First off, I am a gamer that has put in an embarrassing amount of hours playing Jumplight Odyssey.
Most of the runs were unsuccessful, but having played through the game, there is a pattern that has emerged for my most successful runs.

I am going to break the Odyssey down to stages, corresponding to the Custom Length, Long, option. This takes up to 60 jumps to complete, and its length displays all of the tools and tricks that the game has to offer.

The Beginning:

At the start of the game, your ship is one jump away from Pleiades, in a random system. The Zutopans are close, and there is not much time left before they catch up to you. You begin the game paused, keep it on pause for now.

Your next steps need to ensure your long term survival. As soon as you unpause, fire will break out on your ship, usually on the Quarter Deck, but it is easily extinguished now after the patches, with the canon layout of extinguishers. So, before you unpause, here are a few suggestions:

- You are currently running at a deficit in both Power and Water. The value in the bars shows you the battery and tank capacity, and the tooltip will tell you how much change in that value has occurred recently. For now, both values will stay relatively stable, your current production is able to keep up, barely.

WATER:

But, as soon as you add bodies, they will require more water, both to consume and in taking showers, than you have at start. Adding crops to feed the refugees, and your crew, will also require water, as do your O2 Generators, and as you expand your ship's facilities, the O2 generators will multiply.

The very first thing you need to sort out, therefore, is your water production. You need to add capacity immediately while you still have stores of metal and plastic. The Quarter Deck is going to be used for crewed facilities, ideally, so consider using the Lower Deck for additional Water facilities. They do not need a crew member tending them so the distance from their bunks, and the galleys that the Lower Deck represents, is not such a hardship.

Another consideration: Water Condensers require O2 to generate water. Your water production room can and will become devoid of O2 over time. You might have noticed that the O2 generator also needs Water, as I mentioned before? Well, adding more O2 generators is a losing game. But, you can add shrubs to the water room, and the plants will generate O2 passively and in enough quantity to maintain the atmosphere in the room.

POWER:

Like your water production, you begin with just enough power production to barely break even at first. The Fueled Generators require a Crew member to be stationed on them to produce any power, and consume a diet of Biomass from Algae. Consider using the Priority system to keep the reactors staffed and supplied with Biomass. Further, you need to expand power production immediately as well. Every device on your ship will consume power, and as your journey progresses, the Battery charge will dwindle as your reactors will not be able to keep up with demand.

Resist the temptation to replace the Fueled Generators, at least at first. You need the power they produce and the other, more advanced, types of power generation have their own quirks. In all cases the room a generator is in, must be receiving power for the reactor to function.

Fission generators are the least producing reactor, with only 50 power per tick, unmanned, and 100 power manned.

Fueled generators produce 100 power per tick only while manned, consuming Biomass as I mentioned before.

Fusion power is the greatest producer, at 200 power, however, consume 60 water per tick.

Overall, Fission is the least problematic of the reactors, but at 22 metal with plastic and composite, each is pricey. Fusion is even greater an investment and the water consumption makes it a very late stage addition, if at all. Remember to add Advanced Energy devices, and Experimental Energy Devices, you have to also add the corresponding Energy Panel to the room.



Location:
You will need to supply the Fueled reactors regularly with Biomass delivered by a crewman. Therefore, consider keeping them on the Quarter Deck with the rest of your crewed facilities. Keeping them near the Algae farms, and placing refrigerators in the Power room to store Biomass may also be helpful.

Fission Reactors do not need supply, just staffing if you want the full production from them. They can safely go on the back end of the Lower Deck close to the Lifts. Fusion Reactors feed water directly from the ship, and do not require a crewman to supply, therefore the same location would work for them as well.

Expansion:
As the game progresses, you should add to your capacity of both Power and Water. If you wind up at Zero of either resource, you will not go to space today. :)

But seriously, if you lose Water, you risk losing Algae, Food production, O2 generation, and your crew begin to dehydrate. Showers are also prohibited, so I imagine the ship will get very ripe.

