User blog:Kaorimoch/The order in which to do things

Walkthrough / Guide / Total spoiler-ish
I've played this game about 10 times in the past 3 weeks since I really enjoy just starting the game up and getting "gud", but once you start on the crystal cave, its boring again. Anyway, the lack of a map, not knowing where to go and how to get blueprints really really sucks, especially if you are starting up the game for the first time. For myself, I made notes as I went along to help me remember what to do and where to go to stop meandering around so much.

Some general advice for playing first -

1) When measuring distance and the time left until you run out of oxygen, plan on a 1 second breath - 3m distance ratio.  If you have 30 second left of breathing and 90m to travel, you'll be ok.  If you have 30 seconds left and 120m to travel, you may make it but you may start running out of breath / fade to black as you arrive.

2) You travel slightly faster when you are not holding anything in your hands.  If you are rushing somewhere, try to do it without anything in your hands for a little extra speed.

3) You don't need to hoard lots of high end resources.  To complete the game, you only need 5 Nickel Ore and 6 Kyanite Crystals.  You might want 2 more Kyanite if you want to build a Prawn Suit Thermal Reactor but 2 Ion Power Cells will fulfill all of your power needs without worrying and one Storage Unit is more valuable.

4) I won't be telling you to avoid monsters and trap plants - that's a given.  Also, there are other items or blueprints you can build or focus on rather than following this guide if you want.

5)  Sick of having to stop the vehicle and exit in 2 steps?  Me too!  Before you stop, tilt the truck so you are facing the ground directly, then exit.  If the truck is unable to let you walk horizontally within, the exit button will eject you instead.

6) Monsters chasing you?  Hit them once before they hit you and they will run off.  The most dangerous lifeforms on any planet are humans.  If you kill a blowfish before it blows up, you are safe. You can also ram them with your sea truck when they poke their head out of their nest. Violence solves everything.

7)  If your max depth is 300 and you have your vehicle at 299, there is a slight chance that a monster may knock it below 300 and you come back to pieces of the vehicle.  Remind me to tell you about the time I was scanning for Sea Truck and I came across vehicle parts as I could not scan for some reason, but moved when I knocked into it... and then 5 minutes later I was wondering where my truck went.

8)  Flares are useless.  Leave them alone, don't waste your inventory space.  If you open a chest and there is a flare inside, treat it as if you found nothing. Crash site - There are 3 water containers and 3 food rations in this area. Don't take a flare, they are a waste of space.

Drop pod - Your first desination. Try to obtain about 3 Creepvine Seed Clusters on the way, along with a few ribbon plants with as many metals as you want. You should also grab 2 fish to turn into food when you arrive since you start the game with 50% of your food need bar filled. Once you have obtained the seed clusters, convert them into silicone rubber and make flippers and a knife. Craft a Scanner, Flashlight and Oxygen Tank along with any other useful items.

First 2 Essential Blueprints - Go on a trip to -251,-251 to get the High Capacity O₂ Tank blueprint from the databox (and scan the builder tool inside the circular building, but be fast!). You'll need to descend a long way. Then go to -352, -320 for the Rebreather databox - this one is the hardest to get since it is 170m deep - use oxygen plants when ascending, there are two you can grab back on your path to the surface. After that, I recommend going to -500,-500 to scan the exterior growbed. You will need to be fast for the databoxes - waste time and you will die. If you have trouble for whatever reason.

While on these trips, do scan the Sea Truck and Mobile Vehicle Bay parts. Build the Habitat Builder when you can - you will need one gold ore (from the Thermal spires area, they are more abundant in the yellow crevices in the ground). Ensure you have at least one First Aid Kit and least 50 units of water while travelling around. Focus on building up your supply of Lead and Table Coral Samples throughout the game. Once you have built the Habitat Builder, the High Capacity O2 tank and the Rebreather. You can leave the Compass and Repair Tool for later.

Delta Base - Time to visit. It is south of your Drop Pod, and you can get an idea of where south is by going to the surface from the drop pod, looking around and travelling away from the land locations covered with ice. When you pass the Twisty Bridges and keep going past the Thermal Spires, your PDA should pick up a signal from a beacon for Delta Base. Go up and scan everything. For now, the most important one will be the Multi Purpose Room as it is the core of any central hub for a base you build. The sulfur you need for the repair tool is on the island.

TIP - Since you have the builder tool, you can find the place you want to build the base and just build an "I" compartment with a hatch and a storage unit inside to drop off whatever you wanted to carry from the drop pod. Once you have the Multipurpose room, you can come back and start building your base.

