Best way to quickly unlock the towers?

[Poseidon]

I read that the power requirements increase with different planets.

I am pretty much done with the crafting part of the game, just want to go on a quest unlocking one on each planet. What is the fastest way to do that? Can I avoid building a base and crafting stations on every single planet and carry whatever I need?

[Shironagi]

Create 8 RTGs, 1 Large Rover, 4 Medium Storage, 2 Large Storage and a small Rover seat, land near one of the gateway chambers (all of the above will fit easily onto the largest shuttle) then drive over and hook up to the chamber, you only need one chamber powered up.

For a core dive, go with a tractor, a drill and an RTG then just drill down, you'll literally plow through the world in quick succession. There won't be any easy way of bring it back up so consider it as a loss of a tractor drill and RTG. (you can do it if you wanna spend a LOOOONG time going back to surface.

Also if you want to open up the planet core and get what is needed and RETURN you need two of the item for that core.

[CaptSean]

I have unlocked all the cores and I'm now working on the Secrets of the Universe achievement which is the unlocking of all the towers.
The set up I take with me in the large rocket is two medium rovers, three medium storage of small batteries (32 batteries), one RTG, and a drill. In my backpack I carry graphite to repack everything afterward. two for the rovers and one for the seat. I have one medium storage on the rocket for extra fuel, the seat packed, graphite, a terrain tool drill bit,...
I land as close as I can to them, and bore a path to them. Drive back through the path I made, repack everything, and fly to the next....

[Spikenard]

Originally posted by Shironagi:

For a core dive, go with a tractor, a drill and an RTG then just drill down, you'll literally plow through the world in quick succession. There won't be any easy way of bring it back up so consider it as a loss of a tractor drill and RTG. (you can do it if you wanna spend a LOOOONG time going back to surface.

Or, just take a couple of graphite or packagers with you, repackage it, and carry it out with you. I take my tractors and trailers on practically every trip with me and just package them back out.

[Kaybe]

I ran into a bit of an issue with the large rover where one of the portals didn't recognize how many amps were put into the system when mounted on it. In the end, I had to craft a small printer, medium printer, and a large platform to split the power.

Also, one of the problems with the large rover in this setup is that it made it impossible to carry anything else as it took up half the shuttle on it's own.

So in the end, I'm trying a new setup:

- Start with a large shuttle. If you don't have a large shuttle, stop everything and get a large shuttle. Use smaller shuttles to gather resources, but you need a large shuttle for powering everything up later.
- Two large storages in the large shuttle.
- Two *medium* rovers. This will take up a quarter or your shuttle space instead of half.
- A single packaged large platform B.
- 4 medium storages on one of the large storages. Each medium storage is filled with small batteries. Yes, you read right: You need 32 small batteries. OR you could go with three medium storages worth of batteries and two RTGs.
- If you did not grab an RTG, do so. Keep it packed for transportation and you'll unpack it later. You need this to keep the rovers running and batteries topped off.
- A packaged landing pad.
- A single packed rover seat.
- At least two beacons. Feel free to bring more.
- A mess of graphite/repackagers since you may wish to pack everything up.
- If you have space left on your backpack, add a packed oxygenator. I personally like to keep all gateway and engine sites oxygenated, but this is honestly optional.

Your backpack will be tightly packed with small packages and graphite, but that's fine. Note: Anything having to do with the rover is NOT needed for Desolo and Novus. Both moons have natural landing spots right next to the polar gateways and you can just land there at will. In fact, you don't even need the landing pad.

On others:

- Pull out the two medium rovers, unpack them, connect them.
- On the front rover, put your seat and RTG. On the back rover, drop your large storage with all it's batteries.
- Drop your packed large platform and your landing pad on the remaining two medium slots.
- Drop a beacon where your shuttle is cause it's nice to go home later, lol.
- Drive to nearest gateway.
- Place large platform next to gateway plug and then drop the battery packs on it. Feel free to add in your RTG on the side. Either way, you need to make sure your power output is *at least* 30 amps. This should power the gateway.
- Drop your landing pad next to it and unpack it. Drop a beacon next to that to mark it. Now you can always come back directly here.
- Grab large storage, batteries and RTG, and place back on rover.
- Drop oxygenator onto large platform. Both of these will stay behind.
- Drive back to shuttle.
- Use graphite repackagers to pack up the two rovers and RTGs.
- Put everything back in shuttle and fly back to base.

