82-year-old needs help

[Aguirre the Mad]

Great game. I am 82 years old and maybe slower than other players, but I'm almost at the end and still haven't mastered several issues. Can anyone help with the following?
1. I have found lots of explosive powder, but how do I make/obtain explosives?
2. Where do I find phytoplankton?
3. How do I obtain a drill to break into the electronics cabinets in crashed ships?
4. How is farming outside in raised beds better than using food growers?
5. How do I operate/select my jet pack?
6. When trade items return from space, where do I go to claim them?

Thanks to anyone who helps an old man out. I commend the development team for creating such an absorbing game.

[Caver451]

1. You'll find a microchip, relatively late in the game, which will give the recipe. It will be built in the Biolab. Will require 2 explosive powder and 1 circuit board.
2. Initially, with Water Life Collectors you construct on the surface of a lake.
3. You'll find a microchip, which can be decoded to the recipe for the T2 Deconstructor.
4. You grow five at a time outdoors, and you get planets +95 g/s and insects +8 g/s. I will put a few down next to a few beehives and have an autocrafter just crank away making super food.
5. Double-tap and hold the space bar. You'll fly so long as you are holding down the spacebar. The first time you hit the spacebar, you jump; you need to hit and hold the space bar again before you hit the ground. It really is the best way to travel.
6. From the trade rocket itself.

Hope I am still able to enjoy video games in thirty years!

P.S. I worked at Lockeed-Martin for 16 years in the late 90's and early 2000's. Yourself?

[Hugin]

Howdy friend

1. Explosives are made in the Biolab, using 2 Explosive Powders and a Circuit Board. Circuit boards become available pretty late in the game, you can craft Circuit Boards in the large advanced crafting unit or you can harvest circuit boards by deconstructing those big "computer/electronics" units in wrecks with a T2 deconstruction chip. Making them comes pretty late game. You can also find explosive canisters in loot crates and wrecks. They're uncommon on the Prime planet and quite common on the new planet Humble.

2. Phytoplankton isn't found naturally in the environment. Instead, once your planet has water, you can place a Water Life Collector device in a lake or pool. It will slowly gather Phytoplankton in its inventory. This item is at the end of the Oxygen technology unlock tree, so it comes fairly late in the game

3. It's a blueprint chip you can find in loot boxes for the T2 drill or eventually it unlocks. Then you craft it as an equipment upgrade chip for you suit just like the basic deconstruction chip, light chip, etc.

4. Yes. It takes up less space than 4 T2 Food Growers and produces faster

5. Once you have crafted a jet pack, put it into your suit equipment slot, and you activate it by pressing spacebar. It's always "equipped", so you don't have to select it.

6. Whichever rocket console you used to "buy" the item, that rocket will have it in its inventory when it comes back. It's important to reactivate automatic launch in the rocket checkbox, as that rocket will sit there waiting till you grab your items.

Hope that mostly made sense, and forgive me if any of it is inaccurate, others can correct me.

[andrickschall]

Hello there,

Glad to see a senior enjoying a great game! Very cool of you. Sure as heck beats playing bingo! I kid, I kid. And I'm sure you're just as fast as most of us here. Anyway, I'll try and answer your questions as best as I can. Hopefully, other people will also respond, perhaps with better answers.

1: Explosives are indeed different from explosive powder. Keep exploring the map, and try to find as many blue chips as you can. These are the chips you decode at your blueprints screen. Eventually, you'll find one that unlocks explosives, which you can then build at the biolab.

2: Phytoplankton is collected from the water life collector. You can build one of these when your oxygen reaches a certain level. It will generate 3 kinds of phytoplankton.

3: You need the tier 2 deconstruction microchip to deconstruct the computer stacks that you find in crashed ships. Like explosives, in order to build a tier 2 deconstruction microchip, you'll need to decode another blue chip. So keep exploring and finding new blue chips to decode; you'll eventually get the tier 2 deconstruction chip. You can find cool stuff with those electronic cabinets.

4: I'm not certain, but I think the exterior raised farming beds grow food a little faster. Also, one seed will grow 5 plants, as opposed to a food grower's 1.

5: Once you have the jetpack, put it in your exoskeleton inventory. To get the jetpack going, press the space bar twice, quickly, keeping the space bar held down with the second press. You should hear an engine roar up, and you'll lift several feet off the ground. Keep the space bar held down to keep using the jetpack to fly around. It's pretty cool; gets you where you gotta go pretty quickly, and you can also survive long falls as long as you turn the jetpack on before you hit the ground.