Where to build a base? - I like building a base between the Thermal Spires and Twisty Bridges area, preferably on the eastern edge near the Creepvine area. You do have one of those black 4 legged thing crawling around there but you can kill it with about 30 seconds of slashes with your knife. This location tends to be the best when it comes to gathering materials close by. You can build anywhere you want but make sure you have quick access to a variety of necessary materials and not so far away that you lose a lot of time in travel.

Base layout - You can have it anyway you want, but a Multi Purpose Room makes it easier to centralize everything and build items that require one of those rooms. Whatever you plan on doing, I recommend using plot plants and build 4 of them in your base - 2 for the Horseshoe Shrub (found on Delta Island - Can heal 10 points per nut eaten, and the nuts don't go off but they don't really satisfy your thirst) and another 2 for the Feverred Pepper (located in the aboveground ice locations in the west of the map - satisfies all of your hunger and thirst needs). Using the pots will cost an extra 4 titanium over using the indoor growbed, but that thing takes up a lot of room whereas the pots can be placed in front of lockers or next to the Water Filtration system without bothering everyone.

Base Layout - External Growbed edition - As for the exterior growbeds build 2 and make a goal to grow 2 Creepvine Seed Clusters, Gel Sacks, Ribbon Plants, Spiral Plant Clippings and Young Cotton Anemones. You will need a few of these, especially the Gel Sacks and the Creepvine Seeds. Special note - you can make the seeds for the plants by hitting them with the knife a number of times, but once you reach a certain number of times, the plant itself will disappear and be replaced by seeds - make sure you have room in your inventory for the seeds. Special Note 2 - you can pick the plant before the last hit that makes it disappear into a bunch of seeds, replant it and do it all over again. For example, a gel seed hit three times will disappear into a bunch of seeds but if you hit it twice first for 2 seeds, then pull it out of the growbed, then put it back in, you can keep hitting it 2 times for an infinite number of seeds. You cannot do this with Spiral Plants though - you can't harvest the fully grown version. Special Note 3 - The Young Cotton Anemones have 2 varieties - the small ones take only one hit before they explode into seeds, but the larger ones can be hit twice before exploding into seeds - so only get the big ones. Hit x1, harvest, plant, hitx1, harvest, plant etc etc.

Alien Time - Go to the Twisty bridges area, find the flashing pillars down below and follow them to the Sanctuary to get your new best friend. There's only 2 good reasons to have this guy - (1) The sea monkeys will no longer steal things from you once the alien is in your head - instead they will randomly give you items and (2) Ion Batteries and Power Cells. They are so good.

Sea Truck fun time - Once you have built the Sea Truck, get the Mark 1 Depth Upgrade for it to reach 300m, Now, you will need 2 diamonds so you can either search in the crevices below the gold canyons in the Thermal Spires area (there is one place at the bottom of one of the gold ravines with two geysers, and there are 4 diamonds in a vein in the middle of those geysers) or you can go to the next area and use the oxygen plants to get there....

Sea Truck Fabricator and Storage Modules - These are located 350 meters deep in the Twisty Bridges area. There are small entrances in the canyon in front of the cave to Alan's sanctuary. You'll notice it when you descend below and the vegetation disappears, and then a new biome appears when you hit 300m (called the "Deep Twisty Bridges). This area is the only place to get all of the 2 modules you are after and you will need to scan at least 3 of each item to learn the blueprint.  While down here, loot all of the diamonds (there are a lot) and lithium you can find.  Keep an eye on your health, you may need up to 2 First Aid Kits to survive the damage you receive.  There is an architect artifact here at -373,-428.  You are going good son.

By now you should be low on lead and table coral samples. I recommend searching the Twisty Bridges for these items and once you have built the Fabricator and Storage modules, move on to .....

Sea Monkey Nests - Now you need to hit the Sea Monkey Tunnels in the areas north of Delta Island. Each nest has a blueprint in it that you can scan to recover. You will need to get the Laser Cutter (blueprints are near 460, -88) at a bare minimum, but you should make sure to get the propulsion cannon (blueprints are near-478, -138) as well. The Propulsion Cannon will let you access 5 magnetite ores at the next location --

