Any general advice and tips for someone 11 hours into the game?

[IDDQD]

So, like the title mentions, I'm just after general advice and tips of info that help along the game or make things 'easier' in the long run. It does still feel a little like I'm trying to grasp the concept and long-term goal on what the game wants me to do and how to make best use of what the gameplay offers.

Story-wise, I've just caught the boat to the next area.

But what sort of things should I focus on going forward? Whether structures to build, what materials to focus on collecting more, delivery jobs, combat tips for BT's and mules...

Basically, anything and everything a veteran who reached endgame wished they knew earlier in the game when starting.

Thanks!

[battl3hamm3r]

I'm only 25h in, but your main focus should be Sam deliveries, these are the ones that move the story forward. I usually do other deliveries when i'm my way somewhere or passing by a hub, but I dont back and forth just to deliver everything

I feel like its the kind of game where you can get overwhelmed and burn yourself out if you try to do EVERY delivery

I also take time to build structures, mostly roads, because they are awesome and it helps the community

You will figure things out, chapter 2 is where the game really started for me

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by IDDQD:

Story-wise, I've just caught the boat to the next area.

You've just finished the tutorial. The game starts at this point.

My advice is: do the parts that you find fun.

If you find doing everything on foot, uphill both ways, fun: do that. If you find having all the toys, to make things easier, fun: do that. If you find having the most efficient transportation network possible fun: do that. If you're only in it for the story and you find progressing that fun: do that. If you find delivering other people's stuff, and making the most useful shared structures, fun: do that.

There's lots of scope for different play styles - use your own fun as your guide.

[ImHelping]

Getting on that boat leads to the #1 path to "Make the game easier"

Your personal stats are not hard capped as much anymore, so your rank ups will make you stronger, more balanced, etc, better compared to the first area.

Soon you will unlock your first pair of robot pants, which the game essentially expects you to have some kind of at all times for 90% of deliveries (heads up speed legs start out trash when they give you your first free pair, but upgrade to be amazing and fold into a small box).

similarly, I ignored hover carriers at launch because the MK1 default version is terrible and can hardly hold anything without your cord breaking. but the mk2 is amazing (and now in director's cut, you can have one active and still use ziplines with it).


But if you want a multi replay nut "obvious only in hindsight" tip? one that will not interrupt you do much, just something to do every so often when you show up at major destinations you go to and from a lot?

materials at locations. If it is near max, convert that into a barrel (or big box if it has hardly any capacity). If you are about to make a delivery of a material, convert a bunch into barrels to store first.

all material delivery goes to the location's crafting material count. anything extra is wasted. Delivering 5,000+ material only for it to get erased from existence? OOPS.

At the same time, once you unlock automatic delivery robots who can only do the minimum baby amount of a delivery? it can be worth having them deliver material if you know for a fact you will not personally get around to that one for so long, it will probably refresh by the time you do.

Why bother? Because building things gets wildly expensive later (even if you are not a freak like me who built the highway early off the grid 100% solo. never again, especially with the extra mountain path added).

Because restocking on cool toys, or building a specific type of vehicle variant you want when you didn't find one laying around to loot, can get costly doing it all in a hurry.

Because if you want to upgrade ziplines later, a 5 star city with max increase of capacity still won't have enough max chemical storage for a lv3 zipline (lv3 is turbo overkill in most cases. you can make multiple lv2 ziplines from scratch with the material cost and lv2 extends range).


Power poles are always worth the material and bandwidth if you think you need them. And so cheap to make and upgrade to at least rank 2 that you won't miss out on much deleting them later.

Rain shelters are costly in material and bandwidth because the upgraded version automatically squirts free container repair spray on everything (this is why you can even see popular rated ones by cities. They are not hiding from the rain, they are saving on repair cans)

Thank every online portable home base you see, because only sleeping in a bed will progress "will send you an email and progress their personal progress" for a lot of shelter owner NPCs.


Also, if you are thinking about finishing up the first map (I cleared it fully before leaving at launch due to 'the true experience' brainworms. ouch). At least wait until you can craft new motorcycles first. Bandwidth is separate on each map anyways, so your ranks in one map will not help your ranks in the other.

Musician might be worth going back for early if you don't have the harmonica yet though.

[IDDQD]

A lot of amazing advice from the posts so far! Thanks!

[deltahazer]

If you're on foot and overloaded, don't try to make sharp turns while moving. Instead, you can stop, spin the camera to point the way you want to go, pull up your map and then close it again. Sam will have magically turned in place without a stumble and be ready to trudge forward again.

