VOYAGER: Recovery Mission Walkthrough – ICARUS

In VOYAGER, a mystery faction wants you to head to a crash site and do what their other operators have been unable to do: recover their missing equipment, and find out what caused the deaths of their other crew members. In this guide we will list the relevant details of the mission, followed by a step-by-step walkthrough.

Prospect Details

• Approximate time to complete: 6 hours or more — depending on how lucky/unlucky you get with
  ore spawns, this mission can require venturing into a significant number of caves.
• Difficulty:
• Recommended Level: 30 — You must be (or reach) level 30 during this mission in order to complete it.
• Location(s): Desert Biome, Forest Biome, Arctic Biome
• Objectives:
  • Find the Crash Zone
    • Clear out the Wildlife
    • Inspect the Ship
  • Repair the Ship
    • Repair the Thrusters [Machining Bench]
    • Repair the Guidance System [Machining Bench]
    • Place the Thrusters and Guidance System into the Ship
  • Charge the Ships Internal Battery
  • Return the Cargo
    • Track the Creature that took the Cargo
    • Kill the Creature Guarding the Corpses
    • Collect the Cargo from Corpses
    • Return Cargo to Ship
  • Fuel the Ship
    • Place Full Can of Biofuel in the Ship

Rewards

• 650
• 200

Variants Modifiers

Prospect Notes

To complete the objectives, you’ll need to tech all the way up to Planetary Tech Tier 4 in order to craft a Biofuel Generator and Electricity Tool. This mission can be time-consuming: the materials required to tech up to Tier 4 and craft the equipment you need will take a long time to collect.

Mission Map

We follow the river through the desert so that we can kite predators through water if necessary — if you want to save time, feel free to take the more direct route. The reason we enter the Arctic from the Desert instead of cutting through the forest at M-10/L-10 is because there are frequently bears in that area of the Forest; the Arctic wolves are much easier to deal with.he cold.

If you want a map to help you locate caves for mining, Icarus Intel is a fantastic resource. (A big thank you to Finally Rage and everyone who contributed to Icarus Intel!)

Preparing for VOYAGER

There are a number of Workshop items you should consider bringing:

• Shengong ‘Hulu’ Canteen – If you don’t bring a canteen with you from Orbit, you’ll need to craft a waterskin before you go from the Desert to the Arctic at the start of the mission.
• Shengong ‘Dong’ Pickaxe – This (or any other) steel-level pickaxe will dramatically increase the speed at which you can start teching up.
• Shengong ‘Shui’ Knife – Better skinning yields means a quicker start.
• Xigo ‘Hark’ S5 Envirosuit – The -5% percieved threat on this envirosuit helps a great deal with the first trip through the Arctic.

This prospect necessitates reaching Tier 4. Therefore, there are a significant number of blueprints you’ll need to have or unlock during this mission, in addition to the usual survival tools.:

• Wood Bow or better
• Stone Arrows or better
• Stone Knife or better
• Iron Pickaxe or better
• Bedroll – While not strictly necessary (since you can’t respawn on this mission), it is still useful to skip the nighttime.
• Campfire
• Crafting Bench
• Stone Furnace
• Anvil Bench
• Epoxy
• Carbon Paste
• Steel Bloom
• Machining Bench
• Cement Mixer
• Concrete Furnace
• Electronics
• Biofuel Composter
• Biofuel Can
• Fabricator
• Biofuel Generator
• Electricity Tool

Dealing with Cave Worms

These guys can be a piece of cake, or a serious pain, depending on how you handle them. The trick is to move slowly into a cave so that only one or two pop up at a time. When they do, if they’re close, simply sprint up to them and knife them in the mouth. If they’re far away, quickly shoot two arrows at their mouth. If you’re fast, you can kill them before they get a chance to attack.

If you don’t notice them pop up and either hear them spit, or start taking damage, run back the way you came, then slowly move back towards them to find them. You can dodge the poison if you’re very fast and move perpendicular, but this is hard to do in a cave. It’s a good idea to have a stack of Cooked Meat when you enter caves, just in case you screw up and need to heal.