Phi Robotics Lab - Build the Propulsion Cannon, then head west from the Twisty Bridges until you hit icebergs / outer ice wall boundaries with Jellyfish floating around. If you see an alien power cable, head SWS. Follow the walls until you see a pontoon Then, head SW - West following the ice walls until you see orange floaties / dock that you can disembark from. I recommend building a base here, and/or dropping a beacon to note the location. Your goal here is to head SW while picking up a Feverred Pepper. The beacon for the Phi Robotics Lab will appear as you get closer - scan the Pengling robot outside, then head inside. With the Propulsion Tool, head up the stairs to the left and keep going until you hit the area near the entrance to the Teleportation Gate. You should notice an area barricaded by boxes that you will have to get access to by using the Propulsion Tool. Save before you do this. You should start with the very leftmost box and move that out of the way, then keep picking up the next box to the right as you go. Loot any boxes in the location near the boxes you want to move first since the game can accidently "crush" boxes out of existence if a box lands on them (occasionally). Once you move them all out of the way, head inside to loot, and grab all the magnetite up the back. After that, we are going back to base to -

Build a scanner! A scanner room is useless unless you have magnetite, but since you went and obtained it from the back room at Phi Robotics, we can build the scanner room, craft a HUD chip from the fabricator (computer chip and magnetite) in the scanner room and then use the scanner to locate Lead (Galena Outcrops) and Table Coral Samples, which take time to locate and loot.

Build yourself the 2 items necessary to build a Pengling Spy Bot and remote and now we can go to -

Outpost Zero. There are 5 items to scan outside the base (Snowman, 2 PRAWN suits, one habitat builder and something in a box in front of the main door). Go inside and scan everything you can. Eat some lantern plants but don't bother growing them at base, the Below Zero version only satisfies hunger. Now, the reason we went to Phi Robotics Lab is so we can use the Spy Pengling to go into the small hole at the back-right of the main building to loot 2 batteries, 1 power cell and 2 water containers. Don't forget to start building a Water Purifier back at base - you should have about 3 to 4 solar panels by now to offset the power drain from the purifier while crafting and re-charging batteries. Once this is done, it is time to start building a -

Prawn Suit - We already have 2 plans from Outpost Zero, but we also need 2 more to finish the suit. We also need plans for a Drill Arm, a Docking Module to attach to the back of the Sea Truck to carry it around with us and (I recommend) a Grappling Arm, helpful for attaching yourself to nasty monsters while you drill them to death as they travel. First, the docking module parts can be found in the Deep Purple Vents location (397,-573). Drop a beacon (you'll come back later to use this place as a springboard for exploring the Crystal Cave), scan all of the Docking Module parts and visit the architect place as well. Keep a sharp eye out for the Spiral Plants - they look like bunch of white threads that sprawl out at the top, and wrapped loosely with redish black circles around the middle. Take some and grow them back at your base. Find at least 2 so you can get 4 clippings - you will need at least one for the Mk2 Depth Module upgrade for the Sea Truck. After that, exit the Deep Purple Vent location, travel south a bit and explore the wreck there for some stuff, since we are here anyway.

Grappling Arm - Head to 531, -824. It should be a little depression in the area that holds 2 sea monkey nests with the plans for the Grappling Arm blueprint (and this is why this game is so damn annoying, the plans for this are in one location within a maze you can easily get lost in). While there, grab Nickel Ores (you only need 5) and as many rubies as you can pocket. You can continue searching Sea Monkey Nests around here for the Sea Truck Horsepower Upgrade and the Ultra High Capacity Tank blueprints (get the coordinates of the sea monkey nests if you have trouble finding them. There are other blueprints around here, but I never use them (seriously a thermal module for the Prawn suit when the theme of the game is cold?).  Then it is time for the final two parts to complete the base Prawn suit at the -

Mercury 2 bow section! (270, -1334)  There are 3 suits at the entrance location so scan 2 of those. While here, be sure to get the Reinforced Dive Suit Plans, and the Nuclear Power Plant plans. Note - the nuclear rods that are not in a crate are depleted- useless. Don't waste your inventory space picking them up. All of the nuclear power rods inside crates are fully powered so grab those for sure. There are two different wings in this ship, you can reach the wing with the Reinforced Dive Suit by going into the Prawn Bay, heading down in the hole near the oxygen plant and head into the entrance covered with vines. Alternatively you can get there from the main area by taking the tunnel near the Alien Containment area. Head back to base to build the power suit. Make sure your vehicle can go down to 650m depth. Then lets go to -

Deep Lilypads Cave - Grab a few salts and ribbon plants (probably 4 salts and 4 ribbon plants). Go back to the "Pilots last known position" location and search for a way down past a large suspended rock to the lower areas. You'll find Young Cotton Anemone (3 of them and one salt makes Hydrocloric Acid) and Flowering Spores (2 of them and 1 Ribbon plant makes 1 Benzene). You can grab a few Young Cotton Anemones to grow back at base but remember what was written earlier about them. Its far easier to fabricate the materials there rather than hauling them back to base, it also saves you inventory space as well. When you reach the bottom, you will find a main chamber with exits all around it that make a kind of circle that leads around the main area. This is the area you first see the floweing spores. If you look for a small architect pillar in one of the areas outside the main area, travel past it going down and you will reach the first body sanctuary at the bottom of this area. There are a lot of nickel ores in this area if you had trouble locating them while grabbing the grappling arm for the Prawn. Head back to base for the final upgrades, then it is time for -

