Image: PC Invasion

First, head to the Cydonia Mining Colony, which is located on Mars in the Sol system.

Then, head inside to Cydonia’s Central Hub using the first Airlock door you find. Keep heading through the hallway, and right as you approach the area where the path splits into different locations, you’ll find the ‘hours without incident’ sign.

This number will update in real-time, meaning it will differ every time you stop by Cydonia during your playthrough. The ‘hours without incident’ counter is just one of many fun things that Bethesda added to Starfield to bring its worlds to life. However, I don’t know who I feel worse for: the person whose job it is to reset the counter or the poor NPCs whose accidents reset the counter in the first place.

Image: PC Invasion

In addition, if you are wondering if your actions will cause the ‘hours without incident’ counter to reset, you’ll be interested to know that they do! For instance, you can see that my ‘hours without incident’ counter reads 114 hours since last incident. I will kill this poor NPC (don’t worry, I’ll reload my save to bring him back to life).

Image: PC Invasion

Doing so shows that the counter has been reset to 0 hours, meaning the game recognized that I just killed an NPC at Cydonia.

Finally, in addition to Starfield’s ‘hours without incident’ counter in Cydonia being updated in real-time, you will also randomly hear them announce it over the intercom for everyone to hear.

Author’s Note: I wrote this guide while playing Starfield on Xbox Series S.