Overview
In this guide I will attempt to explain the gameplay mechanics for Worlds Adrift as well as provide tips for starting out.This guide will be ever growing until I feel we have run out of information to cover.First I would like to thank my friend Sneaky Emu, for starting the game with me and also all the users on reddit who are constantly contributing information to help get this done.
1. Introduction
**Preamble**
For anyone who has seen me while playing and have fell victim to my attacks or support, I do apologize. It was done in the name of being a freakin pirate science!!!
Worlds Adrift is unlike many games. When I first saw it, it reminded me of the old Nickelodeon show “Skyland”. Whether you like to harvest and build, or take to the skies and become a pirate; this game is definitely something you will enjoy. Though from the start, it can be a bit intimidating since there is SO much to do and not much in the way of a how to.
So thats why I’m here, to help. Please mind this is a work in progress, as I will continue to update this as I gain access to new information.
The below image is a mash up for the most basics.
Warning!
Your ship can be stolen if you are not careful. Your loot can be taken if you are ill-attentive.
Using your Salvage tool on the shipyard can cause the protective dome to lower, and at this point ANYONE can hijack your ship and do what they please.
2. Where to start – Character Tab
The games controls are a bit wonky at first. You have your standard movement, but a huge portion of your movement will be controlled by your Grappling Hook; adding a 3rd dimension to your movement. It takes a bit to get used to, but after a few mishaps you will have no issues mining for ore found on the bottem of islands, or boarding ships and swing from the masts.
Unless you’ve done your research (and there isnt much out there right now), when you first start the game you will have no clue what to do. Start off by learning the controls. Your Grappling Hook is going to be your life saver, whether you misclick and fall off your ship with nothing underneath, or if you are being raided by a pirate or two and need to escape. The hook is your primary mode of maneuvering.
Your goal in this game is to harvest enough materials to create your own ship and take to the skies and explore. To do so you need the 3 basics; Wood, Metal, and Knowledge.
Both Wood and Metal are based around Quality and Weight
- The higher the Quality, the better stats it will provide for your crafted component.
- These come in forms such as Lightweight, or Heavy; and varying inbetweens. The type of wood you use to craft will have a huge effect on ship weight, health, movement speed, turn speed, etc.
Knowledge is the most important resource to gather. Without it, you cannot progress the game. Period. I will touch on how to find this later on.
Every ship has a set amount of weight it can hold. The starting amount is 1,000 kg. In order to upgrade this you need to move past the first windwall and collect schematics to unlock new Atlas parts.
As of right now, I do not believe there is a way to change your equipment. I will explain what each of these items do. Your hotbar is as follows…
- Gauntlet Salvage – This will allow you to break apart “broken” rocks to mine the ore inside. (Do not break the main rock until the ore nodes have been harvested, else you risk losing resources)
- Gauntlet Repair – Whether its through storms or pirates, your ship WILL take damage. Using this along with whatever material the part is made of, you can repair its durability.
- Gauntlet Lift – While creating a ship, you will need to move each piece on the hull one by one. Using this piece will allow you to customize the placement of such.
- Forge Scanner – Allows you to collect knowledge from ANYTHING. See below for further details.
Character Clothes
This seems to be purely aesthetic, as I have yet to see any armor for your personal character. You start with some fairly basic customizations, and can find new pieces inside of chests and rubble on islands.
Inventory Space
There is a set inventory space for your character to hold, as of right now the weight of items DO NOT have any effect on you or your ship if they are in storage.
- Please note that the bottem space of your inventory is a “Safe” storage. If you die, you will not lose anything in these spots. I highly recommend having your gun, ammo, and berries in here so you are never S.O.L
Advice
This game is unique on steam, in that even if you change your steam name, your ingame name WILL NOT change. This means your reputation can follow you. I’ve seen forums with bountys and wanted lists. Its an interesting concept to have a playermade bounty system.
If being a Pirate 100% of the time is your play style, then so be it.
Though, there are some things you can do to improve others experience as well without spoiling your dirty reputation!
- Always finish breaking your rocks after you are done, it wont respawn unless a storm comes. If its broken, a timer starts and it will respawn before the storm.
- Empty chests you find, for the same reason as above. This may also improve your ability to find more schematics and such. Leaving “chests” and “campfires” in the chest will cause it to sit there and collect dust. Take it out, and destroy it if you dont want to.
- Avoid hooking others ships, its seen as hostile and may get you killed instantly. As i’ve extended my reach into higher tiers, i’ve noticed random players team up against pirates. I guess they are fed up of being griefed, and want to help their neighbor.
3. Materials and the Such
I am currently compiling a list of resources and am working on rating them from lightest to heaviest, as everything effects the details on your ship.
Metals
- Magnesium – (Last seen in Alpha 5.3)
- Aluminium – “Extremely light without compromising too much on strength.”
- Titanium – “Extraordinarily light for such a stress resistant metal but a bad conductor.”
