Scenario: Return to the C.O.R.E.

In this guide you will get a step by step on how to beat the scenario "Return to the C.O.R.E."

Introduction

You unlock this scenario by completing the campaign (by killing F.A.T.H.E.R.). You are lead to believe it is a bonus mission but it is not, it is a scenario.

A scenario is different from a bonus mission in that it is not strictly scripted. This gives you the open-ness to dealing with tactics on your own. As well this mission will feature neutral NPCs that are not strictly from the campaign.

In this scenario you will play with or against the following NPCs:

E.V.E. – Your Arc (random spawn location)
Prof Devi –S.A.A.T. Arc (random spawn location)
Ebash-San – Underwater Arc (random spawn location)
Trenchcoat – Temporary Pirate trader (random spawn locations)
Yana Rodriguez – Eden Initiative Arc (random spawn location)
Rufus Thorne – Global Trust Arc (random spawn location)
Dr. Bartok – Spirit Campus rival settlements (random spawn location)
Tilda Jorgensen – The Co-Op rival settlements (random spawn location)

Non-player characters listed as having settlements will continue to expand across the map. Tilda Jorgensen with uniquely ask your permission and bribe you to do so. The others will not be so nice.

Finding all of these settlements and arcs will be important as you will be able to trade tools and building supplies from them for cheap.

Claiming Islands

Claiming islands will become very important in this mission. In order to claim an island all you will need are some building supplies and some tools.

You will need two primary islands.

The first primary island should fulfill the need of your chosen faction (Eden Initiative or Global Trust). Which faction you choose does not matter however I find Eden Initiative’s low cost, easy to position power solutions better for missions involving the S.A.A.T.

For your main island the absolute necessary resource is rice and tea. These are very often combined together so it should not be too hard to find this island. If you get one with a river, huge bonus!

Your second main island can have any grouping of resources but preference should be given to ones that will give you Sugar Beats or Coffee. If you can get both that is fantastic. My island had neither and I used transport to make it work.

So what other resources will you need?

Global Trust

Iron
Coal
Vegetables
Crude Oil
Sand
Limestone

Eden Initiative

Iron
Coal
Vegetables
Copper
Sand
Limestone

Okay so you know what you need. You will need to claim these islands as soon as you are in the green. I would do this before advancing into your second tier of units. S.A.A.T. is very simple you will only need sugar beats and coffee. Every other resource you may need will be found on the islands you already own or are underwater beyond the settlement of NPCs.

Huh?

You are doing this out of distrust and to maximize profits. If you claim these islands right away it makes it less likely for neutral NPCs to grab the good ones. This will make the game go faster, you will save money and you will need less transport to ferry around goods.

You want to grab your islands in pretty quick session and if you do this you can approve other NPCs taking islands and gain a 500 licenses reward.

Building Your First Island

A good tip to island building that will keep you in the green is never build any structures that will supply the needs of a new emerging class until you can build all of them. The only exception is your first tier of citizens who will revolt if their basic needs are not satisfied. So this means you will be building a lot of basic homes and slowly watch them evolve. The first thing you build with every tier up is going to be your new building resource type.

Make sure that you have a heavy production of tools and building supplies as these are going to be universally needed for everything. S.A.A.T. specifically will soak up all of these.

This first island will need to be extremely profitable. Once you unlock S.A.A.T. technology do not jump the gun and build them up immediately. Take your time to fulfill a few extra needs of your people. This may mean getting lobster for your tycoons or getting those weird tomato things for your ecos. If you do not have access to these just expand your production and build more homes. As another option you can build tycoon homes on your production islands and simply build a fishing area to supply their needs.

You want more than just profitable, you want extremely profitable as your future needs will become insanely high. If you are over producing make sure to loop your trade routes to include an NPC ark/island to sell off all of your extra supplies to.

What about ecology? Ecology is important on islands with heavy farming capacity. Ecos gain access to easier early tools to deal with this. Tycoons however can take over mines more effectively and have greater environmental impact. Do these on islands you have selected specifically for farming. You should do this to your main island once you have put down a lot of production and you are in some serious green. The bonus to crops will merit more production facilities and allow you to put down more buildings period. If you have surpluses don’t be afraid to drop some of that surplus off at your lonely islands. Evolving them from beyond simple buildings is not a crime, your goal is to make money after all.

As a final note there is a special television station information center that all factions have. It takes four blocks and can be turned to different modes. You will always want Eco and Tycoon information stations turned to maximum taxation. Higher populations or lower costs will never make more money than simply more taxation.

Licenses and Side Quests

Licenses are used for purchasing ship items, port items, ark items, maps or political power.

