Basic Walkthrough

Introductory game guide and basic walkthrough to help the beginning player complete the main story missions of the game, and reach the ending.

Introduction

Though only released recently, this game has become one of my favourites to play. Since so far it hasn’t had many guides or walkthroughs documented online, I’ve decided to write one. I do warn of a spoiler alert, for I will talk about future planets, but I won’t talk about the last planet, to not fully ruin it! I'm sure to have made mistakes (or not named things correctly at times), so if you have any edits to suggest, please mention them in the comments section. Thanks!

Basic strategy: Farming

A lot of the upgrading of equipment and your ship depends on credits (the currency system used), and the only real way of efficiently getting more credits is farming. However, in order to farm, you need to build planters, and those planters need energy to run, so a focus, particularly in the early game, is getting the equipment necessary to build solar panels, planters, and planting, watering, and harvesting.

Basic strategy: Building solar panels

Solar panels require scrap metal, recycled parts and hardware parts. All of these can be obtained by using the restoration ray on boxes on the Captain’s Deck, and damage on the exterior deck, so clearing these out when you first start should be a priority, then quickly building as many solar panel units as you can, and installing them on the exterior deck. As you build your farming capacity, you should continue to do this and build more as much as you can.

Basic strategy: Building planter boxes

Next, once you have access to exploring the planet’s surface, you should spend time grinding the first level digging and mining the boulders. This has multiple benefits. One is that since there are no enemies, you won’t waste valuable energy fighting them. Next is that in the boulders you’ll get scrap metal, which you need to make solar panels and planter boxes (as well as stone, which you use for other important equipment like furnaces). Next is that you’ll also get space radishes, which you need to be able to make it to the highest waypoint of the exploration area, and finally, you’ll also get soil samples, which you also need to make planter boxes. It’s worth stockpiling all these things, since you will need all of these things in the near future in large quantities. Make as many planter boxes as you can, with 42 being a reasonable goal to get started. Assemble them in two banks of 3x7 with a lane in the middle that you can stand in (or 3 banks of 2x7 if you aren’t using a mouse). It also makes sense to collect as many pet rocks as you find, and sell them all immediately. This is a good source of extra cash to buy seeds in the early game. To grind the first level, you can collect all the resources there, then fly to the relic and fly back. This will reset the resources, ripe for repeated harvesting.

Basic strategy: Seeding/Watering/Harvesting

In the early game, you don’t start with many credits, and it is not very easy to get more credits, so you need to focus all your energy on farming. Collecting materials on the deck and on the planet is important, but you want to get your farming operation set up as soon as possible as well. You won’t be able to have all the planter boxes you want, but it’s a good idea to make as many as you can, then spend all your credits on seeds. The seeds I focus on are the soy beans in the early game. These were substantially more lucrative in the demo, but I believe this was also balanced in the most recent update. Still, in terms of return for investment per day, they are probably still the best. Spend all of your credits on soybean seeds, and as soon as you get more credits spend them on more soybean seeds, until you can afford 42 soybean seeds at once. Once you have this, reserve the credits needed to buy another batch of 42 soybean seeds, and only spend the profit you make. This will keep you in reasonably good financial stead. At some point, you can expand and make more planters, but this is reasonably enough to keep you going through the game on its own. At each planet, there are crops like the soybeans, for instance the beans on the desert planet, that you can use as their replacement, so when you arrive at a new planet, you can farm those instead.

The two grids of 3x7 planting areas makes sense, because you can stand in the middle of the lane between them, and water the grid one at a time. As soon as the watering backpack disappears, you can click again to start watering the next one. You don’t need to be immediately adjacent to a square to water it in this game, so you can click on the first square to water, then move the cursor while the watering is happening, and as soon as the backpack disappears, click again to water in the most efficient manner possible. (disregard this if playing with a controller though) When you upgrade the watering backpack, then you can water three squares at a time, so you can stand in the lane and water the grid efficiently. Later on, you’ll water 6 in a straight line, which you can also easily accomplish from the side or bottom of the grid. For harvesting, you can stand in the middle and harvest, then walk around to collect any crops that didn’t immediately get collected.

