Tips (spoilers marked)

Contains gameplay tips to help you explore and survive. This is not a "how to play" reference; for that, refer to the guides helpfully provided by the developer or the in-game tutorial. Written for v5 of the game.

Exploring star systems

• Keep an eye on your fuel, since it is possible to find yourself stranded. The "fuel required" to reach a destination refers to the amount needed for a return journey. You can almost always buy more at the mothership for a reasonable price, or find it in caves on the majority of silicate worlds.
  
• Initially, stars you have already visited and planets you have scanned will have a name when you select them. Once you have an upgraded scanner, stars and planets will appear as red when unknown, blue when visited and yellow when they have a note attached. This applies both to the overlay in the cockpit as well as the star chart.
  
• Be wary of the gravitational pull of stars and planets while moving through a planetary system; sometimes it will be almost impossible to extricate yourself! If you are in trouble, select a planet and choose to orbit or warp quickly to another system. This will always allow you to escape.
  
• Asteroids can be destroyed to mine basic metals if you are short of materials for crafting.
  
• When you enter some systems, you will be attacked by UFOs. They move unpredictably left to right with no inertia which makes them difficult to lead. Its usually easier to rapidly shoot behind them as they travel, so that they take a hit as soon as they switch direction again.
  
• Damaged UFOs can be boarded by moving close and right clicking on them. However, their interiors are quite confusing and don't contain a lot of interest at this point. At least the map the is visible on the scanner. Look for rounded bulkheads marked in blue/green rather than the tight corridors in grey; these usually contain chests. You can sometimes find loot on the bodies of aliens after you... pacify them. You can also just destroy the damaged UFOs to receive some alien artifacts for quests or crafting.
  
• Not all UFOs and intelligent aliens are hostile! If they do not shoot first, you can attempt to interact with them for trade and quests. Note that the interact icon only appears when you place the cursor over an aliens head at short range.
  
• Take note of the comments of friendly aliens; you can piece together clues to find their homeworld!

Exploring worlds

• If a world is potentially dangerous, your autopilot will warn you as you begin to orbit.
  
• As you upgrade your suit, worlds with hazards will become progressively more manageable. At the beginning, the most important factor is temperature. Make sure that the planet temperature is within your current suit capabilities (minimum and maximum) or you will take constant damage.
  
• Due to this, cold and heat resistance upgrades for your suit are the most important and should be purchased when offered for trade by the mothership if you can afford it. Temperatures are usually more moderate in caves than on the surface, which can also assist in exploring extreme worlds. Many other hazards can be avoided by staying clear of liquids.
  
• Worlds are quite small and can be circumnavigated in less than a minute. To explore efficiently, keep a track of the lander on your scanner.
  
• Planets will often have at least one surface chest and one cave (sometimes containing other chests). Occasionally, chests or cave entrances may be under liquid. Depending on the level of protection offered by your suit, they may be effectively inaccessible. You should use all suit upgrades that you come across rather than selling them.
  
• It is best not to enter a cave with less than 75% oxygen; they can sometimes be quite extensive and running out of air is a distinct possibility. You can refill oxygen by standing near the gangway to your lander, or using a tank (100 units is equal to a full tank). Note that you use more oxygen when running compared to walking or standing still.
  
• On your scanner tool, caves you have not visited are marked in red, those you have are marked in blue. You can drop a manual marker while the scanner is active with the left mouse and remove it again with the right; these appear in yellow.
  
• The interior of caves can be confusing due to the lack of landmarks and poor visibility on the scanner. Use scanner markers to indicate branches you have already explored.
  
• Caves tend to contain a lot of disconnected branches that will appear on your scanner but are impossible to reach; these can be ignored.
  
• The minerals that you find in one cave are representative of all caves on a given planet. If you are after something in particular and don't find it in the first cave, there is no need to search any others.
  
• If stalactites are blocking your progress, you can destroy them with a rocket launcher or later the alien pistol. However, note that rocket launcher ammo is comparatively rare.
  