The only valuable ship items in this scenario will either increase the speed of your ship or increase cargo capacity. The goal is to maximize your trade routes and resupply your ports faster.

Port items have varying value and will depend on your need. Ones for production of something you make are very valuable. Ones dealing with ecological reductions are going to be pretty valuable if you have that structure a lot. The same can be said for energy reduction.

An example of this might be tea on your main island as an Eco. You will have a lot of these so an ecological or energy reduction will be worth it there. However energy reduction on tools or building supplies will not be worthwhile because you will have at best 4 of these but usually 2.

Another type of port item is fertility. This will not be useful and will just soak up a port slot. You do not want to centralize your pollution to one island otherwise it becomes too hard to maintain.

Ark items make improvements to all of ships or all of your islands. Good ark items will involve movement speed, cargo space, energy consumption, ecological effects and production. If you find one that is not these don’t get it. Also make sure to read the fine print, so many of these items simply apply to one faction and it could be one you don’t even have.

Political power will change based on who is the current president. As I speak the president is Seamus Green leader of the Eden Initiative. His political powers focus around production, building supply/tool production, and military strength. Out of all of these only the production one is actually useful and only at late game. F.A.T.H.E.R. on the other hand will increase your money, always useful. The never elected Global Trust president will improve environment… only temporarily good.

Moving on side quests are offered all over the place due to the high count of NPCs in the game. You should accept side quests when they are offered as you will have a long time to do one. Be careful of ones asking for goods. A lot of goods can be on short supply and these will cost you quite a bit. Make sure you have a good supply of these before accepting them. By completing side quests you will gain more licenses, more credits, and various random goods. There is going to be a decent amount of down time in game play and accepting side quests will give you things to do that will also improve things for you.

Reputation will not matter too much. You gain a +10 bonus from being peaceful and you lose nothing from tuning down quests. You should be able to socket five valuable ark items, three port items per port, and one item per ship.

Building Your Second Island

You should have selected this island at the beginning of the game and a harbor should wait there. As I said you should not start settling this island until you have a pretty good bank.

If you’re not aware from completing the last Chapter 3 Mission 3 and Chapter 3 Mission 4… S.A.A.T. is expensive. In continuous play it is barely worth making the S.A.A.T. beyond research because they are simply not all that cost effective.

You will want to make as small of a community as possible. And by as small as possible I mean a pretty large one. S.A.A.T. only have two tiers (Assistants and Researchers). Assistants are the only ones who need their needs fulfilled and they are all expensive ones.

You will need three resources fulfilled:

Aquafarm + Functional Food Factory = Functional Food
Sugar Beet + Coffee + Energy Drink Factory = Energy Drink
Crude Oilx3 + Oil Refinery = Oil Oil + Coal = Carbon
Functional food and energy drink are consumed.

Functional food can only be harvested and produced underwater (yes you will need at least one underwater base). A recent patch makes aquafarm more common so it’s not insanely hard to find anymore.

You will need a submarine for this. Simply go to your ark and select the new Trimarine that has become available to you for cheap.

When placing your base make sure to place it close to oil. If you are eco this is your only source of oil (offshore oil). And you don’t want to interfere with your tycoon balance anyway. These structures need to be supported by underwater generators. Remember that everything here is insanely expensive and you will have to purchase and produce a lot of tools and building supplies.

Sugar beets and coffee need to be harvested and combined in an energy drink factory. If you were fortune you grabbed an island with one of these as your main place. Otherwise you will be setting up long trade routes to support this.

These two goods cannot be ignored and you should produce vast surpluses of them so that expansion of citizens does not cut down on their numbers

Carbon is the source needed to make almost everything. Because of this carbon is what you will need to start producing first. Carbon is how you produce your laboratory and your academy.

With S.A.A.T. their only basic needs are a need for fish and a need for company. Do not fulfill any other needs until you have unlocked all of them. Then simply make all of those new needs at once.

You will have a laboratory available to you now, that’s fantastic.

You will notice right away after clicking on the laboratory that things in the laboratory are actually quite expensive. This is why you will need a lot of money. You may also note that you will need a surplus of power to make these. Before laying down any academies make seven Generators. The remaining parts you will produce after you have made a second tier of citizens. You will need to get ammunitions and canisters for one of these items. Make the canisters yourself, buy ammunitions from others.

When you drop down your academies (plural) drop the two of them around a largely populated area and make sure that an information station is in radius of both. There is a mode you can select that will speed research time.

This is a slow and arduous process full of danger. Lab experiments have a chance of causing fire and plague, so you will need to protect your settlement with hospitals and fire houses.

The remaining pieces you will need are more expensive but are more accessible. You will want to academies to research your two blueprints at once.

Once you turn these two in you will win!