The Alters is a fascinatingly unusual proposition. Jan Dolski’s escape from a hostile planet—with the aid of the clone variants he’s reluctantly spawned to help him—gives players four games in one: a space survival game, a base-builder, a worker management sim, and a conversation RPG. As we uncovered in our interview with the director, it’s truly a game of multiple personalities.

This ambitious genre mash-up has a lot to come to grips with. Our guide tells you how to manage your clone crew, get your base running smoothly with a plentiful supply of resources, survive sinister hazards, and make your way off this inhospitable rock!

With the game’s real-time countdown looming until a solar disaster, you better learn fast.

Build Mining Outposts as soon as you can

You won’t make it far without resources. While deposits found on the planet’s surface can help get you started, building Mining Outposts should be your top priority. They’re how you produce the resources you’ll need to eat, build new facilities, and make new tools.

But don’t be tempted to jump out of the airlock ready to explore without a plan. Mining Outposts need power sources to operate, which are provided by connecting multiple power cable pylons between them and your base. You won’t know exactly where deposits will be found, so when you venture outdoors, make sure you’re fully prepared. Gather only the materials you need to create a Mining Outpost and some pylons in the Workshop first, and save yourself losing precious time with unnecessary backtracking.

Now that you're properly equipped, it's time to scour the landscape for resource deposits. When you’ve found telltale signs, use the scanner to find where to build your mine. This can take some practice, but the scan-wave function points you towards the right spot (and in Act 1, you can save time by focusing on the higher ground locations in deposit zones).

With your Mining Outpost built, you can make your way back to the base and connect it for a handy fast-travel point if you need to return—or, ideally, hand that grueling task off to your clone!
 

Don’t fear radiation, just prepare for it

Now that your Mining Outpost is producing a steady stream of resources, it’s time to explore in earnest! The vast overworld area can be dangerous, but it’s also rich with rewards. There are promising deposits of the Radium that attracted your now-deceased team to this disaster, Jan’s scattered belongings and film collection—which help you bond with your Alters—and much more to explore by day.

Don’t be afraid of heavily irradiated areas. Your radiation meter fills up gradually, although it’s equally slow to go back down. 

The anomalies are more pressing threats, mysteries of physics that even chase after you. If you follow the Scientist’s orders (more on him later), you can eventually craft the Luminator tool to dispatch them. Until then, they don’t need to bar your way; holding the sprint button and curving your run around them does the job. They’re scary but avoidable.

Nightfall is another matter. Radiation levels spike, and while you can stay out later if need be, you rarely should. You operate at reduced effectiveness in the evening (though you should still socialize back at your base), and your effectiveness degrades even more past 11 PM. That’s when you enter the Exhausted state, and every minute you spend like this means waking up that much later the next day.
 

Here’s how you should choose your clones

A worker management game hardly deserves the title without an assortment of workers at your command. Each Alter has an equally distinct set of skills and individual personalities, which stems from the alternate life path they chose. You’ll need to staff up and get in the habit of queuing production tasks and assigning Alters to complete orders.

When the time comes to choose your second Alter, the Scientist is a wise early addition. He opens up a vital technology tree, unlocking some options I quickly couldn’t live without:

• A 15% increase to mining speed for Metals and Non-Metals (create the Miner Jan Alter next for super-charged efficiency)
• A Recycler unit that converts waste into Organic resources, which scales as your crew gets bigger and gives a passive source of a dependable resource
• And a very handy pylon upgrade that extends its cable distance

Generally, you want to maximize your time, so don’t wait too long before filling out your roster of alternate Jan Dolskis. Any overworld mining tasks should be delegated to your Alters, leaving you to attend to overworld exploration or pitching in inside the base, which you can navigate quickly thanks to an incredibly speedy elevator.

Come morning, you may find yourself with extra responsibilities. The work day starts at 9 AM, but you get up at 7 AM, so you have a two-hour window to get a head start on priority tasks. You can harvest Raw Food for the Alter who has kitchen duty that day, or spend time in the Workshop preparing for your next excursion. If you want to crack the whip, you can extend working hours, but you won’t be popular for it.
 

Base-building tips for The Alters

Your base is a relative sanctuary on a hostile planet, but it needs expanding to meet the many needs of yourself and your growing crew. It’s a challenge, even after upgrades, but fortunately, you can rearrange its layout at will.

In the process, we learned a few interior design tips that you can apply to your own space station:

• As your base is unhelpfully circle-shaped, there’s less real estate at the curved top and bottom. Put smaller facilities like the Recycler and Workshop in those zones; bigger facilities like the Greenhouse and Infirmary are more useful in central positions.
• Consider transit time. Stick your most used rooms next to the elevator. Navigating your base vertically doesn’t waste time, but running through one room to get to another sure does. 
• Storage is vital, but can be safely put on the margins as you don’t visit it as frequently as other facilities.
• You can save space by ignoring your crew’s needs for comfort, (though the Dormitory is a must; don’t make them sleep on the floor!) but the crew’s mood is easier to maintain with creature comforts like the Social Room and the Greenhouse’s improved meals. 

Top resources to gather and stockpile

Once your Alters’ basic necessities are met, you’ll attend to a need that Maslow’s hierarchy never thought to consider: cosmic radiation. It provides a constant risk of injury to yourself and your crew at night, and the onset of magnetic storms will play havoc with your base facilities.

You can stop magnetic storms from knocking out vital base functions by making sure you always have stockpiles of Repair Kits on hand. With each priced at a mere 10 Metal, it’s worth keeping two or more in Storage at all times. Storms can hit hard and may last for an entire day; this sets you up to make repairs while assigning Alters to make more, instead of desperately struggling to craft Repair Kits as more systems go offline.

Radiation Filters are equally necessary, protecting your crew from an unwanted stay in the Infirmary for 10 Metal and 40 Organic resources. Use the Uphold Production option in the Resources menu to automate having a baseline quantity for these and Repair Kits.

The biggest takeaway here is this: Always keep a resource buffer, particularly when it comes to stores of Metal and Organic resources. You don’t want to be stuck inside without the means to create emergency rations of unappetizing Mush, or get caught short of the material you need for a new Storage module when you hit your limit. 

Forward planning is a luxury. You have to respond to perilous circumstances on the fly, and you’ll need the tools to react to them (or if you really need relief, you can always adjust the Economy difficulty in the settings).
 

How to create bonds with the Alters

Each new artificially generated crew member adds another set of strongly held opinions to the mix. With them questioning your life and space-survival decisions at every turn, it’s like a workplace where every colleague is your worst enemy—one who somehow knows everything about you.   

The Alters navigates these crew interactions in the form of an RPG-style conversation system. They want to chat, both to you and each other, and your choices lead to branching outcomes and define the mood of your entire crew. Don’t ignore them! If the Scientist gets radiation burns, he’ll be miserable and may bring down the rest of the crew with his surly vibe, so pay attention before malcontent spreads. Addressing them is the only way to make progress.

Early on, it’ll feel like anything you do has a negative effect—generic niceness won’t win over their hearts as in your typical RPG! Spend the time understanding your Alters’ histories with a trip to the Quantum Computer and see what makes them tick. Unlocking Lessons Learned opens up new conversational options. As his character and relationships develop, your choices may lead to him becoming a better man, or at least a better Jan.

Now that we’ve given you all the tips you need to keep Jan and the clones alive, the question is: Where will Jan finally end up? That one’s squarely on you, as it’s the result of your decisions. Have fun finding out! 

The Alters is available now on the Epic Games Store.