• Most creatures you encounter are practically harmless and will only damage you slightly on contact and only then if you get too close. However, there are a few exceptions... Some will explode on contact or death and deal serious damage to your suit, others will fire projectiles that do the same. Three or four hits from these and you are dead. A couple of them can be spotted on the surface and dealt with preemptively; exploding acid eyeballs are innocuous brown spheres resting on the ground before they rise up and attack, while the tentacles of another beast will erupt out of the ground once you are within a few metres. You should have time to kill both of these with a single shot before they are a threat. Beasts encountered in caves can be more difficult; if you hear an attack sound during the cave loading screen, best to back out of there immediately. Select your best weapon and go back in expecting an instant attack.
  
• Duplicate blueprints you may find can be sold as they serve no purpose.

Inventory and trade

• Items can be held in your personal backpack as well as your ship's onboard storage. However, both of these are very limited at the beginning and you will quickly run out of space.
  
• Inventory items of the same type will stack, except for weapons and blueprints. You can use this to your advantage by keeping stackable items over non-stackable items, particularly ammunition.
  
• Two inventory upgrades are available from the mothership trade screen. However, they are reasonably expensive at approximately 1500 quants for the first to upgrade your craft and 3500 to upgrade your backpack. Note that each upgrade is offered progressively and you must buy the previous one first, starting with the offered upgraded star chart for around 500 quants. An additional round of storage upgrades can be found with traders (human or alien), but tend to be more expensive than those offered by the mothership. Once you have a fully upgraded inventory, space is no longer an issue.
  
• You will find weapons that appear the same, but have different stats. You will need to manually compare them to identify which is superior; the other can be sold. Remember to unload them first if you are short on ammunition!
  
• You generally do not need a large amount of materials and volumes of greater than 40 units can be sold or handed in for quests, which is helpful early on for making quants. The exceptions are sapphire/ruby/emerald/diamond crystals, which can be crafted into something useful (blueprint required)...
  
• There is a rudimentary trade capability which allows you to buy low and sell high, particularly for alien artifacts. Handing in items for quests provides the greatest reward. However, you will need to remember the prices involved and finding a trader that requires a particular quest item requires persistence... The mothership itself only offers three quests at a time which will reset when you next visit. Thankfully, every human on the mothership also offers both trade and quest services.
  
• Chances are that you won't run out of money or equipment after the first few systems, so don't worry too much about abandoning loot that you can't carry. However, if you do want to come back for it you can make a note against the planet on the system map and return later; the contents of chests are saved.

[MKSchmidt]

Unhelpful tip: definitely look in caves.

[ShaggyMoose]

It's been a while since I played, but I don't recall any specific conditions for uranium.

[MKSchmidt]

Hmmm ... this is making it clear that the presence of an achievement is actually working against the intent of the game. The goal is for players to players to discover these things themselves. I will have to think about this deeply...

The ancient blueprints should be found in ancient ruins.

[WorldCrusader]

Aight thanks MKschmidt! Where could I find blueprints for the artifacts?

[MKSchmidt]

Crafting an ancient alien artifact requires finding an ancient blueprint. They work like regular blueprints but will produce unique items that cannot otherwise be found in the game. They also will usually require a bit more rare items to craft, so they will be more challenging.

[ShaggyMoose]

I have this achievement, so I must have done this successfully. Unfortunately, I really can't recall the details. Better to ask in the forum or the Discord channel.

[WorldCrusader]

I have a question about "crafting" the Ancient Alien artifact as their is an achievement tied to it. I have already unlocked one Vault and found some loots and alien treasures inside, I just need to know how to commence from their and what I need to do to "craft" the Ancient Alien artifact needed for the achievement? Advice appreciated and great guide!

[TitanicDweeb]

For caves, I always just go left for every turn/intersection I run into. Same with ancient ruins. It's in my opinion that its just the fastest and easiest way. I always end up getting everything and come back to the entrance. I also make sure to have my ammo belt loaded before landing on planet. Not so fun when you come across a hostile creature and run out of ammo on your belt and then have to either switch weapons or go to inventory to reload belt.

[ShaggyMoose]

Correct, AFAIK. But again, I hope MKSchmidt will set the record straight.

[Voland]

does alien pistol destroing same things as rocket launcher? in the blueprint desctription there was "and other things", so i thought it could destroy some new versions of obstacles. like hidden walls and etc. i shoot almost everything, but didnt find anything new. so... only real obstacle is stalactites?