Your first day

The first day decides whether your colony gets off to a calm start. This guide follows the order the tutorial suggests and explains why each step matters.

Take the lander apart

Your lander still holds what you need most: a saw, a hammer and a knife for each of your three crew members, water, medkits, seed potatoes, some stone and ore. Select your crew member with the left mouse button and right-click the lander to salvage it. The goods come out in batches and lie on the ground beside it.

Tools are picked up automatically by whoever needs them. Everything else stays on the ground until you have somewhere to store it — a crate or a warehouse — so do not worry that nothing seems to go anywhere at first.

Wood first

Almost everything you build costs wood. Right-click a tree with your crew member selected to fell it, or use the axe button to mark a whole group of trees at once. The timber stays by the stump until it is carried to a store.

Felling is also practice: your crew get better at every task they do, and your own level rises with all the work they put in.

Walls, a door and a bed

Open the Build tab and drag walls into a small square — four by four is plenty — and put a door into one of them. Enclosed rooms protect from the cold at night and keep light in, so work indoors does not slow down in the dark.

Inside, build a medical bed. It is where the hurt recover, and your friend is hurt: they lie unconscious somewhere nearby after the crash. Follow the yellow arrow, select your crew member and right-click the friend to carry them to the bed.

Food and water before nightfall

Your crew eat and drink by themselves as long as there is something to eat and drink. Berry bushes grow wild; a hungry crew member with nothing in store will eat straight from the nearest one. Water can be drunk from rivers and lakes, but a store of water is safer.

Once the rooms stand, plant your seed potatoes on farm plots. They need water every hour and are ready after a game day. Read the food and farming guide next.