IS-0091 "Leyak" Preparation Guide

Preparation for activating the Leyak in your game.

Introduction

First, this guide was written for Early Access version 0.8.1. There will be moderate spoilers for the mid and late game (with respect to Early Access content of course), although no more information will be given than necessary to explain where to find this entity, how it works, and what you can craft to help deal with it. The video may contain some additional spoilers.

Please check out the game's official Wiki for other information not covered in this guide. I'm not going over lore, or too much about what to do when you've already got your X-Ray Towers set up. This guide is primarily focused on preparation for triggering the Leyak and how to get towers up ASAP.

Abiotic Factor Wiki[abioticfactor.wiki.gg]

As of writing, there is no legitimate way to permanently disable the Leyak in the end-game (mid-game at this point?), although it's quite possibly (even likely) planned in a future update. At that time, this guide may become obsolete and I'll either remove it or I may decide to keep updating to stay accurate with the game. I'll update the first line of the guide with details on that when/if the time comes.

The Leyak is a pretty hot topic in the community right now. Yes, this is complete overkill, yes the Leyak isn't too difficult to deal with in the first place, but... who cares? Basically, I love this game, had some thoughts to share, felt like writing about it and doing a bit of speedrunning, and thus, this guide create. Let's go.

Point-of-No-Return Trigger and Base Prep

After completing the Manufacturing Sector and activating the Synchrotron, you'll have a milestone to "Find a way through Labs Sector". The Leyak will be permanently activated on your map after reaching a certain point soon after.

Beneath the Synchrotron, after seeing the "Cascade Laboratories" area title appear on screen, you'll see/hear two scientists, Janet and Abe, talking and fiddling around with an Electro-Pest. The "point of no return" is shortly after this. Specifically, walking into this exact room in XR Containment will activate the Leyak.


Once you've crossed the threshold drawn in the screenshot above, the Leyak will be permanently active on your map and there is no way to disable it (as of early access version 0.8.1). The first time you cross this boundary, the Leyak's first spawn will randomly occur during the next 15 minutes - I've had it spawn as soon as 30 seconds after entering this room. After the first spawn, it will continue to spawn regularly every 15 minutes, nearly exactly (that is, 15 minutes in real-life, not in-game time; see the 15 Minutes section below for more details).

When spawning, the Leyak will spawn in your vicinity, usually out of line-of-sight, often behind you and around a corner. It will immediately begin moving slowly toward you. When it comes close enough to you, if you look at it (i.e. it is in your field of view, unobstructed by glass or other obstacles), it will freeze in place and then despawn after 3 to 5 seconds, and then the 15 minute timer will reset. If you get too close, it will "aggro", where it starts flailing its tentacles, making disturbing cries, and moves a little faster - you can then only despawn it by running far enough away. It is able to open doors, and although it tends to move along the ground and get obstructed by walls, it does seem to have some capability of travelling through walls when it is behind the player and out of line-of-sight, although it's not totally clear. I have been ambushed in my bed with my back against the wall before with no other entrances into the room.

If you wish, you can prepare yourself, your base, and plan your next steps to make life with your new roommate safer. Consider postponing progression into this room and further into the game until you are ready. Farm items, build, and clear out any optional areas that you had skipped. Of course, you can still do this after the Leyak is activated, but if you're reading this guide you're likely the type to be cautious and overly prepared anyways, so let's entertain that mindset and dive deeper.

X-Ray Tower

The most important tool for handling the Leyak is the X-Ray Tower. You must learn this crafting recipe by inspecting the (non-functional) X-Ray Tower in the Leyak's original containment chamber in XR Containment where it is initially triggered. The crafting recipe requires the following:

• 1 Projection Matrix: You won't have this recipe when activating the Leyak. The recipe requires 1 Anteverse Gem, 1 Optic Lens, and 4 Staplers each. It is unlocked after you loot an Anteverse Gem, which are found deeper in the Labs Sector in the Adjustment Wing. Anteverse Gems are found in a few breakable containers, and also from a machine which you can trade Anteverse Wheat for.
  
• 1 Refined Carbon: This is a raw material also only available in the Adjustment Wing. They are found in similar breakable containers, and also from a machine which you can trade Silver Scrap for.
  
• 1 Lab Burner: You also won't have this recipe to start, and it is unlocked when looting your first Refined Carbon. It requires 1 Refined Carbon, 1 Reinforced Hose, 1 Steel Pipe, 1 Metal Scrap.
  
• 1 Keyboard: It's a keyboard.

