The mission ABYSS is a frantic race through all three biome types — including the Ring Lake region, a Forest Biome with max-level predators — to discover the secrets of the Abyssal Oxite mineral before the three-hour mission timer expires and your prospector is lost forever. If you complete the optional objectives, then on top of the Ren and exotics for the mission you will be guided to a secret cache of 200 exotics.
Objectives and Tips
For both the main mission and the optional objectives, the best place for your base is in a large cave system on the southern side of the Ring Lake in O8. It has all the ore and nearby mineral deposits needed for the mission. As a transition cave between the Ring Lake and Dusty Barrens regions, it also gives you access to the Desert Biome and some of the mission objectives.
Take care, however, as the forest entrance is a highway for predators and prey alike. Due to the predator level, short mission timer, and objectives in all biomes, consider bringing Naneo Armor, a good bow, and strong starter arrows (Larkwell Martinez). It is a risk, to be sure: remember that Insurance only protects your prospector, not the loadout.
Take every opportunity to harvest Raw Meat, Prime Meats, and Raw Bacon for food buffs and healing; good sources on this prospect are crocodiles, bears, scorpions, elephants, and boars.
Seal off the forest entrance to the cave to prevent predators from seeing and aggroing on you while you work.
Mine the Abyssal Oxite Deep Vein
The Abyssal Oxite Vein is a deep ore vein like the others on the map. If you want to finish the mission, including the optional objectives or not, you should plan to start extracting the Abyssal Oxite mineral in the first 1.5 hours (and absolutely no later than 1 hour and 59 minutes after landing).
You will need to craft the following Tier 3 workstations:
Once you have crafted a Biofuel Deep-Mining Drill and a full Biofuel Can, start extracting Abyssal Oxite as soon as possible. Go to the Abyssal Oxite vein in the center of Ring Lake, at the northwestern corner of O8. Place the drill over the vein, put the Biofuel Can in the drill, and activate it.
It takes 50 seconds for each piece of Abyssal Oxite to be extracted
There are not many predators in the center of Ring Lake, and they seem to leave the drill alone, so you can leave it running. You will eventually want 50-60 pieces of ore, so mine 60 just to be safe.
(Optional) Collect Monitoring Equipment
This is the only optional objective you can complete before you start extracting Abyssal Oxite. It is short and a good use of your time while smelting iron or mixing concrete. You are tasked with recovering a Monitoring Device from a Supply Pod dropped about 1km south of the Dusty Barrens entrance to the transition cave in O8/O9. The location is marked on your map at the start of the prospect.
Scale the dirt ramp on the leftFollow the ledge South, past this narrow pointThe Supply Pod is on the other side
Once you find your way to the Supply Pod, you will need to scale the ledge it has landed on. The easiest approach is to bring 5-10 Wood Ladders. If you forget them, there is a dirt ramp you can scale just to the North of the Supply Pod. Once you recover the monitor, keep it in your inventory — you will need it for the longest optional mission objective.
(Optional) Measure the Effects of Abyssal Oxite
On typical Research prospects, you examine samples in a Sample Analyzer. This time, you are the sample. You will need to hold at least one piece of Abyssal Oxite in your inventory with the monitoring device for 60 minutes.
As soon as you pick up any amount of Abyssal Oxite, you will start to suffer from the radiation it emits. Your character will experience two status ailments until you either remove the sample from your inventory or find a way to stop the radiation:
This is one abysmal game of hot potato
Radiation Damage: This is similar to strong poisoning. You take 8 points of damage per tick (3 seconds)
Radiation Warming: Your temperature is increased by 20 degrees
Good food buffs, Health Regeneration Paste, and cooked/dried prime meats will help you keep your health meter out of the red. While the Monitor tracks your symptoms, you will learn two recipes for the Machining Bench that will lessen or completely block the radiation:
Stabilization Catalyst: Learned after research is 33% complete. The recipe requires:
Once your research is 100% complete, you will be given the location of a cache of 200 exotics as a reward. (These are the exotics Sol was hinting at in the Desert when you recovered the Monitor.) You will find the Supply Crate tucked away in the back of a cave at the location marked on your map.
Bring a few Wood Ladders if you aren’t sure of your bouldering skills
Collect Monitoring Station Components from the Arctic
Once you start extracting Abyssal Oxite, the location for a Supply Pod containing three monitoring station components will be marked on your map. It is located in a sinkhole on the West side of M6 in the Frozen Traverse, an Arctic Biome. (This would be a great place to pick up some Ice, too.)
These components will be needed to craft the Environmental Monitoring Stations at the Machining Bench. This will require, among other things, Concrete Mix and Platinum Ingots. You can save time by starting to craft these ingredients before you leave to pick up the components.
Ironically, the Radiation Warming might actually help you recover the components in the Arctic
Craft Monitoring Stations at the Machining Bench
Each Monitoring Station requires the following materials:
The research you have to conduct at each Station does not require a lot of time. You can complete the mission with 1 Station, and if you are playing solo there is little use in crafting more than 2 Stations. (This will save you some time smelting platinum.)
Deploy the Monitoring Stations in Each Biome
Once you have crafted the Stations, it is time to start deploying them in each Biome and filling them with Abyssal Oxite pieces. You will need 17-20 pieces per Biome. However, the number of pieces in your inventory will not affect your Radiation dose.
You can’t breathe abyssal oxygen, which is probably a good thing
You will need to deploy a Monitoring Station and keep at least 1 Abyssal Oxite piece in the Station for the research percentage to increase. Once it reaches 100%, you are finished with that biome and you can pick up the Monitoring Station. Any unused Abyssal Oxite will be dropped on the ground and can be used in the next biome.
Each station functions much like an Oxidizer: as you insert Abyssal Oxite pieces using the “F” or interact button, the balloon will inflate. However, the size of the balloon does not increase the research rate, and neither does the number of Monitoring Stations working in the same biome.
Run Monitoring Stations in two biomes at once. This shelf separates the Ring Lake and Dusty Barrens regions
When the environmental research has been completed in all three biomes, you will get a final objective to return to your Dropship and return to orbit. At this point, the primary mission is complete, and you can still work on the optional objectives. Just remember to return to orbit before the mission timer runs out!
We hope you found this walkthrough helpful to complete all the objectives in time and grab those extra exotics! NOTE: This is a brief mission walkthrough, a new format we are testing. It lets us cut to the chase with tips and tricks, and allows us to cover the many ICARUS missions and updates as they come out. Let us know what you think about it in the comments below.
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SurvivalSherpa
SurvivalSherpa is an avid gamer spending most of his time at the nexus of the survival, crafting, building, and role playing genres on any platform, especially to test indie titles in EA. AFK, life is about work and education in STEM fields, reading fantasy, and sipping great coffee in the Pacific Northwest.
Definitely a tricky mission, lots to do between the optional and required objectives. The cave at the southern part of N7 worked perfectly to set up a base (plenty of space and high amount of resources around)
Followed the guide step by step, loved the new format. I got a little lost at the part where I needed to craft the monitoring stations in the machining bench (after being picked up in the arctic biome), between the drama of getting hit by the radiation and the time running down, future prospectors might appreciate it being even more explicit, Thanks for your hard work and stay safe!
Definitely a tricky mission, lots to do between the optional and required objectives. The cave at the southern part of N7 worked perfectly to set up a base (plenty of space and high amount of resources around)
Followed the guide step by step, loved the new format. I got a little lost at the part where I needed to craft the monitoring stations in the machining bench (after being picked up in the arctic biome), between the drama of getting hit by the radiation and the time running down, future prospectors might appreciate it being even more explicit, Thanks for your hard work and stay safe!