Basic strategy: Mining/shooting/clearing exploration areas

Once you have your farming operation set up, you want to focus on getting through the exploration areas. The first two tools to prioritize upgrading are the blaster and shovel. The upgraded blaster can blast a boulder with one hit on the first planet, which speeds up mining a lot, and the upgraded shovel can dig two spots at once. Once you have these, and have stockpiled at least ten radishes, then you can attempt to go through five levels of the exploration area at once. Usually I wake up, water my crops, then immediately go to the exploration area on a day I’m going to attempt it. Some days you have more “luck” than others, and on these days the waypoint beacon will appear faster than others. These are good days to try to get to the next waypoint out of five, but I’ve also managed it on days that aren’t so good.

When proceeding, it usually makes sense to blast all of the enemies in an area before trying for the waypoint beacon, but sometimes it just makes sense to clear the areas around only the digging spots, and then start digging as soon as possible. On most areas, there are a lot more digging spots than boulders, and digging spots are all collected together, so statistically it makes more sense to focus on those. Just dig until you get a beacon, then immediately use it to get to the next area. It is quite rare to have to blast boulders after having dug all the digging spots to find a beacon, so don’t worry about those. Boulders will occasionally have a beacon under them though, so you can still blast boulders while your shovel is being upgraded, for instance. Still, it makes more sense to grind the first level while some part of your equipment is being upgraded. The reward for making it to the end of the exploration area is 100 scrap metal, which is not a very useful reward in context, but the rewards at the end of the exploration areas of other planets are more useful. You also complete a mission, however, which has its own benefits.

A brief word on shooting enemies. The writer played most on his laptop for this game, and one tricky aspect is you can generally only shoot in the direction of your cursor (at least with the keyboard and mouse setup). So how I would generally accomplish this is to move to one side of the map, and move the cursor in the direction I want to shoot (but not on any menu options, since the cursor won’t shoot if you do this!). Then, by clicking the mouse button, I would shoot in the desired direction. This is very important, as it is easy to die by getting injured by enemies. You don’t lose any items by dying, however you lose your progress in the exploration area, and the next day you have less stamina, so it doesn’t make sense to try again that day.

Basic strategy: Preparing for Interstellar Travel

When clearing garbage on the captain’s and the exterior deck in the early game, you pick up a lot of “dark matter” which doesn’t appear to have any use at first. This can be sold for a reasonable number of credits in the early game, and since they are so plentiful throughout, there probably isn’t a reason to not do that. However, at some point you’ll have to build a dark matter fuel refiner and produce dark matter fuel to be able to go from planet to planet. Once this happens, it’s probably best not to sell your dark matter any longer, and to be constantly converting it into fuel. A good number of dark matter reactors is 2, and it makes sense once you have those to be constantly feeding any dark matter you collect into them, and saving the dark matter fuel. Once you have 10 or more, then put them into the hopper in the engine room level, since that’s enough to be able to fly you to another planet. Later in the game a more efficient reactor becomes available, but that isn’t really necessary to finish the game.

Basic strategy: Planning your day/basic stamina management

Your stamina is quickly depleted, and if you push through too much, you’ll pass out and lose the rest of the day, so it’s not a good idea to do that. It’s not a good idea to eat radishes or buy food items unless you’re going to use them to get through the exploration areas, so the best is either to finish the day doing things that don’t require stamina, or go to sleep. There’s no penalty for going to sleep too early, so don’t be afraid to do this to be efficient. The main things that you can do without stamina are talking to the other crew members, collecting items on the ship, or using the microbe locator. To participate in dating, you need to talk to the particular crew member you have chosen and give them gifts, so at a minimum you should do that every day if you want to progress in this direction. You get captain points for talking, so you should try to talk to everyone daily if you can/feel like doing this.

Once you’ve obtained the microbe locator, you can also do this as well as or instead of talking to people. It is LKG’s answer to fishing, and at the early release it was quite frustrating. However, this activity also gives you captain points, and a small amount of extra credits. With the normal difficulty and the first microbe locator, it mostly involves walking around and not finding any microbes, which is a bit annoying. You can also scan practically all of an area and not find any, which is also annoying. Once you do find one, with the first locator and the standard difficulty, the game is almost unwinnable at the standard difficulty, so it doesn’t make sense to spend any time trying to do this until you have the best locator. Finding microbes isn’t an essential part of the first four main missions though, so you don’t need to focus on it at first. If you’ve tried it and you just find it too frustrating, then turn the mini game off in the menu.