- Craft another landing pad and large platform B package and place on shuttle.
- Grab enough Graphite for packagers.
- Make another oxygenator package.

Rinse and repeat.

EDIT: So it seems my bug with the large rover might be due to the fact that I counted on the RTG output ... except the RTG was being used to recharge the batteries instead of powering the gateway. So a single large rover might still be perfectly viable ... as long as you have enough batteries to cover all the energy needs by itself. I'll have to try this again then.

[Poseidon]

Originally posted by Kaybe:

I ran into a bit of an issue with the large rover where one of the portals didn't recognize how many amps were put into the system when mounted on it. In the end, I had to craft a small printer, medium printer, and a large platform to split the power.

Also, one of the problems with the large rover in this setup is that it made it impossible to carry anything else as it took up half the shuttle on it's own.

So in the end, I'm trying a new setup:

- Start with a large shuttle. If you don't have a large shuttle, stop everything and get a large shuttle. Use smaller shuttles to gather resources, but you need a large shuttle for powering everything up later.
- Two large storages in the large shuttle.
- Two *medium* rovers. This will take up a quarter or your shuttle space instead of half.
- A single packaged large platform B.
- 4 medium storages on one of the large storages. Each medium storage is filled with small batteries. Yes, you read right: You need 32 small batteries. OR you could go with three medium storages worth of batteries and two RTGs.
- If you did not grab an RTG, do so. Keep it packed for transportation and you'll unpack it later. You need this to keep the rovers running and batteries topped off.
- A packaged landing pad.
- A single packed rover seat.
- At least two beacons. Feel free to bring more.
- A mess of graphite/repackagers since you may wish to pack everything up.
- If you have space left on your backpack, add a packed oxygenator. I personally like to keep all gateway and engine sites oxygenated, but this is honestly optional.

Your backpack will be tightly packed with small packages and graphite, but that's fine. Note: Anything having to do with the rover is NOT needed for Desolo and Novus. Both moons have natural landing spots right next to the polar gateways and you can just land there at will. In fact, you don't even need the landing pad.

On others:

- Pull out the two medium rovers, unpack them, connect them.
- On the front rover, put your seat and RTG. On the back rover, drop your large storage with all it's batteries.
- Drop your packed large platform and your landing pad on the remaining two medium slots.
- Drop a beacon where your shuttle is cause it's nice to go home later, lol.
- Drive to nearest gateway.
- Place large platform next to gateway plug and then drop the battery packs on it. Feel free to add in your RTG on the side. Either way, you need to make sure your power output is *at least* 30 amps. This should power the gateway.
- Drop your landing pad next to it and unpack it. Drop a beacon next to that to mark it. Now you can always come back directly here.
- Grab large storage, batteries and RTG, and place back on rover.
- Drop oxygenator onto large platform. Both of these will stay behind.
- Drive back to shuttle.
- Use graphite repackagers to pack up the two rovers and RTGs.
- Put everything back in shuttle and fly back to base.

- Craft another landing pad and large platform B package and place on shuttle.
- Grab enough Graphite for packagers.
- Make another oxygenator package.

Rinse and repeat.

EDIT: So it seems my bug with the large rover might be due to the fact that I counted on the RTG output ... except the RTG was being used to recharge the batteries instead of powering the gateway. So a single large rover might still be perfectly viable ... as long as you have enough batteries to cover all the energy needs by itself. I'll have to try this again then.

A very detailed explanation, thank you. A single question though, aren't beacons supposed to be powered? I don't know how exactly they work since I've never used one.

[Zarinthal]

yeah, i do a large shuttle with a large rover in it, 2 large storage, 8 rtgs, rover drill, beacons for the backpack, rover and shuttle, a chair, a bunch of repackers. remember that the slot for the air supply on a shuttle can also hold a medium storage. you may as well resend the supply drop at your starting launchpad and bring it with JIC though. the extra beacons are more visible thean ship/corpse beacons, worth it. find the landing site closest to any purp thang, hook rover up, unpack RTGs 1 by 1 til it starts (?)charging(?) and only take what you need. this is not just to conserve repackers, but if something goes wrong and you lose the rover, you wont lose everything. take only what you need

then i load up 2 canisters, portable oxygen generator, 4 wind gens, a small solar, 4 air tanks, 4 small batteries, personal drill mod, work lights and just grab whatever sounds good for that planet.

i dont drive to core, i dive on foot. yes i die sometimes, but almost every fall through layers underground have walls to "ride" down lol either way is a lot of fun to me