Scan water before you try to cross through it (sounds basic but it's easy to forget when you're hurrying). If there's a red section, you'll need to go around, jump over it, or get a bridge up over it- otherwise you'll risk losing cargo and even vehicles.

When you're on the second map (starts with Lake Knot City), rebuilt highways are awesome because they make it easy to cover ground at speed, and the grey section down the middle will stop your battery from going down (won't charge it back up though) when you're over it so you can go at full speed without emptying the tank.

However, don't rebuild a piece of highway until the territory that auto-paver is in has been connected to the chiral network. It will cost you twice as much (or more) in all three materials used to rebuild that section offline as what it will take when the network allows other people's donations to count a percentage on your own world.

Once you have guns that work against BT's you can farm a few metric craptons of chiral crystals with a side order of bonus equipment and materials by shooting down the BT "jellyfish" that you will see in some out-of-the-way parts of the map. 50 to 300+ crystals EACH on average has been my experience.

[ImHelping]

Follow the above highway advice. again, I am a freak that did that at launch. so not worth it. it is super expensive even with online 'help' because it feels like there is a soft cap to how much aid you will get. (if you want to save even more material and time, you can focus on highway sections by BT and mule areas and just backfill the rest later unless it is awkward "starts/stops 20 feet in the air" sections)

More non-obvious as it is the opposite of what is implied BT hints.

You know what spots BT better than spamming scan? Standing still doing nothing for a long moment. Then they become more visible.

Counter-intuitive as hell considering your sci-fi scanner pointing in their general direction, and the fact you have a scan pulse. As well as the general pressure to want to get out of there ASAP unless you are trying to fight things on purpose.

Also, BT hate following you into water it feels like, much like they hate bothering you on complete highways. (again, some missions change this). lots of my star grind on the front end of the first map involves just driving along the edge of the river.

Sound wise BT don't seem to give a ♥♥♥♥ about a hover carrier rattling like crazy. "Hover carrier not person, who cares?"

[GrandTickler]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3179516975

[PinkPanzer]

Play this game in short bursts because otherwise you get burnt out really fast, i am playing this game for the first time but loosing your footing on rock looses its novelty after the 20th time.

[Yumemirareru]

I'd focus on getting reputation up, and making sure to get preppers that the story doesn't take you to. IMO, all the extra equipment, and getting equipment to Lv2 and Lv3, helps a lot in making things easier. Not to mention, higher reputation increases storage capacities.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Yumemirareru:

I'd focus on getting reputation up, and making sure to get preppers that the story doesn't take you to. IMO, all the extra equipment, and getting equipment to Lv2 and Lv3, helps a lot in making things easier. Not to mention, higher reputation increases storage capacities.

Every replay, I forget the photographer is on a main plot delay before you can do anything with them. and at least one other prepper you could easily find the location of.

[GrandTickler]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by Yumemirareru:

I'd focus on getting reputation up, and making sure to get preppers that the story doesn't take you to. IMO, all the extra equipment, and getting equipment to Lv2 and Lv3, helps a lot in making things easier. Not to mention, higher reputation increases storage capacities.

Every replay, I forget the photographer is on a main plot delay before you can do anything with them. and at least one other prepper you could easily find the location of.

The elder is also locked at 1 or 2 stars yea

[deltahazer]

Originally posted by GrandTickler:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Every replay, I forget the photographer is on a main plot delay before you can do anything with them. and at least one other prepper you could easily find the location of.

The elder is also locked at 1 or 2 stars yea

Not for very long, I'd say. In my current play I just looped through his shelter, Engineer, Craftsman, and Lake Knot doing the available jobs (prioritizing brand-new ones over repeats, of course) while also grabbing any lost cargo off the ground for them until I had all three of the preppers fully starred.

I think the lost cargo made a good bit of the difference though. It tends to give a good chunk for every box, while the deliveries give very little in the way of star-filling for repeat runs

[GrandTickler]

Originally posted by deltahazer:

Originally posted by GrandTickler:

The elder is also locked at 1 or 2 stars yea

Not for very long, I'd say. In my current play I just looped through his shelter, Engineer, Craftsman, and Lake Knot doing the available jobs (prioritizing brand-new ones over repeats, of course) while also grabbing any lost cargo off the ground for them until I had all three of the preppers fully starred.

I think the lost cargo made a good bit of the difference though. It tends to give a good chunk for every box, while the deliveries give very little in the way of star-filling for repeat runs

yeah i tend to go all in on lost cargo too so im making leveling up the power skeleton and floating carrier top priority so i can haul as much as possible. just the level 2 carrier alone upgrades the max weight from 300kg to 600

[Marchand]

Keep on keeping on!

[SirDopa]

slow down and just take on the view when low roar music pops up