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I have 3 different active main missions:

  • Ghosts in the Machine (from Artemis Path)
  • Atlas Path
  • Space Anomaly

I was trying to complete the first one, then Apollo warned me that following the next step could prevent me to return to my base for a while, like a sort of "point of no return".
Should I focus on other missions before proceeding with Artemis Path?

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  • to be fair, there is an issue with the Atlas path.... Atlas speaks Atlas and you may be stubborn enough to want to understand what they are saying.... Commented May 2 at 17:54
  • @Ꮢedacted I know some words, I found several obelisks while exploring
    – pinckerman
    Commented May 2 at 18:12

2 Answers 2

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Here is a neat overview of the mission order, taken from this (unneat) site:

enter image description here
Click for larger version

Take note of the text at the top:

The game will keep switching you between the 3 main missions: Atlas Path, Space Anomaly & Artemis Path. This is by design. When it switches to Atlas, you have done 5 more milestones, and can therefore access another one of the 11 Atlas Interfaces. Do that. When it switches to Space Anomaly, Nads has some Quicksilver for you in exchange for telling Space Anomaly NPCs about what's been happening in the storyline. It'll switch back when you leave the Anomaly or Atlas Interfaces.

So it recommends to first do Atlas Path, then The Space Anomaly, then Ghosts in the Machine.

But here someone replying to someone with the exact same trilemma says the following:

Mix and match. The Space Anomaly mission updates at certain key points during the Artemis path (Ghosts in the Machine is a part of that) where you have to report your findings to Nada and Polo. As you work through those two mission paths and explore you'll aquire Milestones which are needed to unlock the next step(s) of the Atlas path.

Even though this is from two years ago (and the image from September 2023, v. 4.45), it seems the mission structure is built around this interplay.

It seems the only potential Point of no Return is

towards the end of the Atlas Path, with the mission called The Purge, as you end up in a different galaxy, but using portals you can always get back to Euclid to finish other missions.

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    Anomaly is kinda stuck at the moment, so the Atlas mission seems the right one. Yeah I also found that (unneat) site :D
    – pinckerman
    Commented May 1 at 22:17
  • Man, this game changed A LOT since the original launch. I probably would give it a try again if it didn't have so many things I tend to dislike in games, like limited inventory, clunky UI and base building in a game that isn't focused on that aspect.
    – Nzall
    Commented May 2 at 11:44
  • @Nzall What bothered me when I started playing it (during a free weekend), is that there is just soooooo much information thrown into your face, and I found it difficult to keep interested in a single thing, so quickly lost interest in everything. That, and the fact that there is a specific building I had to construct to start base-building (which I really like), that I put in a place that was inefficient, so I removed it to place it elsewhere, only to find out that was impossible, because the materials were gone and impossible to attain at that point. So I rage-quit :)
    – Joachim
    Commented May 2 at 13:26
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    @Joachim If you mean the base computer, the material should have been refunded. But... it probably wasn't the case in the original game. As for the "inefficient" - that is something that annoys me quite a bit. Solar panels often aren't enough but can be placed everywhere, the generators require a field that is pretty rare and usually nowhere near where you wanted to build. Cuboid building makes all... well, cubical. Free form walls require you to power wire everything and that becomes boring fast. I just want a "wireless power generator".... Commented May 2 at 17:38
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    @Joachim There are difficulty settings now that let you build without spending materials, and you can also disable the need to power your base. Yes, the game is not made for base building, but you can place a teleporter station and always come back with ease. I stopped for the same reason, but the incomplete trophy list was killing me inside, so I came back... doing everything but the trophies I left.
    – pinckerman
    Commented May 3 at 8:25
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You can do Atlas and Artemis in whatever order, but Artemis is more rewarding in the short term, and has fewer requirements.

Broadly speaking, here are the rewards of each:

Artemis:

  • Lots of blueprints, one crashed ship, a few other goodies. Most of these blueprints can also be purchased aboard the Space Anomaly, but Artemis will give them to you for free, and that will save you a lot of nanites and technology modules.
    • Many of these spin off into brief side quests rather than becoming direct quest rewards.
  • Towards the end of the quest line, the following:

A one-time shortcut to another galaxy. For most players, this will be their choice of Calypso (Harsh), Eissentam (Lush), Hilbert Dimension (Norm), or Budullangr (Empty), but other destinations are possible if you've already left Euclid. You select the type of galaxy you want, and the game will bring you to the next galaxy of that type. If unsure which to pick: Hilbert Dimension (galaxy #2) is reachable from the center of Euclid (galaxy #1 and the starting galaxy) through regular gameplay, Calypso (galaxy #3) is reachable from the center of Hilbert Dimension, and so on, wrapping around at Iousongola (galaxy #255 and the final galaxy). Budullangr is galaxy #7, and Eissentam is galaxy #10. Any planetary biome can generate in any galaxy, but around yellow stars, the galaxy type influences which planet biomes are most probable. Since Calypso and Hilbert Dimension are relatively easy to reach from Euclid anyway, you might prefer to select one of the other two instead. You can always return to Euclid through the teleporter system.

Atlas:

No intermediate rewards (that are useful for anything other than the next part of the quest). Upon completion of the full line:

Black holes are visible on the galaxy map. Blueprint for an exosuit upgrade which increases core health (not shields). Blueprints for a series of items that can be used, together with a blueprint from the end of Artemis, for another exosuit upgrade with the same effect plus access to a few bits of lore. These upgrades synergize if placed next to each other, giving you a total of +3 health.

Atlas also requires you to complete milestones to progressively unlock it, whereas Artemis is all unlocked from the beginning of the game. Milestones are completed automatically through regular gameplay, so there's no need to grind for them unless you're trying to speedrun the quest line.

The Space Anomaly:

Quicksilver and nanites, each time you talk to Nada. You can talk to Nada after most quests in either of the other two storylines. While you're there, you may as well also get free nanites from Helios and Ares.

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  • Thanks for this! I already see Black holes on the galaxy map and I haven't completed the full Atlas, maybe that's because I've started the quest years ago and something went "wrong". I probably stay with Atlas quest, sadly I already purchased most of the blueprints on my own, and I've read that it's a quick way to obtain glyphs and I'd like to find a better spaceship on different planets.
    – pinckerman
    Commented May 2 at 8:52
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    @pinckerman no, that is because their info about the Atlas path is obsolete. The last updates have changed something about the choice you get at the end of the quest chain and have made black holes always visible. Commented May 2 at 11:44
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    @Ꮢedacted: Well, then somebody needs to update the wiki. But that's a pretty obvious problem, since half the pages on the whole site have banners saying they're multiple years out of date.
    – Kevin
    Commented May 2 at 17:23
  • @Kevin Oh, I know that, problem is that some of the missing info isn't clear in the first place. Nor is easy to find if you don't know what to search. For example, the patch notices just say that now there is a counterpart to the Seed, but doesn't tell you what. Commented May 2 at 17:32

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