JayDax Icarus guide to a more advanced base.
Once you are at level 30 you can create electrical devices. These are made in a fabricator which you need to unlock on the tech tree. You should have lots of tech tree points so while you are there unlock titanium plate, electricity tool, wind turbine, electric furnace, material processor, electric deep-mining drill, foundry, titanium knife, pickaxe, axe & sickle, titanium hammer, frosted light, electric textiles bench, electric water pump, the chemistry bench and industrial floor.
Make, using the fabricator, an electric tool and some wind turbines, you'll need at least three of those initially. PLace them along the canyon top starting at the top of the north stairs. Each must be positioned 2 electric cable lengths apart to avoid them interfering with each other
Use the electrical tool to bring the power generated down the stairway and into your base. Like the water network you created build a power network in the same way.
Make and power an electric furnace and a foundry.
The electric furnace needs 30 steel ingots, 4 glass, 60 electronics, 80 concrete (I told you you would need lots!)
The foundry needs 5 titamium plates, 8 electronics, 15 concrete, 18 steel screws, 5 glass.
When working the electric funace needs 2,500 units of electricity and a water supply.The foundry needs 1,500 units of electricity when working.
Make and add a new deployable - a material processor. It needs 30 aluminium ingots, 60 electronics,12 steel screws, 3 titanium plates and 8 carbon fiber. It's made in the fabricator. The material processor does all that a mortar & pestle will do but works much faster and can produce composite paste which is then turned to composites in the electric furnace.
Notice in this image I'm starting to upgrade stone floors to concrete floors.
A reminder…
- Make refined wood using the woodworking bench.
- Make rope at the crafting bench using fiber.
- Make epoxy resin in the mortar & pestle from crushed bone or Sulphur and tree sap.
- Make tree sap in the mortar & pestle from wood.
- Make steel bloom using either iron ore or iron ingots in the mortar & pestle with either coal or charcoal (check inside the firepit for the latter) Use the furnace to smelt that into steel.
- Make steel screws in the machining bench from steel ingots.
- Make Electronics in the machining bench using 15 copper wire, 2 epoxy, 5 gold wire, 2 organic resin.
- Make copper and gold wire from ingots in the machining bench
- Make organic resin from oxite and tree sap in a mortar & pestle.
- When you run out of things to do gather stone and silicon and make concrete in the cement mixer - you'll need lots in tech tier 4
- You can also use tree sap and sulphur to make epoxy. Again you'll need lots
- Apart from decorative items the only use for gold ingots is to make gold wire
- Stone walls are largely weather resistant but not as good or neat as concrete walls and items. You can make those in the cement mixer.
Pumped water
You may have noticed that some of the items above can have a water connection and many need an electricity connection. Our next step is to make an electric water pump to upgrade the biofuel water pump. We'll also start replacing some of the biofuel drills with electric drills. They work faster and don't need constant attention to refuel them. They have a bigger inventory too. Make an electric waterpump using 20 concrete, 4 electronics, 16 steel screws, 24 steel ingots. It's made in the Fabricator.
Electric deep mining drills are made with 25 aluminium ingots, 15 electronics, 12 steel screws, 8 titanium ingots and 8 carbon fiber. I find it's worthwhile replacing drills for iron, copper, titanium, silicon, oxite, sulphur and coal. For the moment leave other deep deposites using biofuel drills.
With all these electrical devices you need to ensure you can produce enough power. A flow meter can be connected to your electricity and water networks (and later oil) and will give you the information you need. That's one on the wall above the fabricator.
The base is located on a slight slope and that means you can add an electrical network of cables underneath it as you did with water.
Electrical demand will increase so it's worthwhile placing more wind turbines around the canyon and adding solar panels and oil generators as they become available.
The next step is to replace that bone armor with composite armor. For that you'll need to make composites using the material processor and electric furnace and then construct the armor using an electric textile bench. We'll also install an alteration bench which can add attachments to the armor and our tools.
Time to upgrade your suit to a more advanced one.
Watch the sky to see where the dropship lands. It's position will also be marked on the map and shown on the compass. Go get your suit.
Talking of water…
Do you drink enough water?
