Space is big. And contrary to popular belief, it's actually pretty full of stuff.

But you can't just fly a big spaceship around on a planet: you have to send a team of skilled specialists down to the ground. Or in many cases, a bunch of people you hardly know.

Let's start by talking about what your away team actually is:
It's a group of people you send on missions outside of the ship. You get one person on the away team for every 4 total crew your ship has. A ship with 20 crew sends a 5-person landing party.

You and your officers can also join from the Officers screen . There are benefits and risks (see below).

Your away missions use up supplies, based on the size of the team, and possibly where they're going.

Your shuttle has a cooldown after being used, whether landing or taking off. This starts as 7 turns, so if you don't know if you can survive, don't do it! The skill "shuttle ace" reduces shuttle cooldown. A future device will as well.

You can't launch the shuttle from the ship while you're in combat (you can't dock at stations either.) But once you *do* manage to dock or land, your ship's shields will recharge while you're away, as well as shipboard systems cooling down.

Your away team is outfitted with the following items:

Laser pistol, incendiary shotgun, or sonic mortar... something to hurt your enemies from far away, so they can't claw, bite, or sting you. These are rated for how much damage they do per shot (DMG), their maximum (and sometimes minimum) range (RNG), how many adjacent targets they might hit when fired (ADJ), and their speed modifier (SPD) (positive speed is better).

So a weapon can have a minimum range? That's right. Anything shorter than that does reduced damage. And adjacent targets: this is reduced damage, and random selection, anywhere around the main target, but basically "for free". Spray and pray...

A knife, sword, hammer, or even giant space-chainsaw... something to hurt your enemies when they manage to get close to you. Melee weapons have just two stats: damage (DMG) and speed (SPD). They are generally more damaging than ranged weapons, it's just that your enemies have to be right there to hit them, and that's kinda scary.

Obviously, these are more like "planet suits", but who even knows what a planet suit is?
But they give your people some protection from monsters (HP), some air to breathe (OXY), a certain sight range (VIS), and a quality to reduce environmental damage on hostile planets (DR). Some suits are also rated for speed (SPD), which makes them inherently faster or slower (positive speed is better).

Take the number of crew on an away mission, and multiply it by the suit's HP. That's basically it! 5 crew in 10-hp suits gives you 50 HP for the away team. Officers are people too, so taking 2 officers on that same mission gives a total of (5+2)*10 = 70 HP. Some officers also have skills that boost HP by a percentage. If you have +10% HP, that same away team would have 77 HP.

One device? Oh come on! Sorry, they can take one. And until the highly anticipated "Shuttle Equipment Locker" comes out, it's going to stay that way.

Devices are described in detail in another guide, but for now, let's say that they let your away team do things they couldn't previously do... like walk on water, breathe forever on terran planets, or even see through walls (electronically... it doesn't go in your eyes, ok?)

I know, I know, you want more oxygen! You'll get it. But you have to work for it.

You know what? You don't get some magical bonus from fully exploring and revealing every tile on every planet. It's alright to leave a few.

Although you do get XP for any officers on the mission for exploring tiles. And you might find hidden riches in that last tile. And you might even reveal a secret message...

So maybe I was wrong?

I don't know, but you're going to need oxygen to get the job done.

Better suits are in the next sector. There are devices that increase your oxygen. And there are even planets out there that have unlimited oxygen. So just keep looking, ok?


So what happens if you run out of oxygen on an away mission? Well, that depends on where you are, and sometimes what you brought with you.

If you're on a terran (earth-like) planet, your away team will just open up their suits and start breathing the local air. That comes with its own set of complications, namely, alien diseases! But they're not always there, and sometimes you can make it out without catching them.

If you're on a frozen planet, you have breathe there too, but you'll also take damage every turn, regardless of suit DR, from exposure to the extreme cold while getting the air.

Any other type of planet will result in asphyxiation damage, which will kill your crew pretty quickly. So when you see those "Low Oxygen" warnings, please take them seriously.

Depending on what type of planet you land on, you might take damage every step of the way! Sure, many planets are earth-like, but soon you'll come across planets with toxic or actively corrosive environments, or even planets of extreme temperature and radiation.

So you need to be prepared! Your space suits have a built-in stat called "DR" (damage reduction) and this relates directly to planetary environmental damage. It cancels it.

So if your DR is 5 and the planet does 4 damage, you don't take any damage. But if it's a corrosive planet, you'd take 49 damage per move! Luckily, there's a safety in place that says "if the away team would die before the shuttle was ready to launch again, you just can't go."