Losing Power will shut off rooms on your ship equal to the shortfall. 02 generators quit, gravity turns off, and doors will fail to function properly.

Its important to realize the value represented on the Resource Bars, is the amount currently in either Batteries or Tanks. Even at zero, you are generating Water and Power, just not enough to supply all of the ship's needs.

Next Steps:

Once you have added to your power and water capacity, take some time to clear the debris around the decks. Once you get your manufacturing room online, the Metal Extractor will convert the debris material into metal. Head over to the Manufacturing room now, and add a power switch, O2 generator, and rebuild the damaged machinery. This will leave you with an intact Metal Extractor, and rebuild a Plastic Fabricator and two shelving units.

Metal Extractor takes material, such as your crew gathered from the debris, and converts it to Metal.

Plastic Fabricator takes Biomass, and coverts it, along with power, to Plastic. The Plastic Fabricator can be close to refrigerator or an Algae farm itself, to facilitate its function.

Later on, you might add a Composite Assembler, which takes Plastic and Metal along with power, and converts them to Composite. Its big, so consider adding this to a second manufacturing room, probably on the Lower Deck near one of the two ends, close to the Lifts. Additionally, it requires a 4D Printer to be in the room. The 4D printer needs a 3D Printer, and the 3D Printer requires a 2D Printer, so the additional devices required means you need a big space. For now, however, you can get by without a Composite Assembler by using Shuttles to Salvage the composite, among other things.

Once you make your additions to Power, Water and begin to get your manufacturing set up, to complete as you salvage material, your journey through The Regency, begins.

The Fine Art of Scavenging:

Shuttles are used in Jumplight to mount expeditions to harvest resources from each star you jump to. These expeditions are dangerous, and can take a large toll on the crew. Consider changing the shuttle assignment EVERY mission. The Avatars of the Crew on the assignment page will show their Duty Status. If they are in full Uniform, they are On Duty, and available for assignments. If they are in a Tank Top, they are Off Duty, and should be allowed to tend to their needs. Their portrait also can show their current morale, mental state or energy level. Try to take only On Duty crew for the shuttle assignments. As they gain experience your crew will earn Call Signs, which add special bonuses for including that specific crew. This can be useful depending on the Bonus. Also consider using the tab at the right bottom corner, to sort by Health. Your crew can and will die on the shuttle assignments, to avoid this happening as much as possible, choose high Health Crew, and add a Scientist (or two) to the Shuttle, as they can increase crew resilience.

Security Crew: Add 5% to mission Success.
Science Crew: Add 5% to Crew resilience.
Engineer Crew: Add 5% to Shuttle Resilience.
Supply Crew: Add 5% to amount scavenged.

Use your Shuttles to salvage material, and rescue survivors. You can also use a mission to Survey the star, to locate Salvage Opportunities. These are very lucrative missions, completing a Survey gains you nothing, but does reveal any Salvage Opportunities in your current star.

Search and Rescue Missions: You get a chance to rescue up to a dozen Pleaidians, earning Hope for each survivor brought back to your ship. These survivors can include regular Crewmen, as well as Civilians. Currently Civilians do not perform jobs, but will increase Hope once rescued. As Hope is a rating that you have to keep above Zero or the game ends, that is not a inconsequential benefit.

Resource Missions: Depending on the Star, your shuttle gets a chance to harvest naturally occurring resources. These can be Biomass, Water and Produce on Green Worlds, Water on Frozen Worlds, Metal and Material on Rocky Worlds, Molten Worlds, and Heavy Gravity Worlds. For this first Part, within the Regency, that is all you will encounter at first. Additional System types and resources, will be encountered as you reach the other phases of your Odyssey.

Survey Operation: Expend a Mission to reveal further Salvage in the System.

Salvage Opportunity: Usually these are restricted to one or two per System, with a notable exception later on. They will only appear after a successful Survey. The amount and types of resources vary, but can include significant amounts of Material, Metal, Plastic, and Composite.

