The “New Beginning” story missions have you moving back and forth across the desert, learning to survive. It’s an extended tutorial of sorts, showing you how to build a base, craft gear, fight bandits, watch for sun exposure, and keep hydrated.
While running across the open desert, you’ll trigger a vibration meter after a while. The more jumpy (and red) it gets, the closer the worm. One time I crossed I stayed too long and could tell a sandworm was getting near – so I spun the camera around and waited for it to show. It was exciting and at the same time I ran to the edge of a rocky outcropping for safety.
One creepy lesson was learning how to suck the blood out of bodies… to later deposit in a purifier that takes in blood and produces water. Well, this is a desert planet, I need to drink to survive, plus I’m wearing a stillsuit that recycles… bodily fluids. No wasted liquids here!
I explored around and eventually found a trading post, for the “Touch of Civilization” mission. I accepted a side mission for the Trooper trainer, which involved disposing of 2 rivals – once completed I returned and unlocked the Trooper class.
Trooper has a very nice skill that is basically a reusable grenade – every 15 seconds, I can throw one. Maybe the cooldown lowers by spending skill points – I’ll have to spend some time looking over the skill tree. The other handy skill Troopers get early is “shigawire” which is a bit like Spiderman’s webshooter – you can shoot a line out to pull yourself.
My progress in the Mentat skill line is preserved, and I can switch classes easily – literally just pull up the screen and select which class you want current.
Later, in the “Across the Gap” mission, I was tasked with exploring a botanical lab and recovering some materials. However I explored to the top of the mountain first, and found another class trainer – the Planetologist. This was good for me because he wanted some information from the same lab I was already going into!
The exploration of the lab was quite fun. I would have taken some screenshots but it was dark inside and none would have looked good.
Along the way you can interact with recordings and help fill in a back story about how something went very wrong in the lab and the scientists aren’t quite themselves. There was some stealth, a lot of shooting with my assault rifle, and some knife fights as well.
I recovered all the goodies, unlocked Planetologist, and gained a few new crafting recipes (storyline unlocks).
So I returned to my home, where my essential machines are, and began crafting the new items – it seems I’m building a sandbike. I’m all for that, running across the desert is dangerous and I could use some faster transportation.
Unfortunately, after building the small chemical refinery, which fit neatly into one corner of my base, I need to gather more fuel cells to refine. I’ve picked up plenty of those at various bandit camps, but deposited them all into my generator to power the base (and I can’t split out the few I need for the refinery).
So I left off and next time will scrounge up some fuel cells in order to complete the current mission.
MMO Juggler 