8089: Tips and Tricks for Begginers

Welcome to 8089, this guide is to help new players understand the gameplay mechanics, as well as some tips and tricks to help you get going quickly.

This game is unique in that it makes you feel very weak early on, and this is for a reason. You do not start as a powerful hero, but that is what you will become over time as you explore, grow, and specialize. Other games have done this very successfully in the past as well, a good example is the Gothic series.

It really doesn’t matter which class you pick, but gunner makes it easier to shoot stuff at the beginning. You will ultimately be leveling your stats far beyond any of these starting values, so this choice really only affects the very beginning of the game.

At the beginning of the game you will go thru a basic tutorial, where you learn how to activate a faction spawner. After that you will be given a good sum of money and sent on your way.

You should now do some of the easier missions available including – “Give a Disk to Someone”, “Find a lost Disk”, “Destroy an Enemy Structure”, and “Capture a wild drone” (easier with a grappling hook). These missions are a bit harder to fail, just don’t die.

Use the money you make to level up your stats. Early on focus on your Shield, Gun, and Durability (HP) stats. Secondarily, try to keep your Analysis stat high enough for the area you are in (hover the stat to see the value needed) so that you are making 100% profit on the loot you find.

Once your stats are in a good place, invest a bit into engineering, as this skill is critical to being able to upgrade your weapons and armor modules using “Overclocking” modules.

NOTE: None of the below tips are hacks or glitches, but some of these tips are certainly much more satisfying to discover on your own, rather than reading them in a guide.

• Use your grappling hook to pick up items, this makes it much safer to collect loot from a distance without putting yourself in harms way during a battle, before the items despawn.
• Level up and use Engineering, this allows you to overclock any chip up to 150% which is the most reliable way to have very powerful weaponry without relying on rare loot drops. For example, overclocking my level 5 gun raised the DPS from 60 to 240.
• Early on you should do easier missions – “Give a Disk to Someone”, “Find a lost Disk”, “Capture a wild drone” (easier with grappling hook), and “Destroy an Enemy Structure” are all easier missions that are harder to fail (just don’t die)
• You make more money from missions the further you get from the starting point (following the compass towards “difficult”), if you feel like you’re not making enough money anymore for the missions you are doing, start taking quests further out in more difficult areas for more money.
• Use the grappling hook to get everywhere faster, even across flat ground.
• Shooting enemies in the eyes temporarily blinds them, disabling them from shooting at you for a short time. It also scores critical hits, so its usually a good idea to aim for the eyes of your enemies.
• When hunting for rare loot, go to the “toxic” areas (purple areas with particles floating around), but make sure you have toxic resistant armor. Rarer loot (%) is found in toxic zones.
• Modules (found at module stores) are much cheaper than permanent stat boots. The downside being they are lost when you get new armor/guns, but are perfect for a quick – cheap level up.
• Dungeons respawn enemies after a short time, so you can clear them multiple times and stock up on loot before you take over a red area, once you take it over it will stop spawning enemies.
• You can set your respawn in red bases (or nearby), and is a good way to get loot, as there will always be plenty of enemies right outside your respawn building.
• You don’t have to stay with the blue faction, if you start doing missions in red areas, and activating red spawners, you will switch to the red faction over time.
• Lobbing guns allow bullets to travel much further than other types, but are much more affected by physics, and therefore drop due to gravity and follow the velocity of the players movement.
• Don’t forget about Engineering, it can make your homing modules much more effective, and can raise the damage of your weapon by a decent amount.
• Level up your shield stat early, and keep it up. It regenerates over time, and your health does not. View your shield effectively as regenerating hp.
• Anytime you find yourself running out of Energy during a battle, that is a sign that it might be time to put some money into your Energy stat, at the stats station.
• Anytime you have any keys, use your compass to find the right “level zone” for the key, and use them to open locked crates. Locked crates contain much rarer drops than typical drops.
• Analysis stat allows you to analyze unknown items when you pick them up. Most items will be unknown, and the cost to analyze them at a shop is usually the same as the amount you can sell it for. With a high enough analysis stat, you wont pay any analyze fees and make 100% profit on the loot you sell. It saves you a TON of money and time.
• The helmet ability “Strategic Vision” is nice when grinding mobs, as it allows you to see them thru walls, buildings, and scenery, making it faster to find enemies.
• Use cover, shooting from inside buildings allows you to move from behind a wall, shoot, and move back before the enemies bullets hit you. A lot of enemies have homing bullets, so merely dodging is not always an option.
• Use scooters to get around faster, they spawn in front of buildings in activated areas. You can refill vehicles at Recharge Stations, and surprisingly you can use the grappling hook with the scooter and its amazing.
• Playing in VR allows you to “blindfire” from behind cover, basically sticking your arm around a wall and shooting without the enemy seeing you. This can allow you to score a stealth hit for more damage.
• Use coding stations, they sell overclockers, which you can use (with engineering skill) to make all your modules more powerful, by up to 150%. You can see the engineering level needed when you hover the overclocker to successfully overclock the module. Be careful, if it fails it will ruin the module, effectively sometimes ruining your favorite weapon.
• At wearables stations you can find modules that raise the durability stat bonus of the item you put it in. It can allow you to very cheaply raise your HP by a large amount, by adding them to the armor you are currently wearing.
• Use the “Respawn At Backup” anytime to fast travel back to your respawn point. As long as you aren’t near any enemies, there wont be a penalty.
• The rarer (%) a stat boost is (at the stats station) the more effective the boost is for the cost. (I am 90% sure about this, but could be wrong…)
• Anytime you reach an area that has no shops/stations, that means its time to go take a quest that rewards you with an activator that allows you to activate a new spawner, which will unlock the new shops/stations. Make sure to use the activator in the new area you want to activate.
• Climbing walls with the grappling hook can be hard at first, but if you pull yourself at an upward angle and release right before you reach the top, it will fling you over the wall. Having triple jump can make this even easier.
• The giant cannons (you will know when you see one) can shoot you really far, great for fast traveling, or getting to hard/easy areas faster.
• Use cloud storage to store rare items you find that you might want to use later. It will keep your inventory lighter, and you can access them at any cloud storage station.
• If you find a good gun module, keep it (in cloud storage), you can craft some very powerful weapons when you have all the parts. If you are missing any parts, all of the parts you need can be bought for a very fair price at gun stations.
• You can rebind any of the keys in the options menu, in the main menu. This includes traditional inputs as well as VR.

The Engineering skill allows you to use “overclocking” modules (found at coding stations) to upgrade your weapons / armor modules stats up to 150%.

You can buy as many overclocking modules that you need from the coding stations, just make sure the level of the overclock module is the same, or greater than, the weapon / armor module you are using it on.

Also make sure your engineering skill is high enough to successfully use the overclocking module. You can hover the overclocking module to see the skill level needed for a successful overclock.

If the overclock fails it will ruin the module you used it on, so be very careful as this can ruin you favorite weapon if not careful.

Using this method, a level 5 gun DPS raised from 60 to 240 using the overclocking tools on all the modules. The guns bullets have amazing homing ability, so you barely have to aim, and the bullets fly super far and fast.