Odyssey Alpha Phase One Tips, Tricks, and General Guide

O7 CMDRS! Since there is no tutorial for the Alpha, I’ve decided to put together any tips, tricks, and advice I can and put it in an easy to find spot. I’ll update it as best I can, and feel free to add comments either here for review or to my original post, found here on the forums and here for reddit.

I plan to flesh this out as much as possible, without things like “This is best!” or “Here’s a build!” Use whatever the hell you want, and do it however the hell you want. My ultimate goal is that I can help people garner the general knowledge to not be pasted on a wall.

Alpha Rollout Phases

As we should all well know by now, the Alpha will be rolling out in phases. There aren’t specific dates set for these yet, but FDev has outlined how they will look (see below). I will add the dates here as the phases progress.

To access the Alpha, there are a few methods. The LEP (lifetime expansion pass), The Odyssey pre-order (specifically, the option WITH Alpha access), and a third method I’m forgetting (someone comment this for me please).

• Phase 1: First Steps (Mar 29, 2021)
• During the first phase of the alpha, all participants are given a fresh commander profile and begin at Armstrong's Legacy in the Adityan system. Players are restricted to Adityan to maximise player interaction and stress-test the game's network.

• The Remlok Maverick scavenger suit, and Kinematic Armaments and Takada weapons can be purchased.
• Players do not have access to ships, but can travel using Apex Interstellar Transport to reach groundside mission locations.
• Salvage and collection/delivery missions are available.

• Phase 2: Combat

• A 20ly bubble of space is opened up for interstellar travel, and players can now purchase ships.
• The Manticore Dominator combat suit can be purchased.
• Faction conflicts are enabled and combat missions are available through Frontline Solutions.

• Phase 3: Exploration

• The bubble of playable space is expanded to 50ly, allowing players to visit unexplored planets and test the "First Footfall" discovery mechanic.
• The Supratech Artemis explorer suit can be purchased.
• The Genetic Sampler tool is enabled, allowing exobiology gameplay.

• Phase 4: Compatibility

• A snapshot of players' main commander profiles is added to the alpha.
• Fleet Carriers, ships, SLFs, and SRVs are enabled to test the compatibility of Odyssey features with the full game.

Station Fun Times

When first logging into the Alpha, you’ll be presented with a new commander. This will be you until Phase 4, when a snapshot of your “live” commander is brought into the Alpha.

I found that I had to use the keyboard to navigate the options, but results may vary.

Upon completion of making yourself pretty and thinking of a ridiculous temporary name, you’ll be spawned on Armstrong Station with a whopping wallet of 50k credits. Notes: No, you cannot leave the system. No, you don’t actually have access to the Sidewinder it shows you have (not yet). Yes, the taxi system takes forever AND COSTS MONEY. So don’t blow it on a gun immediately or you’re not going anywhere.

This is a station terminal. Use it.

• To change your equipment, you first have to create a loadout. This can be done from the station terminals. Create the loadout, name it, save it. THIS DOES NOT EQUIP IT.
• To EQUIP your loadout, you should be able to do so from the station terminal. You also have the option of doing so while in a taxi, using the #3 menu (the one between your legs). 
• Station Terminals show a lot more missions than what you’ll find by walking around. The caveat to this is by actually speaking with NPCs, you get more information and can negotiate better rewards. That’s also where you hand them in.
• When you take a mission from an NPC, you must hand it in to the NPC. It doesn’t show up under completed missions on the terminal
• If you are wanted, choose “Turn yourself in” on the terminal. It’ll pop you into a respawn screen as you go to space jail. Once you’ve done that, relog. Should be cleared.

Suits

As more Equipment becomes available, I’ll try my best to add it here. Let's start with the Suits. Notes: Suits have a wee capacitor for jump jets. Double jump! In really low gravity, you can get some serious air time. SHIELDS ARE OFF BY DEFAULT! To turn them on, open the radial menu, it’s at the bottom. This consumes power. You can directly keybind this instead of using the radial.  **Hint Hint** DO THAT RIGHT NOW.

Flight Suit

This is the basic starting suit. It’s the sidewinder of suits. It’s made of paper, but at least you won’t suffocate or freeze to death. It’s a Remlok suit, and it’s free.

The life support is SUPPOSED to last 5 - 25 minutes, but your results may vary. Basically, don’t run out of power, and you’ll be fine. Also don’t get shot, ever.

With this suit, you’ll have access to the Profile Analyser tool and the Energy Link tool.

