ICESTORM: Expedition Mission Walkthrough – ICARUS

In the ICESTORM mission, you’ll be helping the Lagos faction recover and set up a device that may disrupt the permanent storms over an Arctic region of Icarus. This guide will first list the relevant details of the mission, and then provide a step-by-step walkthrough.

Prospect Details

• Difficulty: Normal
• Recommended Level: 10
• Location(s): Forest Biome, Arctic Biome
• Objectives:
  • Retrieve device component 1
  • Retrieve device component 2
  • Retrieve device component 3
  • Assemble the device
  • Deploy and Activate the Disruptor above ground and under shelter in the Glacier Arctic

Rewards

• 125

Variants Modifiers

Prospect Notes

To complete the objectives, you’ll need to collect three device components, and then use them to craft a device (this can be done at your Character). This device needs to then be placed in shelter in the Arctic; it will run for a while, and then your missions objectives will be completed.

Objective Locations

Preparing for ICESTORM

This prospect requires venturing into the Arctic, and then placing a device in shelter there. While you can get lucky with rock spawns, it’s better to go in prepared. Here’s what you should create, at a minimum, to complete your objectives:

• Wood Bow or better
• Stone Arrows or better
• Stone Knife or better
• Stone Axe
• Stone Pickaxe
• Cloth Armor or better
• Portable Shelter — bring extra floor (as roof) tiles as snow will likely collapse them
• Bedroll — this is optional; if you want, you can place one in a thatch shelter near the entrance to the Arctic to make potential respawns and runbacks faster.

The following talents will dramatically increase your chances of survival. They are from the Solo tree, but if you’re not alone this mission isn’t so difficult and therefore these aren’t so important.

• Fleet Footed [Solo – Solo]: 2 points
  • +10/15% to movement speed. We’ll be running through the Arctic as fast as we can, so this is important.
• ‘Tis But a Scratch [Solo – Solo]: 2 point
  • -10/15% resistance to physical damage. Dying sucks, and surviving an animal attack means your mission finishing potentially 10+ minutes faster.
• Very, Very Quiet [Solo – Solo]: 1 point
  • -15% perceived threat while in stealth. You’ll have to pick up some other talents — feel free to choose whatever you like, but this talent is essential for not becoming polar bear breakfast.

Mission Walkthrough

Step 1: The First Component

Once you land, open your map and find the small blue circle southwest of where you dropped in. Double-click the blue circle in N-12 to set a waypoint, and start heading south through the valley. Gather sticks and rocks to craft your knife and bow while doing so.

Once you’ve collected a few different types of food and have slain at least an animal or two, craft a Campfire and cook your food — the bonus stamina and health makes the rest of the mission faster and safer. Chop down nearby trees for XP while you wait for your food to cook, and craft 4 Wood Floors and 4 Wood Walls, plus a Wood Door.

Make particular care to collect as many berries as you can while venturing south, as if you don’t collect at least a stack or so, you’ll need to craft a Waterskin in order to go into the Arctic hydrated (and that means creating a Crafting Bench and having to melt ice, which both will cost you time).

There’s a bear that hangs out near the first component, so be on the lookout and sneak if you aren’t full of food and ready for a fight. Once you’ve got the first component, head to the bottom of O-12 and prepare yourself for heading into the Arctic.

Step 2: The Second & Third Component

If you haven’t recently leveled up, you risk losing a lot of XP in the Arctic if you die. It’s a good idea to attempt to level up while prepping for the Arctic — if you have everything you need and still haven’t leveled up, fell trees until you’ve leveled up, then continue with the walkthrough.

Before you go into the Arctic, you should make sure you have at least 10 Cooked Meat, and at least 2 or 3 of two other types of cooked foods, such as Grilled Pumpkin and Roast Squash. Bring a Campfire, two full stacks of wood, and a full stack of fiber with you as well. You’ll also need a stone pickaxe, and you should make sure you’ve got a full set of Cloth Armor — the movement speed bonus will be essential to staying alive in the Arctic. If you’re level 15+, you could create better armor like Leather, but it’s unlikely you’ll be that high level at this point in the mission tree.

If you have enough extra resources, it’s not a bad idea to create another wooden box shelter and set it near the entrance to the Arctic, then place a Bedroll in it. This will save you time if you end up needing to respawn.

Once you’re ready to go, double click the blue circle in the upper right of N-15 to give yourself a waypoint, and then stick to the right-hand (western) wall while making your way into the Arctic. While you’re entering the Arctic, you’ll almost certainly have to sneak past multiple Polar Bears. If you can’t see around a corner or rock, you should sneak until you have better vision. Polar Bears tend to wander back and forth, so be patient and crouch-move past them once they’re out of your way.

If a serious storm starts up, go slow to avoid predators, and then build your shelter once you start taking damage from Exposure. Snow may collapse your roof — replace it only once, as you’ll need extra roof tiles to protect your objective later. Once your waypoint is due south of you, get off the wall and head towards it. You’ll find it at the top of a small slope.

There are far fewer animal spawns this deep into the Arctic, so you can set your new waypoint on the final blue objective marker to the west in M-14, and the head straight there. Bear a bit right (north) as you’ll have to make your way up another slope, and grab the final component. On your way, you should still keep an eye out for predators, but try to move quickly to avoid dying to the cold.

At this point, you may be taking damage from the cold, so feel free to set up your shelter and your fire to warm up.

Step 3: Deploying and Activating the Disruptor

Now comes the tricky part. You have two choices: you can try and place the Disruptor in your portable shelter and activate it, or you can search for a mineable stone deposit to place it in. The latter option is safer if you can find a decent rock spawn — if you can’t find one after heading west for a few minutes it’s better to place your device in your portable shelter and then attempt to escape the Arctic.

First, you’ll need to go into the Crafting menu and create the disruptor (it’s the last item on your list of craftable items). Once it’s crafted, you can deploy it like any other buildable (right-click it in your inventory and select “Deploy”), then press F to activate it. It takes a long time to run, but you don’t need to be near it for it to finish. Once it’s on and under shelter, you can attempt to escape the Arctic — but note that if you’ve placed it in a Wooden shelter, you’ll need to stay there to repair and maintain your shelter, since the device won’t function if it isn’t sheltered.

For this reason, finding a rock outcropping and hollowing out a space for the Disruptor is usually the better option. However, if you followed the directions and brought a full stack of wood and fiber, you can craft new structure pieces to replace any sections that the storms damage. Therefore, be ready to be flexible and use either a stone outcropping or a shelter to protect the Disruptor while it runs.

Once the Disruptor is finished running (or is safely ensconced in stone), you can die or attempt to escape the Arctic — the fastest way out of the Arctic is through a pass to the west (in L-14), but you’ll then have to loop all the way around to the north to return to the drop site. If you followed the advice at the start of Part 2 and leveled up before you got here, you’ll be able to happily relax in the snow and let the cold take you, then respawn near your drop site and head back into space!

We hope this ICESTORM walkthrough was helpful! Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions via the comments box below.