- Tin – “Light but weak and soft with extremely poor heat resistance.”
- Steel – “High performance metal for its weight without being exceptional.”
- Iron – “Reasonably tough and heat resistant given its modest weight.”
- Bronze – “Withstands a lot of stress for its medium weight but not resistant to heat.”
- Nickel – “Versatile and medium weight metal with few weaknesses.”
- Copper – “Great conductor but otherwise unexceptional metal of normal weight.”
- Silver – “A jack of all trades but master of only conductivity. “
- Lead – “Heavy and a poor conductor but durable and fairly strong.”
- Palladium – (Last seen in Alpha 5.3)
- Gold – “Dense and heavy yet malleable with extremely high conductivity.”
- Tungsten – “Unparalleled strength and heat resistance but very heavy.”
- Platinum – (Last seen in Alpha 5.3)
Woods **Work in Progress**
- Cedar – “Extremely light and soft, cannot withstand much damage.”
- Hemlock – “Very light but tough enough to be used in certain scenarios.”
- Chestnut – “Lightweight but nevertheless impressively versatile timber.”
- Elm – “Medium weight with no outstanding strengths or vulnerabilties.”
- Birch – “Relatively heavy but worth it for the performance.”
- Ash – “Heavy but extremely flexible possessing no weaknesses.”
- Oak – “Reliable in any context especially bearing loads but heavy.”
- Palm – “Very Heavy but exceptionally hard with broad applications.”
Knowledge
This is hands down the most sought after resource in the game. You cannot progress your ship building skills without it. Its so rare, yet its also everywhere… You just need to know where to look.
Using (4. Forge Scanner) will equip your left hand with another device which shoots out a wire. The range is fairly short, and once it connects with something it will tell you either
- You have gained X knowledge from this item.
- You have already gained the knowledge from this item.
- This item has no knowledge to be gained.
Through the islands you will encounter ancient devices and structures, these will be your MAIN source of knowledge.
What I call monoliths are scattered on islands, usually 1-3 depending on the size, each granting 25 knowledge!
Any structure that is not player made, can be interacted to gain knowledge. You will see these scattered around on islands, inside cave systems, and even hanging from the bottem of islands. Be on the look out, these range from 1-5 knowledge per.
Tip for knowledge
Check every entity for knowledge. I mean it! Every different kind of thing you find. Every new thing will give you 1-5 knowledge depending!
- Creatures – Manta, Bugs, Jellyfish, etc
- Plants – Each variation of tree, random flora, cave flora, etc
- Rocks – Each different piece may give knowledge, just because you scanned a big one, doesnt mean the little one right next wont give you some more knowledge as well
- Ancient structures – I’ve seen campfires, tents, piping, huts, etc and EVERYTHING gave knowledge.
Do note that the knowledge gained is only for the initial interaction, the only thing that is not included with this are the “monoliths”, and each one you find gives 25.
Seriously, check out every single unique model you find, it helps…3 Bamboo sticks holding up a campfire? 5 Knowledge per stick. Its the little things like this that help you get your shipbuilding skills up faster.
4. Harvesting
From trees to rocks, harvesting is a must.
While harvesting trees, you will also get berries. These berries heal you when eatten, but you must first equip them.
Be warned, when harvesting tress you may also aggrevate the wildlife and get attacked! These creatures can often be hard to kill and may even call for help! Pick and choose your locations carefully!
Trees!
Using your Salvage tool, you can break trees into sections, and further blasting them with it you will collect wood and berries.
Rocks!
Using your Salvage tool, you can break the rocks as long as they look crumbled as shown. Make sure you completely break away the un-needed stone to harvest the ore. Sometimes you also get Atlas Shards! You need to loot that with “E”.
Say you are hanging from underneath the island, and you break it before you collect the Shard/Ore, congratulations… Everything just fell and you will not be able to collect it, wasting your time and money.
Fuel!
Fuel is a MUST HAVE!!! You will go through so much of it in the early game as your engines have the worst fuel efficiency. These strange objects are fuel, and like rocks will fall. First hit will make it fall, and the next two hits will completely harvest it.
5. Crafting – Knowledge tree – Windwalls
Here is your crafting window. On the left, you see what you currently know. The middle is where you drag & drop your materials. For things like pistol bullets, it doesnt really matter what you use, so i would just use your heaviest metal.
Crafting Example – See how the pistol bullets require 10 metal? You have to drag and drop any 10 metal onto the picture and then click craft.
Where to find Schematics?!
Schematics are found all over in chests. These chests will respawn with time if completely looted. Usually they will have a lore entry (15 knowledge) and possibly a schematic.
Better schematics are found in higher tiers. As far as I know, it there are 3 levels.
- Level 1 – No walls – “Wilderness”
- Level 2 – Windwalls – “Expanse”
- Level 3 – Stormwalls – “Remnants”
- Level 3 – Sandwalls – “Badlands”
In the first zone you will find basic schematics such as “Trunk” or “Torch” etc. These will help slightly, but the better ones dont start until you fly through the first wall, a windwall, and fly into the Expanse.