Maverick Suit

Another Remlok suit, designed for scavenging and salvage. It is also supposed to have the highest carrying capacity of all suits

Life support range is the same.

With this suit, you’ll have the same tools as the Flight Suit, but also gain access to the all-powerful Arc Cutter. In the alpha, you should prioritize getting this over new guns. You’ll need it, or someone with access to it, for a majority of missions.

Tools

In Phase One, there aren’t a lot of these.

Profile Analyser

This tool has 2 modes. The first is Scanning, which can be used to gain basic information about a target. More importantly, if doing combat, this can identify bounties on a person (even if they’re dead).

The second use is to Clone Security ID. This will be important, especially in early missions before the Maverick suit, to gain access to buildings. You can clone someone's security clearance, and be able to walk through doors! Do NOT get caught doing this, or you’ll become paste on a wall.

**IMPORTANT NOTE**

To quote lit-torch and WolfandShadow on my reddit post/discord:

Another thing you can add to your guide that a friend of mine discovered: You can profile scan and clone through windows. I had been daisy-chaining access, because many level 3 VIPs seem to stay indoors behind auth levels, but if you can find a high-access target near a window you can skip all that.

You can also scan another player to copy their security as well.

Super useful if you're playing with others. Only takes one to get clearance, then pass it on! Like digital herpes! No wait...

Energylink

Again, this tool has 2 modes. Siphon Mode, can drain power from apowerport and give it to your suit. These are marked on your radar as a lightning bolt symbol. More importantly, you can recharge doors with it. 

The Second mode is the Overcharge function. This will be your bread and butter when going into places you shouldn’t be. Use this to power doors, since it removes security ** SUPER IMPORTANT **

You can knock out unshielded targets using overcharge. Here’s your “Stealth Kill” option.

Arc Cutter

This tool is the thing to get in Phase One. It has one mode, but is basically required in any unpowered station, or if you don’t want to try and clone security clearance. When using it to open a panel, point until the dot turns green. Slowly (not too slowly if you care) work your way around the edge of the panel. It “locks” your cursor on a track so to speak, so you can’t really miss and don’t need to be precise. Just get all the way around.

Consumables

Grenades: Some people love ‘em, some hate them. Depends how much CoD you play I guess. The thing to note with these, always and forever, is gravity matters. The lower/higher the gravity, the more it affects the trajectory. The storage for these exists in some abstract storage. If you’re in a pinch, call a taxi from the radial menu and you can access your storage of them from there. Because reasons.

Frag Grenade

It’s…. A frag grenade. It goes boom, and hurts things in the boom. Specifically anything in it’s boom, including you.

Shield Disruptor

This little bad boy specifically damages shields in it’s blast radius, quite a bit more than the frag grenade will. Just don’t expect it to kill someone, as (to my knowledge) they won’t really do any hit point damage).

Shield Projector

Ever play Battlefront? Congrats, you’re an officer! This will drop a temporary “shield bubble” wherever you huck it. Temporary, yet effective in chokepoints or pure panic moments.

E-Breaches

These are used for hacking, but I have no idea how to get them. If anyone knows, please let us in on the secret.

Weapons

Now, being able to read minds (or knowing people will default to this), I want to do a public service announcement here: Upgrade your suit first. Yes, weapons are flashy and awesome and satisfying, but if you’re made of paper or can’t complete the mission because you don’t have the tools, the weapon doesn’t hold a lot of use.

Remember kids: You can carry 1 Primary and 1 Secondary for the time being. So No, you can’t have a rocket launcher AND an assault rifle. Sad times indeed. (But you CAN in the future!)

Things to keep in mind: Lasers work best on shields, and bullets on health (just like in ship to ship combat re: thermal/shield kinetic/hull). Rockets work on everything, ironically better on shields.

I WILL FILL THIS OUT AS I GO, I WILL TEST EACH WEAPON

Kinetic Primaries

Karma AR-50

Man, this thing is a bag of fun. It’s your standard AR, good at mid range, kinetic damage. I find the spread to be minimal, so as long as you  aren’t sniping, you likely won’t miss. On average, it’ll take a full clip to down shields, and much much less than that to kill the target. Pretty decent all round.

Karma L-6

Oh my, what a hot pile of garbage this thing is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s super satisfying to rocket a baddie right in the jaw. Watch ‘em go flying, all that jazz. Until you realize it takes several rockets to KILL someone, and when there’s more than one someone, the slowness of this thing is doom. I’d say unless you plan to blow up the sentry skimmers, pass on this (personally).