Combat Air Patrol: This mission is usually used to send a fighter to defend the ship from Meteors (in the next phase) or the Zutopans (see below).

Zutopans:

The Zutopans are right behind you, and you do not have enough time to do all the missions in a given star system, at first. Each mission takes six minutes, more or less, and on the system map screen you can see how much time you have before the Zutopan fleet catches up to you. If you Jump before recovering your Shuttles, you lose the Crew, the Shuttle, anything onboard and a Huge chunk of Hope. So plan ahead as you send your shuttles out, and make sure you are not staying too long in the system.

Its highly likely that the Zutopans will catch up to you at least once in The Regency. Your Jumplight Calibration is most likely slow, and its easy to over estimate how much time you have left. Once the countdown reaches Zero, the Zutopans begin to appear in the System with you. Bring your Ship to Red Alert, at the one minute mark, to give crew time to man the turrets. (You have two 'batteries' of gun turrets. One along the Quarter deck, and another on the Lower Deck. The Turrets on the lower deck do not have Power switches installed at first, thus cannot be used until they do.)

You can scramble your fighter, to help with your ship's defense. This is the Combat Air Patrol mission. Though the radar popup screen shows the targets clearly, the range your turrets can engage the boarding pods the Zutopans send, is limited to mid range. Anything closer, your turrets cant fire on. If the Zutopan pods reach your ship, they will dock to an airlock, and spill out Zutopan Marines. Their objective, besides killing everyone they see, is to cause damage and ultimately get to the Engine room to destroy your Jumplight Regulators. If they are all destroyed, the game ends.

Your turrets need to be Powered, and have Ammunition to fire. Your Fighter needs Ammunition to launch a Combat Air Patrol. Finally, you need Ammunition for personal weapons, laser pistols, that can be provided as a wall mounted rack, for use by your Combat Crew.

Now that you have jumped away from Pleiades, and successfully disengaged from the Zutopans, your ship and crew are now moving beyond the region of space colonized by the Regency. You are now entering the Mineral Ring, which is rich in metals and material, but predominately occupied by Asteroid infested Star Systems. The other type of world here is the Frozen World, and if you havent fixed your water situation, you could use this time to stock up on water from these worlds. This has the advantage of avoiding Asteroid fields as well.

Asteroid Fields are more dangerous than Zutopans at times. While in a system with an Asteroid Field, randomly, you will be assaulted by swarms of asteroids. The rocks will impact your ship if not stopped by your turrets or fighters. If they do, the outcome could be devastating:

Impact!

Observation Room damaged: One of the big windows on the Lower Deck, Quarter Deck or Promenade has been hit by an asteroid, shattered and opened to the vacuum of space. Hopefully, the blast doors shut quickly. Anyone in the Observation Room is now asphyxiating, and will die. You can repair the room, if your engineers have suits, and you are willing to lose pressure in the section temporarily to open that door. Most of the time, however, that is not practical.

Another scenario happens if the section that is hit, has lost power. If the blast doors are open, but have no power, they dont shut. The vacuum sucks the atmosphere out of whatever section is now open to space, and if you have no power in the section no O2 Generators are working to replace the air. Doors further away can be sealed to prevent further depressurization, if they have power in other sections. However, regular doors might not hold long. There is a chance a regular door will fail, blowing open and becoming inoperable. The same can hold true of power is lost to a door sealing the vacuum out.

This scenario plays out mostly in the Lower Deck. You could mistakenly think, you dont need to power this section as its not used early in the game. Once you enter the Mineral Ring, however, you need to re-think that decision. If you lose the Lower Deck to vacuum, it is very hard to recover it. Yes, you can add helmet racks and spacesuit racks to areas beyond the vacuum, but you cant make anyone wear them. So, its up to the AI behavior whether they get used. Engineers wearing gear can enter the area and fix the doors and windows, but that is rare to happen. What is more likely is dozens of your crew will blindly bumble into the vacuum area, and either try to quickly run or float through, or more likely pass out and eventually die in the area. So, sealing that area from access is a practical response, even if that surrenders the deck to vacuum.

