My Sandrock guide for Portia builders
Jun. 13th, 2022 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseThis will be an evolving guide, so be aware.
Okay, some things work differently between the first game and the second, so you should be aware of them.
1. Saving: They took a page from the MTaP mobile version and made it easier to save. No longer do you have to repeat your entire day if you've had a mishap in the middle. There's also a quicksave version for "whoops, I have to stop now", but quicksaves rapidly overwrite each other.
2. Resources: Stone isn't too hard to find. Once you get your first pickhammer (essentially a pickaxe) set up, you can use it on any stone labeled "gravel", which is equivalent to those smaller stones in Portia (you'll be able to upgrade to bronze etc later). You will also get dinas (essentially the type of sand you can use for glass) and dregs, which you can use for fueling. Wood is a bit more difficult; you'll want to look for the wood piles, or you can buy some from Burgess' store (the same one that sells water). You will get an axe with your workshop. DO NOT USE IT ON LIVING TREES OR TALL CACTUS! (Ball cacti are fine, as are the various bushes.) Sandrock is a desert and they need those trees and cacti, and you will piss off the otherwise very friendly, relatively technology-tolerant Church of the Light people. You can also kick trees (mostly for feathers).
3. The Church of the Light: Sandrock's Church of the Light is more tolerant of ancient tech than Lee was in Portia because of the dangers around them. You will not lose friendship points with them if you use firearms. They work with their local Research Center, if a bit reluctantly, because they realize that in terms of survival, it's better to work together than against each other. It's a refreshing change from Lee's antics in Portia.
4. Recycling and other crafting changes: Some of the things that required a certain workstation to use (for example, leather) can be made at the workbench. Recipes have changed for both workbench and assembly station items - for example, the basic furnace requires more than wood and stone. You need to make sure you have water in your tank or nothing will run. (Burgess, the guy who monitors the water, will give you 2 free units of water early on. After that, you can craft water from dew or buy it from him. You can also get the blueprints for an item called a Dew Collector from the Research Center, but you'll want your essential machines up and running first.)
Your tutorial assembly station task is to build a recycling machine, not a furnace, and yes, you will need that recycling machine! The other thing of note is when they talk about a "processor", it's a cutter, and the skiver does not seem to exist in this game (most of its functions are done on the worktable now; some functions are done on a tailoring machine that you can later get the blueprints for). You can power all machines with either Dregs, Wood, or Power Stones, and yes, you will be picking up a lot of dregs. It's not like early-game Portia, where it seemed like you were axeing a ton of trees just to run your furnaces. Sandrock has taken a page from Stardew Valley where there are quality levels now; most of your early quests you don't have to worry, but apparently later on you need a machine that will increase quality of items.
5. Mining: You can reset floors for 20 gols, just like Portia. A weekly pass is 240 (200?) gols, and you get the first week free. The weekly pass also gives you access to the Scrapyard where you can find copper, mechanical, and rubber scraps. Until you build the crane, you can't mine copper (but you can get it from copper scrap run through your recycler). You dig out the Abandoned ruins to get to lower levels where you can find rarer ores. Also, I got a ton of data disks from trying to dig out the Abandoned Ruins. Try to spend a little time mining each day - the Scrapyard stuff, if nothing else! Your scanner gives you relic locations (the yellow diamonds) and exit locations (green arrows for next area on the level, green exit door for next level down); sometimes they point towards the spot you entered or to a ruins exit, so be careful.
6. Research Center: Still requires data discs to provide machine blueprints - however, they give you a choice of what to build instead of praying that you'll get the blueprint you want. The artifact machine is not in the Research Center anymore, but in the (already-built) museum.
7. Sandstorms: You will get one guaranteed several days after you finish the first main mission; you will also get a piece of gear that will help if you need to run out and get something or do deliveries in town (or fight monsters that only appear during sandstorms. They have a 7% chance of occurring after that so keep the gear on you! You'll also want to clear your machines every night if you can, because anything left on them will blow away and you'll have to chase them down. Also, you will want to construct a feather duster to dust all your machines after each storm. (ETA: there's a mid-game mission that mitigates sandstorm risk with some caveats.)
