Shade's Tips for the Solo Nomad

Introduction

“Nomad, if you are to return to the Flotilla you must always keep your wits about you and your eyes on the horizon.”

Notes:

7-22-21: Season 4 is announced for Aug 5th. We don't have details about any gameplay changes but I'll be playing it somewhat after it drops and will update the guide if needed.

6-29-21: I just poked through Season 3 and it seems the guide is still valid for it. As far as this guide goes the main difference is that the Mollusk now requires Walker Mechanism and meteor cores to build. Deleted the capped tiles section since its no longer relevant for S3.

What This Guide Is Not

It is not exhaustive and it is not written by a deeply experienced player. I developed these tactics during beta and tested them in some fairly hot (but not zerged) servers on launch day so I know they are helpful tips. I also know there are more experienced solo players than I who might give better advice. A lot of it is based on real life sneaking around that works even ingame but that’s never entirely perfect.

It is not a guide to playing Last Oasis without conflict, dying, getting ganked, losing everything and sometimes wanting to throw your computer out the window in rage. It will happen. As a full PVP MMO you don’t have a choice in who ends up on the server with you. As a solo you can’t compete with a clan so there isn’t any point in trying.

This is not a basic getting started guide. The best one I know of so far is here and I highly recommend you read and bookmark it (I had nothing to do with writing it, credits are in the doc):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ay1tmKrY8ZyYnM8jqc_s5mH1uVjN-SXtwLjJy2iezhE/preview

(Note that the above guide hasn't been updated for changes in Season 2. Its still an excellent look at the basics of the game in detail.)

The Wiki is also starting to fill up with information - like the stats on weapons and walkers - so you'll probably want to have that on hand, too: https://lastoasis.gamepedia.com/Last_Oasis_Wiki

Season 2 Notes:

There is a lot more great information out there now than when I originally wrote this right around EA launch. For example, Kaller's melee guide:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2293958918

What This Guide Is

A work in progress. I started putting these ideas together at the end of beta and we’re just barely out of the gate with Early Access. I’ll update it as we go along. I’m assuming the meta will change as the game and players shift and react to each other.

These are tactics for exploring the dangers of Last Oasis if you want to try it alone. Solo play in general has a freedom to it since you don't have to schedule game time with other people, spend time and effort ingame keeping together, etc.

You will see in the forums and discord that solo play is "impossible" in this game. From a certain perspective that is true: if your goal is to make the sands run red with the blood of the hordes of your enemies who wail and scream your name in anguish as they die.... you cannot do that solo. And there are groups that CAN do that....

What you can do as a solo is enjoy the game in your own way If, and only if, you accept the limitations solo play is going to have.

First Things First: Accepting The Limitations

This game has mechanics to support solo, small group and casual play but it is also designed to be engaging for large groups (even VERY large groups) that have an easy time breezing through what is very challenging for a solo player.

Simply put there is a lot of content – stuff on the Tech Tree – that you just aren’t likely to ever get to on your own. You aren’t going to have the larger walkers. Fortunately the smaller walkers are better for solos, anyway, for the most part.

No matter how good you are, how careful you are you will still get killed and have to deal with recovery. Its a PVP game so that’s just part of it. That means part of playing solo is preparing for losing everything so you’re as ready for it as possible. The key to playing solo more or less on your own terms is understanding and using the mechanics available to mitigate loss.

Second Things Second: Keep Your Eyes On The Horizon

Since a solo nomad can be at a disadvantage against groups of nomads (with equal skill) the simplest way to avoid getting killed is to avoid the fight altogether. A solo nomad is well served by ~constantly~ paying attention to the world around them, keeping track of terrain variations that could hide another walker – or be used to hide your escape if you see another walker- and always looking for the wings of potentially hostile walkers.

After you’ve been wandering for a little while you’ll start to see that most nomads fall into certain patterns of movement. You know where all the bone shards are, for example, so you’ll approach it carefully assuming other nomads are there, too. You can pretty much expect a walker at one loot drop to go to another visible loot drop next – and if you avoid that line of travel you’ll likely avoid them.

You’ll also start to see the pattern in the places most nomads don’t go. And its in those places where you can find a few precious moments of peace.

Mitigating Loss: Transferring Walkers To The Lobby

There is nothing at all immersive about this but its a mechanic that serves large clans and solo nomads equally well: you can safely log out many walkers and their contents using Transfer to Lobby.

