Wayward Terran Frontier Knowledge Repository

This is a WIP guide to the various features and mechanics of WTF:ZF. It aims to give players the information they need to kickstart their journey into the universe of Zero Falls.

Introduction

So, you just bought/revisited the game and started a new profile\world. You learned the basics of ship repair, navigation, and crew management, felt the power of flying a kitted out Broadsword, and promptly died a horrible death at the hands of a small deployment of SSC forces. After following the subsequent tutorials and maybe even doing a little trading, you're now left wondering: "Now what? How does any of this even work?"

If you can even somewhat relate to this, this guide is for you. It is structured in bite-sized segments that can be read in any order. Each one will give an overview of a game mechanic and provide tips and tricks for the aspiring immortal space captain.

Community Bugfix

Before you begin/continue playing, you'll want to download: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2510670150 along with its framework requirement:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2464675377
Community Bug Fixes is an ongoing project by a very talented member of the WTF community named Blacktea. The mod addresses a number of bugs and QOL issues in the most vanilla-friendly way possible, and the devs have even incorporated several of the fixes into the base game as part of the last patch (with permission.)

The mod is mostly comprised of under-the-hood tweaks to reduce errors and oddities, but also includes some QOL features such as allowing the player to scrap and redesign ships built at their base without losing precious resources.

Profile vs World: Know the Difference

Summary

Wayward Terran Frontier stores player progression in two ways: via the player's Profile and the player's Worlds. The two operate more or less independently of each other, which greatly reduces the amount of progress lost in the event of a campaign bug.

Profile vs World

The Profile:

• Keeps track of the Player's name, inventory, level, mastery points, ship hull unlocks, blueprints, and research.
  
• Persists no matter which World you load into

The World:

• Keeps track of discovered locations, existing ships, unlocked gates, unlocked crew members, and mission progress.

Creating a new world and loading into it using an existing profile is akin to starting New Game +, and and allows the player to circumvent any kind of progression-breaking story bug should they encounter one in their existing world.

Crew & You

Summary

Crew members are an essential part of WTF:ZF. They are essentially disposable meat bags that perform a number of important tasks for the player, such as:

• Operating the point defense guns of larger ships
  
• Assisting the player in on-foot combat (although most of them suck at this)
  
• Repairing the inside of your ship
  
• Serving as portable respawn points that the player can take over when they die (the crew member is consumed when you do this, though.

The Crew System

The crew system consists of two parts: crew members themselves, and crew slots. Crew members can be unlocked over the course of several different story and side missions, and each one will occupy a single crew slot. Crew slots can be obtained by finding and researching the blueprints for special cloning technology. In my experience, said blueprints can often be found in the unmarked stations surrounded by asteroids. Once unlocked, crew members can be recruited at your home station's bar indefinitely.

What to do With Your Meat Slaves

Crew members have three primary active uses:

1. Assigning them to secondary gun consoles on ships. This can be done by middle clicking on the crew member, and then middle clicking on the desired the console. If your crew status isn't set to "hold," the crew member will walk over to the console and activate it. Once the crew member is manning the console, you can toggle their fire by targeting a ship from the navigation console and middle clicking.
   
   
2. Having a them fly derelict ships for you. If you assign a crew member to the navigation console of a ship, said crew member will begin flying the ship once you board another one. From the navigation console of your ship, you can hail your crew member's ship ('H' by default) and give them a number of different orders, such as holding position or following your ship. This can be useful for missions where you need some extra firepower, or if you want to scrap a ship that's already near your base without leaving your own.
   
   
3. Replacing them in the event of your untimely demise. If you have at least one active crew meet when you inevitably meet your doom at the hands of SSC gunfire, you will have the option to 'replace' the crew member. This instantly kills the crew member and respawns you in their place, with your inventory untouched. Crew can also accompany you onto stations and enemy ships and will engage enemies in close-quarters combat, but most of them (minus Vaal) are next to useless against all but the meekest of foes. In my experience, it's best to store extra crew somewhere safe on your flagship and replace them when necessary.

