Abiotic Factor – Beginners Guide (FAQ, Maps and Tips)

A collection of useful tips for new and experienced players that cover information that the game doesn’t readily tell you (for the most part).

Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Here are some useful tips and tricks.

You can easily get an anvil on the first floor for a repair station as soon as the first night. To do so, while it is night and the power is off, go to the vent in Storage that took you to the cafeteria, and head straight ahead through the hallway past it into another vent. There is normally a large fan in here that is on, but because the power is off, it is no longer moving. Be warned that the room below is dark and full of Carbuncles (the floor/wall enemies that grab you with their tongue) as well as one Pecarry (the four-legged alien monster), so be adequately prepared. You may want to wait in the vent behind the fan until day comes and then go inside, so that you have light.

Night lasts from 9PM to 6AM and power to almost everything will be shut off, except for some exceptions like charging stations. Also, security bots come out at night, but you can also fight them during the day (you will need to) by breaking their charging stations. This is recommended for obvious reasons.

Pooping yourself is actually a valid strategy (wait for the toilet need to run out). It is currently the only way I found to obtain feces, which is required to make soil for gardening. The only downside is a debuff that attracts enemies, which can be removed by washing, which you should always do with tainted water, like in the fountain or pool, to avoid wasting fresh water. You need one plastic scrap to pick up the feces.

Soup is one of the best foods you can get, as it never spoils and creates a large amount of servings that fill both hunger and thirst. You need one liter of fresh water, both variants of Pest meat (rump and regular) and a cooking pot (one can be found free on the second floor kitchen), as well as a soup bowl (recipe obtained by finding a stapler) and at least one level of cooking skill. Fill the pot with fresh water, put it on a stove, and then add both raw pest rump and regular raw pest. You will get Pest Goulash, which restores 30 hunger and 10 thirst eight times. A soup bowl can store one serving (two uses). You may also be able to make tomato soup, but I have not tried this. I have not been able to get a Pecarry soup working, either.

You can also use pots to boil one liter of tainted water into 0.5L of fresh water. You can use water coolers to store water of both types and also fill pots with water. You can also fill a pot with water by placing it in a sink and using a water bottle, or by bringing them to a fountain/pool, for tainted water.

The demo ends, without story spoilers (but still spoiler-tagged anyway because I don’t know), after you have unlocked level 1 security through a hacking device. The door you unlock on the third level takes you to the end of the demo.

You can take maps from any of the map displays on each floor. To view the map, open your journal, click on the current location, and then click on the map on the right side of the screen that you wish to view. It does not show your location, but it is handy either way.

The vacuum is the most powerful weapon per-shot currently in the game, it instantly kills Pests but, most importantly, can use them as ammo for massive damage. It can be obtained very early on by finding Raw Carbuncle (stomp on a Carbuncle). The one downside is that it uses live Pests as ammo and can only store one at a time, but it can make killing enemies much easier.

• Aiming for the head with ranged weapons seems to increase damage considerably. Unsure if there is an equivalent weak point on the security bots.
• You can upgrade your workbench to use crafting materials from nearby storage. This requires Exor hearts, which you can find on Level 3.
• You can scrap nets into Cloth Scrap. This lets you duplicate Cloth Scrap (and nets) endlessly. You can use this to grind out crafting to level 5 so you can repair using items from storage.
• Cloth Rope says you are too weak to climb it, but increasing strength to level 5 does not let you climb it. So don’t bother grinding it out just for that. It seems to currently be impossible in the demo.
• You can find a Glock but you cannot use it due to a biolock. This currently has no way to unlock it in the Playtest.

The crossbow’s aiming is based on the faint dot sight you see on the screen. Increasing accuracy simply increases the range at which it turns red and starts wobbling (highly recommended to grind out on pests/carbuncles, as a result).

• The Makeshift Spear is a direct upgrade to the knife. You can unlock it by packaging a Standing Lamp.
• Sleeping does not advance time (currently). So this means you cannot skip the night by sleeping, but it does mean you can sleep at any time without consequence. Jump over the Pests in the minigame to sleep faster.
• The hammer is actually a terrible tool for breaking things due to how fast it breaks. Make a pipe club instead.
• What the hammer is good for is dismantling packageable objects by right-clicking for guaranteed resources. If you have a shield that prevents this, you can put away your shield by pressing holster (default H).
• Cold doesn’t seem to do anything, not even standing in the freezer. It may increase need drain and reduce health/stamina regeneration, but I haven’t tested this.
• In multiplayer, you can use the emote wheel (default key: B) to select the Pager. This shows your position to all players for a short amount of time. The tutorial tells you this, but a surprising amount of people did not seem to notice.

