PYRAMID: Construction Mission Walkthrough – ICARUS

The PYRAMID mission sends you from the forest into the northern desert to build a new forward outpost for the hunters in The African Assembly. Read on for a rundown of the mission basics, and then a step-by-step walkthrough, from wilderness survival preparations to construction details.

Prospect Details

• Difficulty: Hard
• Recommended Level: 15
• Locations: Forest Biome, Desert Biome
• Objectives:
  • Reach construction location
  • Establish a Hunting Outpost

Rewards

• 175

Variants Modifiers

Prospect Notes

Setting up a new hunting outpost is just like any other forward base: it involves a significant amount of travel through dangerous expanses. The required resources must be harvested and mined, and then brought to the staging area where the outpost will be built. Finally, the structure must be built and the workstations installed.

Objective Locations

Preparing for PYRAMID

You will need enough equipment to make it through high-level bear territory with little access to fresh water until you arrive at the forest-to-desert transition zone cave. There you will have the opportunity to freshen up and make some easy upgrades while you prepare materials and workstations for the outpost build.

Required

• Wood Rag Torch
• Bone knife
• Wood bow
• Bone arrows
• Blueprints for several Tier 2 workstations — Note that you won’t need them until the last part of the mission, so you won’t need them unlocked to begin the mission.

Recommended

• Additional bone knife
• Bone scythe
• Stacks of cooked meat and berries
• Portable wood shelter:
  • Wood floor x2
  • Wood wall x4
  • Wood door
  • Wood window x3
• Campfire
• Bedroll
• Bandage x2
• Suture kit x2

Optional (upgrade at transition cave)

• Longbow
• Flint arrows
• Crafting Bench
• Stack of grilled pumpkin
• Cloth Armor

Mission Walkthrough

Step 1: To the Edge of the Forest

The first step is to harvest and build your traveling gear and supplies, and then set off for the transition zone cave. Make sure you head east, as the western path is blocked off for this mission. Bone-level weapons and a portable wooden shelter are recommended for protection from the high-level wildlife and weather leading to the cave.

There is very little water until the valley before the transition zone, so grab as many berries (or in a pinch, watermelons) as you can. Cook some meat along the way as well to raise your maximum health and stamina. A stack of pumpkins would make a good third food choice — you can grill these at the transition cave for another maximum stamina boost in the desert.

Continue to hunt as you progress through the forest and build up a supply of leather, bone, fur, and meat. Taking advantage of skinning opportunities will allow you to build up a sizable stack of bone arrows quickly on the go. Once you arrive at the cave, make a Bedroll and set your spawn point. Build a Campfire and cook everything you plan on taking with you in the desert where food options become more limited.

Bringing a campfire and a bedroll, and a stack of leather will make construction easier. You may also want to build a Crafting Bench for storage (and because it will be needed to make each workstation for the outpost). There is also no wood or fiber near the outpost build site, so you will need to bring at least enough materials or prefabricated building pieces to start the outpost:

• 2 Wood Floors
• 4 Wood Walls
• 1 Wood Door
  Total Required Materials: 130 Wood, 80 Fiber. If you have the weight capacity to carry full stacks of wood (100×2) and fiber (200), you will have enough for wood floor supports, stairs, and a storage container if you don’t bring a Crating Bench.

In Step 2, we outline what you should mine and construct to complete the hunting outpost build in the shortest time possible. Skip Step 2 if you want to find out the build instructions at the staging site and increase the survival challenge.

Step 2: Strategic Planning

The hunting outpost needs a Tier 2 workstation that requires iron and copper, specifically a trophy bench. These materials are abundant in the transition cave, so you will save time and effort in the desert if you mine and refine the minerals here and construct the workstation ahead of time. Additionally, there are no cave worms in the transition cave, so mining here is safer than in the untamed caves in the desert. See below for details on what you need to mine and build to construct the Trophy Bench.

The other workstations needed for the hunting outpost are a Skinning Bench, a Rain Reservoir, and a Textiles Bench. You can see their recipe requirements in the Blueprints Menu; if you have space and weight capacity, build them ahead of time.

