Posted April 14, 2024
Hardcore is the hardest standard setting and nearly the hardest possible. It's also one of the few settings where you can actually lose your game.
So after playing for a few hours (okay that's a lie, hundreds of hours) I wanted to share a few tips about what I learned across hardcore runs. Hopefully this helps you avoid losing games and getting through the challenge better.
-Always carry spare oxygen.
The depletion rate is set to 1.6, that's really quick. Especially early on when you're at 100 or 145 oxygen, it's easy to walk too far away and run out. That halfway mark is holy and even then you can make a mistake and lose your game. So always carry a spare bottle no matter what. At just 2 cobalt they're easy enough to craft.
Later on you can still die from lack of orientation or getting lost, such as taking a wrong turn in the aptly-named Labyrinth Canyons, so always carry extra.
-Mind the meteor crater wall. You start in the meteor crater and may need to dip in to get materials. Yes you can 'skyrim' your way up steep slopes in this game by holding down jump, but it's much slower than going down. Keep this in mind for oxygen use.
-Food is your immediate priority.
What I found is the 'hard cap' and what makes you lose games, is lack of food. You need 12000 (12 ppt) oxygen terraformation score to unlock the Food Grower, which then also has to grow a seed to 100%.
That takes time and you only have limited Spacefood starting out and from crates. It's quite possible to run out of spacefood and die, even if you're an efficient wreckfinder.
Focus on oxygen and some early heat of 500pK (to get T2 Vegetube for oxygen). Pressure is less important at the start of the game.
-Be efficient in exploring wrecks.
We don't have time for lore, we play Hardcore.
You can get more time in wrecks for your oxygen supply by being quick about. Don't look around, empty the crates and leave the crates there. Quickly click screens and close them, we'll have time to read the lore on the message screen in our base where we have oxygen, food and water.
There'll be time to stare at the insides of wrecks once we get that breathable atmosphere up and running.
-Always carry a base with you.
Extending on oxygen bottles, it's a good idea to carry a base with you, meaning one Living Compartment and a Door. You'll need to make bases to extend your range anyway, needing several just to get out the crater. Contrary to spare oxyen bases also protect from meteor storms.
For this you'll need 3 iron, 2 titanium, 1 silicon.
For the purpose of exploring, this gives you nearly unlimited range like after much deeper in the game when the atmosphere becomes breathable. Just carry your base with you and build it to get oxygen. then deconstruct and carry on.
Set up bases to extend your range first, then gather materials from around there. Gathering common resources while carrying a base is not adviseable as you'd have 8 inventory slots, or 2/3rd of the starting inventory, taken up by your needed supply (6 base, 1 oxygen, 1 water, maybe even a 9th slot for food)
-T2 Drill is really energy-inefficient
On Hardcore settings it uses 6,5 energy for 0,75 pressure. That 8.67 energy per pressure unit.
T1 drill has 6,5 energy per 1 pressure, T3 drill has 1,3 energy per 1 pressure.
In my experience it's best to skip over T2 drills altogether.
-Decide a base location path in advance
You start in the Meteor Crater. It's not a good place to build and hasn't got many resources. Think ahead where you want your base to be.
The classical location of where Starting Valley meets Central Plateau is a bit far away.
Due to ice blockages in caves the path there early game is Crater -> Zeolite cave, turn left -> Arches, turn right and go down the slope -> Sand Falls, turn left before Sulfur Fields -> Dune Desert -> Central Plateau
Alternatively the Waterfall makes a good base location as well, arguably better for Hardcore since you don't need to travel much to get there and get started building centrally. Keep in mind the wreck in Waterfall (Cinitat-II) doesn't typically contain food, which is your primary concern early game, so skip over that one. Going behind the waterfall to immediatly score an Exoskeleton T2 and Agility Boots T1 is also a bonus, while that's off the path if you elsewhere.
-Ignore the Volcano / lava biome
If you end up in lava, you lose your game. Why would we want to risk that if we can get our supplies from safer locations?
By the time we actually need Obsidian, you'll have jetpacks to fly over lava safely.
-Cluster your machines up by type
Later on you're going to want to collect your old machines and re-use the resources for improved models. That's easier if they're in 1 central location and not all over the place.
And if you're like me it may annoy you to look at the power list later on and have to scroll through a huge list because you still have 1 of every device somewhere.
-Put wind turbines / solar panels on your base
While bases protect you from health damage of meteor impacts, sometimes there is a bug where the debris phases inside the base, or lands right outside the door and blocks it. This can sometimes leave you trapped, or inconvenienced. Not what you want if you're at 25% water and need to pop out to get another bottle. Putting energy structures on top of the base increases the distance after impact the meteor has to glitch through, so it won't end up inside.