8. Commerce Commissions/Workshop ranking: Very similar to Portia, and there's a tutorial for the Commerce Commissions. Yan, your more-or-less boss (essentially Presley for this town), is the one to beat for the workshop rankings.
9. Characters: Obviously different (apart from a Portia visitor or two). Main thing to remember that the Mars-looking guy is in the running for the grumpiest person in Sandrock. The actual "rival" builder in this game is a pleasant young woman named Mi-an, who has all of Higgins' drive but without the rudeness. Also, she's a romance option! Note that the game is still being developed, so not all the marriage candidates are romanceable yet (if you did early access Portia you'll remember a time when Paulie wasn't) and there's no marriage yet.
10. Sprinting: You can do it to your heart's content. No more running out of energy while trying to get somewhere.
11. Hazardous Ruins/Boss fights: I got to my first boss fight and presumed it would be like Portia, where if you die you respawn outside the boss fight area. Nope! You have to restart the entire dungeon. I finally managed it with a bit of luck (one of the enemies kind of froze up so I was able to beat the heck out of it) and with changing my weapons over to the daggers (which I think restore your health a little?). Once you get past that one boss fight, the area becomes a hazardous ruins, perfect for level gaining and finding those goshdang small engines. In some ways they're now more like the Somber Marsh hazardous ruins (vending machine and grading).
12. Fishing: Different mechanic to Portia! You toss bait into a sandpit and then aim your fishing trap where the fish is. It's not terrible but it does take some practice (like catching some of the harder fish in Portia). I haven't tried a lot of sandfishing and I'm not sure where most of the fishing spots are (which is hilarious, because I did a ton of fishing in Portia).
13. Planting: Also different mechanic and kind of a early-mid game thing. You aren't stuck constructing/buying planter boxes from the Church this time around and you can have your garden take up smaller bits of your yard. That being said, you do have to make sure you have straw (to protect the plants) and water on hand. There will be one big Church-related side mission involving plants (including one that requires the same size grid as a normal planter box) and several Blue Moon Saloon missions that require planing stuff as well.
Okay, some things work differently between the first game and the second, so you should be aware of them.
1. Saving: They took a page from the MTaP mobile version and made it easier to save. No longer do you have to repeat your entire day if you've had a mishap in the middle. There's also a quicksave version for "whoops, I have to stop now", but quicksaves rapidly overwrite each other.
2. Resources: Stone isn't too hard to find. Once you get your first pickhammer (essentially a pickaxe) set up, you can use it on any stone labeled "gravel", which is equivalent to those smaller stones in Portia (you'll be able to upgrade to bronze etc later). You will also get dinas (essentially the type of sand you can use for glass) and dregs, which you can use for fueling. Wood is a bit more difficult; you'll want to look for the wood piles, or you can buy some from Burgess' store (the same one that sells water). You will get an axe with your workshop. DO NOT USE IT ON LIVING TREES OR TALL CACTUS! (Ball cacti are fine, as are the various bushes.) Sandrock is a desert and they need those trees and cacti, and you will piss off the otherwise very friendly, relatively technology-tolerant Church of the Light people. You can also kick trees (mostly for feathers).
3. The Church of the Light: Sandrock's Church of the Light is more tolerant of ancient tech than Lee was in Portia because of the dangers around them. You will not lose friendship points with them if you use firearms. They work with their local Research Center, if a bit reluctantly, because they realize that in terms of survival, it's better to work together than against each other. It's a refreshing change from Lee's antics in Portia.
4. Recycling and other crafting changes: Some of the things that required a certain workstation to use (for example, leather) can be made at the workbench. Recipes have changed for both workbench and assembly station items - for example, the basic furnace requires more than wood and stone. You need to make sure you have water in your tank or nothing will run. (Burgess, the guy who monitors the water, will give you 2 free units of water early on. After that, you can craft water from dew or buy it from him. You can also get the blueprints for an item called a Dew Collector from the Research Center, but you'll want your essential machines up and running first.)
