Overview
Playing the TerraTech Campaign using only the Galactic Survey Organization (GSO) corporation blocks.
Why?
I’ve played TerraTech for quite a while, but I’ve only played through the Campaign a couple of times. Mostly I just design techs for the Community Challenges and Showcases, or refine my favorite campaign techs to use new blocks. Lately I built a few specialized techs to help me complete all the personal achievements (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2493844221).
One of the achievements (Whack-A-Troll) is to defeat the Trader Troll in less than fifteen minutes. While I was doing this I realized in my previous campaigns I was always quick to switch to other corporations’s blocks and to use only a select few GSO blocks (conveyors, filters, shields, repair bubbles, cabs) in my techs. I wondered what kind of designs I would come up with if I only had GSO blocks to use.
Since GSO is weak compared to some of the corporations (GeoCorp and Hawkeye especially) I didn’t want to be fighting overwhelming enemies. And since I had recently played all the campaign missions I didn’t want to do them all again. That’s when I thought of not accepting license missions and just playing GSO until I maxed out the grade.
It also turned out (as I discovered partway through my campaign) there weren’t many non-story repeating missions available (due to being blocked by unaccepted license missions). So without getting new blocks from mission rewards it became necessary to craft blocks I needed. Which lead to a better understanding of crafting mechanics and my most efficient crafting base design.
Once I had maxed out my GSO grade I then accepted the license missions (to clear the missions off the trading stations lists) but moved to a distant location so I could just run local repeating missions without accidentally completing a license mission.
As a bonus result of playing with only GSO blocks for a number of days I was inspired to create a custom skin for all corporations based on the GSO grey color (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2507694899).
Basics
Playing a TerraTech campaign with only GSO blocks is simpler in description than in practice. Basically: never play a mission that will result in a license for another corporation.
Where it gets complicated is when there are no missions available because the only ones listed are license missions. The solution for this is crafting. Instead of relying on getting new blocks from mission rewards you can choose which blocks you want and craft as many as you need. And the best part of this is you can craft blocks from a grade above your current level.
Note that you can still run repeating battle missions by accepting the licensing missions but never completing them (see next section for details).
Since the whole point of a GSO-only campaign is to experience TerraTech in its most basic form you will have to discard or ignore any blocks from other corporations (any blocks you leave on the ground will eventually disappear).
Based on my experience this will only be GeoCorp and Venture blocks, which can appear on some drop-in enemy techs. I unchecked the Twitter box when I set up the new game, but I still got invaders with GeoCorp and Venture blocks. Also the two Agent Pow missions have enemies with GeoCorp blocks.
Missions
Most of the GSO missions are the Crafty Mike series (seven missions) which explain the crafting process and give you various crafting blocks. The last one (Craftier Business III) won’t be available until you reach license grade 3.
Before you do those you should start with the Turret Defense mission to unlock your inventory so you can save blocks without having to attach them to your tech. I recommend storing the Turret Joe tech you get as a reward so you can use its’ anchor block to store blocks from tech enemies you defeat (just attach loose blocks to the anchor and you can send them all to inventory).
The other GSO missions you will need to do are the two Agent Pow missions: Charlie Watchtower and Sam Sight Ridge. You can hold off doing these until you have built a strong tech, but some Crafty Mike missions may not be available until after you complete them.
The GSO missions to avoid (to prevent getting licenses for other corporations) are Big Yellow (GC), Race Against Time (VEN), Bird of Prey (HE), Back To The Future (BF), and In Search of Science (RR).
If you want to play a mission-centric game instead of crafting (or do both) you will need to accept the license missions since they will block any non-story repeating mission from appearing. To avoid accidentally completing them and acquiring unwanted licenses: (1) always select other missions from the mission list so the map marker doesn’t lead you to the license mission, (2) save before starting missions so you can revert, (3) relocate to an area far from where the missions are located so you don’t stumble on them while completing other missions.
Fighting
BUILD
Anchor blocks are valuable for a number of reasons. For one, they let you save blocks to inventory before you have acquired the SCU storage block. For another, they let you attach a solar panel to your tech in a sideways position so you can mount guns or other blocks on top of it. And my personal favorite reason is they are EXTREMELY strong blocks that can be used to protect your cab or your whole tech (they are cheap too!).
