How to Survive Eden Crater

[LadyAquanine735]

Eden Crater is probably the most alien of all the regions of Aven Prime. I'm guessing it's a leftover from the planet's earlier ecology until the climate changed on the planet. They're not joking when they say it's the harshest environment on the whole planet. You can't grow earth crops there, and it's very dry, even drier than the desert regions. Here are some useful tips for the map:

1.) Keep track of how you use your nanites first thing. You'll want to make sure that you've built an iron mine, nanite processors and an immigration center, in addition to the essentials before you run out.

2.) Take full advantage of the mill and alien food recipes the colony ship gave you. Groji Beans and Entari Oatmeal aren't the best things to eat, but it's better than letting your colonists starve.

3.) Unless you are short on nanites and food, don't bother with outdoor farms. Greenhouses are a better option for alien crops. Like with other parts of Aven Prime, they'll still produce crops in winter, but at a reduced rate.

4.) Eden Crater is very dry, so you will need both water pumps and vapor machines. It's easier to place the pumps once you have built onto a fertile spot, which is easy to find because it has more grass and plants than the surrounding areas.

5.) Alien food, even when processed into something edible, tastes nasty, apparently. Make sure that each habitat/skyscraper you build, has both a hospital and a bar & grill in "bistro" mode. The bar & grill can flavor and add spices to otherwise nasty food, while the hospitals can provide medical supplements to the colonists to make up for nutrients they aren't getting in their alien diet. Overall quality of food will go up over time if you keep up with this. You will still get negative numbers in the food menu, but your colonists won't starve if you keep at it.

6.) Start trading for old earth food from other colonies as soon as you can. Your colonists will like having actual edible food to supplement the alien cuisine, and food quality might go up because of this. Take advantage of any gold deposits you find.

The one benefit Eden Crater has is there are no worms, so that's one less hazard you have to contend with.

[-=[SATY]=- DrkAngl }>√ile<{]

Super helpful!

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by -=SATY=- DrkAngl }>√ile<{:

Super helpful!

.....
check the date please. Especially the year.

[LadyAquanine735]

I forgot to mention some things, after playing this (and winning) on Insane Difficulty; take advantage of that gold deposit near your settlement as soon as possible, because then, you can trade for food early, and your colonists won't get angry as quickly.

And btw, Mistfox, the tips above still apply, 3 years later. Don't sass a Beta Tester, pal.

[Sleyer666]

What perk do you recommend for insane difficulty?

[LadyAquanine735]

Originally posted by Sleyer666:

What perk do you recommend for insane difficulty?

That poly- perk that lets you do two at once, and Electrician and the perk where you're good at growing alien plants. The farmer one can also work well as the second perk. Electrician reduces nanites needed for power plants, the farming one reduces nanites needed to grow farms or greenhouses (I always use greenhouses in Eden Crater; larger yield and they can operate at night, but at half capacity); and the alien crop one can make the yield better.

[Sleyer666]

Originally posted by LadyAquanine735:

Originally posted by Sleyer666:

What perk do you recommend for insane difficulty?

That poly- perk that lets you do two at once, and Electrician and the perk where you're good at growing alien plants. The farmer one can also work well as the second perk. Electrician reduces nanites needed for power plants, the farming one reduces nanites needed to grow farms or greenhouses (I always use greenhouses in Eden Crater; larger yield and they can operate at night, but at half capacity); and the alien crop one can make the yield better.

I ended up going for the Politician perk. My major trouble was losing elections so the bonus morale helped with preventing people going too low. Which causes a death spiral as the efficiency drops which drops more the morale as stuff like air filters and other stuff start working worse.

But the thing that had the bigger impact was getting a quick trade station to start importing some food. Otherwise I found the penalty from the bad food too large. If you aren't going for the port then I would really suggest diversifying the crops, as the penalty of bad food and no variety is too much.

[Sleyer666]

Originally posted by Sleyer666:

I ended up going for the Politician perk. My major trouble was losing elections so the bonus morale helped with preventing people going too low. Which causes a death spiral as the efficiency drops which drops more the morale as stuff like air filters and other stuff start working worse.

Actually, I'm missremembering, I went for the one that speeds up the imports. Getting good food was key for me, the one I managed to pass the early game. After, since there's a lot of metals I think the map is pretty doable.

[General Idea]

Originally posted by Sleyer666:

Originally posted by Sleyer666:

I ended up going for the Politician perk. My major trouble was losing elections so the bonus morale helped with preventing people going too low. Which causes a death spiral as the efficiency drops which drops more the morale as stuff like air filters and other stuff start working worse.

Actually, I'm missremembering, I went for the one that speeds up the imports. Getting good food was key for me, the one I managed to pass the early game. After, since there's a lot of metals I think the map is pretty doable.

You can pick from a variety of perks which allows you to be able to experiment in your gameplay.

* Arkitect
* Boost Engineer
* Doctor
* Drone Tech
* Electrician
* Farmer
* Industrialist
* Miner
* Pharmacist
* Politician
* Polymath
* Scientist
* Trader
* Warrior
* Xeno Botanist

I agree with LadyAquanine735's assessment and recommendations.

[Sleyer666]

The one I meant is the Trader perk.

Can you say why you agree with Polymath with Electrician perk being best for that map? At least on the highest difficulty? I found the map to have plenty of sources of nanites and morale to be the biggest issue which Polymath further reduces. I also never had problems with growing enough food, just that the Xeno crops have awful quality.

The issue I had with morale was that once they started eating mostly alien foods (you start with some regular food in inventory) morale starts to drop which impacts performance on stuff like air filters, entertainment centers you may have, even power and nanite generation, which greatly hinders your ability to improve things.

[General Idea]

If you can grow Wheat later on then you can process it into flour for the best food quality results. Bread and Pasta, then it's that revolting Quori pie as the next best type of alien crop to consider.

https://avencolony.fandom.com/wiki/Food

Trading for Bread or Pasta also helps to increase morale.

[LadyAquanine735]

Originally posted by General Idea:

If you can grow Wheat later on then you can process it into flour for the best food quality results. Bread and Pasta, then it's that revolting Quori pie as the next best type of alien crop to consider.

https://avencolony.fandom.com/wiki/Food

Trading for Bread or Pasta also helps to increase morale.

I'm unhappy to tell you this, but Eden Crater absolutely does not have soil chemistry to grow earth crops. Best you can do is just import wheat from another settlement. I know, because I opened up the farming menu, and when I clicked on earth crops, all the tiles on the map were red, meaning they would not grow there.

[General Idea]

Originally posted by LadyAquanine735:

Originally posted by General Idea:

If you can grow Wheat later on then you can process it into flour for the best food quality results. Bread and Pasta, then it's that revolting Quori pie as the next best type of alien crop to consider.

https://avencolony.fandom.com/wiki/Food

Trading for Bread or Pasta also helps to increase morale.

I'm unhappy to tell you this, but Eden Crater absolutely does not have soil chemistry to grow earth crops. Best you can do is just import wheat from another settlement. I know, because I opened up the farming menu, and when I clicked on earth crops, all the tiles on the map were red, meaning they would not grow there.

Thanks for confirming. I haven't played Eden Crater for a while and was unsure whether Wheat was permitted, hence the if you can at the beginning.