Tips for Players that know their way around already

[DMg Halt]

Tips for players that are going for unlocking all Level III weapon traits.
Discussion
I am new to reddit and wanted to post my findings somewhere. This list is intended for players with 100+ hours of experience and have beaten the game multiple times.

When trying to unlock your level 3 weapon traits, here's a few tips that I found to be helpful in maximizing your chances. We're assuming that you are running through Biomes 4-6 to do this, and that you're already aware of the infinitely spawning monsters on level 6 that can be killed with one shot.

At the start of level 4, run through the entire biome without killing any enemies. This will give you a rough idea of the artifacts and parasites that are available. The key artifacts you're looking for are the ones that give you +15% proficiency and the other is the one that increases the positive effects of upcoming parasites. The key parasite to look out for is the one that increases your weapon proficiency by 20%. (Do not pick up this parasite yet unless you've collected and exchanged all bad parasites for obolites at the harvester, or unless the parasite was found in a Dungeon, in which case, you have no choice.)

Once the level is fully explored, find one weapon and stick to it for the entire level. The reason you're doing this is to get your proficiency level as high as possible before opening up any weapon chests. At level 20, that's when you open them up, because that's when Level III traits become available in your drops.

During your first run through the level, pick up any parasites that you know you'll NEVER use, or would have otherwise ignored, FIRST. The reasoning for this is to utilize the Parasite Harvester near the end of the level to exchange them for roughly 50 obolites a piece. Once that's done, then start picking up the parasites that you want to keep.

Throughout the level, you'll find roots/branches on the floor. These often contain obolites, and the best part is, they respawn every time you use the teleporter. I've found that the fastest way to harvest these never ending obolites is to use a Dreadbound with expanding AND exploding shards, and level 5 adrenaline level. If you've played through this biome enough times, you'll know which rooms have the most branches in them. Other good weapons to use for destroying branches are your Melee Sword, Rotland Globber, Thermogenic Launcher, or Spitmaw blaster with Wide Maw.

Collect at least 2000 - 2500 obolites during your run through level 4. The reason I do this, is so that I don't have to worry about collecting them throughout Biomes 5 and 6. I can just kill the monsters and forget about the obolites they drop because I already have enough to last me the remainder of the game.

Take your sweet ass time through level 4 and maintain your level 5 adrenaline, because you need that 150% proficiency to get your levels up to 20 ASAP. Those times where I am most likely to get hit, and reset my adrenaline back to zero, are when I am rushing to collect dropped obolites before they disappear. That's why I stopped going for obolites from dead monsters and simply farm them from branches/roots once you've killed all enemies in the entire level. (For some players, this is an unnecessary precaution because they are good enough to not get hit anyways).

When you finally get to level 6, save the Octopus looking monsters (the ones that spawn infinite fishies) for last, specifically the ones with shields on them. Make sure you don't have any artifacts that help you break shields, and no weapon traits with that same effect. Using the ones that are shielded for farming your kills are especially nice because you can pretty much aim your weapon right at the top where they spawn out of and just fire non-stop until you get those 100 kills. No re-targeting required, and best of all, your undivided attention is not required either, so grab yourself a snack or drink while this is going down.

Save 2-3 atropian keys for Biome 6 to unlock those doors that have 3 weapon chests behind them.

Other handy pieces of information that I've come across....

In a room with a lot of turrets, only one of those turrets can fire at you at any given moment. So if one turret is firing, or in the process of locking onto you, all other turrets are idle until that active turret has finished firing.

Changing your Dash button to R1 is very helpful because it makes it so that your Right thumb can remain on the analog stick, while Dash is pressed with your Right pointer finger. The default button for Dash is the Circle button, which requires you to move your thumb to press it, then back to the stick. It takes some getting used to, but it becomes second nature after 30 min- 1 hour of playing it this way.

When playing in the tower, you can test to see how far you can get if you stop caring about your multiplier and your overall score, and only pick up dropped obolites if you know you can do it safely. I was previously able to reliably get to Stage 4 until I put these suggestions into action. I then managed to get about halfway through Stage 6 before dying. My score was, pathetically, still in the 6 figures, but it felt pretty good to set a new record for how far I could get.

I put in a lot of effort to collect all the Xenoglyphs only to realize that it wasn't necessary to get the Platinum Trophy, and I didn't even get anything cool once they were all collected. So only pursue this goal at your own discretion and be aware that you don't get anything special for doing so.

Apparently you can rest in your bed inside the spaceship to regain some of your health. Only to be used if you have no other options because the health regained is extremely small (like 10-15% per sleep cycle).

In any Biome, if you know where two beds are (One for recycling HP to turn into an artifact, the other for restoring HP and slightly increasing Max Integrity)... Use the Red Bed, then the Green Bed, in that order.

I've found that you can kill the final boss in under 60 seconds if you have a DreadBound with at least 2 of these Level III traits Expanding Shards, Explosive Shards, Damage Steal and Returning Damage. And 4th Shard is always helpful but not necessary.

Always dash before hitting the ground during a long fall if you can't remember if you have one of those parasites that inflict damage from jumping from a high elevation.

Deposit 300 obolites into the collection plate right before fighting the final boss so that you'll have that free artifact ready to collect on your next run.

If you come across artifacts that don't really fit into your play style, and would usually ignore, pick them up anyways (if you have the space). Doing this, in my experience, makes it so that you won't run into these artifacts later in your run because they'll be eliminated from the random generator. Perfect example of this is my tendency to not pick up the artifact called the Shield Disrupter that gives you a chance to break shields for 6 seconds after an overload. I hate picking this up because on the 6th biome, I don't want my weapons breaking shields for the obvious reason that I want to farm kills out of the shielded monsters. Then I found, that by avoiding this artifact, I ended up running into it 3 or even 4 times throughout biomes 4-6, but if I picked it up, and destroyed it at the start of biome 6, I'd never see it, thus freeing up those 3-4 random generations with something else that I might find useful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Returnal/comments/xipnkm/tips_for_players_that_are_going_for_unlocking_all/

[Eightfold Path]

I can't believe I never noticed these branches, that's very useful. I don't intend on over farming them, but running these rooms a couple additional times gives you a reliably great start.