Terran planets don't do any damage at all. Here's how other planets work:
Frozen : 4 damage / move. (but at least they might have some oxygen...)
Barren : 10 damage / move.
Toxic : 17 damage / move.
Irradiated : 27 damage / move.
High-Gravity : 40 damage / move.
Corrosive : 54 damage / move.
Molten : 71 damage / move.
Dying : 90 damage / move.

Note that when you go into caves, most environmental damage stops. Find some refuge! You're welcome. This is not true on high gravity worlds, because gravity doesn't go away in the same way that intense heat or radiation might be mitigated by a thick layer of minerals.

Note also that your suit's DR is taken into account when the environmental damage is reported to you. So if an irradiated reads as 12 damage, you must have damage reduction of 15. And you might ask yourself, "If I have DR 15, why is this damaging me?" Well, because it's already been accounted for.

What's a "dying" planet, anyway? A world in the midst of breaking apart! Expect lava, cave-ins, and possibly vast mineral deposits. Also a lot of damage and potential death.

You can tell the basic composition of your landing party just by looking. Crew are red, officers are blue, yellow is the captain, and the captain is you!

So if the captain goes on an away mission and gets killed, it's game over! You should really think about whether you want to do that...

So why would you want to go? Well, sometimes a mission is so important that you just have to be there. But other times, maybe you have an indispensable skill, like field medic, recon, or marksman. Or it could be the extra XP and faster leveling provided by taking on the risk yourself.

Whatever the reason, you can assign and un-assign officers for the away team on the Officers Screen [O]



Click the "away team" button. When the green light stays on, they're going planetside. When it's off, they stay in the comfort of the ship. It's up to you (usually).

Officers can get injured (or even killed!) on away missions, and an injured officer can't go on any additional missions until they're fully healed. If they're hurt bad enough, they won't even be able to perform shipboard duties, and so their ship-skill bonuses won't be applied!

This information is shown on the officers screen, like this (Inj. 130). That means this officer will be healing for the next 130 game turns. Go do something else. We really need a "nurse" skill to speed that up, don't we?

The bottom line is this: having officers on the away team has a lot of benefits, but it also carries considerable risk. Do you want to risk losing your skilled officers, or even yourself? And if you're one of those contemptible captains who regularly leaves diseased crew stranded on away missions, well, you can't abandon yourself!

There are really just so many ways to die. Look at this away team:



Sure they've got great equipment, but it's all those status effects I'm worried about.
On Fire! Poisoned! Taking Energy Damage! Blinded!

These conditions do damage over time, except for "blinded", which just reduces your sight range to one tile. They slowly go away, but sometimes it can seem to take forever. Monsters and environmental hazards can cause these things.

But hey, if you're on fire, walking through water helps (if you can do that). Just don't mistakenly step into a hydrocarbon lake when you're on fire if there happens to be an oxygen environment...BOOM!

Red Honey and Golden Pollen are two very special commodities usually found in caves. They are powerful compounds that provide the landing party with either greatly increased melee damage (honey) or constant regeneration (pollen). Both cause increased oxygen usage.

It's up to you to find these things, but they are not for sale...


As the away team takes damage, their HP bar goes down (obv). If it reaches the dark part of the bar, someone will die. Redshirts first, then officers, then the captain, if they're present (which would end your game).

You can rest to heal ('R' , check keybindings, and rebind if desired). Press control+rest to long rest and wait until healed.

What exactly am I looking for on planets?

Loot!

And XP and quest items and clues and just plain something new.

You can find commodities on planets, like food and raw ore. Ore usually spawns near mountains, food in plains or forests, and you can often find rich chemical deposits near lakes of acid, fire, or hydrocarbons.


Gemstones in mountains and chemicals near lakes.

You can also find lost ship components and devices, things other people are looking for ("quest items"), or even a stranded officer! And caves can contain secret bases and vast riches deep below the surface.

Just go look!

You can't go everywhere with your starting equipment. But eventually you can cross mountains, water, and acid. You can remove rubble and even take out sections of force fields. You'll get there!


Q: "Hey, how come my away team can carry an unlimited number of commodities, but they just spill out of my spaceship when it's too full?"

A: would you rather be limited to the single unit of raw ore that your poor away team has to lug back to the shuttle? No. It's "game-like". Reality sucks sometimes, so we won't emulate it here.

Q2: Then how come I can only carry one component or device, but not both?

A2: Gotta limit you somehow... You're the captain, you make that tough call about whether to bring back the new engine or the cloak enhancer you found.

I couldn't think of anything else right now.

What questions do you have? If they're good, I'll put them here!

Here's something:


When your crew are "lost", you will need to hire people to replace them. This is done at space stations. The cost to hire crew varies by sector, the kind of station it is, and your reputation (fame and infamy).

If you get a lot of people killed, or even leave them behind because they contracted a little alien germ, it's going to get harder and harder to convince them to join you.