Starting Guide Welcome to FortressCraft Evolved Survival Mode You have just escaped the Orbital Station on a damaged escape shuttle. It didn't survive re-entry, but luckily you managed to eject safely. Now you will have to survive on this dreadful alien planet! Starting Out Your state-of-the-art suit can keep you safe under these cold conditions, but it requires power to do so. The ship's crash site may give you the resources to see you over on the short term, so you should head out there as soon as you can. Controls The game controls are listed in a separate guide linked below. Survival Tips For those who don't want to read a whole guide, these are some quick gameplay tips. The following pages go into more detail on how to start out. - During the day, your suit is designed to power its battery with sunlight. - Your starting area has a Central Power Hub, use it to turn harvested resources into power to charge adjacent machinery. - You can top off your power suit from the Central Power Hub or pressing 'Q' on the Power Storage Block. - Interact (‘E’) with the Manufacturing plant to see what you can make. - Craft torches to heat yourself using the Self Crafting window (‘C’). - Use the scanning tool ('M') to Scan blocks and process them at the Research Station for new recipes. - The scanning tool can also do environment scans like the Unknown Material ping to find new ores. - Pay close attention to the battery discharge rate on your suit, a blue text indicates that extreme cold is affecting your suit and a red text indicates extreme heat. - The headlamp uses power. It’s great for exploring but don’t leave it on! - Coal is the best fuel for starting out, but if you're in a pinch you can burn the local flora. - You may have to dig very deep to find the ores you're looking for. - You have a large build reach, so use it to place torches across large caverns. Crash site equipment The Central Power Hub is your first power generator. It has solar panels, and can burn fuels to generate power. It can only hold one fuel item at a time, so automating the delivery of fuel materials is essential. It has a large internal power storage capacity. The Power Storage Block can store 250 power and distribute it to adjacent machines. In order to acquire bars useful for crafting new machines, you will need to process ores in the Ore Smelter. You can manually interact with it, or automate the supply of materials. It will only start smelting once it has received enough materials to smelt an ingot. You can craft simple things yourself using the crafting window you open with 'c', but for more complex machines and components, you will have to use the Manufacturing Plant. The recipes are divided into categories which you can find by clicking on the coloured squares. At this point in time, the Plant can only use items in your inventory, and crafting things will put them directly back there. When you start out, your scanner has no knowledge of any materials found on the planet. Any scans you do can be processed at the Research Station and will yield you research points. You can also undertake various research projects here, and develop new recipes for the Manufacturing Plant by spending research points. The research station requires power to operate. Finding your first ores Your scanner has the capability to scan for known ore types, but to do this it must know about them first. The key to finding new ores is to use the Unknown Material ping on your scanner. If you use this at first, it will return you all the blocks around you because it doesn't know about them. So your first task will be to scan your surroundings and process these scans at the Research Station. As soon as you've scanned all the common dirt and snow around you, the Unknown Ore ping will stat returning useful things around you. Once you've found an ore vein near you underground, you can scan these and process them to teach them to your scanner. From that moment on, using an Ore ping with your scanner will return veins of that ore type. Extracting ore Now that you've found your first ore vein, you'll need to extract the ore in order to use it. You can dig it using right click, but this drops only one ore every once in a while and generates rubble for the rest. A better option is to use your Super Dig mode, which you activate by holding CTRL while digging. This will quickly dig large amounts of ore, but will drain your power reserves at high speed. Watch out when draining all your power on Super Digging an ore vein, your suit also requires power to keep your body warm! Try to set up a safe route back to your power generator, with torches along the way to heat you back up. Automating Extraction A more sustainable way of mining ore is to use the Ore Extractor. You start out with some, and you can place one down next to a vein and fill it with power to make it start digging. It has a small internal storage space, so until you can offload that somewhere else you'll have to come by once in a while to pick up the results. An ore extractor can mine out an entire vein of ore when it touches a single ore block. Therefore you will not have to move it until the entire vein has been cleared. Storage Hoppers will accept ores and items from machines and supply them to other machines. This makes them essential in automating any part of the mining and smelting process. Once you have the resources to spare, Conveyors can help you automate bringing the ore from your Extractor to your Ore Smelter. They are cheap, but you will need many of them to connect your mining operations to your main base. They don't require power to operate. Surviving the First Night Surviving the first night This is a step by step guide to surviving the first night. If you don't want