'They' say we should drink 8 glasses a day - about 3 litres. Expensive if you buy bottled water and unpleasant if it's chlorinated and fluoridated mains water. The answer is to install a reverse osmosis water filter which removes chlorine, fluorides, bacteria, heavy metals, pesticides and herbicides. Expensive to install initially but saves you a fortune in the long run. And the water tastes great!
Personally I like the Waterdrop Reverse Osmosis system. I've got one installed under my kitchen sink along with a re-mineralisation kit because the reverse osmosis takes the good calcium and magnesium minerals out too. We use this for cooking, drinking, the pet's water (and we water our houseplants with it too).
The Waterdrop reverse osmosis kit installed under my kitchen sink.
Get the right coffee
The most healthy coffee to drink is made from organic coffee beans, ground at home and drunk black. Try this one - the one we drink https://amzn.to/4lrosr0
The reason it's 'healthy' is because it isn't sprayed with pesticides when grown. That means bugs eat the leaves and the plant responds by producing chlorogenic acid to defend against them - a powerful antioxident. It will take you a little while before you get used to black, unsweetened coffee, but when you do, that's when you'll begin to appreciate true coffee flavour.
You'll need a grinder
Try this one - a SHARDOR Coffee & Spice Grinder Electric,Time Adjustable Coffee Bean Grinder.
Coffee and spice grinder
It comes with an additional four blade cup for wet ingredients such as onions and garlic.
An 8 cup (4 mug) French press
Once you've ground your coffee beans add 50-53 grams of the coffee to a French Press and then fill it with just off the boil water Here's one of those.
Stainless steel insulated French press
Using Deep Ore Deposits
Caves aren't just limited to the individual ore nodes you break with a pickaxe. Look deeper against the back walls of most caves and you will discover massive, flat mineral outcrops embedded directly into the bedrock: deep mining ore deposits. You'll find them outside caves too.
These deposits cannot be harvested by hand. To exploit them you need a Biofuel Deep Mining Drill, unlocked in Tech Tier 3. Once placed on top of a deposit and fueled, the drill works away continuously, extracting raw ore into its internal hopper even while you are out hunting, foraging, or building back at base.
Building and Deploying the Drill
Craft the Biofuel Deep Mining Drill in your Machining Bench. Each drill requires:
- 12 Concrete Mix – mixed from tree sap, stone, and silica in the cement mixer.
- 16 Steel Ingots – forged in your concrete or stone furnace from steel bloom.
- 12 Copper Wire – drawn from copper ingots at the machining bench.
- 8 Epoxy – processed from crushed bone or sulfur and tree sap in a mortar and pestle.
Carry the drill and a filled Biofuel Can to the deep mining deposit. Point the drill at the center of the ore deposit until the placement silhouette turns green, then press left-click to secure it. Press E to access its inventory, drop in the filled biofuel can, and click Activate.
A single full biofuel can keeps the drill operating for roughly 30 to 45 minutes of real time, accumulating hundreds of units of raw ore. If you are drilling remote from your base then keep a crate nearby so you can unload stacks into storage and run them back to your furnaces in manageable trips. With Iron and copper ores some distance from your base it's worthwhile to have a stone furnace nearby to smelt the ore before transporting it since ingots are lighter than the equivalent ore
Cave Worm and Bee Warning
Deep caves often spawn Cave Worms when you revisit them. Always keep your knife or longbow ready when returning to collect ore from your drills.
It's worthwhile to leave a stairway in place to allow quick access to beehives in caves too.
Fuel Efficiency
Don't leave empty biofuel cans in the drill. Swap them with a fresh can and drop the empty back into your Biofuel Composter with spoiled meat, fiber, sticks or raw wood plus sap to refill it.
Later in Tech level 4 you can make an electricly powered drill.
Infinite Veins?
Unlike surface boulders, deep ore deposits contain a massive reserve (often several thousand units of ore). One vein of iron or coal can power your base operations for weeks.
Clifftop Access: Conquering the Canyon Walls
The canyon provides natural shelter and pure cave water, but hauling ore, lumber, and game around the long perimeter trails wastes valuable daylight. By bridging the upper roof of your three-tier stone base directly to the canyon rim, you create an effortless highway between the valley floor and the resource-rich plateau above.