You’ll probably transfer your first walker to the lobby as part of the tutorial quest for building your second walker so I won’t go over the mechanic here. I will mention a couple things about it, though:

1) Your character has to be on the same map as the one where your walker was transferred to the lobby. If you left a walker safe logged at an oasis that has burned then it’s gone unless….

2) You can have up to 5 “preferred” walkers that are automatically transferred to a living Oasis eastward when the Oasis it was parked at burns.

Those 5 preferred walkers are your safety net, your bank and your way to mitigate the (extreme) risks of being a solo nomad.

On the first day, for example, I had a camp set up in a little hidey hole and realized it would take a little time for the water to purify, the earth wax to be pounded and the various parts of the nomad cloth to be made. I had almost enough to make another walker so I split my time between managing the crafting devices and finishing up the farming. Then I made another Spider Walker and upgraded its water, cargo and hatch and loaded them up with some essentials and some walker modules I might want later. I also packed the crafting devices I had made into it since the Ballista Spider Walker isn’t able to pack a camp at all. Then I transferred it to the lobby.

The idea is pretty simple: a solo nomad can easily farm far more than the small walkers we ride can store… so we “store” those materials in the form of a backup walker that we can use as banked storage and a backup walker ready to go when (not if) we get ganked, camped and wiped.

Believe me, having a few walkers in the lobby GREATLY eases the stress of playing solo. Just knowing that you have a backup (or 4) lets you relax a little more about loosing the rig that you’re currently using.

Wait, the Tutorial doesn't cover how to get Walkers OUT of the Lobby!

This came up a lot on Discord so here's a quick video about it. Much easier to show than tell:

(Note: this is WAY out of date. You no longer automatically spawn in with your last walker, for example, and a few other details are off... but its still enough to get the idea across. Its pretty simple.)

https://youtu.be/LCsP7Duner4

Less Is More: No Really, I'm Serious.

Those big walkers are really cool. And I mean REALLY cool. And… the coolest of them are both mostly out of reach for solo nomads and completely impractical. If you want to work up to them you can certainly figure that out but your bread and butter is likely to be the smaller walkers. And I’d suggest the tiny ones.

My favorites for solo farming and exploration are the Spider Walker, the Spider Walker with Ballista and the Firefly.

The Firefly is dirt cheap, you don’t need Vision Powder to build it, has enough storage for solo nomad level farming and is a lot faster than you think once its got wings.

But… about those wings…

Those wings are what makes a walker very easy to see over vast distances. And the larger the walker and wings the more visible it is and the harder it is to find places to conceal it from view. The firefly is small enough that it can get into some pretty tight little hiding places but it isn’t really all that agile. And if you have to run in one be very careful with your driving: they tend to bottom out on small landscape variations and that will slow you down.

Which brings us to the Spider Walkers. In my mind these are the perfect solo nomad machines as long as you have (at least) the Dinghy you built for the tutorial tucked away just in case.

Why?

1) Having no wings they are nearly invisible on the landscape and can be hidden in many, many places in the Oasis maps I’ve seen so far.

2) The regular walker cargo upgrades make it hold quite a bit for its size.

3) The ballista spider is an easy way for the solo nomad to break open those harder crates. This REALLY speeds up advancement.

4) Both spiders have great maneuverability and traction: they are like the ATV’s of Last Oasis.

They are small, easier to break into than larger walkers, not as fast as winged walkers and will certainly feel cramped, so….

OK, Bigger Is Better, Too

You have to make a Dingy as part of the tutorial quests and they offer some significant benefits over the starter firefly. For one thing you can fit larger and far more crafting devices on the deck. While the stuff stored in those devices is vulnerable it just saves so much time to have the devices making things while you're travelling, looting, exploring.

Another nice thing about the Dinghy and larger walkers is that you can pack entire camps in them and not just individual crafting devices. So you can make a small camp that has a variety of crafting devices and storage placed in it and pack them all up – along with their contents – into the walker. And just as quickly unpack the entire base and have it ready to go in short order.

So a solo nomad might log in with a ballista spider, explore a bit while farming fragments from crates then settle in for some cattail farming to make nomad cloth at a temporary camp. After breaking down the camp we ride the ballista walker to the edge of the map, grab all the material farmed that session and send it to the lobby and log in the Dhingy.