There is only one way to increase your stamina, and that is through a life spark. It can only be bought on friendship day, or after clearing an exploration area (for the blue planet or the white planet cluster), so take advantage of those opportunities to increase your stamina.

Walkthrough Part 1: The Grey Planet

As mentioned in other areas of the guide, during this first episode the most important is getting your economy on a solid footing, and clearing the exploration area. The first tools to upgrade are the blaster and the shovel, then you can leisurely upgrade the others.

Once this is done and you’re ready to move on, there’s a large pile of boulders to the left of the relic area. Blast all of these boulders and enter the cave there, and you will find an alien that is in need of help. To help him, you’ll need to grow some food, so it’s helpful that you have an efficient farm in operation. Grow these food, buy the food item that needs to be bought, give them to him, and he’ll give you the first relic piece. This will give you the coordinates to the next planet. You’ll have to have a meeting and learn how to process dark matter fuel before you can go, however.

Before flying to the next planet, it’s a good idea to stockpile aluminum ore, as the primary mission of the next area requires a lot of it, but it’s a lot harder to harvest it there than the grey planet (you need at least 60 extra ore for the primary mission). It’s also a good idea to build at least two furnaces (which require stone and scrap metal), since you’ll need those at the next planet.

Walkthrough Part 2: The Blue Reef Planet

Once on the blue planet, proceed to the king looking person, and you will get the next mission. The mission here is to grow the following:

10 ginger plants
14 vitamins (apparently reduced in an update)

To produce the vitamins, you need to make a vitamin machine, which requires 12 aluminum blocks (and each aluminum block requires 5 aluminum ore to make). You’ll also need copper, which requires copper ore, so you’ll need to work on the exploration area to get this. At first it makes sense just to grind the first level again though, as there are less enemies there than there are on later levels, so you waste less energy fighting them. Once you get the required copper and aluminum, you can buy the vitamin machine. Hopefully you’ve accumulated a fair bit of minerals (and haven’t been selling them!) by this point, so you can use the minerals to make vitamins. Once you’ve made the 14 vitamins, vitamins also make a good free replacement for radishes when clearing the exploration areas, so save all of the extra ones you make and use them for exploration. As soon as you get 5 more minerals, keep popping them in the vitamin machine to keep getting free food. Once you’ve gotten the next relic piece, proceed back to the Grey planet, insert the relic piece in the relic, then travel to the Desert planet. No need to stockpile anything before leaving here, but it may be a good idea to have a lot of scrap steel and copper on hand, as well as at least 3 pink shells for one mission. Later there will also be a premium on copper and copper ore, so that’s not a bad idea to stockpile. Once you’ve done this, have completed the main mission and cleared the exploration area, you can leave. The reward for clearing the exploration area is an item that gives you more stamina, so in this case it is well worth it.

Walkthrough Part 3: The Desert Planet

Once you get to the Desert planet, you meet Hermy the crab, and find your mission there is to make the following:

25 scrap steel cubes
12 silver
10 burlap fabric

The most time consuming part of this by far is growing the jute and making the fabric, so plant some jute and build up the following (unless you have it stockpiled) to make a fabric machine:

50 scrap metal
6 copper
4 silver

If possible, build two as that speeds up production a lot. Keep grinding the first level to get all you need as before (particularly scrap metal and silver), and before attempting to clear the exploration area. It’s also a good idea to upgrade your blaster and shovel before attempting to clear this exploration area, since you need the upgraded blaster/charged shot to clear more than one grass spot with one shot, which makes it a lot easier to defeat enemies here. Once you complete the main mission and clear the main area, it may be a good idea to stockpile some copper ore, since it won’t be available at the next planet, and you need it for various missions and to assemble machines, After that, you can head to the grey planet again. Once there, it may be a good idea to stockpile some aluminum ore, since you can’t get any at the next planet, and it is necessary to produce some machines. Some machines require ore to make, and some require the refined metal, so don’t refine the ore until you need it for some purpose, just in case. Once you’ve finished the mission, stockpiled what you need to, and cleared the exploration area, on to the grey planet, and then to the next planet cluster.