While you are waiting for the metal ores to smelt, you might as well use the Crafting Bench to upgrade your equipment. You can make a longbow and use any extra iron ore for flint arrows. If you have the bone scythe unlocked, you can quickly harvest enough fiber to craft a full suit of cloth armor to add some physical and thermal protection in the Desert. It will also be a good idea to make a few bandages as many Desert foes cause bleeding.

Finally, there is no nearby water near the outpost staging site, so it would be a good idea to craft and fill a couple waterskins. If you are fast, you also can construct an Oxite Dissolver, mine some sulfur to power it, and construct and fill a couple oxygen bladders. None of this is strictly necessary, so set off for the desert whenever you finish with the trophy bench.

Step 3: A Hunting Shack in the Desert

Once you enter the desert, open your map and double-click the center of the blue zone marked on your map to set a waypoint. You may have noticed at the end of DRY RUN that (unlike the Beta versions) the desert immediately outside the transition zone is teeming with predators. Take advantage of every sneak attack opportunity you can to dispatch predators within detection distance. Cougars are as territorial as bears, so eliminate them at a greater range than the Boars or Hyenas. Elephants can be avoided easily.

As you make your way north, the first lake/river system you encounter is the closest source of water, fiber, and wood to the outpost staging location. Once you fill up on water, harvest at least 130 wood and 80 fiber to start the outpost if you did not bring the materials through the cave. If you have or craft a bone scythe, it will save a lot of time harvesting fiber, especially in the desert.

Start following the river to the northeast and climb the cliff on the West bank. Follow the cliffside past two rock formations and you will arrive at the outpost site, a wide and flat expanse of desert. Sol will update your mission objectives with the stations you have to build in the outpost.

The shape of the outpost does not matter for the mission objectives. You can get by with a 2-by-1 floorplan. Make and place the wooden building blocks for a 1-by-1 starter base, and place your storage container or Crafting Bench, as well as the bedroll and campfire. (Don’t forget to set your spawn point.) Unload as much as you can, and head back to the river to harvest several stacks of wood and fiber. When you return, expand the base to 2-by-1 or larger, making sure to build shutters and doors for any openings in case of storm events.

There are stone nodes nearby, and the area is full of medium animals (docile and violent) so there is no shortage of leather, fur, or bone. It is best to begin with the Skinning Bench. Place it next to the Crafting Bench on the same wall. Use this to harvest as much leather, fur, bone, and meat as needed.

Next, build the Textile Bench and the Rain Reservoir. You only need to place these to satisfy the mission objective. You can then immediately pick them up and put them back in the Crafting Bench. (The Rain Reservoir will not help you with water in the desert anyway unless you visit the transition zone in the West for ice.)

Finally, you will need to tackle the Trophy Bench and its metal requirements (assuming you didn’t craft it in Step 2). This means you first need to find one or two nearby caves; see Step 2 for the ore requirements. Craft a Stone Furnace and bring it with you to smelt the ore in the cave and reduce the weight. Two conveniently close caves have been identified on the mission objectives map at the top of this guide, or you can check out icarusintel.com for a map of other cave locations discovered by the community. Remember to make and bring a bedroll (the Stone Furnace can act as a campfire) in case you need to sleep in a cave.

Once you return with the smelted iron and copper ingots, you will need to make the Anvil workstation and use it to produce copper nails. All that remains is to put these materials into the Crafting Bench and make and place the Trophy Bench. Stow it in the Crafting Bench, or use it to mount the heads of your new furry neighbors!

Epilogue

This completes the mission requirements and earns you Sol’s congratulations on a trailblazing effort, as well as the appreciation of The African Assembly. You may now prepare for and undertake the journey back along the same path you came in on. The same survival strategies apply on the return trip, just in reverse.

Alternatively, if you have not brought any permanent Orbital Workshop gear down with you and you don’t mind losing some of the XP you have earned during this mission, you may consider offering yourself as dinner to any of the ravenous creatures surrounding your new hunting outpost. Just remember to pick up your bedroll first to delete your spawn point. For a spectacular undoing of all you have accomplished so far, open the windows and agro all the predators around you (especially those elephants) so they attack and demolish your build. What an Icarus way to clear the map! You will respawn back in the forest near your dropship so you can promptly return to orbit.

We hope you are enjoying playing ICARUS, and that you found the walkthrough for this mission helpful. Please share your comments or questions below, and then get back out there before you miss your dropship window!