Guides? Help?

[cleveremailaddr]

Hey all! I am trying to get back into this game and I want to play adventure mode. I started a couple games but had a VERY hard time finding the resources to build anything. All I have is a wooden pickaxe and the resources are really deep in the surface.

Example: I got the scripts for a vehicle but not the resources to build any of the parts.

I really feel like im being dense and just not getting something.

Also I noticed that when I logged back into a game the dungeons had disappeared. Is that normal?

Thanks again!

[dtt.scanner]

Single Player is different from Multi-Player, and strategies are different with skill tree enabled vs. disabled, and with scripts enabled vs. locked. There are no good guides except the forum, so if you need help, just ask.

Common to all adventure modes are the canisters (rewards) that pop up around you. Any time you are in a region for an extended period of time, you should be checking around for these supply depots. They appear as tree trunks, piles of rock, piles of sticks, and grey canisters. These are most important in the early stages of the game, as they contain food, equipment, ores, and other useful items that you can either put to use or sell to the shops to finance other things that you need. If you are going to settle in an area, it is a good idea to clear cut everything around you so that you can more easily see when these items pop up. You can also turn grass off (kind of a cheat) in order to see the items hidden in the grass.

The special animal parts (trophies) that you pick up from hunting are entirely meant for sale to the shops. You should always try to "buy back" your credits any time you make purchases, using these items, as well as meat and the poisoned blood, which can also be sold, to get your money back. Eventually you will strip the shops of credits and gain enough surplus to purchase the big ticket items, like the colony parts and laser rifles (my fave vanilla weapon is the Blaster2, because of the unsurpassed recharge rate and accuracy.)

If you are playing with skill tree, I recommend first hiring a follower from the start town (quest involved), chopping a few big trees for a decent amount of wood, then find a level 2 town, sell off whatever you can (including the wood) to purchase a silver sword and shield for your follower. Equip your follower with food, sword and shield, and health potions, and let them fight for you in the low level dungeons until you level up enough to fight for yourself. Level up RANGE weapons first, as you will get a lot more experience hunting and fighting with a bow, using your companion as a shield/buffer. If you are picking up loot in dungeons, and keeping an eye out for the supply depots, you should be up to level 5-6 dungeons after the first 6 hours of play. Most of that will be spent exploring, dungeoneering, and trying like heck to find a level 2 town, if there isn't one near your level one start town.

As far as resources, if you have skill tree DISABLED, then resources are easy. Read some of the other threads for info about manufacturing common building materials. If the skill tree is enabled, you will need to level up as per above, and when you are decently equipped, start leveling up the Build experience tree in order to unlock the terrain block placement. Once that is unlocked, you can manufacture the common building materials (sand, grass, marble, limestone, and rock). If you are playing without the skill tree, then that should be available from the start of the game.

EDIT: I almost forgot. Don't worry about purchasing scripts if you are doing SP adventure mode. Most of the useful scripts will be provided by the adventure main story quests. This is not reliably available in MP adventure (survival or coop), since you can easily miss out on the quests on a coop server, and there is no quest line at all on a MP survival server. However most if not all scripts are available in dungeon loot at differing levels.

I only purchase scripts that I absolutely have to have (wooden bed, wooden ladder) if you are not given the sleeping bag at the start (which is part of single player adventure). Those scripts are available in the level 2 towns, which is another reason to make haste to find one.

If you can't tell, my preferred game mode is Adventure with skill tree enabled and scripts locked.

[Eternie]

When I restarted my Adventure mode game recently I also had that with ores being really deep and wooden tools being way too slow. However the trick is keep scanning for better places where you can get closer. So it is only a short dig to get enough Copper ore to make copper tools. Of course you also need to unlock the appropriate skills to get the skill level for the copper tools.

Or like dtt said above gather and chop down trees to gain experience and resources so that you can buy the ores you need to get at least copper pickaxe to dig up more copper more quickly!

I found usually around the first 2 towns there are quite a lot of ores to be found, but that is probably random luck.

[dtt.scanner]

I think I didn't really answer the question about the ORE resources. The bottom line, if you grind the dungeons (with or without skill tree) you will get rich much more quickly from all the loot you pick up, and then BUY the colony equipment instead of trying to make them (assuming you don't pick them up directly from the dungeons). Once you have a colony set up, you can use the colony processor to "manufacture" all of the ores and production resources in the game so that there is no need to mine for anything except Titanium (which you can also get from recycling high level goods). It is a much slower process than mining the ores directly, but it is free and automatic, and allows for collection of things that you might otherwise have trouble finding.

The fastest way to level up your gear and tools is to fight your way through dungeons, sell the loot, and purchase the good gear. The fastest way to do that, IMO, is what I suggested before.