The Dinghy has a camp with some more storage and a woodworking station so we unpack that and get some Wood Shafts going while adding the day’s stash of Nomad Cloth to the walker storage and the wood, fiber and extra cattail to in the fiber crafting station of the camp for later. After that’s all done camp is packed back into the Dinghy and we safe log to the lobby.

That ends up making the larger walker VERY valuable (to the solo nomad, at least) so I tend to bring it into the game only when needed and try to keep enough packed in it to make another Spider so I don’t have to drive it around if I lose everything else.

Think very carefully about the risks of building and using anything larger than a Dinghy. Hullbreaker ammo is expensive and most clans are going to reserve it for a target that is more likely to pay off. The larger the walker you build the more of a target you look like... even if all you have in your storage is stacks of wood and stone for walker building. I'm not saying don't do it but I certainly wouldn't make anything larger than a Dinghy and expect to be able to defend it for long by myself. I'd never have a larger walker be my only walker if I could at all help it.

For an example of solo play using a larger walker and a base have a look at this brilliant reddit post by SakariFoxx: https://www.reddit.com/r/lastoasis/comments/fwdp2t/tales_from_a_solo_player_who_is_now_hard_map_ready/

The Mollusk

Let me say first that the Mollusk walker is not going to make solo play safe. Nothing can: if its in the game it is at risk. All the previously mentioned tactics of staying small and keeping your best stuff stored offline all still applies. As long as we keep that in mind the Mollusk certainly has a place for the solo nomad.

The Mollusk is a decently spec’d small walker that is the first walker with an internal compartment where you can set up stations, storage, even the helm and it will be protected from casual attacks. It costs 27 fragments to learn and the bone upgrades cost 20. This is easily within reach for solo nomads.

So… about that interior compartment. The safety it offers is largely an illusion. If you have it stuffed full of storage a serious pirate can look in and see that you have a loot pinata for them. They’ll have to spend the ammo to crack open the Mollusk to get to it but seeing all that potential loot makes it an easier choice for them to make.

You have to decide what level of risk you’re willing to accept. I have two mollusks, one I play on and one that is my offline bank. I also still have the old dinghy that still has some recovery materials in it if things really go badly. Both mollusks have an array of crafting stations and storage in them. Even so I still spend the majority of my time farming the hard tile on a spider.

Inside or Out?

You can put the helm inside the mollusk. This has two considerable drawbacks:

1) Visibility is terrible. T E R R I B L E.

2) Its not really that safe for a solo even though it feels like it. Safer, though, yes.

You can get used to the visibility issues and get better at looking around, turning the walker a bit to get specific views, etc. But the view is drastically different than any other walker currently in the game.

It IS safer from casual attacks having the helm inside. You’re safe from direct attacks but completely vulnerable to gas bombs, for example. And as a solo if you’re going to fight with the walker on autorun you need quick access between the helm and your weapons. That doesn’t happen with the helm inside.

What I do like about having the helm inside is that I can autorun the walker to generate torque and putter with the crafting stations inside. I’ve also found that being in first person view while inside gives one a slightly better view outside. Unfortunately you can’t go into 1st person while on the helm.

Having the helm outside has the same advantages and disadvantages as every other walker so no news there. With the mollusk you just have a choice in the matter.

But I Thought The Stuff Inside Was Safe!!!

It is safer but not really safe. Like any walker it can be cracked open. The good news is that the doors remain locked until the hull is damaged enough to open anyway.

The bad news is that a Mollusk is potentially a juicier target than a spider or dinghy and not all that good at escaping from a crew that really wants to see what's inside it. Keep that in mind and keep your best stuff safely logged out. Always.

Is It A Good Walker?

That really depends on your play style. In my view its a very useful and interesting walker. It immediately felt more maneuverable than a Stiletto and more versatile than a Dinghy. It also feels like it hill climbs better and scrambles over rocks better. Seems to be about the same speed as a Stiletto on flat ground but I didn’t have the opportunity to give it a real test – so don’t depend on that!

Founder Walkers: Balang And Silur

We have a new class of walker in Season 2: Founder Walkers.

They have one considerable super-power: instead of storing a base it BECOMES a base - and you can build a stone base on top of it that is about the safest structure you can easily move around in the game. So far there are 2: Balang and Silur

The Balang

The Balang is cool but it is not a perfect solo solution. Its ~a~ solo solution, for sure, but it has its drawbacks.

TL;DR: Ultimately the Balang is a compromise of walker performance in trade for considerably more safety than solo players have ever had especially so early in the game.