How to level up each skill (most are obvious, but some aren’t documented in-game):

• Sprinting: By sprinting, lmao.
• Strength: Go over your carry limit but don’t fill up the bar entirely, and walk around. Yellow gives a small exp gain per second, light red gives a large one, and full red means you’re full and won’t get any exp.
• Throwing: Throw nets (or anything else), anywhere. It doesn’t even have to be at something. This makes it rather easy to grind.
• Sneaking: Sneak around enemies that haven’t noticed you.
• Blunt/Sharp Melee: Hit enemies with weapons.
• Accuracy: Shoot any enemy with a ranged weapon (Vacuum-fired Pests and Crossbows, currently).
• Reloading: Reload your weapon. You can retrieve crossbow bolts you fire occasionally (random chance), so you can grind this if you have enough.
• Fortitude: Take damage. Unsure if the amount of damage matters yet.
• Crafting: Crafting and scrapping. Different items give different amounts of exp.
• Construction: Break packageable objects by failing to package them, use screwdriver on objects to build them (can be easily grinded).
• First Aid: Craft healing items, or use them.
• Cooking: Cook food.
• Agriculture: Craft anything related to growing plants, as well as taking care of the plants themselves.

Solo Tips

Some tips for those who are playing alone: ​​

Don’t make it worth repairing the knife or hammer as they both work even if they are broken (it’s only worth repairing armor and the weapon you use) and also if an enemy is chasing you (the giant for example) just log out of the game and log back in and the game will put the enemy in the default spawn position (similar to souls like games where people use this in speedruns etc).

Note: It also works when the giant catches you mid eating animation.

(If you’re lucky) it also doesn’t make worth crafting chests bc the filing cabinet (even the large one) has the same capacity as a normal chest and if you manage to get a Huge one (11% chance) you will have more than enough space for your items and I also think they have more life than the conventional chest (since we only have access to the small version of it) but you know it’s really easy making chests so idk maybe I’m wrong.

Do not connect the power socket directly to the table or item that requires power directly, if possible, always try to put a battery in first and connect the socket to it and then to the desired table/item, this way you will keep it working almost the entire night (works better in the refrigerator which keeps your food in a good condition) and also but not less important, try to take every single water cooler that u see if ur gonna do a base outside or far away from water sources for obvious reasons.

How to beat this entity (monster)

 It will follow you and approach you dangerously closer (and attack you) when you aren’t looking at him, if you look at him then it will stop moving at a certain distance, that distance is safe for you but try to not get too close to him or you’ll make him mad and he’ll attack you, it will get a small speed boost as well.

He disappears after a time, I’m not sure how much is that time but he will disappear once that time runs out, he won’t leave any loot if he disappears, the only way to get the loot out of him is to kill him with the X-Ray tower or Lamp. Be aware that he’s literally “invisible” to any kind of damage that aren’t X-Ray related, as far as I’m concerned of course, so bullets, electricity, throwables, melee, nothing will hit him, only X-Ray.

Gameplay FAQ

How to craft from chests?

So to craft from near by storage, you will need an upgrade and some Craft Skill. Both should happen relatively soon in the game.

How to break down the broken computers?

There is an icon when you mouse over it. That’s the “Break It” icon. So you hit it until the parts fly out (just like in the game trailer). Best to use a Desk Leg for it, since those are easy to come by.

How’s the solo experience?

In the demo/play test, solo seemed pretty solid. I played 6 or so runs and felt more or less fine (excluding beta test bugs). The main fault it had was the limiting factor of the demo (which was by design). Early combat may seem rough (and wanting to see if that got smoothed out), but that kind of tracks for characters that are more brain than brawn.

What does a particular effect do?

Is there any way to train strength faster than just carrying around something heavy?

Use the peccary club as a weapon it’s gonna be hard but too hit by I have a technique throw nets first and club them to death it will increase strength.

What’s the best job and skills to invest in?

• Faster xp gain.
• +3 dmg bonus across all melee weapons.
• Summer intern to accomodate more traits, you can grind skills as you play after all.

Note: You can max all skills, but traits are a unique decision at the start.

Are items recoverable after a fall?

Everything in your quickbar persists on you after death.

Everything in your backpack will be dropped and you can pick them back up by interacting with your corpse. You can see a bright white skull that marks the location of where your corpse is, and you can collect them by interacting with the body.

In the case of falling off the map to your death, your body will be at the last location where you were on stable ground.

How to kill the flying octopus enemy?

Need a specific weapon, keep exploring, while avoiding it by standing and looking at it in front so that it disappears.

Maps

Level #1

Click to enlarge…

Level #2

Level #3

Weapons / Gear / Items

Weapons Damage / Durability

Items Weight

Gear

Soup Recipes

Bland Pea Soup

• Peas
• Salt

Lightfooted: Sprinting and Sneaking XP gain increased for awhile.

Pest Goulash

• Pest Rump
• Pest
• Salt

Souper Satisfied: Your thirst and hunger have been slowed, for a time.

Meaty Stew

• Pecarry Chop
• Alien Drumstick
• Pest Rump

Heightened Senses: Your Blunt and Sharp Melee XP will increase at a faster rate for awhile.

Simple Tomato Soup

• Super Tomato
• Salt

Souper Satisfied: Your thirst and hunger have been slowed, for a time.

Killer Soup

Sustenance Soup

• MRE

Quick Reflexes: You gain Accuracy and Reloading XP more quickly.