6: If you've purchased something from the trade rocket, once the rocket returns, go up to the rocket itself. You should be able to open it, like a container or chest, and you'll find whatever you purchased in there, ready to be taken out.

I really hope this helps. If I've got something wrong, hopefully someone else will correct me. Let us know if you need anymore help.

Have fun!

[Aguirre the Mad]

Originally posted by Caver451:

1. You'll find a microchip, relatively late in the game, which will give the recipe. It will be built in the Biolab. Will require 2 explosive powder and 1 circuit board.
2. Initially, with Water Life Collectors you construct on the surface of a lake.
3. You'll find a microchip, which can be decoded to the recipe for the T2 Deconstructor.
4. You grow five at a time outdoors, and you get planets +95 g/s and insects +8 g/s. I will put a few down next to a few beehives and have an autocrafter just crank away making super food.
5. Double-tap and hold the space bar. You'll fly so long as you are holding down the spacebar. The first time you hit the spacebar, you jump; you need to hit and hold the space bar again before you hit the ground. It really is the best way to travel.
6. From the trade rocket itself.

Hope I am still able to enjoy video games in thirty years!

P.S. I worked at Lockeed-Martin for 16 years in the late 90's and early 2000's. Yourself?

Hi Caver -
I worked at Pratt&Whitney, first in rockets, then in jets, and finally in International Marketing. After 20 years I was recruited by Goodrich Aerospace where I ran some of their businesses; ended up as Senior VP for Business Development. You?
I wonder if your tag name Caver might mean you were a spelunker. If so, that's something I tried briefly while a student at VA TECH.
Thanks a lot for your help.
Steve Hugigins [e-mail]

[Aguirre the Mad]

One more question. I got to late game and tried the Portal, only to get caught there with no escape. Is there a way to access any older turn other than the very last?

[dcseel]

I have heard people have had trouble getting out of the portal, but the portals I have been in always have a beacon at the exit portal and are easy to find.

[LoneRanger]

Originally posted by Aguirre the Mad:

One more question. I got to late game and tried the Portal, only to get caught there with no escape. Is there a way to access any older turn other than the very last?

I am not quiet sure what You're asking, but if You are stuck and can't move or just can't find Your way out of a Wreck F4 is Your friend and as @dcseel said the "Exit-Portal" is marked with a Beacon.

[Starseed]

If its like the other post where you've died but not ported back to base, Get up high in the world your stuck in. Fly up as high as you can onto rocks, You will see the portal and fly towards it.

[Caver451]

Originally posted by Aguirre the Mad:

Originally posted by Caver451:

1. You'll find a microchip, relatively late in the game, which will give the recipe. It will be built in the Biolab. Will require 2 explosive powder and 1 circuit board.
2. Initially, with Water Life Collectors you construct on the surface of a lake.
3. You'll find a microchip, which can be decoded to the recipe for the T2 Deconstructor.
4. You grow five at a time outdoors, and you get planets +95 g/s and insects +8 g/s. I will put a few down next to a few beehives and have an autocrafter just crank away making super food.
5. Double-tap and hold the space bar. You'll fly so long as you are holding down the spacebar. The first time you hit the spacebar, you jump; you need to hit and hold the space bar again before you hit the ground. It really is the best way to travel.
6. From the trade rocket itself.

Hope I am still able to enjoy video games in thirty years!

P.S. I worked at Lockeed-Martin for 16 years in the late 90's and early 2000's. Yourself?

Hi Caver -
I worked at Pratt&Whitney, first in rockets, then in jets, and finally in International Marketing. After 20 years I was recruited by Goodrich Aerospace where I ran some of their businesses; ended up as Senior VP for Business Development. You?
I wonder if your tag name Caver might mean you were a spelunker. If so, that's something I tried briefly while a student at VA TECH.
Thanks a lot for your help.
Steve Hugigins [e-mail]

I can connect privately for some of the work history stuff if you want a bit more detail, but as for your second question, yes I was in a leadership position in a local chapter of the NSS and did quite a bit of caving for fun as well as volunteer work for the park service. Back when I was younger, slimmer and slightly more willing to take risks. Lol, I could tell you some stories. ;-)

As for LM, just briefly, I worked with both commercial and military space programs as a software engineer. Really lovely time of my life, actually.

[Aguirre the Mad]

Today is the true beginning of the Age of Space Exploration. Wish I was young and ready to start over, Ad Astra!