The Kappa Mines! This place had a few ways to enter it before the final version. It is difficult with a sea truck, but this is what you need to do. The entrance is in one of the canyons in the Thermal Spire zone, NW of Delta Island. It will be in rather thin canyon with a crevice that is still shooting out thermal blasts. You will know it is the right entrance if the cave after the entrance cave has an "L" shape. Go through the entrance, then through the "L" (make sure your Sea Truck passes through the bottom of the L), then take an immediate right and you in the mine. Drop a beacon there to track its location. The only reasons to visit the mine are (1) Large Resource Deposits - Rubies and (2) Prawn Suit Jump Jet Upgrade - necessary for getting around and drilling monsters. You could also try the -

The Kappa Mine Bonus Challenge! Want to have fun in the mines? Try this challenge - take around 30-40 Table Coral Samples with you into the mine. On the way to the bottom of the mine, mine out the gold deposit and grab the power cell in the crate. At the bottom of the mine, mine the copper resources. Now, using the fabricator, craft lots of Computer Chips. There is also one Silver deposit in the bottom of the mine that you can use to craft Advanced Wiring Kits. With the use of the Table Coral Samples, you are turning 3 inventory spaces (gold, copper, copper) into one inventory slot. If you count some of the silver, you are turning 5 inventory spaces into one. After that, turn the titanium you mine into ingots, as much as you can. By now, the Sea Truck should be very low on power (if you aren't using Ion Power Cells) so you will need to replace drained cells with the spare battery you looted earlier. Even after doing this, I end up with about 21% power left. In the worst case scenario, you can always use the Prawn Suit Power Cells if you run low.... You'll arrive back at base with a lot of good materials to store.

Strange Lady with the Prawn Suit - Time to go to Margaret Maida's base. There are 2 ways to get here. One is to go and search all over the Lilypad Island's cave system for her base - finding the light sticks is useful - but I always get lost. The easiest way is to go to the Tree Spires, go to the huge Ventgarden and go into the cave system below its .... feet? Tentacles? Once down there, keep going down until you see an Alterra platform. Follow the cave system there until you hear Maida's voice - you can't miss it. When you hear her voice, the base will be just above you, within 50m. This is a far easier way to get there, but you have to be able to travel 650m deep.

Now, lets get rid of the above ground areas. Probably one of the more boring parts of the game.

Cure the Kharaa at the Glacial Basin - Take the PRAWN suit - nothing travels faster than a hopping Prawn suit in these locations and do not forget the Spy Pengling. Head back to Phi Robotics and take a left (or south east) as soon as you come in sight of it along the frozen path. When you hit the furry snowy monster, kill it and head up the path behind it, going right at the top. Keep following the path as it goes south and west and you will know you are heading the right way if you end up at downward sloping path that has light sticks around it. You will end up at a lake, and at the south of that lake is the pengling lair with the antidote. Once you have it, head NW and within 5 seconds you should see a cave entrance. Head into it and exit the cave through the west exit (a bit hard to see at first) and you will reach an area with trees. Head towards the antenna and you can take it from here. Just remember that you need to interact with the mobile injector to place the antidote in it before you can use the panel nearby to inject the monster. To get back to your Arctic sea base, you will need to head south again, past where all the trees are, and once you have passed all the trees, head east. If you try to head east instead of heading south, you will end up trapped (though there are some good minerals around there) or in an endless underwater tunnel. Head south past all the trees, then east once you have cleared them.

Will add more later when ready.

Placeholders for now

Arctic Spires - There is an alien body sanctuary here, along with 3 Large Deposits of Ion Cubes and 2 architect items to scan. There is also an architect teleport gate that links up with the Phi Robot Facility.

Crystal Cave - Head to the Deep Purple Vents again (I recommended dropping a beacon there?) and head down until you see the crystals. I usually make a base around here. You will need 3 crystals to upgrade your depth modules for the Prawn suit and the Sea truck. Once you have those, upgrade the modules. While at base, collect the following items for building AL-AN's body to save yourself a trip back -

1	ion cube

2	ribbon plants

3	kyanite crystals

3	diamonds

1	plasteel

1	green vial

2	yellow drop ball thing from the sea monkey nest area

1	synthetic fibre

2	gel sacks