Chief among those drawbacks is that the Balang is a mediocre walker (at best) that has zero storage. Yes, no storage at all other than water and torque. That alone makes it a compromise to try to use as your only walker. While moving across a tile to de-sand the gears and move on to another tile I stopped for some simple farming and looting ruins... but was way too tempted to keep that stuff in my inventory rather than take the ~2 minutes it would take to unpack the base, store the stuff, and repack the base. It does work to do that but I always feel "I've been here too long.... I can't run right now if I need to... I'm a sitting duck out here...."

Of course, the stone base is hard to break into so its not really a sitting duck but it is very visible.

The Balang walker is nicely agile but it slows down rapidly going uphill at all. You'll really want to do the torque upgrade as soon as possible. At one point I needed the torque to outrun a nurr that was lazily chewing my legs off as I was trying to run away up a very slight incline. The torque got me up the rise and then I got enough speed on the downhill side to get out of its aggro range.

You'll also really want to build a stone base on it. It offers far more protection than the other early options and its part of the tutorial quest, anyway. That makes it fairly safe to run around farming while the crafting stations in your base are running. Some will be tempted to leave the base in the world but I advise against doing that often. If you're going to leave the base in the world at least make sure your best stuff is kept in an offline walker most of the time. Stone bases are MUCH safer than anything we've had so far but they still aren't invulnerable.

Given that it has no storage as a walker you'll find yourself wanting a second walker to run around in while its a base. There is a base "small walker packer" that lets you pack a dinghy, firefly or spider on the base and it still pack up when the base converts to a walker. The weight adds up ~quickly~ but that makes a combination of mobility, security and having your other favorite walker on hand for more efficient farming/exploration.

The Silur

Silur walkers have no wings and move only by torque. As such, of course, they don’t generate torque. That.. takes some getting used to but its not as bad as it might sound. You’ll definitely want to do torque upgrades as soon as you can, though, and include a torque windmill or two in its base form.

The Silur base foundation is both taller and larger than the Balang’s. It’s also sort of goofy in that it has supports sticking up in the middle of it that you can’t build through… so you end up with ring shaped bases that aren’t all that efficient. Still… you can build and store quite a bit with one and the walker form can carry quite a bit so it doesn’t slow to a crawl the way a Balang does the moment you put any weight on it.

Of course the Silur is a painfully slow walker as it is. Like hit H pointed at the edge of the map and go make some coffee kind of slow. Since it works best as a go-someplace-and-set-up-your-base kind of walker rather than a walk-all-over-the-place walker this is less an issue than it seems at first.

While it only holds water and torque it does have a little protected space in the cockpit where you can build some storage and/or stations. You can mount a couple small walker packers on the edge of that floor space, too. Overall this makes it a HUGE upgrade from the Balang and a very viable choice for a solo player’s endgame base. You can also build walker packers on the base, including larger walker packers (I'm told, haven't unlocked it, yet) which let you transport other walkers of any size.

(Hint: I’d encourage you NOT to make it your bank since, being a main base, it’ll be logged in most of the time. Instead build a dinghy that can be packed in a small walker packer and make that your bank. When you arrive at a tile you intend to live on for a while unpack the dinghy and send it to the lobby and pack it back up when its time to move on.)

Tools And Weapons

I'm not going into too much depth here (see the getting started doc linked at the top for that) but there are a few things to know about which weapons serve more than one purpose. Combat is really important so your weapons have to work for that - either against rupu or other players - so that takes priorty but I've found a few sweet spots that aren't too difficult to get to as a solo nomad.

First, I tend to keep a Beat Stick for a while even after I've unlocked the Woodcutter's Hatchet. I keep the Beat Stick on hotkey 1 and use it for fighting the easy rupu and breaking open the loot urns in their camps. That saves wear and tear on the axe.

My first weapon unlock is usually the Rawbone Hand Axe. While its more expensive to craft it also gives you a lot more resource yield than the basic axe. Its also a very good weapon for the early game: fast and decent damage. Once I have one I no longer carry a basic axe unless my bone axe is worn and I need to do a lot of farming at that moment. In that situation I'd prefer to make a new bone axe if i can, though, because the farming will be much more efficient.

Bone shards can be found in Medium and higher Oasises, by the way. They look like lightly curled horns or tusks sticking out of the ground and are harvested with an axe.

