Quick Tips from a Playtester

I Wanted to put together a list of some common questions I've seen and try and reduce some confusion around the game, will be checking for questions in comments as well.

Table of Contents

• 1 Power questions, what its used for, how to get it, what happens when it runs out.
  
  
• 2 Operators and operator traits, consequences for death.
  
  
• 3 Co op and how loot sharing works.
  
  
• 4: General tips/tricks

Power

What it is: Power is one of two key resources used by your outpost, it can be generated it quite a few ways and drained in even more, batteries and a few other outpost components increase your maximum power storage and almost everything else you add to the outpost will lower the power or material caps.

How to use it: Just about anything you can think of will consume this resource, but i want to list a few of the most common (and possibly the best) uses of power.


TRAVEL: Moving between locations on the tactical map will consume a varying amount of power depending on location and overall map difficulty, typically the locations that use more power will be larger/more loot filled, anything with an incredibly low power cost is probably a safe location that actually offers ways to restore power or catch your breath. You can also "Bypass" locations for a little more power than the base cost and get random loot from the map without actually playing it.

DOORS: Some locations will have multiple options for opening a door to a stash of loot, typically a key card or just raw power, you have to weigh if opening the door using raw power is a worthwhile trade to maybe missing out on another location.

PETS: Occasionally you will find deactivated units on the map that you can either fix with a repair kit or spend raw power to give you a unit that will travel with you between locations and functions as a mobile turret, if you need the firepower or prefer clearing maps with the RTS mode it may be worth your power.

How to get moar: Power can be gathered in a few ways, by converting materials into power from the core tower/generators. (in RTS mode) Battery banks you can find on the map can plug into your generator (but be careful! some doors require them to open!) or playing one of two minigames.

1: Basketball, you will find a station connected to 3 screens and a locker, if you throw the spike balls into the hoop each basket will give you 3 power and bonus rewards (if you score 20 total baskets) when the game ends! become the ball and earn heaps of power and rare rewards. (pro tip, if you see one of these look around the map near it to find any scattered balls, no one said you only had to use one basketball!)

2: Trickshot: There is a tower with a plug, connect the plug to your core tower (it should "stick" to the tower you put loot into) locate a gray sphere somewhere on the map and figure out how you can make its air travel time take the longest time and the fastest speed, if you make the shot into the top of the tower you'll charge your base with some of that precious power you'll always have a use for.

ITS GONE WHAT DO I DO: Take a breath, it happens. as mentioned above you can use mats to generate power for emergencies but if you run out on the tactical map its time to "go back to base" this will skip you to the extraction day that functions just like a normal extraction, the name makes it seem like you give up and leave all the stuff you gathered but that's just poor naming convention, it will always take you to extraction.

Operators

What they are: These are who you play as for each tour Fae may be the most recognizable as he has the "plot armor" trait, where even if he dies all you lose is your equipped gear and he makes it back to base.

What they do: Each one can have different active skills and passives in their tree, not all are created equal and afaik can have different passives at random, find a playstyle you enjoy by recruiting more with Recruitment beacons (items you can occasionally find in mission or for sale in the market) or by completing a tour with a "local operative" if you survive the run that agent will join your roster permanently. this gives you differing actives and passives for your normal gameplay AND lets you assign troops to your base from the nexus to improve aspects of your home base.

Why do you want more: as mentioned above agents can be assigned to different locations in the base to boost efficiency, such as making rerolling the market cheaper, researching more advanced tech or any number of other useful effects, eventually you can also send them on passive missions that can earn you resources and other currency, but note, if any of them die they are gone forever! this applies whither you controlled them or not. (edit apparently you can maybe heal them? needs testing)

Co-Op

Oh boy...this one is a hot topic just about anywhere you look. Please keep civil in discussions if you start a debate. EDIT WOOHOO CO OP UPDATES

Co-op in its current form means that the host gets anything put into the tower and extracted, all players involved will get currency from any events the host chooses (such as alchemize where you get gold from killing units) but the only loot they get to take home is anything in their backpack on extraction day, they still receive any xp the host earns and there are ways to boost what they take home (any event that gives a storage box on extraction day for example. whoever sends that box off gets the resources inside the container as of my last test) and in endless mode several of these crates exist. afaik co op missions are not currently tracked so even if you are on the same mission you wont get campaign progress (i do believe the devs mentioned working on this in the discord) but try to remember as there isn't any quick-play your here to play with your friends and that's the essence of cooperative play.

EDITS: All people participating for successful extraction will get a clone of everything extracted except weapons/XEN the patch also mentioned additional awards for those who are playing though the tour with the host for longer, have yet to test what exactly the effects are but its safe to assume its extra coin or random valuables etc. Co op campaign progress as long as you and the host are on the same campaign mission!

PSA: make sure your friend joins while you are in the lobby you interact with the tactical map, if they join mid mission they wont be able to do anything but spectate!

If you have any questions this guide didn't answer please drop them in the comments and ill work to either answer them there or add/update the guide. Sorry if this guide isn't very good but nothing was on steam at the time and i know a steep learning curve can be a little rough!

Tips and Tricks

Here is a collection of various things that have either been pointed out in the comments (thanks for the engagement everyone) or I've run into during the game that i think may be useful to know for folks. Hope it helps, ill update and add to it as i find more things to include!

