The Alters is a survival game that feels like aquintessentially punishing 11 Bit Studios gamein many ways, but with the added confusing layer of offering an experimental design approach.
Players will not only have to contend with the strategic decisions, tight economy, and varied mechanics that come part and parcel with a tough survival game.
The Alters Was Just Confirmed for Xbox Game Pass as Day One Release
The Alter-native Way To Play
But they will also need to dealwith the branching narrativesthis game offers and the hostile conditions of the various areas of the planet you happen to have crash-landed on.
There’s a wealth of decisions to make at every moment of your interstellar adventure, so it’s always good to have a helpful beginner’s guide to ensure you hit the ground running.
But, you won’t need to clone yourself and have your Alters play the game for you and report back. We have devised a list of great beginner tips that will make this grand rescue mission a lot less daunting.
10Choose Your Branches Carefully
Doppelgänger Dilemmas
Something the game doesn’t tell you is that, while it might seem like you can create as many Alters as you like and complete your set of Jan Dolskis, you’re actually limited to six Jans, plus your original Jan.
As you increase your Qubit Level, you’ll be able to create more Alters, but you’ll need to choose which ones you want carefully, as you have a finite number of choices.
Jan Technician and Jan Scientist are non-negotiable picks,but the rest are up to you. So, you’ll want to pick Alters with skills that align with your playstyle, goals, and the modules and resources you have at your disposal.
Not to mention, there are some Jans that can only be unlocked if you choose certain other branches, as their life path branches from an Alters life choices. You can survive with any combination of Jans, but you’ll want a team that you can rely on, so use that Rapidium wisely.
9Don’t Neglect Your Alters
Self-Care On Another Level
Speaking of your Alters, it might seem obvious, but you’ll want to make sure you’re looking after all of them, or things can go south pretty quickly.
It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the main mission, andif you narrow your vision too much and don’t consider the bigger picture, you’ll find that the mission becomes an impossible task.
Whether you like it or not, you may’t succeed on your own, and you need your team by your side so you can delegate tasks, keep stocks of resources high, and make sure you don’t have a mutiny on your hands.
So, listen to what they have to say, try to tell them what they want to hear when possible. Help them through their individual struggles as best you may, and socialize with the group to maintain high morale.
If you do this, you should be able to keep them all busy, ensure they stay on task, and if that happens, the mission will take care of itself.
8Set Up Deposits First
Dig Deep Early On
Alongside managing your base and Alters, you’ll also need to head out onto the hostile planet’s surface and explore. As this allows Jan to set up mining networks, find useful resources, and get a lay of the land to establish how to move closer to the extraction point.
Without resources, everything else grinds to a halt pretty fast,so your first port of call in every new area should be to set up mining networks in deep deposits. You can often find deposits of Metals, Organics, Rapidium, Enriched Metals, and Minerals in most areas.
Make sure you have enough mining equipment, connecting pylons, and exploration resources such as drills and suit batteries before heading out, and when you have these interconnected, you can then assign Alters to passively mine these resources, allowing you to focus on the mission.
Setting up these mining networks also allows you to fast travel between each mining outpost, so doing this early will cut down on time traversing the planet in the long run.
7Pick Up Loose & Shallow Deposits
Never Hurts To Have More Resources
Speaking of mining deposits, these deep deposits aren’t the only way to gather resources when exploring the planet, as there are two other methods.
You will often find Shallow deposits of each resource that will provide a one-time opportunity to mine a finite amount of this resource. The planet may replenish this on occasion, but this doesn’t apply to these deposits.
Additionally, you have loose deposits, which are effectively loose chunks of each resource that can be immediately picked up, typically found near shallow or deep deposits.
There’s almost never a good reason not to mine or pick up these resources as you encounter them, as keeping your stock high is always beneficial. So, carve out a moment to gather these, as you will always find a use for them later down the line.
6Keep An Eye On Storage
More Room Means More Loot
The only reason why you might not be able to mine or gather these loose resources when exploring is when you have no storage left at your base.