Resources

Summary

Ships in WTF require an assortment of different resource types and amounts to build. Ship resource costs are determined by two factors: the base costs associated with the ship hull itself and the sum of the required resources for all ship modules (i.e. armor, turrets, reactors, engines, etc.)

Resources are stored in your player profile, and can be viewed via a collapsible tab on the top left of your UI:

Acquisition

There are four main ways of obtaining resources:

1. Scrapping ships
   
2. Mining asteroids (more on that later)
   
3. Raiding mining ships (this will draw warship reinforcements, so be prepared to flee if necessary.)
   
4. Purchasing them from mega malls or mining stations.

In the case of the latter 3 options, the resources will invariably end up in your ship's cargo bay. In order to make use of them, you will need to dock your ship to your home base, right click on your ship from the Logistics screen, and select "Unload Resources" from the dropdown menu. This will transfer all the resources in your cargo bays directly to your player profile. Note that this won't work on any resources stored in your player inventory.

Creating a Scrapper Transport

Summary

So, you just massacred the crew of an enemy warship, mining barge, or innocent trader and flew it back to your home base. After scrapping it for a sizable amount of ore, you're now left with a dilemma: how can you get back to your flagship? Unless the ship you commandeered was close enough to your base to have your crew escort you back, chances are your ship is still floating in the depths of space some hundred or even thousand kilometers away. Sure, you could just die and replace a crew member, but this compromises your combat effectiveness and is generally unsustainable for obvious reasons. Instead, what you need is a dedicated, disposable junk ship.

Engineering a Sh*tbox

Consider the following shuttle design:



It's very well engineered for a starter ship, sporting armor, crew quarters, capacitors, a scanner, and even a cargo bay. Unfortunately, all of these components add to its production cost. This bad boy costs a staggering 674 iron ore to create! That just won't do.

Now have a look at this beauty:



This is a proper junker right here. No armor, no energy storage, no scanners, no bunks, no cargo space, and just one lonely engine. This brings the price down to a much more reasonable 229 iron ore. Both ships are more or less identical in their ability to ferry you from Point A to Point B, but the junker can do it for a third of the price. You should design and build one of these as soon as you get the ability to remove the base design's components. Once you get more advanced T2 blueprints you can retrofit a small SSC fighter for an even cheaper short-ranged transport, but this Shuttle design will still be great to keep around because it can accommodate a Higgs Accumulator (attached directly to the right side of the reactor.)

The Bare Necessities

The following is a list of the bare essentials for a ship to be able to be able to used in any meaningful capacity:

1. One Airlock
   
2. One Bridge/Cockpit
   
3. One Navigational Selector attached to your Bridge/Cockpit (this links your engines and thrusters to your navigational console so you can actually fly the ship)
   
4. Life Support (unless you have power armor with an enormous oxygen supply and you're using a Higgs Accumulator)
   
5. One Engine
   
6. Two Thrusters, one for each side of the ship (you can technically fly without these but you won't be able to turn)
   
7. One Reactor
   
8. One Heatsink (you might be able to fly without one, but it's not recommended since they're so cheap)
   
9. Wiring to connect all of the above components together

That's it!

Grey Goo

Summary

Grey Goo is the lifeblood of several tools, modules and weapon systems in Zero Falls. It's a consumable resource used by the handheld Repair Tool, Missile Factories, Repair Drones, Attack Drones and more, all of which are completely unable to function without it. It can be purchased from your home station in bulk, and found as loot in the cargo bays of most ships.

Usage

Ships will only be able to utilize Grey Goo if it's stored in one of their cargo bays, but the handheld Repair Tool can pull from both your inventory and nearby bays. Grey Goo can also be sold for a decent profit at most trade stations should you end up with surplus.

EVA

Summary

One of the cornerstones of WTF is the ability to conduct EVA operations while wearing the appropriate equipment. When done right, it can open up innumerable tactical opportunities and even completely reverse the tide of a battle.