to be spoilered, then stop reading now! Completing the Tutorial You wake up next to the crater left by your crashed ship and a basic outpost. Your first task is to complete the brief tutorial. Follow each instruction in turn. When the tutorial is complete the forcefield will be lifted. Take inventory and stay warm Open your inventory by pressing 'i'. You start off with 5 torches and 3 Ore Extractors. The latter are valuable machines for mining ore veins, but not of immediate survival use. The first are absolutely essential. Select the hotbar slot containing the torch icon and place one the ground a couple blocks away from your machines. This will supply light, as well as heat when you stand near to them. The suit indicator in the top right of the screen indicates the external temperature and the internal suit temperature. Your suit will automatically keep yourself warm, but this costs energy. If you stand near a torch, you will see the external temperature rising, which means your suit uses less power to keep you warm. Watch out with getting too hot though, that will make your suit spend power to cool you back down! Gather fuel The machine with the big laser on it is your central power hub. This is a power generator, that gathers solar power, as well as containing a small fuel generator that can burn materials for added power. It will supply power to the nearby machines and the power storage block. You can take power directly from the hub by interacting with it ('e'), then pressing 'take power'. At the start of the game your fuel reserves are limited to that supplied for the tutorial which will not last long. Therefore your next task is to gather fuel. If you have chosen to play on easy difficulty a coal vein and extractor are provided for you, otherwise you'll need to search for fuel. If you are extremely lucky, the impact crater will have exposed a coal vein. But the more dependible source of initial fuel are the trees around the crater. Dig up the trunks and collect them. Now head towards the hub, interact with it ('e') and press 'add resources'. This will start burning one of your logs. You will have to manually add more fuel to it, until you have to resources to automate this process. With the hub burning logs, you should quickly notice that the graphic on the Power Storage Block starts spinning, which means it is collecting power. You can draw power from there, or wait until it is full and power starts being stored in the hub. Explore your surroundings Now that you have low but steady supply of power, you can start exploring your surroundings. Any power lost to keeping you suit warm you can replenish at the hub. Keep an eye on the power level on the top left. If the bar is empty, you will quickly start to cool down to the point where you can pass out from hypothermia. Make sure you have enough power to get back to the crash site and power up from the hub. Your suit comes with a scanner tool, which is invaluable for surviving. You can select the tool by pressing 'M'. Now you can scan using the right mouse button, or send out a material ping with the left button. Watch out with using pings unnecessarily, they use a large amount of suit power. Your next exploration task will be to scan your surroundings. Aim at a block you haven't scanned yet, bring up your scan tool and hold the right mouse button until the popup window in the bottom left tells you the scan is complete. Try to scan all the blocks in your surroundings, including snow, dirt, logs and leaves! Research your surroundings Now that you've scanned these blocks, it's time to process the scans at the research station back at the crash site. Open the interface by pressing 'e'. The window will show you a list of your unprocessed scans, followed by how many research points they will grant you once processed. Research points aren't important for now, so ignore them. Process all the scans you have in your list. Each one takes power to process, but if you've been keeping your hub filled with logs or coal, its power bar should be most of the way full, and plenty for processing all your scans. Processing the scans may result in unlocking research projects, but for now you don't have to worry about that, scanning your surroundings had a more important goal. Ping your surroundings With the blocks around you scanned and processed, your suit now knows its characteristics and this allows you to use your material pings to great effect. In particular, the 'unknown material' ping is what we will be using next, in order to find our first ore vein. Switch to your scan tool and with 'Unknown Material' ping selected, press the left mouse button. This will highlight any blocks in range of you that have a characteristic your suit doesn't yet know about. If you didn't scan all your surroundings, this ping will return the blocks around the crash site such as dirt and rock. If that happens, scan and process those blocks, then try again. If successful, you should see a cluster of unknown signatures somewhere underground or inside nearby hills. Keep an eye on your power levels though, there's no need to freeze! Dig to the veins Now you will need to dig a path towards those signatures, and see what they are. Scan the ore vein and process it. You will notice that they grant more research points than common materials did. Once you know an ore block, you can go back to the vein and scan it again, and the tool will give you information about this particular vein; how big it is and how much ore it contains (this is not the same). Use your Grappling Hook ('F') to quickly get back up out of holes you've dug. If you are not playing on easy then the first ore you want to find is Coal. If you find Copper, Tin or Iron, this will be great later