Another urgent unlock is the Simple Sickle. This will greatly increase yield from bushes, aloe, rupu vines and cattails. It isn't very durable so keep an eye on its health and make sure you have what you need to make a new one when the old one breaks.

In the very early game its enough to just pick up stone off the ground but once you're out of the Cradle and have a walker with some storage its not a bad idea to have at least a stack of stone ready to go. That's tedious and difficult outside of the Cradle where loose stone is far less common so the next hand tool to unlock is the Simple Pickaxe. Earth Wax is also a random and rare drop from mining rocks. (More on Earth Wax later.)

My next weapon unlock is usually the Bonespike Sword. Your preferences may be (quite) different but I find the Bonespike Sword to have good damage, is fairly fast and (ahem) its better at harvesting fiber class things than doing it by hand. That means if I have a lot of stuff stored up already I don't need to carry a sickle and just use the sword to keep my supplies stocked up. (I usually have one on my walker, though, in case I run into a high value resource and want to make the most of it.)

(Good news! The wiki is starting to fill up with info and the tools and weapons all have good starter pages already. You can compare the stats for yourself - and keep an eye out for weapons that have a "harvesting value": https://lastoasis.gamepedia.com/Last_Oasis_Wiki )

It feels really nomadic and efficient to just have my sword and axe in hotbar slots 1 and 2 with a pickaxe and maybe a repair hammer. The tradeoff for using the sword to harvest things, though, is that it will get worn done more quickly. That's a factor you'll have to gauge but just keep it in mind if your inventory is full and you find something you really want to keep: you can toss the sickle and still use your sword to free up an inventory slot.

Other Equipment

I usually don't unlock better water bottles at first because I get them in loot all the time. Instead I unlock the gathering pouch and light backpack. These are equipped items that give you more inventory space. While they don't allow you to carry more weight it makes difficult choices like the one I suggested above less frequent.

I also find they make building a new walker very easy. I can just stuff the backpack full of the materials needed and spam F to build it. Sure, I'm overburdened.... for about 10 seconds. And then I don't have to rearrange or do inventory shuffle with the supplies I normally carry. Keep in mind that the more you're carrying the more you stand to lose if something bad happens.

Hotkeys

Seems to me that the devs set up the hotkeys so that 1 is your main weapon and 2 is whatever tool you are using - or a secondary weapon. When you drop a weapon or tool into 1 or 2 it lives there and not in your inventory.

I tend to put the other tools I commonly use in the other hotkeys. So my hot bar is 1) Sword, 2) Axe, 3) Pickaxe, 4) Axe, 5) Sickle, 6) Hammer, if I'm bothering with one.

Yes, 2 and 4 are both axe. When you hit a hotkey with a tool equipped it will move into hotbar slot 2. Here come some Rupu! (1 - fight with sword), now let's loot that urn! (6 - hammer) and, oh look, some bone! (4 - axe) and I think I'm short on stone, so (3 - pickaxe.) Well, time to get moving again so lets have both weapons at the ready just in case... (4 - Axe back in slot 2).

You'll set up a system that works for you - and map any extra mouse buttons you may have to best advantage - but in general the less time you spend with your nose in your inventory switching tools around the more your eyes can remain on the horizon.

Crafting Stations

Youll discover the Fiber and Wood stations as you go along because they are fairly intutive and your need for weave, rope and wood shafts will lead you to them.

What isn't as obvious is that the next thing you'll want is the Stomper. The stomper is basically an automated mortar and pestle and its the easiest way for a solo nomad to get enough earth wax. Just put palm leaves or mushrooms in it and wait. (There are several things to unlock first - its after Earth Excavator.)

The waiting is the hard part if you're using a Spider - which is too small to have anything on it. You can fit a stomper on a Firefly, though, and certainly a Dingy. In that case just have it going while you roam.

If you're out on a spider, though, you'll need to set the Stomper up on the ground somewhere. Fortunately the game has plenty of little places you can tuck yourself away. You certainly can (and will) be found but many players don't check every crack and crevice. And for good reason: it doesn't usually pay off since even if there are some resources to gather there its easier and more productive to find them elsewhere.

Just don't stay in one place for too long. Let the devices make the resources you need then pack or disassemble them and move on.

If you're using a campfire at the same time - which is wise since any time spent in camp crafting other things is also a good time to make drinking water - be careful about having so much wood in it that it stays on all the time. That light is also very visible and can sometimes light up the things you're hiding in. I never have the campfire burning during an eclipse. Its just way too visible. I use eclispses to check my tech tree and fragment count and either use them or figure out how many more I need for the next unlock(s).

