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Abiotic Factor takes place in a world where the instruction is scarce and the things that make you wonder “What the heck?!” are many. From your very first steps into the GATE facility to your first experience with radiation, and even the toilets (that literally nobody explains), you’re in for a whole slew of surprises. Being the new employee in a facility that houses interdimensional portals and entities isn’t easy. But being the new employee in that kind of facility when the containment procedures are prone to devastating failures, the stakes get a bit higher and you really need to know what you’re doing. Let’s take a look at 10 Tips and Tricks that will help you through the beginner stages of your time in Abiotic Factor.
Your PhD matters, Seriously
Each job option at the beginning of your new world will give you certain advantages that could save your life in the beginning stages of your time in the GATE facility. For instance, during my first playthrough, I chose to be a Paratheoretical Physicist. It’s quite the mouthful, I know. The bottom line here though, is that that job gives you more information about throwing items, but I hadn’t unlocked throwing weapons yet, so I was at a disadvantage for quite a while. You see the dilemma here? Make sure you read each job description thoroughly before selecting one. Some great beginner Jobs are Trans-Kinematic Researcher, Somatic Gastrologist, and Defense Analyst.
Vending Machines Are a Lifesaver
Whenever you come across a vending machine, stop and grab a snack and a drink. Yes, yes. I know you only start with $5 in your pocket, but as you explore and discover new areas throughout the GATE facility, you’ll be able to stock up on cash pretty quickly. What you won’t be able to stock up on quickly, however, is anything to eat and drink. Abiotic Factor, like most survival games, requires you to have a full belly and some decent hydration going on, otherwise you’ll have all types of issues to deal with. Just trust me. Make sure you stock up when you find vending machines. They can’t be found everywhere, so it’s best not to waste an opportunity.
Always Have Throw Nets Handy
One of the first weapons you’ll have readily available to you that won’t require you to spend ages hunting for the resources to craft are Throw Nets. Nets might not seem like much of a weapon, but when it comes down to it, it can slow down any of the smaller enemies enough for you to sneak up and stomp on them, which will slow them down permanently. Even when you make your way farther into the GATE facility and you encounter some of the larger aliens, nets will still work to slow them down while you use other weapons to take them out. Crafting nets can be done by using the C button on your keyboard, then spending a single Cloth Scrap to craft three of them.
Check ALL the Vents
Most of the time when you come across rooms like the one in the image above, there will be multiple different vents that you can use to access different areas. They’re honestly really handy and can make travel quite a bit easier for the time being. However, you should always check every vent. Even though only one of the ones in each room might lead to the area you need to go, those other vents could take to you to otherwise inaccessible rooms, or even just dead ends that house containers full of important and useful tools and resources. It’s always worth it to go back and check.
Avoid Carrying Radiated Items
Once you begin fighting the various other dimensions’ entities, you’ll realize that most of them can be harvested for various food or crafting resources. However, you should be pretty careful when choosing what to pick up and what not to touch. Most of the items that drop from enemies, especially the species-specific items emit low levels of radiation when they are carried in your backpack, and high levels of radiation if they are eaten raw or otherwise. You can typically see which items will emit radiation by looking for the yellow and black symbol in the corner of their inventory slot. If you do happen to pick up those items, be sure to store them somewhere safe so that you’re not carrying them for too long. Radiation meds can be hard to come by in the earlier stages of Abiotic Factor.
Collect Everything
Honestly, there is a use for every single item in Abiotic Factor. You might not need it right now, but there will be a time when you need it in the future and you’ll wish you’d saved it back when you found it in your early-game stages. Really, that might just be a bit of my hoarder mentality coming out, but it’s a pretty good idea to live by in a video game where you need to craft things using common office supplies that you find lying around. Once you get farther into the facility, it will get harder to find certain resources, so having them on hand or stashed away in your base already is the way to go.
Check Your Emails Every Day
Nobody likes to check their email all the time. It can get tedious when you have loads of messages to read through, but sometimes it can be pretty beneficial. Abiotic Factor doesn’t give much direction in the early minutes and hours of your gameplay, but if you pay attention to your emails and actually read through them, you’ll find that there are actually some really valuable hints and clues that you can read up on. These clues appear in the form of email chains between employees at the GATE facility, but they shouldn’t be ignored. The first one talks to you about getting meat for cooking, which is something you won’t learn anywhere else.
Keep a Water Bottle On Hand
In games like Abiotic Factor that focus almost solely on your survival in a difficult situation, it’s a given that you’ll need to stay hydrated and fed all the time. The only problem is that in a facility plagued by radiation and aliens, clear water is pretty hard to come by, and oftentimes, you’ll be stuck drinking soda from a vending machine that won’t be nearly as good for your survival as water would be. Once you begin collecting some plastic scraps from various crates or objects that you disassemble, the first thing you need to do is craft a few water bottles from the Crafting Menu. With them in your inventory, you can fill up at any sink you come across with fresh water in it, and save the water for when you really need it. Since finding sinks with fresh water is pretty rare, this method could easily save your life.
Frying Pans Might Actually Save Your Life
Finding food isn’t the most difficult task in Abiotic Factor. You can literally take a knife to just about any enemy and get some pest meat that can be cooked. However, the difficult part, is finding the means to actually cook these items. If you eat them raw, you’ll be pretty messed up with radiation. To cook anything, you’ll need either a frying pan or a soup pot, and a cooking stove. Though, frying pans can be hard to come by, and making one yourself can take quite a bit of time. My recommendation here would be to build a base in that first kitchen area you come across in-game and utilize the frying pan and stove there. Otherwise, you’ll be waiting quite a while to find other cooking opportunities and might starve in the meantime.
Coworkers Aren’t Your Friends, But They Aren’t Your Enemies
You probably don’t want to come across Coworkers anytime soon, but it’s basically inevitable. After a few days in the GATE facility, you might start to notice some strange voices coming from outside your base at night. Don’t worry, these are just your coworkers, but they’re not quite the coworkers you might have once known anymore. These coworkers have turned into something… different. They’re repeatedly ask you for food, and when you don’t give it to them, they’ll try to steal items from around you base. So annoying, right? Luckily, you can cook up some of that pest meat and give it to them to keep them happy while you enjoy your vending machine snacks and homemade soup.
Abiotic Factor is available in Early Access on PC.
