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Early game[]
Tips[]
In the beginning of the game you have only a few real goals, get Threshers and Planters, get Water Wheels and get Assemblers MKII. The first two allow the generation of infinite fuel in the form of either Kindlevine Stems or Biobrick, the Water Wheel provides infinite power without the need to wind the Crank Generator and the Assembler MKII provides the an output efficiency boost, as it doubles the output compared to the Assembler. All these can be obtained by level 4.
This means that the first goal is to get to level 4 as quickly as possible. Upon awakening from cryogenic suspension, you should stop at the window looking out over the semi-derelict Smelting factory. Bring up the map and notice that there is a curving path from the factory around to the next area. After getting the Standard Pickaxe and getting to PT Lima you can turn left and head into the mushroom coated cavern. If you look at the map you should be able to find the thinnest part of the wall between the cavern and the factory (it is behind two Kindlevine (Item) plants). A few hits with the Standard Pickaxe will open a way through to the factory. In the factory you can obtain Biobrick and Iron Ore. Take all the latter and most of the former, leaving some Biobrick to keep the production of Iron Ore going.
Return to PT Lima and activate the orange screen to begin reactivating the terminal. You will be informed by Sparks that you need to supply 10 Copper Ore and 10 Iron Ore, and you will be give the technology for Mining Drill. You have the iron so you just need to build one drill and place it on the Copper Ore vein, across the water to the right of PT Lima. You can use a few of the Biobrick to fuel the Mining Drill which saves you stripping the level of other Plantmatter.
Now you can continue in this way, building only what you have to until you have unlocked enough of the PT Lima to get Lima.T4.Electric Components, when you can build enough Research Core 380nm (Purple) to unlock the synthesis.Lima.T4.Assembler and terraforming.Lima.T4.Excavator Bit MKI. Build enough drills for the lift to bore through to level 2 (PT Victor). There are a number of items you can use your Scanner on this level and even some hidden items which can be identified as small yellow dots on the map. None are essential but you may get some reasonable things if you want to spend the time looking.
On level 2 you can use The M.O.L.E. to get to the main cavern containing PT Victor. The game leads you to do this through the river but it can be more effective to do this just around the the north side of the elevator, since this gives a more direct route and a shorter path for Conveyors later on. Round the back of the elevator you will also find lots of Filter Inserter. In the main cavern you should find some Calycite Platform 3x3 in boxes as well as fragments of Crank Generator and Assembler. With these three you can prioritise building a simple factory to make Research Core 380nm (Purple) and Excavator Bit MKI. You should also make sure that you build enough Assembler units that you never need to build anything by hand again.
If you develop the terraforming.Victor.T1.Excavator Bit MKII technology then you can enhance your factory to build these improved drills that bore 5x more distance and these should get you to level 4 quite quickly. You may choose to enhance things further with terraforming.Victor.T2.Excavator Bit MKIII but this is not essential and requires more complicated logistics.
On level 3 (Storage) you can head straight ahead from the elevator and use The M.O.L.E. to bore through to the chamber behind the loose rocks. Here you will find various useful fragments, most importantly a few Thresher, lots of Planter, one Excavator Bit MKIII, many Fast Inserter and many Container.
When you reach level 4 (Hydro) you can find Water Wheels. These can be connected to chains of Crank Generators which removes the need to worry about power until level 12. Note that one Water Wheel can drive 10 Crank Generator and so ideally you would set them out with this ratio, remembering that the Water Wheel must be located about one square above the water surface.
Having got to this point in the game you have access to the main early game machines, two useful sources of fuel, Kindlevine Extract, Shiverthorn Extract and a near limitless power supply. You can rapidly upgrade PT Lima and PT Victor and proceed to bore through to level 6 (Xray) where you will get the next production terminal and the next main raw ingredient - Atlantum Ore.
Key Technologies[]
| level | terraforming | synthesis | logistics | transportation | energy | science | construction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lima.T1 | |||||||
| Lima.T2 | |||||||
| Lima.T3 | |||||||
| Lima.T4 | Excavator Bit MKI | Assembler | Filter Inserter | Crank Generator | MassDeconstruct | ||
| Victor.T1 | Excavator Bit MKII | Crank Span | Shiverthorn Coolant | ||||
| Victor.T2 | Biobrick | Water Wheel | Replacer | Core Composer | |||
| Victor.T3 | |||||||
| Victor.T4 | Assembler MKII | ||||||
| Victor.T5 | |||||||
| Victor.T6 |
Best factory levels[]
- L2 (Victor)
- L3 (Storage)
- L4 (Hydro)