The Dark wall in the distance is the first wall I’ve come across.
To start ship building you need 50 knowledge to unlock the skill and you must construct a “Shipyard” and “Assembly Station” from your Multitool tab in Schematics.
Wings start at 100 Knowledge
Cannons start a 150 Knowledge
Engines start at 250 Knowledge
Working with a friend or in a team will help cut the stress of having to provide all skills.
Once you have these, we are ready to go onward!
6. Ship Building
To start build your ship you are going to need a few things. First, a decent amount of both wood and Metals. Now as far as weight and durability I have not done a lot of testing.
Starting off
- Shipyard
- Assembly Station
On the left and right you can see Assembly Stations and in the middle is the Shipyard.
Once you interact with the Shipyard you have a few options to start with.
For starting off with your first ship, I recommend a Dinghy. Its small, simple, and will take you where you need to go without much effort. Once selected, you insert the materials and begin to craft it. Notice the “Edit” button here. I will touch on that at the bottem of this section.
From here you can chose what you what to add to it. A ship MUST have a Helm and an Atlas Core to even take flight, but without attachments it will go no where. So I will explain briefly what each attachment does.
(I highly recommend to always have your Personal Reviver on your ship as this will let you respawn in a set location, and be sure to check occasionally to see if anyone set their spawn on your reviver as only one person can use it at a time)
Pieces
- Helm – Required to steer your ship. Does not include a compass or other navigation tools, do notice it has a “Windsock” to determine wind direction. Very helpful when using sails.
- Atlas Core – Required to take off. This gives your ship the ability to fly.
- Personal Reviver – Allows you to set your respawn. 10 second cooldown, no increasing cooldowns after multiple deaths.
- Wings – Allows you to steer, pitch, and yaw your ship. Helps with turbulance and turning.
- Sail – Allows first movement, but requires wind the wind to be in your favor.
- Storage – Barrels, trunks, etc. Schematics can be found for bigger/lighter storage later on.
- Power Generator – Unlocked with the first Engine perk in the Knowledge Tree. Contains fuel to power engines.
- Engine – The next tier up from sail. You no longer require wind direction to move, but at the cost of using fuel.
- Cannons – Defensive/offensive constructs to allow combat with players or creatures. Often you will be attacked by Manta’s while flying, a cannon is helpful here.
All of these pieces are created in the Assembly Station. Only one item can be crafted at a time, and if you are not careful, may fall on you when it finishes resulting in death.
The best part is that your ship is completely yours to mess around with and create. I’ve seen boats, planes, even a house looking creation floating around. Possibilities are endless, but remember placement of things DO have an effect on how your ship will fly and handle.
Bonus
You can alter the blueprint of your ship before starting crafting, this may increase or decrease the amount of materials needed to build the frame, but can lead to many good advantages. This is where the edit button comes into play.
This may also look a bit intimidating to beginners, but fear not I’m here to help as much as I can.
Like piloting, holding Right Click will allow you to move the camera around to get better angles.
This is the 3D blueprint of your ship and allows you to alter it. Notice the Orange Box, Red Box, and Green Orbs. These all allow you to contour your ship how you see fit.
Clicking on the Green Orb allows you to change shape of the lines attached. Once clicked you will see 3 lines appear of varying colors, Red, Blue, and Green.
- Red Line – Adjusts the selected orb and attached lines width.
- Blue Line – Adjusts the selected orb and attached lines length.
- Green Line – Adjusts the selected orb and attached lines height.
- Orange Box – Adds/deletes a “Height Tier” to your ship.
- Red Box – Adds/deletes a “Length Tier” to your ship
Please remember, editting your ship may severely impact your ships capabilities, especially weight.
7. Navigating Walls
As we progressed through our first wall it took some engineering. Our original ship had only 2 engines, each having 16 power. In the first attempt we went through so much fuel. After about 5 minutes of “pushing through” we gave up and turned around.
We needed 4 engines instead of 2. This gave us the speed to push through. We needed one of us on the helm at all time, and the other adding fuel. I’m not going to lie, it was exhilerating! Neverbefore have I played a game like this.
Tip
- Find an island on the other side and set it as your goal, this helps if you dont have a compass, else you may get turned around.
- The wall WILL attempt to push you down to the area where you will die. Be sure to attempt crossing at a high altitude.
- We noticed that from the first side, we couldnt see anything but the island. As soon as we go across that changed…. We were attacked by Manta Rays, our ship nearly destroyed.
Look at the ruins here, much different than anything in the starting area we found. We also noticed that each “Monolith” gave 30 knowledge now instead of 25.
Here is how we arranged our engines to give us maximum thrust.
8. Piracy and Shiz
Yoo Hoo! Be careful of being a pirate. It comes back to haunt you. I promise this!
You will be sought after, and people will fight back.
Tips
More to come.. Stay tuned.