It’s something that can creep up on you when you least expect it, and when you’re out on the planet’s surface, you aren’t able to build new modules for your base, meaning this will cut any exploration attempt short.
It’s best to keep track of this metric using the UI at the bottom of your screen,and when your storage is anywhere from 100-200 items away from being completely full, it’s usually time to add either a small or medium storage facility.
The resource demands for this are usually quite low, but you may also need to upgrade the size of your base through research if you want to ensure there is room for all these storage modules.
5Look Out For Lost Trinkets
Jan Does Not Pack Light
As you wander the hostile planet, there will be optional paths that might not lead you to a deposit of materials, but they may lead you to a lost cargo drop, which will allow you to nab a few of the items that Jan packed for the trip.
These might seem like pointless collectibles at first, with no practical use. But, as you start creating Alters and learning about their various backstories,you’ll learn that these items have a sentimental value to different Jans, and can up their morale as a result.
These items are an effective and easy way to guarantee a positive mood boost, which makes them well worth seeking out, especially if some of your crew are feeling down.
So, in short, before you zip off to the next area of the map in an attempt to avoid the sunrise, ensure you have checked every optional path in the area.
4Always Be Researching
Learn Something New Every Day
As mentioned, Jan Scientist is a mandatory Alter; if you want to survive, that is. This is because you will need to research various technologies if you want to find ways to build new Modules, and get your hands on quest items needed to complete the mission.
You could assign him to any duty at the base, just as you can all Alters. But,I would suggest that you always have them assigned to Research, as this effectively acts as The Alters' skill tree, giving you access to lots of helpful modules, skills, and more.
Keep research projects queued so that you are always working towards learning a new skill or gaining a new buff, as passively building these up over time is essential if you want to stand a chance of survival in the later acts of the game.
3Make Use Of Uphold Values
Automation Is Key
Staying on top of things can be difficult in The Alters, as the game has so many moving parts to consider at all times. To the point that some lesser tasks are bound to slip your mind. But these same menial tasks could snowball into bigger issues if neglected for too long.
If you don’t have enough Mush to feed your crew, or enough Raditation Filters to power your base, you could find your crewmates starving and glowing in a rather sickly way.
So, I would suggest that you head to your workshop and set your uphold values,which is a base number you can set for each item, ensuring that a task to craft more of this item automatically triggers as soon as you fall below a certain amount.
You’ll still need to assign an Alter to craft these, or head back to the Workshop to craft these items yourself. But, it ensures that you never drop to dangerously low quantities without fair warning first.
2Build Essential Modules Fast
So Much Room For Activities
You can have as many Alters as you like, and a stack of resources at your disposal. But, it’s about what you do with your crew and resources that matters. Which leads me neatly on to the Modules present in the game.
These rooms make up the structure of your base, and each room has a unique and often very important function. Some come as standard, like the Communications Room or The Womb, whereas others are optional builds that you’ll need to pursue.
Some are luxury builds, like the Gym, the Contemplation Room, and a handful of others. But some are damn-near essential if you want to survive.
Modules like the Social Room, the Research Lab, the Infirmary, and the Refinery, to name a few, are incredibly important.So, if you have the resources and have the opportunity to build these Modules, do so and get a jump on things, as these will prove vital as time goes on.
1Keep Everything Functional
Break Out Your Trusty Toolkit
These modules are phenomenal when it comes to helping you edge closer to your goal and complete the mission.However, it’s just as vital to keep them in working condition as it’s to build them in the first place.
Your Alters may break these modules, or there may be malfunctions with higher-risk modules. Which will lead to moments where you need to do base maintenance to get them up and running again.
But, until you do, these modules will be out of action, all those assigned to these modules will be at a loose end, and this often leads to a chain reaction you’ll want to avoid at all costs.
You’ll want to repair these as promptly as possible, as it can lead to missing important aspects of the game and put you in sticky situations.
For example, if your Communications module is broken, you may miss calls from ALLY and important story beats, leaving you out of the loop. You’re in enough danger as it is, so break out a wrench and sort things out as they break down.
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