Walkthrough Part 4: The Snow Cluster

The main mission at this planet is to grow crops and bake blueberry muffins, so the first order of business is to upgrade your quarters if you haven’t already. The exact number of items required is:

8 squash,
1 bouquet of flowers
4 blueberry muffins
10 cotton fabric

The most time consuming part is the fabric, so get started on growing at least 10 cotton and processing them as soon as you can. Make sure to also plant 6-8 squash (you often get more than one, so you don’t need 8 to get 8), and at least 4 blueberries. Then focus on upgrading your quarters. When you have the extra money, buy 4 sugar and 4 flour, as you’ll need them for the muffins. Then buy the bouquet of flowers from the plaza store. Once everything is produced, give them to the snow person, and you can head back to the grey planet and get the next coordinates. As mentioned, it’s a good idea to stockpile aluminum ore while you’re there as you may need it to produce machines. Its good to have some stockpile extra silver ore, as you’re unable to get it at the next planet, and you need it for some upgrades.

Walkthrough Part 5: Lava Lakes Planet

Once you arrive here, you immediately talk to a group of pirates. They ask for:

8 irradiated peppers
2 irradiated pineapple
12 titanium
3 nanobots
5 Neptunian ale

The easiest here is the 5 Neptunian ale. It can be purchased from Chip at the canteen on the Plaza level. If you talk to Lin, she explains how to make outer space planters. The hard part for these is getting carbon nano tubes. If you ever found any graphite on your journey here, it’s a good idea to hold onto it, since you need it for the outer space planters. You also need to make a nano tube making machine, which requires:

10 scrap metal blocks
10 gold
10 recycled parts
4 electro plasma

Electro plasma is another item it’s good to not sell any of, since it’s relatively rare, and you need it for building. For graphite, the easiest is to buy it from the robot store that appears on Saturdays. If you don’t have enough money, there is one xeno that makes graphite, so it’s good if you can somehow get one of those as soon as possible. Another way to get it is to grind the first level of the Lava Lakes planet exploration. It is a rare drop from the stone monsters here, which appear on the first level about 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time, you can collect the mushrooms and lava flowers, and any gold/titanium ore nodes you encounter. There may be other ways to get it, but I’m not aware of them. Titanium is relatively straight forward. The hardest of the items is the nanobots, which you have to obtain using the microbe (fishing) mini game. Given this, and particularly if you’re trying the game with the normal microbe mode, it makes sense to upgrade your microbe detector to the highest level before even attempting this. On the plus side though, with the fully upgraded detector, it is the easiest it will ever be. The nanobots are of the green variety, and with the upgraded detector, you have a wider field of view, and you know what variety the nanobots in the area are going to be. This helps to cut down on the randomness, and makes it slightly easier to get what you’re looking for. Using the fully upgraded detector on normal mode, I managed to get all three nanobots in 2 in-game days. Once you obtain all the required items, and give them to the pirates, they give you the last heart piece. Go back to the grey planet, insert it into the singularity, and enjoy the end of the game’s story!

Other Tips

The jetboard upgrade can be purchased from the shop on the dock level later in the game. It does marginally speed up travel in the ship, so is recommended.

As mentioned, later in the game, a store bot can be unlocked by going to the right side dock level on a Saturday. It is well worth doing this, because copper can be bought there at a reasonable price, and copper is needed for a lot of upgrades, and it becomes harder to get later in the game. Aside from stockpiling copper ore at the Blue Reef and Desert planet, this is the only other way to get copper in the game. As also mentioned, this is the most reasonable way to obtain and stockpile graphite.

You don’t need to trick out your captain’s deck very much to complete the game, and it is even not necessary to build a lot of outer space planters. The basic recommended setup needed to finish the game is:

Two carbon converters
Two fabric spinners
Two dark matter fuel refiners
Two asteroid crushers
8 furnaces

A xeno habitat is a useful way to get some items, and can help boost your economy later in the game, but it is dependent on a lot of plant matter, which should be stockpiled before you start. If you get a duplicate xeno (two of the same type), then sell one and keep a stock of random xeno eggs to try to get all four of a different type (to maximize the variety of useful resources you get from them). If you want to hatch the xenos as fast as possible, check on the egg that is being incubated daily. As soon as you see it is cracked, examine it so it hatches immediately.

[Larason2]

Thanks, glad it helped!

[Missrebeccab]

Thank you for the guide - don't want it to go unappreciated how awesome this is! Really helped me grasp what I needed to progress with less problems then I probably would have had if left to my own device!