Karma C-44

Not a bad little piece of hardware. It’s your classic “Spray and pray”. Get close with this bad boy, and open it up. Best paired with a laser secondary, or even better, a tight space and an EMP Grenade. Just don’t expect to be super accurate. But I mean in CQB, who needs accuracy, you just need MOAR BULLETZ!

Laser Primaries

TK Aphelion

Not bad. Not bad at all. This thing is pinpoint accurate from a decent range. Low recoil, easy to compensate for (it drifts straight up if you hold fire). Destroys shielding, as it should. Low HP damage, as it should. If you’re a decent shot, kill ‘em with a sidearm after you drop the shields. Otherwise, they’ll regen, but their health will be so low you can finish them off with this anyways.

TK Eclipse

Not a bad all round toy. It’s got that murderously fun fire rate, but the spread matches. You can melt a shield in a second or two flat, but remember as a laser weapon, it’s not gonna do the same to HP. Either get real comfortable with a pistol, or spray and pray long enough to live. Good for CQB.

Secondaries

TK Zenith

This thing is pretty good in my opinion. Fires in a 4 round burst, and I’ve been able to drop every target’s shield within one clip. Also does a surprising amount of HP Damage(not stellar, but more than I expected). I’d personally recommend this, paired with a kinetic primary.

Planetside Tips

I’ll add what I can for mission tips here, without making it a hand holding exercise. Nobody wants that of course :)

Turn on your Shields

Let's point out the first and most important thing here: Shields are default OFF. So turn them on when you need them, and only when you need them. Unless you hate having suit power. Like when there’s bullets, or fire. (You can hotkey this, go do it. NOW). To do it the hard way, bring up the radial menu and go down. I personally do it the hard way, because I’m difficult like that.

Terminals

When Planetside, terminals can be your friend. Just make sure not to get caught playing with them. If you don’t have clearance for an area, assume using one is a no go.
When in unpowered bases, you can kick start terminals to get some helpful information as well.

Don’t Overcharge these if you want to use them.

Once they’re up and running, or if you’re inside a powered base, you can get some decent info from these. I realize that text is tiny. You can find the access codes to locked items from within the terminal. Remember, you can cut the locks off of lockers, but not containers. This is how you get the code.

Marking a Target with the Terminals.

You can always add targets to your HUD by selecting an item from within the terminal. A waypoint icon will appear, and then show up on your HUD as seen here.

**HINT HINT** Might be super useful for scavenge missions.

Data Ports

Who knew? Space iPads are a thing. And not the same as the terminal, which is a … bigger space iPad I guess.

At any rate, to upload or download data on missions (or if you like to raid everything you humanly can), look for these bad boys. I find them most commonly in PWR and RES buildings. Make sure you have enough bars or the download pauses. WiFi is STILL an issue in a thousand years. Hm.

Fixing Those Carrying Limits

Ah the fun of being in a flight suit. Carry the three things and sigh as you walk past all that loot. Or, run out of power cells and hope not to die. There’s an easy solution!

Call a taxi! Apex not only ferries you around, but all your junk too! When they land, run into the holy blue circle of happy, and DON’T BOARD. You can transfer items to and from the taxi, into a non-existent extra dimensional space of hoarding.

You can transfer extra consumables you’ve bought, and (tentatively) items you’ve picked up along the way. Now, get back to looting.

Consumable Pickups

Keep an eye out as you go for these, they may come in handy. Especially if there’s hostels around.

Ammo

The all important thing here, YOU CAN’T BUY AMMO! You want more, scavenge it. Look for these cases. They never run out, so use em as often as you need

Med-Kits

Get…. not dead! You can carry 3, each case comes with 5. How nice. You can also find these inside buildings on pairs of 2 along the walls sometimes. They heal you to full, so don’t pop one at 95% health unless you’ve found some to spare. Don’t get shot, don’t stand in fire, and you won’t need one! But for when you do, bring up your inventory wheel, navigate right, and tada you’ll heal.

Energy Cells

When you run out of power, you run out of shields and oxygen. Which quickly means you run out of living. Don’t do that. You can carry some with you, so definitely do that instead. These recharge you to full, so don’t waste them unless you fund a surplus.  Bring up that inventory wheel, and navigate left. Should fully repower your suit, dramatically extending the time you don’t have to panic and call a taxi.

Grenade Case

You can find these littered around as well. Note that each grenade type has its own carrying limit. Contents are randomized, but this is like a party in a box I say.

