Anchors, to take or not to take them?

[Rakkun]

I understand that you need anchor energy to go back to the garage and all. But am I screwing myself over by taking every anchor I see? Am I giving junctions high instability with extreme conditions (the orange areas in the route map) by collecting so many anchors?
Will I get more stable junctions if I stop taking anchors? The only times where I find junctions with Perpetual Stability nowadays are in mission zones. My current route map is peppered with orange, it pretty much dictates if I can or can't do story missions at the time.

Note that I'm not talking about the anomalies that spawn around the anchor when you take them. I'm talking about the orange areas in the route map.

[daggaz]

Anchors are randomly generated. Start a junction, look at your map. Now reload that save and look at your map again. The anchors have moved, and in fact you likely do not even have the same number of them as you did last time. Now you have a horrible incentive to reload each map until you get a beneficial anchor distribution.

Now clear the map of anchors. Go home, spend your hard-earned anchor cash. Go back to the zone you took the anchors from. Look at the map...

You should take every anchor you can get your grubby little hands on, especially in maps with no time limit. Get your essential upgrades in early, before you are racing the clock and the game starts really punishing you for nabbing them.

[Driverben]

Originally posted by MarkedMarkyMark:

Woah wait wait, do you mean that like, taking anchors cause those big storms in the map? i thought those were random so i've been yoinkin' any and all anchors cause whatever, hope i didnt f myslef.

No the storms are random, if you're talking about the ones that spawn and move around the map. There's the storm that slowly encircles the zone and closes in, that one is different. Each zone is on a timer, there's a bar at the top right when you're picking a travel point showing you how long until the storm starts to close-in. Only time the timer doesn't matter is if there's an effect on that point, I think it's called Perpetual Stability, and the storm only spawns once you activate the portal to leave the zone.

Edit: Also taking anchors I'm pretty sure only affects the zone you're in currently.

[HerbertWess]

Depends. Some areas do not make it easy to fetch every anchor, unless you set up your remnant very well and can traverse steep cliffs or bypass obstacles (don't be like me and read the map thoroughly. i had a lot of trouble every time i forgot to interpret a bridge or tunnel, forcing me into a detour that sometimes took me straight into a storm).

There is a specific condition though that makes it so every time you pick up an anchor, it will spawn random weather on top of you. Not much worse than when you pick a regular anchor but makes things more interesting (gotta love triggering an acidic storm on top of your head).

Oh, and there is also the area where the radar cannot pinpoint the anchor accurately and you must find it almost by eyesight. Remember there is an anchor radar among the blueprints? This area condition pretty much answered for me why i needed that :P

[Punabra]

the basic greenish storm is not that bad i always park myself next to a building and justw ait till it has passed.

but still i wonder about teh yellow striped circle , starting in a inbetween zone , after afew minutes i hear a alarm sound and the circle start to close in on me.

never been able to stay longer then afew minutes in teh passthrough zone

[Abyssal Crow]

Taking anchors doesn't cause much difference in the run unless you have "barely plugged" condition which forces a squall to spawn. If you want the zones in a future run to not be extreme conditions just use the re-roll upgrade you can get.

[MarkedMarkyMark]

Originally posted by Driverben:

Originally posted by MarkedMarkyMark:

Woah wait wait, do you mean that like, taking anchors cause those big storms in the map? i thought those were random so i've been yoinkin' any and all anchors cause whatever, hope i didnt f myslef.

No the storms are random, if you're talking about the ones that spawn and move around the map. There's the storm that slowly encircles the zone and closes in, that one is different. Each zone is on a timer, there's a bar at the top right when you're picking a travel point showing you how long until the storm starts to close-in. Only time the timer doesn't matter is if there's an effect on that point, I think it's called Perpetual Stability, and the storm only spawns once you activate the portal to leave the zone.

Edit: Also taking anchors I'm pretty sure only affects the zone you're in currently.

No, like, i'm talking about when you're about to plot a course right, and in the map there's those red storms that marks an area thats kinda crazier and have more weird stuff in it, my next trip is like, that EVERYWHERE and i wonder if it is random or its just cause ive been yoinking anchors willy nilly.

[Abyssal Crow]

Originally posted by MarkedMarkyMark:

Originally posted by Driverben:

No the storms are random, if you're talking about the ones that spawn and move around the map. There's the storm that slowly encircles the zone and closes in, that one is different. Each zone is on a timer, there's a bar at the top right when you're picking a travel point showing you how long until the storm starts to close-in. Only time the timer doesn't matter is if there's an effect on that point, I think it's called Perpetual Stability, and the storm only spawns once you activate the portal to leave the zone.

Edit: Also taking anchors I'm pretty sure only affects the zone you're in currently.

No, like, i'm talking about when you're about to plot a course right, and in the map there's those red storms that marks an area thats kinda crazier and have more weird stuff in it, my next trip is like, that EVERYWHERE and i wonder if it is random or its just cause ive been yoinking anchors willy nilly.

It's not, I've been on the same path yoinking all anchors during it and it only gets a random extreme condition on 1 or 2 junctions and they're entirely random. I've had a clean route like 4 times in a row before and every time I go out I grab all anchors.
Extreme conditions and the storm timer are all setup on the route map as is by RNG.

[Gigod]

I found a note from the devs that answers most of this thread... Yes there is an instability penalty the longer your in a zone removing anchors AND you can turn it off...

"1. Are you looking for a cozy drive through the Pacific Northwest? Just hunting around for parts and vibing to the radio? The “Disable Instability Storms” setting removes storms that manifest due to growing instability, e.g. arrive after a certain time on a map, allowing you to take your time exploring every nook and cranny.
2. Would you like to open a gateway and outrun the storm, while avoiding any surprise Zone Storms? The “Disable Gateway Storms” setting removes storms summoned by opening gateways back to the garage.
3. If you’re not interested in trying to outrun the Zone Storms at all you can enable both settings. You’ll never be chased out of a map by instability storms, but you will still have to contend with the zone’s anomalies and random anomalous weather patterns that drift through occasionally."

[Rakkun]

Even thought I made it clear I'm not talking about anomalies that spawn in the junction where you take the anchor from, people are still commenting on that. lol

[Arctic Ice Fox]

I must be part magpie. If i can get the anchors i do....along with anything else i can snatch. Its a rare trip i dont have 2 side storages my maxed out trunk and the XL storage nearly full of assorted junk.

That said, i always grab them in easy junctions and i keep an eye to bounce on hard junctions. Im a magpie, not a lemming.