Astroneer is taking PC and Xbox One owners by storm this month, following its Steam Early Access and Xbox One Game Preview debuts, but the new exploration-survival game from System Era Softworks doesn’t exactly have the world’s best (or any) tutorials in its current incarnation. The game isn’t especially difficult, particularly once you get your bearings, but it can be kind of tough to make heads or tails of Astroneer without a nudge in the right direction. So consider this a tiny, helpful push from someone who's already spent a few hours with the game.
What To Do
We suggest building a base before trying to explore too heavily. Spending a few hours on your starter planet is probably a good idea, too; provided there seems to be suitable quantities of resources and new research materials. That said, the importance of resource access diminishes over time. All you really need to hunt down manually is:
Eight compound
Six resin
Two copper
Two aluminum
The easiest way to find copper and aluminum is by checking wreckage and the white spheres that pop open to reveal loot.
With the listed ingredients, you have everything needed to build and power a fuel condenser and a trade platform. It’s pretty easy to trade for any/everything else you need to expand your base from there. Just remember to expand off your existing branch because once you’ve got four chains active, you can’t continue expanding the base (more on that later). Next we suggest collecting the materials to build and power a research lab and a vehicle bay . Maybe even a printer for good measure. Here’s what you’ll need for each:
Research Lab (w/ Solar)
Six compound
Three resin (Two to complete an existing node)
Vehicle Bay
Four compound
Three resin
Two aluminum
Printer
Four compound
Three resin
Two copper
From this point, you should be able to do just about anything you want. It’ll be easy to trade for the supplies you need to build a shuttle in your vehicle bay, enabling offworld travel, or to build a rover that will expedite exploration of your starter planet. Players will also find other vehicle blueprints during their travels. The research lab lets you discover new blueprints, when you find unidentified items, and the printer allows for the creation of improved power supplies, oxygen tanks and a variety of other items. It’s functionality can also be expanded via the research lab. Just drag the unidentified items on your starter planet back to your base and place them in the lab.
Crafting
To craft new items, open your inventory and use the left/right arrows at the bottom of your backpack to choose the item you'd like to build. Once you've found your selection, click the glowing, lowercase “i” between the required resource and the item you're building. The first two solar arrays you build will be automatically added to your backpack but can be removed and place on other objects if you'd prefer to use them elsewhere.
Tethering
Tethers are both the savior and bane of the Astroneer community. They’re cheap to produce -- with a single compound unit yielding ten poles -- and the glowing lines gives explorers the oxygen and power they need to continue forward unabated. But increased tether counts also seem to be one of the biggest causes of poor CPU performance. For this reason, we suggest trying to minimize the amount of tethers you place on any one planet. Try to place them as far apart as possible, create paths that provide easy access to multiple resource nodes (when possible) and remember that it’s okay to occasionally collect something that’s not within range of your current tethers. Just make sure you start heading back to safety once you get the notification that your oxygen level hit 50 percent.
Other Tips
Shift + Left Mouse Button puts items to put them directly into your bag
Alt + LMB places soil (with your terrain gun equipped) instead of removing it
Click on the spot where you'd deposit resources, when using your facilities to build items, to automatically fill them
If you see a sandstorm on the horizon, and you’re far away from your base, dig a small shelter into the earth. Make sure there’s an area to the left or right of the door for you to duck into.
Only your most recent dead body can be looted
All of your base stations need a direct source of power, whether it’s solar arrays, a charged battery, generators, etc.
Use the rover to transport large items faster
Sandstorms don’t power wind vanes or wind turbines
Trade Hubs and Fuel Condensers make a highly exploitable combination
One unit of fuel can be traded for two compound, organic material or resin
One unit of fuel can be traded for one laterite or malachite
Two units of fuel can be traded for aluminum, copper or lithium
Four units of fuel can be traded for one coal
Fuel Condensers with four solar arrays will generate one fuel every few minutes.
Some of the salvage you find can be used
The large solar panels you find scattered throughout the environment can be dragged back to your base and attached to the power grid
Make sure your habitat isn’t attached to your rover when you close the game
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Astroneer is currently available in Steam Early Access and the Xbox One Game Preview program.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Astroneer news throughout what’s left of 2016 and however long ___ supports Astroneer in the years ahead.
