The Planet Crafter combines elements of a survival game with a sci-fi crafting adventure focused on terraforming a hostile planet. Players advance by acquiring blueprints and technologies to mitigate tectonic activity, lower planetary temperatures, and cultivate a sustainable ecosystem featuring surface water, flora, and fauna. The game’s difficulty varies based on the player’s chosen starting location, ranging from relatively simple to extremely challenging.
The Planet Crafter: Best Starting Locations
Just starting off in The Planet Crafter? These locations are some of the best for early-game. Here’s what their pros and cons are as well.
Base building is a huge part of gameplay in this The Planet Crafter. Making sure to design a base that is both efficient and expandable is a must. Most of the structures use a snap to grid style of construction, which makes layout mistakes less of a problem. Power considerations are also something of an issue, especially when the player is trying to add advanced structures such as the biodome. As such, it’s important for players to have a good sense of what kind of layout they want their base to conform to.
5 Simple Starter Base
Constructed During Tutorial
Structures:
- Foundation: 4
- Living Compartment: 1
- Living Compartment Door: 1
- Outside Stairs: 1
- Wind Turbine: 4
- Crafting Station: 1
- Vegetube: 1
- Heater: 2
- Drill: 1
- Desktop: 1
- Terraformation Screen: 1
- Blueprints Screen: 1
- Power Screen: 1
Building this starter base for new players in The Planet Crafter will take them all the way through the basic tutorial missions, and leave them in a good situation to begin their terraforming endeavours in earnest. It has all of the structures required to begin producing some oxygen, lowering tectonic activity and lowering heat.
One slight problem with building this base is that the player needs to find some Iridium. This is used for constructing the Heater. Finding Iridium could require quite a trek across the map, depending on the starting area the player chose.
4 Expanded Starter Base
Starting Terraforming Operations
Structures:
- Foundation: 4
- Living Compartment: 2
- Living Compartment Door: 1
- Outside Stairs: 1
- Wind Turbine: 6
- Solar Panel: 2
- Crafting Station: 1
- Vegetube: 2
- Heater: 6
- Drill: 2
- Desktop: 1
- Terraformation Screen: 1
- Blueprints Screen: 1
- Power Screen: 1
- Progress Screen: 1
This base in The Planet Crafter will take the player all the way to the goal set by the “Reach A Blue Sky” mission, which is completed once their Ti=175000. By now, the player should have unlocked a number of T2 blueprints, and should construct the T2 versions of structures if they can.
The Planet Crafter: Best Food
Food in The Planet Crafter is not a mandatory feature, but some foods do stand out due to the bonuses they give. Here’s what’s worth cooking.
There is a need to find at least one more seed in order to get the second Vegetube operating. These are found in caves, crash sites, and in random loot chests dotted around the map. Don’t worry too much about which seeds to grow at this stage, just use any that are available.
3 Storage Starter Base
Working Base With Plenty Of Storage
Structures:
- Foundation: 4
- Living Compartment: 3
- Living Compartment Door: 1
- Outside Stairs: 1
- Wind Turbine: 6
- Solar Panel: 2
- Crafting Station: 1
- Vegetube: 2
- Heater: 6
- Drill: 2
- Desktop: 1
- Terraformation Screen: 1
- Blueprints Screen: 1
- Power Screen: 1
- Progress Screen: 1
- Storage Crate: 4
Building on the previous base, this new iteration in The Planet Crafter will solve a problem that new players will undoubtedly have faced by now: How to store spare crafting materials and resources. An additional Living Compartment is attached to the base for just this purpose.
Within the additional Living Compartment, 4 Storage Chests are placed around the outside walls, leaving the center of the room empty. This is important, as it leaves this space free to build an indoor ladder, which will lead up to the roof of the base and allow for upward expansion.
2 Mass Terraforming Preparation Base
Preparing For Mid-Game
Structures:
- Foundation: 4
- Living Compartment: 6
- Living Compartment Door: 1
- Outside Stairs: 1
- Inside Ladder: 1
- Wind Turbine: 6
- Solar Panel: 4
- Crafting Station: 1
- Vegetube: 2
- Heater: 6
- Drill: 2
- Desktop: 1
- Terraformation Screen: 1
- Blueprints Screen: 1
- Power Screen: 1
- Progress Screen: 1
- Storage Crate: 4
This base in The Planet Crafter is intended to give the player plenty of excess power and double the interior space compared to the previous base on this list. The idea here is that the player can place Vegetubes and Heaters in this empty space. How many of each they need will depend on their specific terraforming needs.
5 Mistakes Everyone Makes In The Planet Crafter
The Planet Crafter is a complicated and challenging game, so players are bound to make mistakes. Here are some of the most common ones.
This base is very easy to expand as well, by just adding additional floors on top of the bottom two, meaning it is a small footprint base but with plenty of internal space to make use of.
1 Bio Base Build
Getting Ready For The Endgame
Structures:
- Foundation: 4
- Biodome: 1
- Living compartment: 6
- Living Compartment Door: 1
- Outside Stairs: 1
- Inside Ladder: 1
- Wind Turbine: 6
- Solar Panel: 8
- Crafting Station: 1
- Vegetube: 2
- Heater: 6
- Drill: 2
- Desktop: 1
- Terraformation Screen: 1
- Blueprints Screen: 1
- Power Screen: 1
- Progress Screen: 1
- Storage Crate: 4
Oxygen production is a huge part of the terraforming project in The Planet Crafter, and it is a good idea for players to get ahead in oxygen production early on, so that they can focus on other things. Towards this goal, building a Bio Base can be a good idea, as it helps to generate biomass as well.
The Planet Crafter: Where to Find Uranium
Uranium is essential for rocket engines and nuclear reactors, but this elusive element can be hard to locate.
The Bio Base extends previous base builds, adding more power generation and a single Biodome, which is very efficient at producing oxygen sustainably. Yes, the resource costs are high, but it is well-worth spending the time gathering the resources and getting a Biodome constructed as soon as possible, as it will help the player get to the endgame quicker.
The Planet Crafter
- Released
- April 10, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Miju Games