My small GSO techs use the anchored AI module from the Turret Defense mission (in addition to the main cab, of course) so they can act as guards while I work on a crafting base. I usually put fixed anchors on all sides of my cab (or at least the front) to protect it from enemy fire and mount the anchors sideways so they don’t interfere with the rotation of the AI module anchor. That lets my solar panels extend sideways from the tech so I can put guns or blocks, or collectors (or radars, etc.) on top of them.
DEFENSE
You’ll want to always keep at least a repair bubble charged up so you don’t lose valuable blocks to damage, and it helps to also have a shield to buy you more time to battle your enemies. Doubling up repair bubbles will heal your tech faster but overlapping shields will just drain your batteries.
And speaking of batteries, they explode easily, so keep them protected by at least one layer of blocks and away from each other to avoid chain-reaction detonations. I’ve found that having overpowering weapons is a better defense than shields and repairs since battles will end quicker, but if you are fighting multiple enemies then the longer battle will require better defenses.
MOBILITY
Keep your tech agile. Don’t add more blocks than its current wheels can handle or it will bog down. Keep its base width and length proportional to the wheel height so it doesn’t get hung up on the terrain.
The Dirt, Bumper, and Muddy Dog wheels are the most useful. Bumpers are the best all around with excellent speed and traction. I only use the large Muddy Dogs for my bigger tech, which is loaded with heavy cannons (like the massive Big Bertha).
OFFENSE
Don’t bother with lights or decorations or even armor (remember you can use tough fixed anchor blocks to build with). Carry as many weapons as you can mange. Position guns on all sides to keep from getting flanked by faster techs. Many of the GSO guns can rotate 360° so put them on top of blocks to take advantage of that. Fast flanking techs are generally smaller so you can use smaller weapons on the sides and rear.
3-Pound cannons are the strongest early-game weapons with excellent range and destructive power, and they rotate 360°. My defensive turrets are just stacked towers of those cannons and they can destroy most enemies before they get close.
I also like the Stud Lasers since they can be mounted on side surfaces and have a very long range. I usually have these even on my large techs to protect against flanking (especially helpful when attacked by groups.
For end-game (and even near-end-game) you’ll want Megaton cannons and Missile batteries. The range, rotation and destructive power of these can handle pretty much anything. Missiles are especially good for flying techs because they don’t have kickback.
Crafting
Crafting has been devalued because it’s not compatible with multiplayer, but once you understand how it works it’s actually a more powerful play-style. Mainly because you can get blocks on demand with just a few resources and at a level above what is available in Trading Station terminals.
Run through the Craftier Business missions (six of the seven are available before you reach grade 3) as soon as you can to get the blocks you need. I had to travel a ways to get some of those missions to show up at a Trading Station because I was avoiding license missions, but it you clear those license missions from the lists by accepting them (but not completing them) you may get crafting missions sooner and closer.
You can begin crafting after you get the Fabricator from the second mission (Crafty Business II). Other than Shipping Cannons, the SCU Storage device, the Scrapper, and the Component Dongles, every block you need for a crafting base can be fabricated from raw or refined resources. And once you have Component Factory blocks crafted you can make any block up to a level above your current grade.
BASE LOCATION
You’ll want to take advantage of the new feature in TerraTech where Trading Stations have chargers, since those work even at night. By parking your base beside one you will have constant power and an SCU storage (just don’t get to close when hauling resources or they will get sold by the Station).
Find a Trading Station located in a grassland zone (low rolling grass-covered hills, blue and green trees, with yellow Luxite, silver Plumbia, blue Titania, and green Erudite outcroppings. You will have less attackers and no invasions in this zone, plus all the wood and rubber you will need.
Nearby zones should be within a short driving distance and should have (1) a sand dunes desert (lighter brown rocks) with red Oleite (fuel) and orange Ignite, (2) a mountain zone (darker brown rocks) with light-green Rhodite, and (3) a salt-flats desert or ice field (tall grey rocks) with black Carbite (fuel) and light blue Celestite. All of these resources can be auto-mined to produce more than you would get from just drilling the outcrops.
RESOURCE COLLECTION
You’ll need lots of resources to craft all the blocks you need for a strong tech, so one of the first blocks to craft is an auto-miner. You’ll want six for the mineable crafting resources and a couple more to mine, refine, and ship Erudite to build up your bank balance.
Initially you can just put down an auto-miner by itself and it will over time spill out a pile of resources. Most of these will be out of immediate range of your base so they won’t get attacked except maybe when you go to collect resources. If the auto-miner is too far a way it may not produce much until you get close, so you will have to visit those more often to collect enough resources.
