Why upgrade items / beginner questions :-)

[🖤omegamäään Ω]

Hi, I'm new to the game.
What is the advantage if I improve items such as medicine or manual?
I can only use it once anyway, can't I?
And is it possible to bring other members into the ship later?
Or should I always start with 4 people?
One last question: Why do my people always die on an expedition to a planet?
Thanks, I hope you can help me.

[Noko]

Hello :)

For improving the items, I'm quite dubitative about it too. The items like the manual or the mask are way less fragile, so they break less. For the medicine and the sock, I don't really know the interest of improving them.

You can start with 1, 2, 3 or 4 people. The more mouths you have to feed, the more difficult it is to survive. I recommend start with 2 or 3 peoples, that's easier to win without a complete crew.
However, one event permits to have one more member.
It's an event when nanorobots starts to invade your ship : you can stop them or let them be. If you let them be, they're gonna clone one member of the astrocitizens project that you left on the station in scavenge mode, so you're gonna have one more member (who's gonna act like the normal character until the end of the game, of course).

Normally, if your members are well-prepared for the expedition, they won't die. Here's a few tips about that :
The black circle hazard is obscurity, you need to take the lighter. The biochimic symbol is disease, you need to take the mask. The tentacle monster hazard is monsters, you need to take the gun. The grass/pikes is ground hazards (like, fall of rocks, or earthquakes), you have to take the armor. The pentacle hazard is mystic hazards, so you need the artifact.
If you always take these items, and if the explorator is in good health (not weak, not starving -hungry is ok but not starving-, not sick or hurt...), you have a pretty good chance to see them again. Honestly, I had a bad surprise only one time, and except this one expedition I always get my crewmates back in good health and without any health problems (except sometimes weakness).

I hope this is gonna help you :)

[🖤omegamäään Ω]

Hello Noko.

Thanks for the great tricks. You helped me.

Now I finally know what these symbols mean during the exploration and can defend myself against them and equip my people better.

Maybe you need to improve the items to make them more effective?!

But a counter question: I can cope with eating and illness, but what do I do if they are weak? Also heal or do something else?

Thank you very much, friend.

edit: The question, why should I upgrade my medical set, if my standard default medical heals me as well? Why should I do that? And after I used it, it also disappears.

And I feed only every 5 days when the text is written in red, right?

[Noko]

I think you don't "need" to improve the items. You can finish the game without improving any items, in fact. I'm always using my energy for improving systems (craft and exploration). But maybe it makes the game a little bit easier, you don't have to repair mask or armor after most of the expeditions.

I never improved the medkit, and it always heals me perfectly. That's why I didn't see the interest of improving it. It's already very difficult to have and to keep, so I don't have much time to waste by improving it x) Maybe there's an advantage but I really don't see it, so I advise you to not improve it.

If they are weak, sometimes they heal by themselves, but I prefer using the medkit when they are weak. When my medkit is used, I try to craft another one as soon as possible. The medkit is really difficult to manage, from my point of view.

I feed them every 5 or 6 days, I adapt to when they are hungry. I feed them when they are hungry as far as possible, because the "Hunger doesn't kill your characters, starvation does". When they are just hungry, they are more resistant to diseases, or to weakness.
If you feed them when they are hungry (so the orange text), they return to "Ok", and I think the "Ok" state remains 1 or 2 days more than the "Hungry" state (if you feed them when they are starving, they return to "Hungry", you need 2 soups for making a character goes from "starving" to "ok"). But that's just my way of playing, I know that a lot of people let their characters starve, that's just strategy differences :)

[🖤omegamäään Ω]

Ah interesting, thank you again, but how long does the starving status stay until they die? Because the text in Red warned me 2 or 3 days to feed them but nothig happened, They were still alive.

Ah so there is only 1 Medkit? It takes 3 long days to create another.
Or will it be quicker if I upgrade my Crafting ? Do I have advantage to improve it?

thx again Noko !

[Noko]

I think that when they are good and in good health, they can survive 4 days starving, but I'm not sure (like I said, I try to not let them starve, so I never really tested). If they are weak, I think they can survive, like, 2 days starving. In all cases, starving will kill your characters after, like, 5 days at max I think. But hunger in 60 parsecs is more fluctuant than in 60 seconds : some events will give hunger to your characters, some others will sate them...

The medkit is unique, and it always take 3 days to craft, even when your crafting machine is improved at max. That's why it is so difficult to manage. I think that's an essential item to find in scavenge mode, though.
But I think improve the crafting is a very good advantage, it permits you to craft more items (I think that with the craft lvl2 you can made the armor, the mask, the battery... and with the lvl3 you can make the manual, the gun or the shovel), so I think it's veeery useful !

[🖤omegamäään Ω]

ah cool so I can craft more items, didnt notice that, thx.

4 days starving, wow thats enough I think , I will test it on my own..... on them.... lol

So I guess I will stop improving my medikit because like you said its unqiue and I dont see a hint why I should make it better

maybe someone can explain it?

thax again my intelligent friend :-))

[Noko]

No problem no problem haha, I can't help you anymore ;)

[Mineko]

One question
What if I send them out with for example mask and armor but then an event happens where I need the mask or I am dead.
Is that like bad luck? I avoid giving them the mask or gun/armor if I only have one and not the other.

[🖤omegamäään Ω]

when you send the mask or shovel for exmaple with your crew out, then you cant usw it in the spaceship. its blocked then. only 1 use. so bad luck.

[Noko]

Yeah, and you can't craft the same object. So I advise to take care, at the end of the game, to think well about where you send your expeditions, and what items you need to send with your crewmate. Like, if communists/death robots/space pirates are already attacking your ship, don't send a crewmate in a zone where you'll need all the defense items (like, in Phobonos, there is a zone where you need gun + armor + mask). If the ennemies attack you when you don't have these items, you have a huge risk to die, so beware !

[Captain_ES]

i know im late but i still love the game, Upgrading the stuff that arent systems i think makes them slightly more effective AND if they 'break' They loose the upgrade but remain fuctional.

[twitch.tv/wolfuslair]

I don't think it is actually that important

[ZombieBoss]

I found that upgrading items is only really a good idea if you plan on recycling that item (because you get 3x more chemicals out of it and you can infinitely make soup by crafting something like tape - 10 materials, upgrading said item - 10 energy, then recycling it +30 chemicals & 5 energy, then you can craft some soup and then recycle 1 soup for + 10 materials & 5 energy which allows you to repeat it infinitely (though you can only survive doing this with only 1 crew member, however you can have 2 crew members survive off of this as long as that other crew member goes on expeditions and brings back any of the 3 previous resources, the most important being chemicals and the least important being energy (just make sure that if you ever want to continue surviving off only crafting that you have 10 materials and 10 energy at the start of the process)

[LegendStarGhost]

Upgraded items have less chance to break