So, the total raw materials required for each X-Ray Turret are:

• 1 Anteverse Gem (trade Anteverse Wheat via machine in the Labs)
  
• 2 Refined Carbon (trade Silver Scrap via machine in the Labs)
  
• 1 Optic Lens (trade 1 Reinforced Hose at Blacksmith)
  
• 1 Reinforced Hose (crafted from Steel Cables)
  
• 4 Staplers (farm in Flathill, or found throughout the Office Sector)
  
• 1 Keyboard
  
• 1 Metal Pipe
  
• 1 Metal Scrap

You may want to prepare some multiple of the above list of items for the number of X-Ray Towers you plan to make. You should stash these items in containers near your Crafting Bench, which should have the Item Transporter upgrade, so you can return from the Labs with your recently looted Anteverse Gems and Refined Carbon and immediately begin crafting Projection Matrices, Lab Burners, and finally your X-Ray Towers. Furthermore, you might also want to prepare the exact locations and power setups for your X-Ray Towers beforehand, so that you don't fumble around in indecision with basebuilding before our new friend shows up. Check out some other guides on battery mechanics to ensure the X-Ray Towers remain powered at all times (2 makeshift batteries in series for each tower will do the trick, without getting into more details).

Note that the orientation of the X-Ray Towers doesn't matter - when the Leyak is in range, the tower will immediately target it and freeze it in place before despawning it a few seconds later. It will also target it through walls, so don't worry about something obstructing your turret. A single turret near your crafting bench and bed should be plenty, giving you one safe spot to idle at. I'll be going for 4 total turrets to start with - 2 for placing at two sides of my main base, 1 for a remote base to set up in the Lab Sector itself for future runs, and 1 for crafting an X-Ray Lamp later.


Please take note in the screenshot above the range that an X-Ray Tower has, and plan your own build's spacing accordingly. Also note that even if you get close enough to aggro the Leyak, it will not move if it is currently being zapped by a tower - although it can still damage you if you're standing inside it.

Finally, zapping a Leyak with an X-Ray Tower will cause it to drop a Leyak Essence. You will need at least 4 of these in total to proceed in the game (one can be found for free in the Leyak's original chamber in XR Containment), and you may want to save one extra for crafting an X-Ray Lamp later. These are highly radioactive, too, so stash them in your fridge or some container not too close to your Crafting Bench.

X-Ray Tower Speedrun

OCD checklist for the overly-prepared before we begin

• You've picked out the spot(s) to build your X-Ray Tower at your base(s) and have batteries hooked up and ready.
  
• You've got your Staplers, Reinforced Hoses, Optic Lenses, and other items from the above list farmed and in containers near your Crafting Bench which has the Item Transporter upgrade.
  
• In your inventory, you've got a bunch of Silver Scrap from the Train Portal World, and a bunch of Anteverse Wheat from the Mines ready to trade for the last crafting ingredients.
  
• You've reduced your equip load to below 75% so that you can sprint faster.
  
• You've emptied your inventory of everything unnecessary, as trading for these items will add a lot of weight.
  
• You've repaired and recharged everything.
  
• You're well rested, fed, not thirsty, and bowels emptied. (Copacetic buff reduces stamina consumption by 10%)
  
• Wait until it's 6:00am.
  
• From just outside of the XR Containment area trigger, exit game, and make a backup of your map/save file at: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\AbioticFactor\Saved\SaveGames\<some number>\Worlds\<world name>

The Run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMvdffVG25c

Route Overview

• Enter XR Containment and inspect the X-Ray Tower for the crafting recipe.
  
• Run through Vehicle Lot 7.
  
• Run through the Lobby to the Containment Blocks.
  
• Ride the elevator up 2 floors.
  
• Enter the Adjustment Wing.
  
• Run to the Silver Scrap -> Refined Carbon machine.
  
• Run to the Anteverse Wheat -> Anteverse Gem machine.
  
  • There's a faster route here than the one in the video, skipping the first elevator; after trading for Refined Carbon, take the door in the back of the Cellular Lab and climb up the ladder, which is a shortcut to the Anteverse Gem machine room.
• Unlock the Adjustment Wing to Wildlife Pens garage door and then the Wildlife Pens to Office Sector garage door shortcuts OR swap valuables to your hotbar and death warp.
  
• Build x Projection Matrices, x Lab Burners, then finally x X-Ray Turrets, place them and connect the batteries.

Keep in mind that your speed will vary based on your equip load and Sprinting level. I am at <50% equip load and Sprinting Lv9 in the video. This certainly may not be the fastest route or setup for this, but it's quite easy and safe.

