A Question About Where to Start

[shadowzerg1234]

I did the very first scenario, the cinematic one. I also did learning to survive and believe I did every task except for the combat ones because I simply could not relocate the specific asteroids that held the projector and so on. I'm wanting to kind of just wing it in the beginning, starting from a very simple ground up and easing into the game

Should I just start on a custom, star system map with the normal "alien" pod or what do you guys recommend? Thanks in advance

[TheVipersFang]

I would say jump right in. Start with a star system map (be sure to customise the settings before you begin to suit your tastes) then make your grand entrance in the way that you like (maybe earth) then ride that drop pod down and get to playing the game. Within a few hours you should have a functioning base and be prepared for the next step, which is owning every planet in the star system map. Once you get the hang of this, maybe throw in some mods and fight it out.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

My advise would be Space is much easier to start in, no gravity or having to worry proper balance on thrust in certain directions. Might be the best place to start to get use to the game. If you prefer the challenge of gravity a moon start might be a much more simple option.
None of that to say a planet cant be fun but might allow you to ease into how it all works. There is a few channels on youtube that offer good tutorials that still apply or might help you get your barrings. Or just jump right into it see whats possible if thats your thing, Kinda what i did, sometimes i jump into creative mode to see if my more silly concepts can work even, you can blueprint and projector items in survival if it works well in creative.

[Katitoff]

Unmodded, only starts in space are not boring.

Modded(so some pve things actually happen), I'd advise Mars, Moon or Pertram.

Its also much more satisfying to crawl around the planet to be able to finally go into space and proceed from there.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Opinions are going three for a quarter right now.

In my opinion, the easiest vanilla survival start is on Titan (the Alien planet moon) because gravity is low, ore is plentiful and locations are very visible, and getting to space is very easy.

Again, In my opinion, the hardest vanilla survival start is on Europa (the Mars planet moon that's solid ice). Yes, gravity is low there, too, so getting to space is easy, but ore is much more difficult to find and getting started using your survival pod requires jetpacking to the nearest asteroid to get stone and back again, over and over again until you have enough resources to build. I've done the Europa start and simply left the moon to search for a "MAYDAY" signal in space and get my start there because I'm too impatient to do such a slow start.

[Pembroke]

Just start a "Star System" game on the "Custom" tab. That's the default survival game where you start with minimal resources and need to build up.

When the game starts you can choose where to start. The choices are all the planets, moons, and space. Just pick what you think you'd enjoy. Earth has a breathable atmosphere so many find that the easiest. OTOH space has the best resources so equally many find that one the easiest.

But really, it's more a matter of taste thing so just pick one and plunge in...

As long as you remember to *not* enable either the wolves or the spiders. Just don't. They are just annoying so best pretend those choices don't exist. And anyway, if you want enemies to fight then simply add "Modular Encounters System" mod and you get everything you want. Which you can do *later* in your game. No need to complicate things if you are just starting. You can add mods to an already existing game save just fine so don't worry about it.

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, I recommend to try all starts and keep in mind the following :

1 - There are Easy, Medium and Hard areas when playing with weather ON, so Biomes where there are no lightnings, Biomes with a few lightnings and some a lot more.

+ The best is to start at a easy Biome like the Desert where there is a ice lake on Earth is a easy start for example.

2 - There are Rich ore spots to find, those have all ores very close to eachother, like the Earth Moon got one of the Rich ore spot of the game.

+ Moons have all ore -1 (Uranium) but it's the best place to start at to find all ores and Uranium at +30Km around the Moon very early in survival.

= So it's up to you as to know what start you want to do, Easy, Medium or Hard.

__

That said, I am a creative player where the Survival is way to slow for me so I found the Rich ore spots of the game where I can build/create all blocks very early so I can start creating faster in survival :)

[Dan2D3D]

Veteran advice

About the learning to survive scenario :

The best is to create GPS coords on all orange task you will find and name it :

-> "Been There Done That 1", "Been There Done That 2", "Been There Done That 3" and so on for all tasks to avoid getting lost in space and for not losing your progression.

edit
Sorry I made some corrections.

[Dan2D3D]

Oh! Another cool thing to know is the "trick" to respawn at another area.

Example :

1 - Disable the auto-respawn in the world advanced settings.

2 - Load the world and choose Earth Drop Pod.

3 - When falling on planet inside the Drop Pod, look around to see if you are landing at a easy Biome.

4 - Exist the DropPod so hit F and hit BackSpace key right away to respawn.

5 - Select the Earth Drop Pod and redo #4 till you see the Biome where you want to play at.

[Dan2D3D]

Sorry I made a important correction, I deleted the "F5 key" part cause not working anymore and why I shared a new way to do this in my previous post.

Using F5 to respawn at another area was working before but not anymore cause the game save on loading (even with auto-save OFF).

[shadowzerg1234]

I want to give a big thanks to everybody. Extremely useful advice. I tried to start this game a few times over last year and am now finally having an absolute blast with it. Thanks again and hope everyone enjoys the new year!

[shadowzerg1234]

Also wanted to add that I'm buying all of the DLC as a thank you to the devs. You guys have done a hell of a job with this game and this is very clearly a work of passion and sincerity

[Spaceman Spiff]

Originally posted by shadowzerg1234:

Also wanted to add that I'm buying all of the DLC as a thank you to the devs. You guys have done a hell of a job with this game and this is very clearly a work of passion and sincerity

Whoa! Say that too loud and the haters will be all over you like...well...like haters.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

You rang spiff...

Sincerity has to be the most ironic word to describe keens approach to dlc...

Only cosmetics...
Oh wait that don't sell...
Let's start adding in functional blocks but keep calling it cosmetic...

How sincere of them lol

Should mention the second company they have giving away hundreds of thousands in grants... Living off the success of se while having not put out a single product in years.

Again very sincere of them.

Mentioning any of this makes me a hater though, when I just see it as being totally transparent about how keen has operated the past few years :(

[Weaver]

In space no one can hear you scream...and is also the easiest start. You don't have to hassle with gravity or rover jank, power and hydrogen goes far without gravity dragging you down, and ice is easy enough to find for oxygen. It's far more forgiving than planets or moons.
This is how space engineers started.
Conversely if you hate yourself, start on Pertam, a low oxygen, high gravity, scare ice, lighting and dust storm filled hellhole that makes starting anywhere else a breeze.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Originally posted by Weaver:

Conversely if you hate yourself, start on Pertam, a low oxygen, high gravity, scare ice, lighting and dust storm filled hellhole that makes starting anywhere else a breeze.

Do a vanilla start in a respawn pod on Europa. Nothing but ice and the random ore deposits. You have no choice but to head to space and stay there, or ferry asteroid stone back to the respawn pod for processing. Personally, I don't find Pertam a difficult start, but certainly the most difficult of all planets.