Hull Impact: The rock hits your hull, echoing off the metal plating. Not too much happens in this case.

Jumplight Regulator Damaged: One of the regulators in your engine room are damaged by the asteroid impact. You have nine regulators. They can be repaired, but if damaged repeatedly could be destroyed, and unable to be repaired. If all nine are destroyed, your Jumplight Drive is dead. You will soon follow.

What do you do in the case of being caught in a Asteroid Swarm?

Red Alert: Get your combat crew to the Turrets.
Scramble: Get your available fighters into space to hunt the Asteroids down.
Batten down the Hatches: Close the Blast doors to your Observation Rooms.
Hope: Hope your ship is not battered into pieces.

Strategy for the Mineral Ring: Stay out of asteroid fields. Avoid systems while jumping through that have them. Stay as little time as possible within them if you have no choice. Consider not sending Shuttles out if time til you can jump is short. You can salvage and harvest materials here, but if you spend too long, you will get pummeled by asteroids. You probably have left the Zutopans behind for a significant time portion, exceeding 30 minutes or more. So the temptation would be to stay for a little to stock up, resist that urge. Not only are asteroids a danger here, but even in systems without them, you need all the time lead you can get for the rest of the Odyssey.

Further, your power and water situation should be resolved by now, allowing you to concentrate on production of Food. Biomass is necessary for Food crops, so increasing your greenhouse capacity requires a corresponding increase in Biomass. The crops also use Water, so increasing your greenhouses, means upgrading your Water production too.

Food Crops: There are three tiers of food the Pleaidians can produce;

Tier One: Beans, Peas and Mushrooms. These do not require Grow lamps, in fact Mushroom growth is reduced in the influence area of Grow Lamps. Each crop has different properties; Beans are slow growth, but have a 30% chance to double their yield each growing cycle. Peas grow faster than beans with a decent yield. Mushrooms grow moderately fast, but have an abundant yield. Mostly I use Mushrooms, but at this tier its not super important, plant whatever you wish.

Tier Two-Expanded Seed Bank: This tier requires a powered Expanded Seed Back to be installed in the room. The crops that can be grown are; Wheat, Rice, Coffee and Tea.

Wheat can be increased in growth by Grow Lamps. It produces a large yield. Rice can be increased in growth by Grow Lamps. It produces a Very large yield, but Grows slowly.

Placing Grow Lamps requires an open wall, with a space on the floor. When placing Grow Lamps the planters that are effected by the light will highlight.

Coffee and Tea: Both crops are not effected by Grow Lamps; They take up alot of space as well, but you only need one of each to unlock Coffee and Tea infusion for the entire ship. This means Coffee and Tea Makers can be installed in various rooms, which can keep your crew hydrated.

Tier Three - Aeroponic Seed Bank: Aeroponic Seed Bank needs to be installed in the Greenhouse, but requires an Expanded Seed Bank as well. With them, you unlock Tomato and Potato crops.

Tomato are Water efficient, (Use less Water) and have a Moderate Yield, with a 35% to Double Yield per Crop Cycle.

Potato are Water Efficient, and has a Large Yield.

Both Potato and Tomato are not effected by Grow Lamps.

Tier Four - Exotic Seed Bank: You need Seed Banks from the lower Tiers, to unlock the Exotic Seed Bank, so all three are needed to be built before you unlock the Exotic Seeds. The Exotic Seeds are; Corn and Oranges.

Corn has a Very Large Yield, is Water Efficient, and is effected by Grow Lamps.

Oranges have a Large Yield, is water efficient, and is effected by Grow Lamps. They have a 40% of double yield per crop cycle.

Location:

You will want to open up Biomass production early on, and place this in the Quarter Deck. There is one greenhouse already partially built on the Quarter Deck, directly across the hall is a good space for an initial food farming greenhouse. The space is limited, so Tier One is probably the limit here, but Tier two is possible with a little arranging. The big issue is the Seed Banks take up an enormous amount of room, at this point better used for planters. Lower Deck farming will eventually be a thing, so plan ahead there. There are additional small rooms on the Quarter Deck where the airlocks are, and again low tier planting is recommended.