on, but not of immediate use. Try to remember the location if you can, we will get back to them later. If you don't remember, that's fine, we can use the ore ping later to find our way again. Mine Coal Ore veins in FortressCraft Evolved can be massive, containing up to millions of units of ore. Digging them up is not a case of clicking a couple of times; you will need to spend power and probably use machines. With your first coal vein at hand, spend a little time creating a safe path back from the vein to the crash site. You will need to walk this path a lot, so this time will be well spent. Next, you should top up your power from the hub and make your way down to the coal vein. Put a torch down to save on spending too much power staying warm down there. Then dump all of your power into a Super Dig on the coal vein. You do this by holding CTRL while right clicking. This is an inefficient way of mining but it will get you a small quantity of coal to work with. At this point you will be out of power, so quickly make your way back to the hub and top up on power. But now you will have a better source of fuel to put in the hub: Coal! The next time you press 'Add resources' it should insert a coal ore block instead of a log. These generate more power, so you will have to do a little less micro management to maintain power levels. Craft it up Coal ore also allows you to use the self-crafting window to create new torches. Press 'C' to show this window. It will display all the recipes you can make, and among them are torches. Select the torches and on the right side it should tell you it will require 5 coal to make one torch. Press 'Craft' and it will add a torch to your inventory. Torches can also be auto-crafted so long as you have at least 5 coal in your inventory. Just try to place one and if you've run out a new one will be crafted for you. Goal complete! With a coal vein at your disposal to fuel your central power hub and supply you with all the torches you need, you should be able to survive on the surface indefinitely. From this point on, you can start mining the other veins you've found, or set out to find them if you haven't. Then you can start feeding the metal ores to the smelter to acquire bars needed for crafting at the Manufacturing plant. You can also think about using your ore extractors to automate the digging. Or, you can spend your research points on some projects to figure out what actually happened to get you on this planet. Or you could brave the challenges of the deep and see what interesting things can be found. It's up to you! Controls Controls This help guide lists all of the controls available in FortressCraft Evolved, don't worry if you are feeling overwhelmed at first, just refer to the essential controls section to get started. Some controls are unavailable until you have completed the tutorial. Essential Controls W, A, S & D: Movement Space: Jump H: This Help Guide Escape: Main Menu X: Switch to Build Gun LMB: Build Block RMB: Remove Block M: Switch to Scanning Tool LMB: Material Ping RMB: Scan Block I: Open Inventory C: Open Self Crafting F: Fire Grappling Hook G: Toss Glowstick E: Interact With Machine Q: Extract From Machine R: Rotate Machine V: Switch to Ray Gun LMB: Fire RMB: Charged Shot (LMB = Left Mouse Button, RMB = Right Mouse Button) Customising Controls Most controls can be customised from the game launcher. In-game hints will not reflect these changes. Movement & View W: Move Forwards S: Move Backwards A: Strafe Left D: Strafe Right Space: Jump Mouse: Look Around U: Ride Minecart Z: Zoom Weapons & Tools X: Switch to Build Gun V: Switch to Ray Gun B: Switch to Steadycam N: Switch to Paint Gun M: Switch to Scanning Tool Shift + Mouse Wheel: Cycle Tools Inventory & Hotbar I: Open Inventory F1-F7: Select Hotbar Tab 1-9 & 0: Select Hotbar Slot Q : Drop Highlighted item Shift + Drag: Split Stack Control + Wheel: Cycle Tabs Mouse Wheel: Cycle Slots -- Suit Functions C: Open Self Crafting L: Toggle Head Lamp J: Toggle Jetpack (needs crafting) F: Fire Grappling Hook G: Toss Glowstick K: Toggle Holobase View U: Toggle Holobase Mode Space: Release Grappling Hook Machines E: Interact with Machine T: Store in Machine R: Rotate Machine Clockwise ]: Rotate Machine Clockwise Q: Extract from Machine Shift-T: Store 10 Items Shift-E: Hopper Vacuum Mode [: Rotate Machine Anti-clockwise Multiplayer Enter: Show Chat Window Right Shift: Show Server Information Right Shift + F1, F2 or F3: Set Network Rate Build Gun LMB: Build Block RMB: Remove Block MMB : Pick Current Block Control + LMB: Build-To-Me Control + Hold RMB: Super Dig Scanning Tool Left Mouse Button: Ping Surroundings Right Mouse Button: Scan Block Mouse Wheel: Change Ping Setting Ray Gun LMB: Fire Single Shot Hold RMB: Charged Shot Other Escape: Main Menu Ctrl-M: Toggle music Tab: Toggle ARTHER Distance Unknown Materials Unknown Materials What are Unknown Materials? Initially all materials on this planet are unknown. They will appear as a question mark in your inventory - to be of any use they must be identified. Once collected or scanned (using the secondary action of the scanning tool) an unknown material must be taken to the research station to be processed. Until this happens, the material cannot be used for processing or building. Processing Unknown Materials Select the first tab of the research station marked 'Scans'; this will list all unknown materials you have encountered, their value in research points, and how much power is required to process them. Press the 'Process' button to process the material, the required power will be deducted and the specified number of research points awarded. These can be used to unlock recipes and projects using the second and third tabs of the research