Bounty Scanning

Your scanning tool can be used to get bounty info on foot soldiers. Think of this as using it as a Warrant Scanner. The difference here is, you can scan them when they’re already dead! So if they start shooting, kill ‘em and scan afterwards.

How to tell if You’re Wanted

I mean, you shouldn’t be, since the galaxy is filled with Outstanding Citizens. Ya, that.

Anyways, when you land in a settlement, just check up near your minimap. If you see the scales, you’re wanted.

Incidentally, if you scan an NPC and see those scales, they’ll shoot you. Hint: Don’t let them shoot you.

How to Disable Security Settlement Wide!

Need access to a container, but the terminal is being a jerk? Or don’t want to hack every damned door? Well, it may take a bit of searching, but just look for this panel right here (usually either in CMD or PWR).

This bad boy turns off the security rating … like everywhere. Enjoy,

Reducing the Apex Taxi times

This is a thing! Sort of. If you make sure that your mission is nearby the station you’re in, you don't spend 10 minutes staring at memes on your phone each way. Screenshot of another fine redditor here (go give them some love).

Thanks to the wonderful work of strikeeagle on the FDev Forums, there’s a whole spreadsheet now you can find here.

Turrets and You

Are you planning to be naughty? The Base Defense Turrets don’t think so. So why not have some fun with them? There’s 2 options here: Break into the Command Center and shut them down, or crack the panel and have some fun with them.

Key Binding Defaults

These may or may not be set. If you didn’t move the Options folder to get the Alpha working, these aren’t set. If you did, they’re set to the following. For the current availability, only the on foot options really matter.

Move Forward - W

Move Backward - S

Strafe Left - A

Strafe Right - D

-------------------------------------------

Sprint - L Shift

Crouch - L CTRL

Jump - Space

Interact - E

Secondary Interact - F

-------------------------------------------

Open Item Wheel - L ALT (HOLD)

Item Wheel Left - A

Item Wheel Right - D

Item Wheel Up - W

Item Wheel Down - S

-------------------------------------------

Fire Weapon - Mouse 1

Aim Down Sights - Mouse 2

Throw Grenade - G

Melee Attack - V

Reload - R

-------------------------------------------

Select Primary Weapon - 1

Select Secondary Weapon - 2

Hide Weapon - U

-------------------------------------------

Toggle Flashlight - T

Toggle Night Vision - N

Toggle Shields - C

Select Recharge Tool - 3

Select Comp Analyser - 4

Select Suit Specific Tool - 5

How to get started (Without an Arc Cutter)

As it stands, people are having a hard time with a first mission. Fail 10-15 times before they ever succeed, which I think is giving Odyssey a bad rap. So here’s a quick way to get ‘er done. NOW SEE HERE: This is taking advantage of a mesh issue. It’ll be patched. So this is temporary.

First things first: the mission. I took a “Restore” style mission. Give the base power. Ones with the “Put out the fire” additional requirements are doable as well, so that’s what I chose.

Easy peasy! So, after a god-only-knows (because I’m typing) Taxi trip, I’m on planet in no time  and headed for the Power Building (it’s marked PWR for obvious reasons, yeah?).

Next part! How do we get in without an Arc Cutter? By taking advantage of a mesh issue of course! If you crouch in the right spot with the Energylink, you can power a door without removing the panel. Neat huh? Looks like this.

The crosshair turns green, the gun lights up a bit, bob’s your uncle.

See?! Door is open! Now, remember what Frankenstein’s Monster says: “FIRE BAD!” Turn on your shields and don’t melt. Melting bad too. Kick on the power and you’re good to go!

Now, for some, that’s the end of it. But I took the “Extinguish fires” mission. And I’d put them out anyways, because…. Loot. So, there’s two methods for this. One requires the Arc Cutter, one doesn’t. Here’s how.

You can use Atmospheric Panels to disable the … well the atmosphere in a building. No air = No Fire. Turn it off, turn it back on, explore the building. Easy Peasy.

Every building should have these, somewhere inside. Just find it and don’t burn to death in the meantime.

If you have an Arc Cutter, you can do this without even entering the building in some cases. These panels, on the outside, are big, red, and have O2 canisters on ‘em. Cut ‘em open, cut the atmosphere. Only works if the building has power.

And with that, mission done. Now go buy a Maverick suit and rejoice, you’re slightly less useless!

And remember kids: If you took the mission from an NPC, turn it into the NPC. They like when you come back I guess.