Your tutorial assembly station task is to build a recycling machine, not a furnace, and yes, you will need that recycling machine! The other thing of note is when they talk about a "processor", it's a cutter, and the skiver does not seem to exist in this game (most of its functions are done on the worktable now; some functions are done on a tailoring machine that you can later get the blueprints for). You can power all machines with either Dregs, Wood, or Power Stones, and yes, you will be picking up a lot of dregs. It's not like early-game Portia, where it seemed like you were axeing a ton of trees just to run your furnaces. Sandrock has taken a page from Stardew Valley where there are quality levels now; most of your early quests you don't have to worry, but apparently later on you need a machine that will increase quality of items.
5. Mining: You can reset floors for 20 gols, just like Portia. A weekly pass is 240 (200?) gols, and you get the first week free. The weekly pass also gives you access to the Scrapyard where you can find copper, mechanical, and rubber scraps. Until you build the crane, you can't mine copper (but you can get it from copper scrap run through your recycler). You dig out the Abandoned ruins to get to lower levels where you can find rarer ores. Also, I got a ton of data disks from trying to dig out the Abandoned Ruins. Try to spend a little time mining each day - the Scrapyard stuff, if nothing else! Your scanner gives you relic locations (the yellow diamonds) and exit locations (green arrows for next area on the level, green exit door for next level down); sometimes they point towards the spot you entered or to a ruins exit, so be careful.
6. Research Center: Still requires data discs to provide machine blueprints - however, they give you a choice of what to build instead of praying that you'll get the blueprint you want. The artifact machine is not in the Research Center anymore, but in the (already-built) museum.
7. Sandstorms: You will get one guaranteed several days after you finish the first main mission; you will also get a piece of gear that will help if you need to run out and get something or do deliveries in town (or fight monsters that only appear during sandstorms. They have a 7% chance of occurring after that so keep the gear on you! You'll also want to clear your machines every night if you can, because anything left on them will blow away and you'll have to chase them down. Also, you will want to construct a feather duster to dust all your machines after each storm. (ETA: there's a mid-game mission that mitigates sandstorm risk with some caveats.)
8. Commerce Commissions/Workshop ranking: Very similar to Portia, and there's a tutorial for the Commerce Commissions. Yan, your more-or-less boss (essentially Presley for this town), is the one to beat for the workshop rankings.
9. Characters: Obviously different (apart from a Portia visitor or two). Main thing to remember that the Mars-looking guy is in the running for the grumpiest person in Sandrock. The actual "rival" builder in this game is a pleasant young woman named Mi-an, who has all of Higgins' drive but without the rudeness. Also, she's a romance option! Note that the game is still being developed, so not all the marriage candidates are romanceable yet (if you did early access Portia you'll remember a time when Paulie wasn't) and there's no marriage yet.
10. Sprinting: You can do it to your heart's content. No more running out of energy while trying to get somewhere.
11. Hazardous Ruins/Boss fights: I got to my first boss fight and presumed it would be like Portia, where if you die you respawn outside the boss fight area. Nope! You have to restart the entire dungeon. I finally managed it with a bit of luck (one of the enemies kind of froze up so I was able to beat the heck out of it) and with changing my weapons over to the daggers (which I think restore your health a little?). Once you get past that one boss fight, the area becomes a hazardous ruins, perfect for level gaining and finding those goshdang small engines. In some ways they're now more like the Somber Marsh hazardous ruins (vending machine and grading).
12. Fishing: Different mechanic to Portia! You toss bait into a sandpit and then aim your fishing trap where the fish is. It's not terrible but it does take some practice (like catching some of the harder fish in Portia). I haven't tried a lot of sandfishing and I'm not sure where most of the fishing spots are (which is hilarious, because I did a ton of fishing in Portia).
13. Planting: Also different mechanic and kind of a early-mid game thing. You aren't stuck constructing/buying planter boxes from the Church this time around and you can have your garden take up smaller bits of your yard. That being said, you do have to make sure you have straw (to protect the plants) and water on hand. There will be one big Church-related side mission involving plants (including one that requires the same size grid as a normal planter box) and several Blue Moon Saloon missions that require planing stuff as well.
