I have no idea. I just bought it over the weekend since it's on sale in the PS Store and I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing exactly. I'm trying to build a weapon so that I can stop running from shit.:1orglaugh
Oh. WEll.. um, here is help you didnt ask for:
Did you patch the game ALL THE WAY UP, already? If you didnt do that, stop playing immediately and get the latest. The vanilla game is insanely different than the first couple patches, let alone the latest few. (Developer kept developing free DLC as 'game fixes' to deliver upon the original promise. Like.. this game turned from disappiontment to 'holy shit this isnt bad')
Other than that, dont let the 'periodic table of the elements' type shit fool you, this game is actually simple. Look at the colors for everything. Yellow charges this, red charges that, and then there is random shit all over.. like Gek relics. (You'll use relics and race stuff JUST to talk to members of THOSE races and slowly learn their language. Like imagine picking up a burrito and walking to the nearest mexican and giving it to him in exchange to permanently find out what 'lo siento' means in conversation.
You might think thats a bit oversimplified and racially.. odd.. but thats what the game does. This race wants microchips, that one wants catnip. Etc etc
Get your first terraforming beam weapon ASAP.
DONT SHOOT THE DRONES! (Yet)
Learn all the words you can.
Build the three basic things and bookmark the area... you'll be coming back to that area QUITE a bit in the next hour.
Dont rush building a base, you wont have the materials for it for a loong time.
Dont worry about your first few ships, they'll suck.
dont buy the machine gun boltcaster thing until you feel like constantly keeping it charged. Worry about the main mining laser.
Story mode? Kinda. Story mode hands out way better equipment at random, so find those artifacts, visit those monuments, answer the questions.
Or grind like friggin mad to buy better everything at the merchant.. which is actually a screen.
DONT FIGHT THE PIRATES. You'll see why.
Dont get lost in caves until you can terraform out of them.
Dont build vehicles, yet.
Thats it. Thats the whole game, but not.
Memorize your color coded element dependencies, scan everything, learn words and dont play the game sober.
Edit: OH! And if you need money, jump in your ship when you get it, take off, fly around while searching, once you find large greenish ore columns.. or deposits.. land. Stripmine. One or two of most of those 'finds' should net you a good down payment on a trade-in ship upgrade.
and a lotta things will never make sense. Like whats with this pyramid scheme building? I need 20 of this to make that, 5 of those to make one warp coil.. condenser.. warp egg, industrial lubricant.. something?
Yeah. You should already know, if you've put a few hours in. The items used to make more sense, but the element recharging system didnt.
"So my gun runs on carbon? And radioactive materials? and I'll need an upgrade to do anything else? Why does my suit charge better off base elements than batteries? etc etc.