Cartographers, How's It Going?
Cartographers, How's It Going?
I started my save within an hour of the expedition going live. And spawned in a storm, with multiple hostile critters. I died twice in two minutes, deleted the cursed save, and tried again. Did better, but fell into a cave system killing critters (with a mining laser), and got lost… before I could build the Terrain Manipulator. After 20 minutes, I deleted the cursed save, and started again. Third time's the charm! Much better start, even grabbed some Storm Crystals for later right at the start.
Needed to get some work done, but I've gotten a couple of hours in since yesterday, steady progress, having fun stumbling around, but I can see I'm going to get stuck looking for Crystal Sulphide. I don't think I'm anywhere near the ocean, although I see 3 underwater creatures on this world so there must be some somewhere. I've got the Minotaur built, but that doesn't seem the best way to search for ocean, it's a little slow. If only I had a spaceship… oh wait, that's what the Crystal Sulphide's for.
Also, got killed again, by one of those evil teddy bears that jumped me while I was killing a couple of the crystal spider dudes. Was close to my base, but still! Embarrassing.
Had a couple of decent runs so far! It’s definitely one of those expeditions where it’s better to do objectives out of order.
When you use a signal booster or a waypoint, it’ll do a zoom out animation, and that’s a good time to watch for nearby water. The glowing crystals you mine from floating minerals and buried mineral formations also have a chance to drop crystal sulphide. Apparently you can also select armoured clams from the guide and get a fix on one, but I’ve never tried that one myself.
Also, as soon as you get base building supplies, consider investing 10 salvaged technology on a Nutrition Processor. You can make critter pellets for just 1 carbon each and distract the hostile creatures.
I haven't seen any water in water in any of the overhead shots from my signal booster or similar. My one base is pretty built out, and I've just started off in my Minotaur. I've never been a fan of the vehicles before, but I'm definitely coming around. I suspect they've improved vehicle mechanics since I last tried a Minotaur.
I understand you can use the globe from the "Discoveries" tab to tell where you are in relation to large bodies of water, and so I'm making my way towards what looks like a sea on the scale of the Mediterranean, which still looks pretty far. The Minotaur makes much better time than I feared, and I've just kept popping my signal booster every so often.
Will be busy holiday prepping most of the day, but I'm leaving it running and getting a little bit in here and there. Maybe tonight I'll actually get a long session in.
I did well to start, only died once before I got a decent set up going.
That being said, the hardest task I had was the Larval Cores. I've never had such a difficult time finding abandoned settlements before...
Luck of the draw I suppose, I've found 3 abandoned settlements just travelling by land. Since I actually looked ahead for a change, I got a bunch of larval cores already. Was hung up on Crystal Sulphide probably for the longest time.
Got the whole thing done in a single six hour session. There was an abandoned base not far from spawn, for me; the thing that took longest was finding a mountain tall enough, turned out I just needed to fly around the starting planet until the terrain naturally rose high enough. Just had to keep an eye on the altimeter the quest put on the screen.
Getting close to finishing it. With playing at work (thanks Steam Deck!) and around the house while holiday chaos descends, I'm mostly just doing little chunks. Lots of sitting idle in my base while refiners whir and I do some chores around the house.
Having said that, even with my incredibly inefficient play style, the two false starts, and an hour hike to water (in the Minotaur even), I think this should be a pretty doable expedition for those short on time. I think it's longer than the Utopia and Singularity Redux expeditions too.
I hesitate to say relaxed, with the cocaine bears and spiky dudes though, on top of relentless fire storms.