Entering EVA

To enter EVA, simply locate the nearest airlock, open it, and throw yourself out. This can be done at any time, but you'll die almost instantly without a proper EVA suit. These can be found as loot from higher tier ships and in the equipment store of most mega malls. EVA suits inherit most of the base properties of armor, but also have two unique stats: O2 Capacity and Thruster Fuel. These represent the amount of Oxygen the suit can supply (with larger numbers correlating to a longer lasting supply) and the amount of time the suit can apply thrust for respectively. Your O2 Supply will deplete for every second you're in a zero-oxygen environment, but Thruster Fuel will only be consumed when actively accelerating.

Here's an example of a relatively high tier EVA suit:

Boarding

The primary use of EVA is boarding damaged ships. Once in space, areas of a ship that you can board through will be colored solid blue. The following is an image of the player approaching a disabled ship during an EVA. The player is circled in red, while all possible boarding points are circled in blue:



To enter through these areas, simply position yourself over them and press 'F' when prompted. You can also board through airlocks, but chances are that a ship you're boarding won't have any intact ones remaining (hence the necessity for an EVA in the first place.)

Close Quarters Combat

Summary

This section is currently under construction: all information present is accurate, but a decent amount is still missing

While being fairly simple, on-foot combat plays a large role in Zero Falls. It governs all of your on-foot interaction with other life forms, and is made up of three main pieces: Weapons, Armor, and Enemies.


Assorted weaponry and armor

Weapons

Weapons in WTF come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from Rifles, Shotguns and SMGs to Miniguns and Railguns. Each weapon type has its own unique behavior and pros and cons, but as a general rule it's best to prioritize high DPS guns for use against Human enemies, and guns with high magazine sizes for use against Aliens. Due to the currently limited enemy AI, Miniguns are the best possible choice for nearly all situations (with Railguns having a few niche uses.) However, SMGs and Assault Rifles will also get the job done. Avoid weapons with low fire rates, as the longer it takes to kill an enemy, the more time they have to kill you.


An example of the current CQC meta

Armor

Aliens

Aliens are the first of the two enemy types you'll encounter while exploring the universe.

Aliens are far more numerous than humans, but pose much less of a threat. They are unintelligent grey and silver creatures that are primarily located in abandoned stations and warp gates, but you can also see find them boarding your ship if you're foolish enough to venture into the [REDACTED]. Their only means of attack is through a short ranged claw swipe, so keep your distance if you don't want to be eaten. They are very dumb, but also somewhat tanky, and in large numbers can easily overwhelm players that don't have the proper armor and weaponry. You will also occasionally encounter Alien Hives, but these are mostly harmless as all they do is sit motionless and spawn basic aliens.


The player confronts a lone Alien


Alien Hives infesting a ruined station

Humans

Humans aren't much brighter than Aliens, but they're far more deadly, due primarily to the guns they wield and the armor they wear. Guns in WTF are very deadly, and most engagements will be over in seconds. Your ability to take on an enemy crew and vice versa is determined almost entirely by firepower and armor damage reduction. As soon as an enemy Human is made aware of your presence, they will do one of two things: if you are in their line of fire, they will start shooting at you, and if you are out of range/out of sight they will advance on you. When dealing with Humans, you will want to have the most DPS possible combined with the most armor damage reduction and shielding possible. Since Humans will blindly turn corners, the best tactic for fighting them is luring them into an enclosed space and unloading on them with something like a Minigun, Railgun, or Shotgun. Humans will have equipment proportional to the tier of the ship they're flying; the crew of a trading ship will most likely not be armed with anything more than basic civilian rifles and ballistic vests, but the crew of an SSC warship will be sporting power armor and high powered assault rifles.

Closing Notes

I hope you've found this information helpful! I will be continuously updating this guide with more sections over time, and in response to community feedback.

Thanks for reading!

[SteelSirokos]

I haven't played a ton of the latest update, but from what I understand you need to buy or steal turrets and then outfit them from a Logistics screen. I don't know of a way to craft weapons themselves, but you can craft modifiers on them from your inventory using Turret Forging Kits.

[jeffcraig101]

could you explain how to craft and fit new weapons

[Wer6]

Good guide.