Also, you really only want to use a bow (very easy ammo) until you explore and find the Level 3 or 4 towns and equip yourself with a Blaster 2 Rifle. This is the go-to weapon for everything up through level 10 dungeons, and is only Skill 70, so you can equip it fairly quickly if you are putting all of your skill into range weapons (at least initially, until you unlock the Blaster2). After that you will tear through dungeons, and be able to level up all of your other skills within a few days of play. If I grind the game for a weekend, I can go from 0 to max skills and max gear in one weekend... so figure around 20 hours or so of grinding dungeons to max your stats and gear, or about a week or two of normal play spread throughout the evenings. After that you can do whatever you want, as you will pretty much rule anything you encounter.

EDIT: Another oft overlooked source are the collection follower skills. If you are playing SP Adventure Mode, and your follower has a collection skill, you can send them out to collect resources and they will bring back an assortment related to their skill (logging, mining, hunting, herbs). If the skill is in mining, they will bring back resources regardless of how near or far those ore resources may be.

It didn't save my edit about the vehicle, so here it is again: Same as with the other resources, sell loot, purchase the parts. Don't worry about making stuff from scripts until you have the colony set up. Buy the parts you need for your simple vehicle ISO or download, but be sure to level up your vehicle driving skill, and also your Replication skill to unlock the custom weapon skill (tier 2) and then the custom vehicle skill (tier 3). That's assuming you are using skill tree.

[cleveremailaddr]

Thanks for all the responses all! Thats a big help. I assumed you had to make all your weapons and parts for the vehicles. I only saw wooden tools in the couple towns I came across.

[dtt.scanner]

Motorcycle parts show up for sale in level 2 towns (can't recall offhand if scripts are for sale). That means if you really want to skill up vehicles quickly, you can make a scout cycle pretty early on. Other vehicle parts show up in level 3 towns and aircraft parts in level 3 (maybe) or level 4 towns (for sure). Colony equipment is also found in level 3 towns, and scripts in level 4 towns. Exploration is key to success, but take strong defenders with you in the early game.

Colony equipment and possibly scripts can also be found on "wandering" merchants in the wild (usually level 3), if you are lucky enough to find one. The Blaster 2 Rifle is also available from level 3 towns (highly encourage you to at least try it out... I think it is much better than the particle rifle.) The particle rifle shot is so slow, enemies can easily dodge the shots, and it recharges slowly. For the same reason, I don't use the particle cannon (unless I pick up a free one). Laser turrets are the standard defensive turret for most experienced players.

[Eternie]

@dtt or any expert ... question for you hopefully you'll know?

I had built a building in build mode and exported it for use in Story mode. Now for adventure mode I wanted to change and modify the building. So did that even managed to save it as a building ... however the materials for the building show that it includes 312 copper and 331 steel when it is purely a construction of dirt and marble. With No equipment of any type no turrets.

I did go a bit over board and built and destroyed parts ... rebuilt .. changed and in attempting to save shape using the select tool managed to drag up materials through the whole build ... needing to reload previous saves. only right in the end did I spot the select all tool which worked very well.

Do I need to delete everything and start over? Perhaps delete the previous building saves?

Is there a way of cleaning up the building requirements to correctly show materials required?

[dtt.scanner]

No need to delete. There is a bug that sometimes gives the wrong material info, and other times prints them all on the same line (overlapping). It's annoying, but when you build it, it will use the correct materials. The only problem is that you can't see which materials you may be short on. You can try verifying the game files to see if it fixes whatever is bugging.

[Eternie]

Thanks for response dtt I did delete both saved ISO buildings and then reselected the current building.
With exactly the same result. Such that I did still need 2165 dirt 5625 marble 312 copper 332 steel obviously i needed to have all of that on hand to build. Probably built a bit too big in any case.

I'm guessing that with me having built several helicopters in the same area the game has allocated some of the helicopter mats to the building.

When I went to select the building for making the ISO I had forgotten how to select ... so googled and found some old threads that described using the circle with an arrow pointing to north east.
However that button can only select two small areas. It wasn't until I used the circle with a small square in it to easily select the whole build that I had success.

[dtt.scanner]

when doing the selection I place a target block in the opposite corners (assuming it is level) so that I can easily drag from one block to the other, and then raise up to the height to easily select irregularly-shaped buildings. You can easily delete the target block from the new location when it is placed... it's just a stub for selecting the building dimensions. Sometimes the actual corner works, but I like to have eaves and surface features on my facade that may not be selected if I select the building corner.

I usually place a prefab platform that I can sink into the ground to form a flat base for placing my colony buildings. You can select and save up to 100x100x100 block dimension, which allows for kind of a hi-rise platform build, or just the base level with supports and a ramp that can be attached separately, turrets around the perimeter. It's very easy to get a defensible position up and running quickly that actually looks complex.

You do know that you can use PgUp and PgDown to raise and lower the structures before you place them, as well as the arrow keys for precise placement and "T" (turn) for rotation?

[Eternie]

"T" for turning the building didn't seem to work however it is a similar looking square block. Where as using "T" to turn an Assembly Core works well and is obvious.

At times when I tried placing buildings It seemed to be just the wrong height such that using a shovel or pick to clear ground from a build took too much

So in my starting position I used the shovel to level a smaller section to create the level of the layer that I then filled the remainder of the area with dirt voxels to match the surrounding terrain.