Later when you have a crafting base with silos for each resources (11 silos) you can upgrade your auto-miners with refiner, fabricator, and SCU storage and set them to craft compressed blocks of resources. These stored resources can then be loaded into your crafting base silos by scrapping the compressed blocks.
BASE DESIGN
Most of my previous base designs were exercises in compactness as I usually preferred a mobile base that I could just drive around to find resources. That was fine when I was only occasionally crafting, but when nearly all of the important blocks for your tech need to be crafted (plus building the crafting base itself) efficiency and ease-of-use become more important than compactness.
That said, you still don’t want a huge sprawling base with tons of resources in silos because it will slow your game down and those resources can get destroyed if your base is attacked. I took my minimal design and simply added silos plus a few other features and ended up with a crafting system that was actually fun to use.
The key to an efficient base is having four conponent factory blocks paired opposite each other along a conveyor line (see image). In a line moving from start to finish the first factory has no dongle (I put my cab there) and components exit upstream on the conveyor to feed directly across to the factory with an advanced dongle (one green bar). Components from that factory travel all the way downstream on the conveyor to enter the factory on the opposite side which has a complex dongle (two green bars). The components from that factory exit back upstream across the conveyor to be taken in by the fourth factory with an exotic dongle (three bars). This efficient flow path allows the more advanced factories to request necessary components from the less advanced. The straight conveyor path through the middle allows the fabricator to request any components or resources as need, no matter what block is selected for crafting.
The next most important part is making sure the exit of the Refinery block is connected directly to the conveyor path feeding the factories and fabricator so they can request refinement of raw resources as needed. (In the example image the refinery exits onto the end of the conveyor, but it also would work attach to the side of a conveyor that loops.) This makes it easy to keep track of what resources you need to add to the base, since you only need to look at the progress bubble for the refinery to see what is missing.
RESOURCE MANAGMENT
For your crafting base to be truly useful it needs a receiver to pull resources off a collector tech and a silo to hold those resources. Even better is to have dedicated silos for each of the eleven resources so you can see at a glance what you are running short of while crafting. That way you can drive off in your collector to restock while the base continues crafting.
Having resources stored in your inventory as compressed blocks eliminates the need to leave the base, but you may not want to invest in block-storing auto-miners until you have crafted other blocks.
My efficient crafting base (see image) has one small silo for receiving from a collector and the refinery input is attached to that silo so every resource is refined. You don’t want to bother storing raw resources because the only blocks that need them are ones you will be able to pick up during battles or buy cheaply from the Trading Station (and later from a Payload Terminal block).
The central conveyor path for my efficient crafting base carries the refined materials past rows of silos, each one with a filter to pull a refined resource off the conveyor. A single conveyor block feeding back to the conveyor from the silo allows the component factories and fabricator to pull out resources from the silo as needed. I make my central conveyor loop back to the beginning so resources that skip past a filter can get grabbed the next time around.
Along the central conveyor line running through the center of my crafting base I also attach (1) a scrapper for turning compressed blocks back into refined resources, (2) a shipping cannon with a filter to pull specific types of excess resources off the conveyor and sell them, and (3) a furnace with a filter to pull off select fuels (usually wood) that I already have enough stored and don’t need to bother selling (this can be useful for keeping your batteries charged if your base is parked away from a Trading Station’s charger).
I also always attach a pacemaker block to run the base at turbo speed because normal speed is painfully slow. Other additions are an extra fabricator so I can craft more than one block type (good for making compressed blocks of excess resources when they start to clog up the conveyor), and an SCU storage to grab finished blocks and prevent the scrapper from breaking them back down.
End-Game
Once you reach grade 4 you can craft every block, including the Payload Terminal which will allow you to buy blocks instead of crafting them (good for when you want to save your resources for crafting the more expensive blocks).
At this point you can build techs that are pretty much invincible and you will quickly find that one-shotting little techs is a very slow way to gain the huge amount of the experience points needed to get to grade 5 and then to reach max license level.
If you have accepted the license missions (without completing them) and are running repeating battle missions you can level up relatively quickly, but if, like me, you want to level by just destroying random enemies you will want to build a more expensive tech to attract enemies that reward more XP.
Also at this point you may want to travel quite a ways quickly, so having a flying tech can make that more enjoyable.
Here are some end-game techs I used in my play-through:
I hope this guide has inspired you to play a GSO-only campaign. Without the story missions and leveling for the other five corporations you can max out the GSO license relatively quickly. Have fun!