The only tricky part is navigating inside the Adjustment Wing, since several doors are locked, and you'll have to make it by multiple Exors, Order, and Peccary. The Leylak may spawn, but likely will despawn without you knowing since you'll just fly past it.

If you really want to, you can move your Anteverse Gems and Refined Carbon onto your hotbar. Since you keep your equipped items and hotbar items after death, you can die and respawn back at your base to instantly begin making your turrets, going back to recover your corpse later. However, I recommend using the opportunity to open the Office Sector shortcut from Wildlife Pens if you can, as seen in the video.

Some other ideas I had after making the video for more unnecessary advantages:

• Get the Sugar High buff from drinking a Rootbear Float or eating Sugary Slop (further stamina reduction)
  
• Get the Steam Powered buff from recently completing The Train portal world (faster movement speed)

15 Minute Rule

The community consensus is that the Leyak spawns fairly consistently every 15 minutes. In multiplayer, it will only be visible to and stalk one person at a time each time it spawns, with the target chosen randomly and indiscriminately each 15 minute interval - thus, depending on the number of players, it may be a much longer period of time in between sightings for each person. In single player, however, the interval is still 15 minutes, and with only you as the target, sightings will be quite frequent and consistent.

Because of this consistency, after encountering the Leyak and witnessing it despawn, you have a 15 minute grace period of relative safety that you can use to let your guard down and explore and take care of business.

To assist with this, it can be handy to enable the Steam Overlay's stopwatch to keep track of the respawn period. When the 15 minutes have nearly elapsed, you can move to the safety of an X-Ray Turret, get away from other enemies, position yourself into an open area, or just start looking over your shoulder more frequently until you're able to despawn the Leyak again and restart the timer.

The default shortcut is Shift+Tab to open the Steam Overlay. Click the Timer button on the bottom and set it to 00:15:00. I also recommend clicking the Pin icon in the top-right of the timer window to keep it on screen while you're playing.

When you see and despawn the Leyak, reset the timer. If the timer elapses and you don't see it after a minute or two, you may have accidentally despawned it by moving too far away or by having it in your field-of-view for too long - restart the timer just in case and keep your eyes peeled for another minute. Accidental despawns and losing track of the timer like this are basically the only way I get jumped by this guy now, and it's still quite rare. You'll be fine!

X-Ray Lamp

You will obtain this recipe a bit later. After clearing out some of the cell blocks, completing the next portal world will drop you right in front of the receptacle for inserting the 4 Leyak Essences you've been saving, as well as an "X-Ray Shield Emitter" terminal that you can interact with to learn the recipe.

Crafting ingredients:

• 1 X-Ray Tower
  
• 1 Leyak Essence
  
• 2 Jailbroken CPU: Guaranteed drop from Containment Robot, one found in the Lab's Lobby area and one found near the giant containment door in the Containment Block at the top of the huge ramp. You can very easily and quickly kill these enemies with the Electro-Thrower. Place a couple of Shock Traps to make it even easier.

To be honest, the X-Ray Lamp isn't terribly useful if you're able to collect enough Leyak Essences from your towers at base. Since recent updates allow you to pretty quickly despawn the Leyak just by looking at it, the X-Ray Lamp isn't much faster, so if you don't need the essences, you don't really need the lamp. Although, the X-Ray Lamp also doubles as a powerful flashlight with a very long charge, which, after dealing with the Leyak long enough, it serves a better purpose as such.

Thanks for reading!

[Menace Rat]

thing is scary and dangerous but after a while it gets pretty easy to deal with, thanks for the guide while i got used to it

[Brilpoetsdoekje]

fuuuuuuuu I activated it without realising lol, I wanted to prevent spoilers so I avoided guides, came here too late, rip! Wasn’t really done exploring manufacturing but oh well. Thanks for the writeup, since I’m too late anyway I’ll fav it for later

[Monkey with some Soup]

Actual Amazing Guide, I didn't know the turrets can beam them through walls. This is gonna help a lot. Thank you and keep up the good work.

[Nyedred]

Great guide! Only thing I'd add is to make sure to pay attention to the noises it makes, as especially in single player you can usually hear its short 'sigh' noises as it's approaching to let you know to pay attention. They're much harder to hear in multiplayer when chatting with teammates constantly, obviously. But 9/10 times you can hear it coming if you've got a headset on and no other noises distracting you.

Not a huge horror fan myself and this guy torpedo'd my motivation to keep playing my singleplayer until I got accustomed to him on a multiplayer save with a friend.

[Crow]

I appreciate the effort put into this very detailed guide. Great work! :)