After the recent 1.0 update, The Planet Crafter has evolved into a fully-fledged game. Your journey involves terraforming the planet until you achieve 5 TTi, enabling you to construct an Extraction Platform and depart from the planet.
The Planet Crafter offers three distinct endings, all revolving around the Extraction Platform. Each ending presents an element of uncertainty regarding your fate, with varying levels of complexity to achieve. However, the initial stages of the endgame remain consistent, regardless of the specific ending you pursue.
Constructing the Extraction Platform
The first step towards any ending involves unlocking and building the Extraction Platform. This milestone is reached upon attaining 5 TTi, the threshold for the "Complete Terraformation" phase. The terraformation strategies remain similar to previous stages:
- Deploy advanced machines to enhance temperature, pressure, oxygen levels, and biomass.
- Utilize multipliers from rockets and optimizers to amplify production efficiency.
- While machines are operational, embark on exploration expeditions to uncover new resources and blueprint microchips.
- Cultivate or locate special flora and fauna like golden flowers, butterflies, fish, and frogs to optimize biomass machinery.
Upon readiness to construct the Extraction Platform, a range of premium materials is required:
- Fusion Energy Cell
- Energy Multiplier Fuse
- Rocket Engine
- Uranium Rod
- Iridium Rod
- Super Alloy Rod
- Pulsar Quartz
- Solar Quartz
- Blazar Quartz
Fortunately, these components are featured in other blueprints, simplifying the acquisition process.
Erasing the Anomaly
Post the Extraction Platform's construction, leaving the planet is hindered by an interference error message upon platform activation. This message discloses coordinates: 718:43:2269.
Shortly after the platform's completion, Sentinel Corp. notifies you of an anomaly linked to these coordinates. This communication includes a final recipe for a Large Explosive Device, necessitating:
- 3 Iridium Rods
- Circuit Board
- Fusion Energy Cell
- Uranium Rod
- Three Explosive Powder
Assembly of the device through the Construction menu is followed by placement adjacent to the anomaly, indicated by a red outline elsewhere. The anomaly, a protective orb constructed by the Wardens, can be located underneath the Super Alloy Cave's Ancient City ruins.
Activation of the Large Explosive Device, timed for 10 seconds after placement, eradicates the orb, enabling the Extraction Platform's functionality. Departure with Sentinel Corp. is immediate, but further exploration unveils alternate paths, with the 'Subjection' achievement awarded upon sticking with Sentinel.
Noteworthy is the flexibility to select any qualifying ending from the Extraction Platform without save file overwrites, facilitating the experience of all three endings on a single save.
Servitude: The Smuggler Ending
Following the orb's destruction, a message from your ally, Riley, forewarns of Sentinel Corp.'s untrustworthiness and proposes a deal with smugglers for evacuation in exchange for 500,000 Terra Tokens and 5 Solar Quartz. Despite the smugglers' dubious reputation, Riley deems them a safer choice than Sentinel.
While acquiring Solar Quartz poses minimal challenge, accumulating 500,000 Terra Tokens demands strategic planning:
- Establish automated outposts utilizing drones and auto-crafters to produce and sell high-value materials like Pulsar Quartz or Circuit Boards.
- Continue exploring to discover Terra Token chips and fuses in procedural wrecks, with surplus chips vendible via the Space Trader Rocket.
- Consider liquidating optimizers' fuses, as the Terraformation Index no longer necessitates augmentation.
Upon securing the requisite Terra Tokens, deposit 5 Solar Quartz in the platform's top container at the Extraction Platform to trigger the smuggler ending, culminating in the 'Subservience' achievement.
Rebellion: The Warden Ending
Exploration of the concealed Warden ruins beneath the Cenote biome unveils the Wardens' escape from the desolated planet, leaving behind 10 hidden Warden Keys and blueprints for a Warden Key Detector to locate them.
Activation of the Warden Key Detector in proximity to special golden altars materializes the hidden keys, with potential utility in the Lost Paradise region, circumventing the central sanctuary for the Warden ending access.
Integration of the 10 Warden Keys into the Extraction Platform container grants access to the Warden ending, promising an uncertain outcome of the encounter with the departed Wardens and rewarding the 'Subversion' achievement.