After Jumping through the Mineral Ring, you are now confronted by a wasteland of Nebula and barren worlds.

The Zutopans speed up their pace at some point, so keep as much lead time as you can manage here. The Nebula here slow the Zuptopan advance, while also making you essentially Blind on the Star Map.

The Oort Nebula contains the usual worlds, but can be farther distance between them, so its imperative that you upgrade your engine room. Jumplight Cartridges allow greater jump distance, while Jumplight Calibrators increase the speed that you accumulate Jumplight for jumps. The Automatic Calibrators do not require Scientists to function, but accumulate at 50% the rate compared to the Manned Calibrators. Its worth noting that two Cartridges will take you to the Forever Star, that is all you need. The rest of the Engine room slots can be dedicated to Calibrators. You need All four remaining slots taken by Calibrators eventually.

This phase of your Odyssey is more of the same from the others, but work on gaining time against the Zutopans, and get your Crew needs addressed.

Crew Needs:

Hygiene, Hunger, Hydration: Each need requires consumption of a resource. Hygiene requires use of Water at a Washroom. Hunger requires consumption of Produce, that is cooked into meals at a Kitchen. Galley tables are required for consumption of meals. Hydration requires consumption of Water from Soda Machines, Coffee or Tea makers.

Rest: This need does not consume resources, but does consume space in your ship. Cabins allow placement of Bunks. Bunks fulfill the need to Rest. Placement of Benches and Chairs also allow replacement of Rest at a lower rate. Consider liberally placing seating in the corridors.

Each Crew will seek to fulfill Low Needs during their Off Duty time. As you can see, the Four basic needs compete for that time. Once you start to have multiple needs being low among your crew, their performance and speed reduces. It will become impossible for them to completely fulfill their needs during their Off Duty shift.

Washrooms:

Washrooms contain up to four objects, two for Hygiene fulfillment; Showers and Washbasins. Washrooms can also contain Hot Tubs and Saunas.

Showers: Consume 5 Water per Crew, Increase Hygiene.
Washbasins: Consume 3 Water per Crew, Increase Hygiene to a lesser amount than Showers, but faster overall.

Hot Tubs require a Pump to be installed in a Water production room. This unlocks Hot Tubs for the rest of the ship. The Hot Tubs are large, and can be used by four crew at a time. They Increase Morale at the cost of Rest.

Saunas: Saunas require a Compressor to be installed in a Water Production Room. This unlocks Saunas for the rest of the Ship. Saunas are Large, and can be used by Four Crew at a time. They increase Health at the cost of Hydration.

Cabins:

Cabins come in Three Tiers; Basic, Close Quarters, Private Quarters. They are only used by Off Duty Crew and Civilians. When a Crew member has Low Rest, or Morale, they will seek out the appropriate device in a Cabin, if no space is available, they will look to increase Rest on a Bench or Chair.

Basic Cabins have no requirements, allow placement of Single Bunks, and various seating and decorations.

Close Quarters require a Shift schedule on a wall space. They allow Double Bunks, and a Gaming Table. The Double Bunks allow two Crew to Rest at time. The Gaming table allows up to four Crew to increase Morale and Connectedness. They might have a negative emotional trait added, if they lose the game.

Private Quarters, require a Personal Terminal, and allows placement of the Chess Table and Bookshelf. The Chess Table allows two Crew to increase Morale and Connectedness. The Bookshelf allows One Crew to increase Morale.

Cabins also allow placement of Coffee and Tea Dispensers, which increase Hydration. Coffee and Tea Dispensers require the corresponding Crop in a Greenhouse Room to unlock.

