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This guide aims to provide new players and anyone struggling with a simple strategy on how to survive. It is tailored for the mode you start with (voyager) where you have 60 seconds to scavenge materials, a crew and board the escape shuttle before the ship explodes.
Choose Your Captain
There are 5 characters to choose from all with different perks and attributes. Throughout the game you will need to complete various events and your success in each event depends on your captains attributes.
I suggest reading some character guides for more detail of each character’s perks/attributes but as this guide is aimed at beginners I’m only going to talk about the two captains I feel are the easiest to survive with – Emmet and Baby. If it’s your first playthrough these will be your only options anyway.
Emmet is extremely intelligent while Baby is extremely strong. Both are very useful for most of the events mentioned and I would say Emmet is the best captain – his intelligence will get you out of a lot of situations especially in end game. For the best chance of survival I recommend Emmet as your captain.
Scavenge & Assemble Your Crew!
This part is important and if it’s your first time playing you will automatically start here. It’s also a lot easier on your first playthrough because the game lets you pick up a number of important items before the 60 second countdown starts. Either way you will need to decide who you want to bring as your crew, noting that the more people you bring the more difficult it will be. Personally I have found only taking one member of crew to be the best way of survival.
Who to take I hear you ask? Well if you chose Emmet as your captain then I highly recommend taking Baby as your only crew member. If you chose Baby as your captain then take Emmet. Having someone strong and someone intelligent without too many mouths to feed is the easiest way to survive.
While looking for Emmet/Baby you will be frantically picking up soup and other useful resources to help you survive your voyage. Obviously you want to pick up as much as possible before the time runs out and it’s good to have a mix of items, however, one item I recommend finding straight away is the med kit as it takes the longest to craft. It’s also worth noting that the bags of luggage contain resources used for crafting items – something I didn’t realise straight away. The communicator is also very useful early game but if you don’t find it you will be able to craft one easily.
If you didn’t get the crew or items you wanted you can press escape and replay the 60 seconds but I try not to do this unless I get really bad rng. If I get the member of crew I want, about 10 cans of soup and a mix of items then I’m happy.
Bon Voyage!
Clinging to your cans of soup and random supplies, you leap into the escape shuttle with only seconds before the ship explodes… You made it! Congratulations.
You are now floating in the abyss of space while getting to know your new ship and crew. The next few days are somewhat scripted to get you used to everything and I strongly suggest crafting some duct tape and a communicator if you didn’t manage to find one on the ship. The communicator will help you find planets to land on where you can get resources to craft items. You may even end up living happily ever after on a planet so be sure to craft a communicator – I aim to do this by Day 10.
Day 10 is also the first day you should have to feed your crew. Usually my crew start starving on day 9 but provided they are otherwise healthy, they will survive until day 10 which is when I feed them. After this I only feed my crew whenever they get starving which on average is about every 3 days.
If you follow the guide to this point you should quite easily get to Day 11 in full health, with at least 7 cans of soup, a good mix of items and already be on your way to a planet using the communicator you found/crafted earlier.
From this point on the game is a combination of resource management, decision making and rng. Having a good mix of items from the start will help a lot with the events so don’t just collect soup at the start. Soup can be crafted easily so I always try to have as many items as possible. I will only recycle items if I get down to my last 2 cans of soup.
Expeditions
Once landed on a new planet you should send your crew mate out on an expedition as soon as possible by clicking on the space suit. Make sure they are in good health before you send them out and give them a can of soup to take with them. It may also be worth giving them a mask or armor to take with them depending on what hazards are in the area. So far I’ve had pretty good luck sending out a healthy crew member with just one can of soup. The area you send them is up to you – choose wisely depending on the resources you need now and what you think you will need in the upcoming days.
When your crew mate returns from the expedition, get them healthy and send them back out again. Use the resources they gathered to craft more items. What I found key is not to focus on only crafting soup – the more items you have the better chance you have of surviving events and if you’re continuously sending your crew mate out on expeditions then you should really only need one or two cans of soup surplus. There is no point having 10 cans of soup and no items, you will perish.
Events and Good Endings
By now you should have completed a couple of successful expeditions and it will be Day 20 or 30+. You will be constantly crafting and recycling items to try and have the best spread of resources possible. You may want to carry out some more expeditions but to my understanding the only way you will get to an ending is through the events – and there are quite a lot of them.
How you react to these events can have a ripple effect i.e. if you help someone or something then they may help you later down the line. Or they may screw you over. All I will say is some of these events are there for a reason – as a means to an end. If a particular event keeps popping up but you don’t have the right item, craft it as soon as possible. This is usually a sign that the game is trying to give you an ending. There are potential bad endings too which is another reason to keep a variety of items *cough cough gun cough cough*….
These events provide an exciting unknown for the player and are essentially a story-line to your playthrough. How you respond to these events is a big part of the fun so I don’t want to ruin them for you. All I will say is if you have a chance to help someone or something, it is usually wise to do so as they are likely to return the favour.
Summary
So to summarise what I think is the easiest way to survive; pick Emmet and Baby, get a good mix of resources, craft a phone, only feed your crew when they are starving, carry out expeditions, make wise choices with events and live happily ever after…
Good luck my fellow cosmonauts!