Mission Walkthrough

Step 1: Reaching the Crash Site

You’ll land in the northeast corner of the Desert biome; do the usual mission prep and get yourself a bow, arrows, and a knife if you didn’t bring one from Orbit. Next, craft an axe and a pickaxe, cut down trees for fuel and a portable shelter + Repair Hammer, and tech up to the Waterskin if you didn’t bring the canteen from Orbit. Follow the path indicated on the map above, using the water to kite any predators that you aggro. You’ll want to craft at least ~50 Bone Arrows and 20 Cooked Meat before you venture into the Arctic, so don’t be shy about hunting as you cross the desert. Also collect a decent amount of fuel, since it’s relatively scarce in the snow.

Once you enter the Arctic via the pass in K-7, you’ll start running into wolves — a lot of wolves. If there are just one or two in your path, take them out with your bow and harvest their materials, but if there’s a big pack, try your best to sneak past. Make your way to the objective marker in F-11, taking cover in caves or your portable shelter if a storm comes. Note that snow will accumulate on a flat roof, so keep an eye on your roof piece. If it starts to crack, press [Y] to remove it — you can then replace it. Don’t forget that you’ll need to repair building pieces before you can pick them up with [Y]. It’s also a good idea to drop your Campfire and warm yourself up every 5 minutes or so, even if no storm is coming. This is also a good time to fill your water container by melting Ice at your fire.

You’ll see a dropship as you approach F-11 — once you get close enough, 6 low-level wolves will spawn and attack you. They should be easy to handle as they spawn one after the other, but if you aren’t confident in your aim, do the following before you approach the dropship: Place your portable shelter with window-hole variants, leave 1 wall missing, and put your final wall in your hotbar. Then go trigger the wolves’ spawn, run back to your shelter, and place the final wall behind you, then shoot them from relative safety.

Once you’ve cleared the wolves, go and inspect the dropship with [F]. You’ll find two damaged components in its inventory — take those with you and then leave the Arctic via the pass in J-13.

Step 2: Teching to Tier 4

We won’t be giving step-by-step directions for this part of the mission, since it boils down to this: collect a ton of resources and mine every cave you can until you’ve got what you need. There are too many resources required to list them all here, so instead here’s an ordered list of all the workbenches and other deployables you need to craft, and what they’re used for:

1. Crafting Bench
   • Stone Furnace
   • Machining Bench
2. Mortar and Pestle
   • Steel Blooms
   • Carbon Paste
   • Organic Resin
   • Epoxy
3. Stone Furnace
   • Iron Ingots
   • Copper Ingots
4. Anvil Bench
   • Iron Pickaxe or Steel Pickaxe
5. Machining Bench
   • Electronics
   • Biofuel Composter
   • Biofuel Can
   • Cement Mixer
   • Concrete Furnace
   • Fabricator
6. Cement Mixer
   • Concrete Mix
7. Concrete Furnace
   • Steel Ingot
   • Refined Gold
   • Aluminium Ingot
8. Fabricator
   • Biofuel Generator
   • Electricity Tool

It’s also a good idea to craft the Cooking Station, and then the Kitchen Bench + Biofuel Stove, and create/consume the best meals you can; You’ll want as much Maximum Health and Stamina as possible throughout the mission, since one death can end it all.

Step 3: Taking Down the Creature

For this step, the safest strategy is to tech all the way up to the Hunting Rifle, but theoretically you can do this part with just a bow and a large quantity of arrows. Considering that the Hunting Rifle’s main ingredient is Titanium, which you don’t need for anything else in this mission besides the 10 Ingots for the Thruster, it should be easy to mine the necessary 80 Titanium Ore while collecting other materials.

Once you’ve got the following items, it’s time to head into the Arctic in search of the missing cargo via the pass in M-14:

• Powerful weapon of some kind
• The best armor you can craft
• Portable shelter that includes at least 3 Floor peieces
• At least 3 ladders
• A full stack of Cooked Meat
• At least 1 or 2 other high-quality foods

The following strategy is quick and dirty, so if you don’t mind taking a bit more time preparing, there is another, more predictable method that simply requires even more crafting: Build a Masonry Bench, and use it to craft 4 1×1 stone box near the polar bear’s spawn. You can hide inside it or place a ladder that allows you to climb to the top of it. Trigger the boss spawn, run to your little fort, then engage the boss.