So after playing for a few hours (okay that's a lie, hundreds of hours) I wanted to share a few tips about what I learned across hardcore runs. Hopefully this helps you avoid losing games and getting through the challenge better.
-Always carry spare oxygen.
The depletion rate is set to 1.6, that's really quick. Especially early on when you're at 100 or 145 oxygen, it's easy to walk too far away and run out. That halfway mark is holy and even then you can make a mistake and lose your game. So always carry a spare bottle no matter what. At just 2 cobalt they're easy enough to craft.
Later on you can still die from lack of orientation or getting lost, such as taking a wrong turn in the aptly-named Labyrinth Canyons, so always carry extra.
-Mind the meteor crater wall. You start in the meteor crater and may need to dip in to get materials. Yes you can 'skyrim' your way up steep slopes in this game by holding down jump, but it's much slower than going down. Keep this in mind for oxygen use.
-Food is your immediate priority.
What I found is the 'hard cap' and what makes you lose games, is lack of food. You need 12000 (12 ppt) oxygen terraformation score to unlock the Food Grower, which then also has to grow a seed to 100%.
That takes time and you only have limited Spacefood starting out and from crates. It's quite possible to run out of spacefood and die, even if you're an efficient wreckfinder.
Focus on oxygen and some early heat of 500pK (to get T2 Vegetube for oxygen). Pressure is less important at the start of the game.
-Be efficient in exploring wrecks.
We don't have time for lore, we play Hardcore.
You can get more time in wrecks for your oxygen supply by being quick about. Don't look around, empty the crates and leave the crates there. Quickly click screens and close them, we'll have time to read the lore on the message screen in our base where we have oxygen, food and water.
There'll be time to stare at the insides of wrecks once we get that breathable atmosphere up and running.
-Always carry a base with you.
Extending on oxygen bottles, it's a good idea to carry a base with you, meaning one Living Compartment and a Door. You'll need to make bases to extend your range anyway, needing several just to get out the crater. Contrary to spare oxyen bases also protect from meteor storms.
For this you'll need 3 iron, 2 titanium, 1 silicon.
For the purpose of exploring, this gives you nearly unlimited range like after much deeper in the game when the atmosphere becomes breathable. Just carry your base with you and build it to get oxygen. then deconstruct and carry on.
Set up bases to extend your range first, then gather materials from around there. Gathering common resources while carrying a base is not adviseable as you'd have 8 inventory slots, or 2/3rd of the starting inventory, taken up by your needed supply (6 base, 1 oxygen, 1 water, maybe even a 9th slot for food)
-T2 Drill is really energy-inefficient
On Hardcore settings it uses 6,5 energy for 0,75 pressure. That 8.67 energy per pressure unit.
T1 drill has 6,5 energy per 1 pressure, T3 drill has 1,3 energy per 1 pressure.
In my experience it's best to skip over T2 drills altogether.
-Decide a base location path in advance
You start in the Meteor Crater. It's not a good place to build and hasn't got many resources. Think ahead where you want your base to be.
The classical location of where Starting Valley meets Central Plateau is a bit far away.
Due to ice blockages in caves the path there early game is Crater -> Zeolite cave, turn left -> Arches, turn right and go down the slope -> Sand Falls, turn left before Sulfur Fields -> Dune Desert -> Central Plateau
Alternatively the Waterfall makes a good base location as well, arguably better for Hardcore since you don't need to travel much to get there and get started building centrally. Keep in mind the wreck in Waterfall (Cinitat-II) doesn't typically contain food, which is your primary concern early game, so skip over that one. Going behind the waterfall to immediatly score an Exoskeleton T2 and Agility Boots T1 is also a bonus, while that's off the path if you elsewhere.
-Ignore the Volcano / lava biome
If you end up in lava, you lose your game. Why would we want to risk that if we can get our supplies from safer locations?
By the time we actually need Obsidian, you'll have jetpacks to fly over lava safely.
-Cluster your machines up by type
Later on you're going to want to collect your old machines and re-use the resources for improved models. That's easier if they're in 1 central location and not all over the place.
And if you're like me it may annoy you to look at the power list later on and have to scroll through a huge list because you still have 1 of every device somewhere.
-Put wind turbines / solar panels on your base
While bases protect you from health damage of meteor impacts, sometimes there is a bug where the debris phases inside the base, or lands right outside the door and blocks it. This can sometimes leave you trapped, or inconvenienced. Not what you want if you're at 25% water and need to pop out to get another bottle. Putting energy structures on top of the base increases the distance after impact the meteor has to glitch through, so it won't end up inside.
Post edited April 14, 2024 by T_ID