Strategy:

Crew Cabins take up a considerable amount of space. The Promenade Cabins can be upgraded to Close Quarters to handle as many Crew as possible. Decide if and where you want to add Cabins on the Quarter Deck, and add Close Quarters at least, to Double Bunk your Crew. The two small rooms between the Medical Bay and the Midships Water Production and Power rooms, are good candidates.

Consider increasing the width of the Washroom on the Promenade by one space, reducing the size of the Cabin next door. Add more Showers, and Washbasins. Small Washrooms can be placed on the Quarterdeck and Lower Deck that include at least washbasins for your Crew. Adding Hot Tubs or Sauna are a Luxury that you will have to balance against your other needs.



Overall, The Oort Nebula is a time to catch up on your resource production, and Crew needs. Gain as much time as possible against the Zutopans before entering the next Phase.

The Black Eye is a cluster of Black Holes directly in your path. Navigating through them is hampered by long jump distances combined with their direct effects on calculating Jumplight. Black Holes impose a 50% reduction on the rate of accumulating Jumplight in their area.

This means, that if you have not outright zoomed past the Zutopan fleet and established a super lead on them, they will definitely close the distance now. Their fleet is not effected by the Black Holes, and will continue to close the distance despite the Catalina being stuck like a fly in a web.

If you have skimped on upgrades to your Engine Room, you will pay for it now.

Jumplight Upgrades:

Engine Room Upgrades: You have Five Slots to fill, with an initial slot already having a Jumplight Calibrator installed.

Jumplight Calibrator: A Manned device that calculates Jumplight. Requires power and a Scientist to function.

Jumplight Auto-Calibrator: A device that calculates Jumplight automatically. Though it does not require a Scientist, it calculates at half the rate of a manned Calibrator.

Jumplight Cartridge: This device extends the range of the Engines by 20 units. The effect stacks with each additional Cartridge. It is recommended to have two Cartridges for the journey as a range of 80 is minimum to finish the Odyssey.

Bridge Upgrades:

Science Console: This gives Scientists shipwide, a buff called Metaphysic Guidance, that increases their ability to calculate Jumplight by 10%. Only the scientist manning Calibrators count unfortunately.

Considerations: The Console does not stack, you only need one. The Calibrators however do stack and the more the better. Further, Auto-calibrators seem interesting as they are unmanned, but the slower speed, and increased cost to build, make a regular manned Calibrator a compelling choice. The sooner you upgrade the faster your trip will be.

Combat:

As this phase makes getting caught by Zutopans a high likelihood, upgrading and setting up for combat is a good idea.

Combat Upgrades:

Security Hub: In order to Upgrade Turrets, you need to establish a Security Hub somewhere on your ship. This need not be a large room, but there is going to be a few things needed in it.

Security Post: This console is manned by Security, and establishes a Guard to respond to Enemy attack.

Secure Server: This item is a requirement for Security Room Turret Upgrades through the Networked Ordinance unlock.

Targeting Array: This device unlocks Stopping Power across the Ship. This just means, it allows the Targeting Computer upgrade in all your turrets.
Target Designator: This device unlocks Rapid Fire across your Ship. Again, this just means it allows you to upgrade your Turrets with Ammunition Magazine upgrades.

Security Mainframe: This item is unlocks the Secure Mainframe unlock, which is required for Security Control.
Security Control: This item is a requirement for unlocking Security Infrastructure, which controls any Blast Doors on the ship.



Turret Upgrades:

Each Turret Control room has two slots for upgrades.

Targeting Computer: Increases accuracy by 20% for this Turret. Requires an operational Targeting Array (Stopping Power) in a powered Security Room.
Ammunition Magazine: Increases stored Ammo by 4 for this Turret. Requires an operational Target Designator (Rapid Fire) in a powered Security Room.


Additional Considerations:

Ammunition Manufacture is important for this phase as the available ammo is going to be critical. Both your Turrets and your Fighters need ammo to continue to fend off the Zutopans. Expect multiple engagements before you finally get out of the Black Eye.

Finally remember that your Lower Deck turrets do not have power switches installed and are thus inoperable, unless you had the foresight to install them before now.