What is the Planetary Tech Tree?
When you first land on Icarus as a poor prospector you bring nothing with you. As you start gathering stones, sticks and flora with your bare hands, mine rocks using your newly crafted pickaxe, chop down trees and collect wood with your stone axe, you’ll earn experience points (XP), level up and earn points to unlock items to craft in the Planetary Tech Tree.
The items you choose will help you customize your own play style and increase your chances of staying alive longer!
The first two tiers of Icarus’ planetary tech tree have over 150 items for you to unlock and craft.
Tier One
Tier One provides the foundational tools to survive as a prospector. These items are fast to craft, use easily found resources and set you up with the basics to survive on Icarus.
Basic Hunting
Wolves and Bears are in abundance on Icarus’ more Earth-like terraformed areas and will approach you if you’re in their line of sight. Without the bare minimum of a Wood Spear, Wood Bow or Stone Knife, you may become a meal.
- Stone Knife: requires Fiber, Sticks and Stones. It has baseline melee damage, skinning efficiency (how much leather you collect per skinning), yet low projectile damage when thrown from afar.
- Bone Knife: requires Wood, Leather and well... Bones. Slightly higher melee damage, providing more efficient skinning as well as better projectile damage compared to the Stone Knife.
- Wood Spear: requires Fiber and Sticks. Decent melee damage with projectile damage to boot! If you're interested in getting up close and personal with your enemies, this spear is for you. You can also aim and throw from a distance while being able to retrieve it from inside your prey or from the ground.
- Bone Spear: requires Wood, Leather and Bones. Better melee and projectile damage than a Wood Spear.
- Wood Bow: requires Fiber and Sticks. Sufficient but limited projectile damage. Accompanying the bow are two choices of damage-inducing arrows made from Stone orBone. If you happen to be lost or need help, you can also craft a Flare Arrow to pinpoint your position in the sky or a craft a Flame Arrow to set something alight!
Basic Shelter
Building in this tier has the sole purpose of providing a shelter to survive within your immediate means.
- Thatch: is your quick craft option. While only requiring easily accessible materials such as Fiber and Sticks, thatch shelters give you limited durability. If you are away from your main homestead this is a good choice for a temporary hunting shed. Just remember to stay away from fire!
- Wood: provides something a bit more rugged! As you weather your first storms inside your cabin, you'll need a Fire Whacker to stave off flames and Repair Mallet to fix your structure's durability. Your odds of outlasting torrential wind, rain, and thunder increase drastically here but you must stay alert!
Tier Two
Once you’ve hit Level 5, you will be granted access to the second tier! From here you will unlock the Crafting Bench from which every other craftable item stems from. Tier two is a little more technical, pushing you to be more strategic when gathering your resources and deciding what to spend them on. Raising the question: What are you trying to achieve during this session?
Enhanced Hunting
- The Stone Furnace: smelts a range of elements including Iron, where you can craft deadlier weapons like the Iron Knife, Iron Spear, Crossbow and bolts. Want to hunt more efficiently? This is the way.
- The Skinning Bench: is great for improving your Meat, Fur, Leather and Bone gathering as your "value-per-prey" efficiency is increased per carcass. Rather than skinning your kills with a knife in the field, carrying carcasses back to the bench will provide more resources.
It is important to note that you need to have a complete cabin (connecting floors, walls, roof) in order to use the Crafting Bench and the other heavy duty items that require protection from the elements.
Enhanced Building
- The Masonry Bench: gives access to Stone tier construction, making your home a far safer haven than wood could ever provide. Storms shouldn't be an issue for you now, prospector.
- The Carpentry Bench: makes room for players to get creative with their interior design, but most importantly adds an extra layer of durability during storms. You also gain the ability to create ‘trophies’ of your favourite hunts to add some flavour to those bare walls.
Armor
- The Armor Bench: this is your first time being able to craft your own armor, congratulations! Each type has its own perks and purpose, suited for each of our biomes. Crafting Leather Armor provides a quality upgrade to protect you from early-level elemental exposure. Fur Armor is ideal for cold to freezing environments, while Ghillie Armor provides a clever advantage as you blend into the forest and shrubs around you.
Consumables
- The Herbalism Bench: enables you to bake, cook and create sustainable food options with nutritional perks and a larger expiry window. These will alleviate the constantneed to be on the lookout for prey. Bread Dough is a must have, yet Stamina, Oxygen and Health Pastes provide boosts that can give you an edge in a tricky spot.
What are your thoughts?
We've aimed to provide prospectors with a full toolkit of core survival features, with many more for you to discover. We will dive into tier three and four's more advanced machinery and materials another time.
Join our Discord server and take part in the conversation! Discord.gg/SurviveIcarus
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149460/ICARUS/