(You can also use eclipses to travel in the open on a map that is getting too hot to stay at. Its risky but you have to weigh that against the risks of staying in a map that, for example, just sprouted a clan war. I keep an eye out for escape routes and when racing for the edge of the map go back and forth between the map and looking at... you guessed it... the horizon. Its a little tricky to navigate but its not impossible.)

Oasis Claming And Ownership

While its probably possible for a solo player to farm up for a claim walker that's not what this section is about. Spending time in Oases claimed by other clans can actually be very helpful for both the solo players and the claiming clans.

Claims actually encourage the owning clan to protect nomads who are farming their oasis because they get free materials from it.

Its NOT a tax on the farmers, though. You'll get eveything you would normally get. In fact the oasis I'm farming currently was claimed sometime over the last day or so and I didn't even notice. The claiming clan gets an extra 10% (out of nowhere - its not from what you get) unless someone kills you. If you die to pvp then whatever you gather doesn't contribute to their stash for 12 hours.

So it is in everyone's best interests that the solo and small groups of nomads just trying to enjoy progressing through the game are able to do so in relative peace.

This goes both ways, of course. If you're in an Oasis owned by a clan that is at war with another clan the enemy clan has every reason to kill you just for being there.

It might take some moving around to find an oasis claimed by a clan that does a decent job of protecting its inhabitants without being at war with its neighbors. Owning clans tend to make use of global chat quite a bit to keep in touch with the nomads so you can tell a lot about them by the character and quality of their talk. Its up to you if you want to announce yourself early on but I've found that sneaking around - as usual for me - and paying attention for a while pays off. Other players usually ask the questions I want answered, anyway.

General Tips

First! If you're just getting started:

Its the fastest way to level up, you get fragments from completing sections of it and it does a great job of guiding you through the game's most important mechanics. If you make a mistake very early on and unlock the wrong thing then it can be hard to progress through the tutorial. I saw a few streamers do exactly that and they found themselves having to explore and fight before they knew how to fight or make bandages....

1) Even in the wingless walkers avoid being on top of ridges for long. You’re very visible and any movement will draw eyes to you.

2) When going over a ridge stop before you get to the top and see what’s on the other side. If someone could see you if you went over the edge you then have the option of watching to see what they are doing or turning around.

3) Fight the rupu, especially the larger, smarter ones. You’ll want all the practice fighting you can get and the rupu are the best a solo nomad will get for melee practice. If you have trouble with a White Death you will certainly have trouble with a player that knows what they are doing.

4) If you are being attacked by players use it as an opportunity to practice fighting and learn instead of giving up and getting frustrated.

5) Get REALLY good with your grapple. It can save you from fall damage, allow you to move in ways that are much harder for ranged weapons to hit and is just generally a cool way to move around.

6) You can kick. By default its mapped to "2nd middle mouse button." If you don't have that button remap it to something else. I'm using R and so far its working well. Be careful using it, though, as it uses stamina.

7) As far as I know there isn't any way put markers on the map, yet. All I've been able to figure out so far is taking a screenshot to mark a place. You can also put down a quick sandbed which will be easily visible on your map but I'd do that very sparingly. Other nomads will find and destroy them and they are a sign of your presence since they have your name on them.

8) Have a lot of looted repair hammers and wondering what to do with them all? They're better at opening the hard loot crates than any weapon you're likely to have. Its a great use for them, less wear on your other tools and you spend less time being vulnerable at a highly visible landmark. Win win.

8) Get really, really good at blocking. When it comes to melee it doesn't matter how good their weapon is: a block is a block. Again, practice with the rupus. Players are WAY better than rupus but its a good place to start.

9) Put those fragments in your walker storage. Right away. No exceptions. Yet at the same time...

10) Avoid hoarding too many frragments in your walker. Its better to know what you want to unlock and do that as soon as you have the frags for it. While your walker storage is safer than any other storage ingame your walker can still be broken into with the right equipment. It might not happen that often because that ammo is expensive but its good to be in the habit of using those fragments as soon as you can because it WILL happen at some point.

11) Also, if you're about to get ganked and you can't avoid it.... take those fragments and unlock whatever you have time for. Even if those aren't the things you were working towards its better to unlock them than to just lose the fragments.

