Similar to earlier titles from 11 Bit Studios, The Alters challenges you to carefully manage your resources to survive. While it’s not as punishing as some of their previous games, you can still run into problems with either severe shortages or overwhelming surpluses if you’re not vigilant.
Finding the right balance is crucial, as different resources will be relevant at various stages based on your building needs. This guide aims to provide you with the fundamentals of resource management in The Alters, helping you make informed choices for each day.
How to Locate Resources
Most of your basic resources can be gathered from Outposts. You can collect Metals, Enriched Metals, Organics, and Minerals this way. To set up an Outpost, you need to build it in the Workshop, position it over a Deep Deposit, and then link it to the Base using Pylons. Before doing this, you’ll first need to scan the Deep Deposit to identify the proper location for your Outpost.
Deep Deposits appear as a shaded area on the map, even if you haven’t pinpointed the drill point yet.
Once you find a Deep Deposit, equip the Polygonal Scanner and set probes on the ground to form triangles. Each triangle will scan the ground below for optimal drilling spots. You may need to adjust your view to see how the colors change: blue indicates you’re not close, while red means you’re getting nearer. The darker the red, the closer you are.
When you identify the drill point, the remaining probes will be automatically collected, allowing you to construct an Outpost there. Certain Deep Deposits, especially in later stages of the game, might have their drill points hidden behind Anomalies or tough terrain, requiring some creative navigation to access them.
You can also discover small amounts of resources scattered around the map, along with Shallow Deposits that you can tap into once without setting up an Outpost. However, these yield only modest amounts, so to fulfill your mission, you’ll need to heavily exploit Deep Deposits.
Linking Outposts with Pylons
To function properly, Outposts need to be connected to the Base. Pylons can connect with the Base, Outposts, or other Pylons within a 45-meter range, including elevation changes — meaning you can utilize hills or cliffs to navigate areas that Pylons otherwise couldn’t reach. This strategy becomes essential in later levels, so it’s wise to start utilizing it early on.
Extracting Resources at Outposts
Outposts require manual operation; they won’t automatically extract resources. You can either do this yourself or assign an Alter to manage the Outpost. While there is a minor risk of injury for Alters working at an Outpost, it’s uncommon enough that the precious resources make it a risk worth taking.
You can eventually unlock Automated Outposts, which generate a fixed quantity of their designated resource daily, but these are costly to build and require Planetary Samples for activation. It’s up to you to determine if the investment is worth it.
Overview of Resources in The Alters
Each resource has a specific purpose, and you’ll need all of them to thrive.
|
Resource |
Storage Needed |
How to Get |
Used For |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Metals |
1 per unit |
Gathered from Outposts and found while exploring |
Most crafting and module assembly |
Identified by red veins when exploring |
|
Organics |
1 per unit |
Gathered from Outposts, found while exploring, and produced in the Recycler |
Crafting, module assembly, and fueling the Base at the end of an Act |
Identified by blue veins and gas geysers; stored separately to save normal storage space. |
|
Enriched Metals |
1 per unit |
Gathered from Outposts |
Refined into Metals and Organics in the Refinery |
Indicated by yellow veins while exploring; these areas are always radioactive. |
|
Minerals |
1 per unit |
Gathered from Outposts and found while exploring. |
Advanced crafting and module assembly |
Indicated by purple veins when exploring. |
|
Polymers |
4 per unit |
Crafted in the Refinery during Act 1 |
Building Bridge Anchors to cross the Lava River |
You can safely discard any extras after Act 1 as they have no further use and take up space. |
|
Rapidium |
2 per unit |
Gathered from Outposts and found while exploring |
Used for creating new Alters and building Rapidium Arks |
Identified by prismatic refraction when exploring. |
|
Mush |
4 per unit |
Crafted from Organics in the Kitchen |
Feeding the crew |
The most basic form of food, better than nothing. |
|
Raw Food |
5 per unit |
Harvested in the Greenhouse or created in a Food Farm |
Needed for crafting Cooked Food |
Must be cooked in the Kitchen first; cannot be eaten raw. |
|
Cooked Food |
0.5 per unit |
Crafted from Raw Food in the Kitchen |
Feeding the crew |
Provides a slight mood boost when consumed. |
|
ALX |
1 per unit |
Found after destroying an Anomaly with the Luminator |
Converted into Metals, Organics, or Minerals in the Refinery |
Different tech is required for converting ALX into each resource. |
As shown in the table above, Mush and Raw Food take up a lot of space, making excessive stockpiling unwise. Ideally, you should maintain about two days’ supply to avoid cluttering your storage.