With my house design stolen from gladi8ber's pics with stairs in the corners. However it's probably too complicated for the folowers as they seem to just teleport to me where ever I am in the building without using stairs.

[dtt.scanner]

Yep, I just double checked. When placing a building ISO, "T" will rotate the building 90 degrees (before it is placed). Arrows will move it one block in that direction, and PgUp, PgDn will raise or lower it by one block. You have to be very careful to not move the mouse until you click it into position, or it will snap back to the original spot. Have to have nerves of iron or a really steady table. LoL. Once you click it into place, of course, it will no longer rotate.

I made an ISO that is a quarter circle platform with radius 100 blocks (using a plotter), with a 20 block wall downward at the perimeter. I can put 4 of those together to make a 200 block diameter circular pad that will accommodate any terrain that varies by up to 20 blocks in elevation. Good for any plains area or placed in a shallow bay or lake. It gives a nice large flat space for building just about anything on top. If you build on water, then you can put in a swimming pool. LoL.

Then I have ramp and bridge ISOs that match. If you build a 100 block high spire in the middle,and put the assembly core at the top (kind of like the space needle) then the colony shield will come exactly to the edge of the perimeter, so nothing walking around your base will bump into the shield and become aggressive. You still need turrets for the occasional avian.

It does generate lag to build that large. A smaller 100 block diameter circle or square platform would do nicely for most builds. I just like having the shield match up to the platform. I will say that having the turrets kill anything that comes close does give you a steady supply of meat and hides, so smaller builds have their own perks.

The benefit of a "peaceful" build is that the colonists aren't constantly being pulled away from their jobs (such as training) to fight the creatures that happen to bump into the shield. A lot of people simply build aerial builds for this reason. Off the ground means fewer incursions.

[Eternie]

I'm still struggling a bit with training colonist ... I know you've given me plenty of advice in training the trainers. Using the second best trainer to train the best one to an immaculate level. with each of the maximum ... was it 4 or 7 training sessions.
Also trying to work out whether a doctor colonist should have fighting skills for gun and defense. The plethora of skills and the benefit that each brings.

Like I gather for the processor having hunting, mining, logging skills would be a bonus for more mats that the colonists would bring in; but which other skills would help more.

Also as the best skills are only found with single people way off the beaten track or at the other side of the map those skills won't make it to most colonists for quite a while; depending on your random luck.

[dtt.scanner]

There isn't as much rush in single player to train the colonists as there is in multi-player. In MP, you have to race to find the good ones before they are all taken. I am happy to train off skills and release them for other people to use, but most people collect way more colonists than they need, rarely train them, and don't release them if they decide to leave and not come back. That leaves a scarcity of colonists until the server resets. I'm lucky on the Survival Ad2 server that I caught Gladi8tor online, and he trained off some of the skills that I was missing, so that I have a fairly complete set of high level skills on that server. If I want to play another character there (different colony build) I can use my other position to train new colonists for the new position, if I have trouble finding skilled colonists.

[Gladi8er65]

Originally posted by Eternie:

"T" for turning the building didn't seem to work however it is a similar looking square block. Where as using "T" to turn an Assembly Core works well and is obvious.

At times when I tried placing buildings It seemed to be just the wrong height such that using a shovel or pick to clear ground from a build took too much

So in my starting position I used the shovel to level a smaller section to create the level of the layer that I then filled the remainder of the area with dirt voxels to match the surrounding terrain.

With my house design stolen from gladi8ber's pics with stairs in the corners. However it's probably too complicated for the folowers as they seem to just teleport to me where ever I am in the building without using stairs.

Glad you were able to get some inspiration from my colony design. It has served me well... so convenient having every single colony component contained within a single building and easily defended.

Lower level...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570597292

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570594952

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570599287

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570600272

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570600753

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570600875


Upper level...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570595209

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570600582


That one power plant reaches everything and extends far outside for adding monorail etc.

The roof is flat to easily land my drop ship.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=852371992


Pretty much everything is contained, and well- defended, with plenty of room to walk around for myself and all the colonists.

It's not the "prettiest" build, but i didnt make it for looks, I built it for function and the ability to defend against ALL enemy attacks... also, being marble, it is "inexpensive" to build as marble is found almost everywhere right near the surface.

Anyhow, glad that my design inspires.

Have fun.

[Eternie]

Thanks Gladi8er65 Your base screenshots inspired my build in the Sinkhole for story mode
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1647193290 I even loved digging out hallways into the central pillar of the sinkhole.

With your square shape and internal corner stairs as the starting basis. With turrets in middle and on corners made for an impenetrable base.

For me the sinkhole is an ideal place such that the final battle has all attacking enemies falling into the pit making it easier target practise for Turrets.

In my current Adventure mode game with a reduced map 3 x 3 still using the ISO but amended to include ramps on outside ... hoping to make it easier for colonists to get around.

However I may be stuck with having found NO level 4 towns that sell decent BP's or have better colonists after having cleared 95% of the map and only some watery edges remaining.