Best time to upgrade?

[Floymin]

When would be the best time to upgrade my equipment? Should I wait until after the first season? I'm on the second week, and the stories still feel like introductory missions.

[Borgessa]

Just upgrade when you can, always have Qi researching.. don't forget there are two tabs at the research book, I almost missed that at first lol.

[Bo]

Just be careful when you up grade! I Notice if you up grade your machine a lot of npc have there commission on board that you don`t have!

[Floymin]

Originally posted by Bo:

Just be careful when you up grade! I Notice if you up grade your machine a lot of npc have there commission on board that you don`t have!

That happened with Portia. When I upgraded, the commissions I saw the next day were for items in the HIGHEST upgrade.

[Shneekey]

By 'upgrading your equipment' do you mean upgrading your gear, or upgrading your machines, because these are two very different questions with two very different answers.

Unlike in Portia, upgrading machines to the next tier (from basic to civil to industrial) does not give them any efficiency or speed bonuses innately, it just gives them the ability to work with more advanced materials. If you have no need to work with those materials yet, it isn't mandatory. It is generally a good idea to make sure you're updated before you need it, because the upgrades require components that you'll want on hand ahead of time, but it shouldn't be as mission-critical as it was in Portia, where it did give a significant efficiency and speed boost to basic recipes in addition to accessing more advanced recipes.

However, there's also upgrading the Quality of your machines, which you should probably do early because it will cost you less hard-to-find items, and the quality upgrade will carry over. So if you upgrade a Furnace to purple quality with, say, a 10% speed bonus, then upgrade it (upgrade tab on the top of the page) to a Civil Furnace, it will retain its speed bonus, while only requiring... I think the first one only needs bloodstone?

Then there is upgrading the quality of your gear, which you should probably not bother with other than your pickhammer and maybe axe and weapon. Your armor and accessories are going to cycle fast as you go through the quests, you won't have any one particular piece long enough to be worth the gems to upgrade.

[Bo]

You can still upgrade but when Qi sending you the upgrade in the mail box don`t open them yet! i guess that what i do!.. It works like a charm..

[JVC]

If you're thinking about customers requesting higher quality items (blue and purple quality), that happens when you unlock the Refiner which allows you to upgrade finished items. As soon as you get the Refiner, have Qi unlock the Ore Refinery to get materials to feed into the Refiner.

Keep Qi researching all the time.

[House Gnome]

I upgrade the machine as soon as I have the materials to do so, and I've always got Qi researching so I'm always able to upgrade as soon as I have the mats. JVC is right, higher quality quests happen when you unlock the refiner. I don't bother to upgrade my machine quality until I have the most advanced version of the machine available in game.

[Bobucles]

Your pickhammer? There is a very early mission with Qi that gives a high quality bronze pickhammer. After that, upgrade them as quickly as possible. Better tool power means more energy and more XP.

Research? Keep them going constantly. You more or less want to fill out a tier before moving to the next one. Early recyclers are great, and smelting is more important than equal level processing.

Unlocking the cooking table will open up cooking commissions. Feel free to experiment with recipes, the more the merrier.

Armor upgrades? House stat upgrades? They're kinda important. Character levels are more meaningful than gear quality, but each armor piece does have a stamina boost.

[House Gnome]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Character levels are more meaningful than gear quality, but each armor piece does have a stamina boost.

Gear quality really helps, though. Extra mats, larger hit radius. Armor quality also is important, especially the bonus stats. I won't wear a piece of gear after a certain level without damage reflect on it, and lifesteal on a weapon is a big bonus during long fights.

[SimuLord]

Gear quality is key to overcoming the stamina usage problem. Sandrock's gameplay loop runs on the premise that as the game goes on, you'll use fewer swings of a hammer or ax to break up a big piece of scrap or cut down a deadwood tree, instead of using fewer stamina points per hit (it's 3 points a hit from the very first mission to the very last one, return-stamina modifiers notwithstanding.)

I play very "fast" in the sense of completing the main quest in, on average, five seasons (145-150 days depending on how close I can get to "same-day service" on every main quest mission.) At no point does the pacing feel forced (you can play a LOT slower) but overcoming the feeling of grind in the earlygame depends heavily on upgrading tools and machines.

Plus, all that resource gathering is the fastest way to level up.

[Bored Peon]

Upgrading is situational.

For example in my current game I got the steel bars to make iron tools before finishing the bridge. However those iron tools were useless because they were green, the blue one was almost equal, but the deciding factor was the bronze purple one has the stamina return ability. Now this was mostly caused because the gems needed to upgrade quality are only on the other side of the river. Well, quartz could be refined for the rosestones, but that is such a long process to get a dozen or so stones for each tool.

[House Gnome]

Ugh, yeah, I did this with my aluminum tools. Snuck into the Valley as soon as I unlocked my suit and made my tools just to remember I needed stuff from the Portia tunnel area to upgrade, so they sat in my chest for ages before they were useful. Thought I was gonna be smart with skipping Chromium, but I was not.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by House Gnome:

Ugh, yeah, I did this with my aluminum tools. Snuck into the Valley as soon as I unlocked my suit and made my tools just to remember I needed stuff from the Portia tunnel area to upgrade, so they sat in my chest for ages before they were useful. Thought I was gonna be smart with skipping Chromium, but I was not.

Technically you can sneak into the north end of valley without a suit, you just cannot go past the gates without being poisoned.

Not sure if the poison got fixed or not, but during the beta it was not curable when I got it.

[House Gnome]

All the good stuff is behind the gates, where you need the suit. You can get a little granite and sisal, and, I think, maybe the random aluminum spawn, but the rest of it requires a suit.

[SimuLord]

Originally posted by House Gnome:

All the good stuff is behind the gates, where you need the suit. You can get a little granite and sisal, and, I think, maybe the random aluminum spawn, but the rest of it requires a suit.

If you're quick or if you bring some healing items, you can rush a few aluminium nodes before the poison drains all your health. It'll knock off 50 HP at regular intervals but as soon as you get out of the green cloud, you stop taking damage.