Head to the bottom of M-14, but don’t approach the cave or the remains just yet. Instead, head to the cliff face in the eastern edge of the yellow circle on the map, and build a series of ladders up the cliff face. Then build a platform with trapdoor holes at least 3 pieces out from the cliff.

Once this is finished, approach the area pictured below, and be ready to sprint to your ladders. Go very slow, and keep an eye on the “Track the Creature that took the Cargo” objective on the left hand side of your HUD. The moment you see that check-box fill in, sprint away and back to your ladders. If you’re lucky/fast enough, you won’t even aggro the boss that spawns. If it doesn’t chase you, wait for it to roam far enough away from its spawn that it runs back to it — attacking it after this occurs seems to prevent it from aggroing. You can then take it down from the safety of your platform.

These style platforms seem to prevent predators from reaching you as long as you don’t stand on the floor piece that is touching the cliff face, and so should be effective even if the bear does end up chasing you (note that this has yet to be tested, since the boss did not aggro on the run this guide is based on).

Once the boss is taken care of, head down to where it spawned and inspect the pile of corpses. Inside, you’ll find the missing cargo, a “Strange Device”. Take it with you and leave the Arctic.

Step 4: Repairing the Ship

You need the following components before you can repair the ship:

• Strange Device – The thing you found in the corpse pile in Step 3
• MXC Thruster Mk-I (Repaired)
  • Crafted at Machining Bench – Requires Damaged Thruster Part, Epoxy (5), Titanium Ingot (10)
• MXC Navigation Mk-I (Repaired)
  • Crafted at Machining Bench – Requires Damaged Guidance System Part, Electronics (5), Carbon Fiber (10)
• Biofuel Generator
• 2 Full Biofuel Cans – Make 100% certain they’re full; you can do this by placing more than enough ingredients in the composter — if it stops creating fuel despite the presence of required ingredients, the Biofuel Can is ready to go.
• Electricity Tool

You should also only venture into the Arctic once you have enough building pieces for a 2×1 shelter, a decent supply of food and fuel, and plenty of ammunition + the weapon of your choice. You’ll be spending a long time hanging out and protecting your Biofuel Generator, and then you’ll need to make the trek back to your dropship. When you’re ready, take any Orbital gear you brought with you, plus all the aforementioned stuff, and head to the crash site in F-11.

As before, you’re going to run into a lot of wolves, so take your time and be careful. Once you get to the crash site, it seems like extra wolves spawn, so be ready for that as well. Once you reach the dropship, set up your 2×1 shelter, place the Biofuel Generator inside, put a can in it, and connect it to the dropship using the Electricity Tool. Then activate the Biofuel Generator and wait — it should take 60 minutes to fully charge the dropship. Note that you may have a UI bug where the mission objectives indicate the dropship is not charging, but as long as the number next to % charged goes up, you’ll be fine.

Since storms and wolves can both mess up your shelter, you’ll need to hang out at your computer while the dropship charges. Don’t forget to remove/replace your roof if it starts to crack during a snow storm. Once it’s charged, place your 2nd Biofuel Can in the “Fuel” slot of the dropship, replace the two repaired components, and you should be able to launch it.

Once you’ve launched the repaired dropship, you just need to make it back to your own dropship (I guess there wasn’t room in the one you repaired). It would be a shame to die after so much work, so make sure you’re ready — food, water, and ammunition — and then head north and into the desert via the pass in K-7. Follow the river for safety and reach your dropship to leave the planet.

We hope this guide on the VOYAGER mission was helpful! Since this mission is so long and complex, we’d love any alternative strategies or suggestions you may have — use the comments below to drop us a line. Specifically, we’d love to know how the strategy for dealing with the polar bear boss worked for you. Questions and general whinging are of course also welcome.