1: Core power- this is a pretty key statistic that isn't explained vary well in my opinion. It's boosted by generators, generic walls, power-banks and a few other components. This stat expands the space in your recovery box for your map to map looting, the X-Boost field range (the blue ring that surrounds your base) which is incredibly important as it boosts all friendly units stats (including yours! Defense, Attack and it is impacted by quite a few event cards that can grant movement speed or armor regeneration) It also expands the range in which you can place defenses and the range your base will automatically mine for materials. A decent way to raise it early on is creating lattices of generic walls to create a cube (it also leaves gaps for material storage!)

2: Titan Spikes- if a titan spike is placed on an available tile on your actual outpost it will travel with you throughout the tour, this handy structure provides a heap of core power and it increases your maximum power storage (tip, make sure to put it in charging mode for a larger boost!) it can in its offensive form shoot at targets but lets let our more conventional weaponry take care of that!

3: Guardians, Unlocked fairly quickly as part of the campaign; this can create a huge boost in your outposts strength at the cost of some materials and patience, even the basic mg guardian can provide a decent boost and these units can move around the map-letting you project strength even far from your outpost. From interacting with them to follow you as mobile guards to commanding them in RTS mode to handle problems, they are incredibly versatile and efficient (even the mg guardian only costs 150 materials, it comes with 1000 ammo, at the cost of only half an ammo box (50 mats) you get a mobile sentry to use as you please!) These will ALWAYS travel from map to map with you, snowballing into a pretty nice army on the last day!

4: "The Front" for example, on snow recovery day you are provided a few combat miners and Promethean cores, if you can manage to perfectly defend them (as in not losing any of them) you WILL NOT be attacked from the sides (as far as ive tested up to snow 3), those helpful Guardians will gladly assist in holding the line and reducing the overall difficulty of your extraction!

5: Anything with a healthbar can be destroyed, including doors that may normally require power or keycards! If you find an explosive barrel or two (each deals 20,000 damage to structures!) or have a powerful XEN setup, you can plow your way through at the cost of a potential attack by "chasers" units that have a pretty decent chance to drop tech points! The shelves in the supermarket for example can also be destroyed to give heaps of scrap metal, a pretty important component overall for some basic building blocks of your base. (pro tip, take advantage of some characters abilities (rocket pods or infinite ammo for example to lower the cost even more) Credit: ValkerionTM

6: The Market is unbelievable, from picking up turrets wholesale, to getting that Last item you need to finally build that CWIS it is a great source of a power boost after a big score. Keep in mind you can frequently find common materials (scrap and basic components) to save you the headache of pickup up hundreds of it in raid, think of all the saved space, time and grind! You can always reroll the shop for a few coins, gamble away!

7: Turret configurations, Ever notice your CWIS waste ammo on a target that will already be dead from the existing bullet stream? Try lowering the range a bit or changing its targeting off of small to save some efficiency. Each turret can fill some niche for you, cwis are your only missile defense, make sure you put one on missile only if you expect some hellfire! Twin artillery are great at dealing AOE damage and pack one heck of a punch, configure a focus on medium/large targets and it'll end up smashing the small fry as collateral. under-barrel turrets work great at crushing smallfry but really struggle on anything else, configure it to small and medium targets at a long range as it does have some windup time! Experiment on what works for you!

[gunny2430]

@Flashand, ill do some testing later today, i know in some cases when they are overlapping it can remove them between maps but its actually hard for me to reproduce. thank you for bringing it up!

[Flashand]

i crafted 8 then zoned they only allowed 6 to go to the next map

[gunny2430]

@flashland, thank you ill make the update. You shouldn't have limited guardians afaik, can you explain a bit? i know they have a cooldown but you can make considerably more as long as you have the materials.

[Flashand]

power is 3 as of 5/3/24 on basketball (free throw not 3pt shots)

and i have a limit of 6 guardians. that's still quite a bit

[gunny2430]

@OldGregg, no problem, if you have any questions or anything you want added to the guide let me know!

[OldGregg]

Thanks

[gunny2430]

@Valkerion thank you! i was planning to put a tip section in after i got some progression/more time with the finished product, ill put in another segment after work today and include your door tip as well as a few other things ive found/run into!

[Valkerion™]

Oh, also players should note many locked areas can be accessed by windows, its good to learn the layout of buildings for this, once you have things like double jump boots and grapple gloves. Scan with your tower and you can easily locate the window to go through. Windows with a bar blocking access in the middle can typically be passed by turning your camera sideways.

[Valkerion™]

You can add some tips about doors --
Anything with HP can be destroyed. Explosive barrels deal 20,000 damage to doors, giving you an early way to break into 90k doors. By the end of snow area you should have a gun that can easily blast open anything you want. The buildings that need power bank to get in (door without hp) have a 90k access on the roof that takes a keycard (or shoot it).

Also, once you have that decent gun damage, and especially for Tiger/other methods of 0 ammo cost, you can start harvesting tanks and such just by shooting them. (Trees shot wont drop wood). This doesn't benefit from +30% material gain card but it costs 0 energy. Makes later game hitting every map rather simple.

[gunny2430]

@Siablo34226 hey! so i might need a clarification of your question but unlocking the autoloader happens after snow 1, then you have to research it and obtain the listed components, when you are in the edit mode you should see lines from the autoloader to nearby turrets it has line of sight to, then once you are in mission just load the autoloader with ammo boxes and it will load turrets after they run empty. hope this helps!