(sigh) Yes, Tablets. And you might as well forget they exist for a while. You make them. From 100 fragments, each, and 1K torque to power the machine that makes them. Torque is made with wind powered walkers or placed windmills and stored in Torque Batteries. You take these supplies to static crafting stations that only exist on hard maps to make the Tablet(s).

(Season 2 note! Getting tablets is MUCH easier that it was. You can do Trade Station quests to get flots and buy tablets from travelling merchants for 5K each. Even on Medium maps. Its pretty cool.)

You can see the dangers, yes? First, that's a lot of effort to farm up. Second, you have all that stuff on you or your walker as you approach the crafting station. Third, if you manage to make one you then have one of the game's most valuable items in your inventory and you're standing at a highly visible landmark...

Making Tablets one or a few at a time is likely to be endgame play for solos. It takes 100 of the SAME Tablet (of which there are 3 kinds, determined by RNG at creation) to unlock the largest walker...

See what I mean about the limitations of playing solo? That's not a bad thing: its simply a consequence of a game that allows for both challenging solo AND large group play.

You have 2 options: find a hard map where the claiming clan will let you use the permanent tablet fabricator or use the single use, randomly spawning small fabricators.

I use the small ones. They take 400 torque and 100 frags and give you at least 1 tablet back and a bunch of shattered fragments. You usually just get 1 tablet but can get up to 4 if you're REALLY lucky. The entire process takes 2 minutes and it won't start outputting anything until its half way through.

I keep a torque windmill packed in my spider when I'm tablet farming and set it up in the trees or rocks when I stop for a bit. I keep a torque battery in the hatch. It works pretty well but you're definitely more exposed than when you're farming materials and have considerably more at risk. Once the process is complete I usually pack the stuff in my walker right away and head for the lobby to put them in whatever walker I'm using to bank.

I also use a larger walker to generate torque by running back and forth. With torque upgrades and modules its WAY faster than a windmill. You can also risk leaving windmills set up somewhere and checking on them. Torque ends up getting used for a variety of things so eventually you'll want to establish your ways of creating and storing it.

Troubleshooting

Respawing Elsewhere

Ah! I had just finished downloading the game, fired it up, poked through the character creation choices and was finally getting started! Its so exciting!

Upon standing up and looking around I saw another beginning player running at me with a stick. I defended myself as best I could but... yeah.

Why? Why?!?!? I don't even have any loot!!!!

The answer is simple: that player would rather not have the competition of another fresh spawn right in his or her spawn cradle. There are plenty of other cradles so you're just being told - in the quickest, if not very polite, way - to respawn elsewhere and leave them alone. There is nothing (necessarily) personal or toxic about it.

Since you are solo nomad that as simple as it can be. In the respawn menu there is an option to respawn to a different Cradle server. I suggest looking for one that is "spacious" though at present there is little chance it will stay spacious for long. You'll be spawned in the same getting started canyon with no loss.

You may have to do this a few times. Just stick with it and eventually you'll find a place to at least get your feet under yourself.

Protected Inventory

While you remain in the Cradle your top 4 inventory slots do not drop on death. Neither do the weapons or tools you have in hotbar slots 1 and 2 and anything you have equipped in the 3 equipment slots and what you are wearing. You'll see the little lock icon on those inventory slots so put the important stuff there.

What's important? At that stage its going to be fiber, wood, stone and.... your choice of the resource that is most important at the moment. Might be rupu pelts, rupu vine or catus fruit depending on what you are currently working on.

"But what about the Fragments?!" I hear you ask. Fortunately those are also protected no matter what slot they are in.

And Once We Leave the Cradle?

So, walkers are very expensive to break into because it takes ammo that isn't exactly cheap. Zergs might have enough of this ammo to raze and entire server to the ground if they want to but everyone else is likely to be more selective about their targets.

So upgrade the cargo capacity of your firefly and put the important stuff there. Certainly that includes Fragments and whatever materials you are stocking up on to build the next walker or crafting device.

While its tempting to leave stuff stored in your campfire and other storage devices (and I sometimes do) its important to understand that those devices aren't as safe as your walker's cargo. It can be broken into by anyone with a weapon. Its up to you if you want to run that risk or not.

The Fine Art Of Getting Ganked

So... look, I know that getting outfought or outnumbered isn't fun. There is very little satisfying about losing a fight for whateever reason and its even worse when you lose your stuff and get set back with whatever project you were working on.