station. Progression Once new materials are scanned, they can unlock new machines, recipes and projects. Scanning unknown materials is the best way to earn more Research Points. As we understand more about this strange, blocky planet, we are better equipped to create bigger and better machines to help you survive, and then to escape! Please visit the help guide entry on the research station for more information. Laboratory Research Laboratory Research This guide is for research projects which require the use of the laboratory. For more information on research in general please visit the research station help entry. Constructing a Laboratory The research laboratory must first be unlocked by completing the appropriate projects at the research station. You then need to manufacture 27 laboratory components at the manufacturing plant and place them in a 3 by 3 by 3 configuration. Powering the Laboratory The laboratory is designed to use as much power as you can supply it. More power means faster research! At minimum you should consider using several Pyrothermic generators, but there is no need to attempt to fully power the lab. Starting Projects Open the laboratory control panel by interacting with the machine (default 'E') and ensure you are in 'Experiment' mode. The selected project will be listed first followed by its requirements and any eligible projects below it. To select a new project click it and its requirements will be displayed. Click 'Start Project' to begin research. Supplying Project Requirements Projects typically require one or more types of experimentation pods. The exact requirements will be listed with the project. These should be placed in a storage hopper attached to any side of the laboratory. If you wish to automate delivery of pods then you should consider using a separate hopper for each type to ensure availability of any pod type. For more information on creating experimentation pods please read the following guide. Experimental Pods Experimental Pods Experimental pods are used in a laboratory to conduct experiments and complete research projects. For more information on laboratory research please visit the following guide. What are Experimental Pods? Experimental pods are the resource used by the laboratory to perform experiments. Each pods is an intelligent storage device capable of containing and monitoring a variety of substances. The laboratory is responsible for the management of these, you need only supply it with the empty pods. Creating Experimental Pods Experimental pods are unlocked at the same time as the laboratory, only the most basic of these can be crafted in the manufacturing plant. The rest require specialised machinary. Each type of pods requires a different raw material but all use the same machinary to construct them. Each pod is constucted from metal places and printed circuit boards (PCBs) make from the same material. Please review the help entry for the specific pod you require for more information. Creating Metal Plates Metal plates are created in a stamper plant. This is a specialised type of conveyor with the stamper machinary attached to it and can be made in the manfacturing plant. The raw material required is a metal bar. Creating PCBs Creating PCBs is a multi-stage process and requires the use of three machines. First use an 'Extrusion Plant' to convert metal bars into wires. Next a 'Coiler Plant' to convert wires into coils, and finally a 'PCB Assembly Plant' to convert coils into PCBs. Manufacturing Pods Finally use the research assembler to combine the plates and PCBs into an experimental pod. This is not a conveyor based machine and requires power and both input and output storage hoppers. We recommend using two input hoppers to ensure availability of both plates and PCBs. The completed pods can then be delivered to the laboratory. Mynock Infestation Mynock Infestation This conveyor belt has been infested by an alien lifeform. We have spotted it stealing resources from the belt but those resources do not appear to be remaining within the body of the lifeform itself. Instead they seem to be directed into a root system running through the earth. Our scanners show these roots appear to be heading towards a central core, we should investigate this as a matter of priority. Regardless of whatever the final destination of these stolen resources may be, we want to put a stop to it! The alien structures appear to be susceptible to energy weapons. We should research their vulnerabilities further which should allow us to construct automated base defenses to take them out. Longer term we should look towards researching improved methods of resource distribution which are less vulnerable to attack. As a stop-gap we can kill them using our ray gun (V), but they'll certainly be back quickly. Video Tutorials! Video Tutorials Want more tutorials? Let me know on twitter @fortress_craft or the Steam forums! - Dj Community Links! Community Links Remember you can always talk to me on twitter @fortress_craft or the Steam forums! - Dj Particulate Filtration Particulate Filtration By studying the suits particle filtration system, we are now able to filter different elements out of the air. Building these systems in the various caverns should allow us to extract, concentrate, and bottle different elements found in air. Due to the average size of these caverns and the density of the particles in the air, there should not be any noticeable long term effects from this process. These systems may lower the hostility of the environment for native flora and fauna, this effect should be negligible since there are no known predominantly hostile flora or fauna. The Cold Caverns will net us Freezon, the Toxic Caverns Chlorine, and the Magma Caverns, Sulphur.