Because stone stairs and walkways have limited horizontal reach before collapsing under structural load, you need a framework of vertical support columns anchored securely into the cliffside. The rule is that each section of stone floor/roof must have at least one corner supported. As you are able, add railings to the stairs.
Step-by-Step Staircase Assembly
To safely scale the rock face without risking broken legs or structural collapse, construct the ascent in stages:
- Drive Pillar Anchors: Stack Stone Beams vertically against the rock face directly adjacent to your third-tier roof landing[cite: 8]. Stone beams provide the load-bearing integrity needed to prevent ramps from snapping off under player weight.
- Build Switchback Landings: Avoid long, single-run ramps. Alternate sections using Stone Half Pieces or full floors as level turning platforms every two vertical tiers.
- Snap Left & Right Stairs: Tap R while holding a stair piece to alternate the orientation into a clean switchback spiral ascending the rock face[cite: 8].
- Cap the Plateau Rim: Extend a final cantilevered stone floor piece over the cliff lip, snapping it flush against the terrain to avoid sudden snagging hitboxes when sprinting. You may find it useful to erect a stone column at the stairway end points to make it easy to locate
With this staircase secured, you can sprint from your basement furnaces straight out into the forest biomes in seconds. This clifftop landing also serves as the ideal high-altitude perch for deploying Wind Turbines, tapping maximum wind velocity to generate electricity for your Tier 4 machines.
Bone armor?
Archaeologists working along the Irtysh River near Omsk uncovered a suit of bone armor. It has not been dated, but based on where it was found it was probably made in the Bronze Age, perhaps as old as 3500 to 3900 years ago.
In more recent times (1899) American indians were often depicted wearing a bone chestplate to protect their heart and lungs.
What's this?
In one of the images on this page you'll see this in the top right corner of the screen.
Once you've repaired the armor you will see it when you press 'I' to look at your inventory.
The Greenhouse
It's well worth building a greenhouse on the base roof because:
- Food Security: You can cultivate reliable staples like soybeans and wheat right at home.
- Stamina & Warmth: Once you reach level 25 and unlock the thermos flask, you can brew hot coffee to stave off hypothermia in arctic zones and sharply increase stamina regeneration.
- Medical Supplies: Grow yeast, reed flower, and lilies to produce healing tonics and antitoxins.
- Domestic Lumber: Cultivating coconut palms provides an effortless supply of food, pure water, and continuous wood without having to fell distant trees.
- Biofuel & Oil: Growing plants for bulk fiber allows steady conversion into biofuel and organic resin for composite production.
Enclosing the roof with reinforced glass qualifies your plots for the internal Greenhouse Tier bonus, significantly speeding up growth cycles. Plumb hydroponic crop plots directly into your sub-floor water pipe network to keep them permanently hydrated without manual bucket trips.
I build a large 3-level greenhouse divided into two functional zones: a full-height open side dedicated to 8 coconut palm trees, and a three-level terraced side for smaller crops that don't need vertical clearance. Across these terraced levels, I plant at least 15 fiber, 6 soybeans, 6 wheat, and 2 each of all the other crops. Investing in the Agriculture branch of the Talent tree for the 'Fresh is Best' perk ensures none of your mature crops wither on the vine, turning the greenhouse into zero-decay food storage.
Coffee
Once you reach level 25 you can unlock and craft a thermos flask. It carries 20 refills of water and lets you brew coffee! Coffee warms you in freezing biomes, delivers a substantial stamina boost, and speeds stamina regeneration. Brew it by placing a filled flask of water and fresh coffee beans into the firepit.
Coconut Palm Seedlings?
You could travel to a desert area of the map to fell coconut palms and use a seed extractor to get seedlings from young coconuts. BUT there's a quicker way. By now you will have mined exotics in the caves and sent them to the space station. You can sell these exotics there for Ren (Icarus currency) and use them to buy coconut palm seedlings from the workshop farming area - you only need one lot.
Solo Glut Tip
Because growth is accelerated under glass, solo players often end up with excess vegetables. Feed any surplus straight into your Biofuel Composter to keep your mining drills and water pumps supplied with infinite fuel.
Click image to zoom in / out and right button drag.