But its not the end of the world and if you're careful you don't even lose all that much.

But there some other things you can do that will make things worse rather than better so let's talk about what NOT to do when getting ganked.

Don't shout insults in voice or chat.

"Oh, great, you arsewipes! REAL men only fight 6v1! You losers!!!!!"

That group of 6 already demonstrated that they don't mind picking on a solo player that probably isn't going to give them much loot. Why? For the fun of it. By getting salty with them you're just making it more fun for them. Don't.

Seriously, just don't.

As a solo player you are a very low priority target most of the time. By being salty you elevate yourself to a higher priority target.

Don't get on Discord and complain about griefers.

"Man, my crew of 4 was just totally got ganked by a crew of 12 on a Buffalo! Wtf? We were minding our own business and we lost our Stiletto. The devs need to fix griefing or this is a ded game!"

I get it. Its frustrating and it seems like discord is a good place to vent those frustrations.

It isn't. Don't do it.

Don't immediately respawn to your walker

Unless you are set up for combat respawning by having extra weapons and armor in your walker's hatch you might not want to immediately respawn to it if you've been killed by a stronger attacking force.

First, you'll respawn naked or with limited equipement and might not be able to do much before being killed again so it just wastes your respawn water. Second, if you're solo and being killed by a someone just looking for fun respawning is just giving them more fun.

Three times so far I've been attacked by people either better at fighting (which isn't hard - I'm not great) or by a large enough group on a faster walker that I had little chance of escaping no matter how much damage I did. Fine. Its a PVP game, all I really lost was my inventory and that was all easy enough to replace. So I didn't respawn to my walker. Instead I respawned "near" - which usually isn't all that near - and farmed up a quick beat stick, bandages and cactus flesh for water. Then I ran back to my walker on foot approaching carefully to avoid being seen.

In every case I had taken long enough that the attackers had gotten bored and moved on.

Do fight! Fight as well as you can! It can be great fun.

I was cleverly boxed in by two people using 2 spiders to trap mine so I had little choice but to get out and fight.

Miracle of miracles I killed them both. I guess all the rupu practice is worth something, especially the footwork involved in when you agro more than 1 of them. I had enough time before they respawned to ram my walker out of their trap and continue about my day while they took a few moments to re-equip their stuff and decide if they wanted to chase me.

They didn't. I killed them both while they only landed 1 hit. The blocking practice really helped. And they only had 1 respawn left in their walkers.

Incidentally, if you are confident of your fighting skills and want to buy a little more time don't kill them right away. Let them think you're content with knocking them out and then kill them before they can get up in 30 seconds.

TL;DR: "Shade, Just Say It Straight..."

1) Farm everyting you need to...

2) Build a Firefly or Spider

3) Upgrade the cargo, water and hatch (if you can) on it

4) Pack your original walker with water, tools, weapons and enough supplies to build another walker

5) Send it to the lobby

6) Play on your new walker and

7) Repeat from step 1 as soon as you can.

8) Enjoy the challenge of any PVP encounters knowing that you've aready recovered from them in advance.

Q: Hmm... looks like I have to learn a few things first before I can unlock Spider. Shouldn't I just use my Dinghy?

A: I wouldn't. Its too visible. I would only play with a Dinghy after I've put a few other emergency walkers in the lobby. You WILL get seen and attacked at some point.

Q: So I won't get seen and attacked on a Firefly or Spider?

A: You'll get seen and attacked on those, too, but it will probably happen less often and its easier to recover from. Even easier if you have armored legs on your spider. Either way you won't lose much.

Q: That's a lot of stuff I have to farm up! And I'm vulnerable while farming!

A: Yes. I tend to farm in short, fast spurts and put it in my walker as soon as possible then move. Trust me, that's safer than having an in-process build and running back and forth. If you have all the stuff you can build a walker in a few seconds.

Q: Any other quick advice?

A: Yes: keep the water reserve in your walker full and don't drink out of it unless you absolutely have to. That's your respawn capacity so you'll want as much of that as possible if things go south.

And Finally (for Now)…

Don’t be too afraid of making friends and teaming up with other players. Once you’re set up with your backup walkers its less of a risk to talk with other nomads, share news and team up to do things that are harder or more time consuming for 1 person to do. Its a dangerous desert and, sure, plenty of people will attack you just because you are there. But not everyone will and finding other like-minded nomads can also be a fun part of the MMO experience of Last Oasis.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2037016852					

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