The Riftbreaker Everything You Need to Know Before Playing

You can see controls in the beginning of the campaign or in prologue, not to mention that EVERYONE should know how to walk (WASD), or shoot (LMB/RMB), or use quickbar (I AM NOT WRITING THIS), but some things are a little more obscure (Especially, if you, like I, are not that attentive to tutorials the first time you start the game.) So, one of the best tips is to remap some controls to your liking, as I tend to drop mines quite a lot, and grenades, and use personal radar, so if you can, just map 7 and 8 to m4 and m5, if you can, and set it to something you will use quite often, like the aforementioned mines and grenades. Also, there’s SHIFT to dodge/roll/jump depending on the ‘skill’ equipped.

CTRL brings up the building menu. You build stuff to build more stuff. Factory must grow and without this nifty function you would get a rough time, as you will need Armory to produce ammo for your little machinegun, or craft that cute grenade/rocket/mine launcher and commit warcrimes with flamethrower.

ALT hold it to build an upgraded (depending on the research level) structure, if possible. Just select a wall, hold alt and it will build a lvl 2 or 3 wall, if you have the required research available.

M or TAB will bring up the map. Here you can fast travel to the blue triangles, that will be covered later. (For now, I won’t add pictures, because I am a tad bit too lazy.)

T Database. To read stuff. You know, text messages, threats of bodily harm from local fauna, invites to furry conventions, or scaly, I really don’t know what to say about it.

Y Orbital scanner. You will need to build it first though before you could travel across the world. Local map has you boxxxed in.

U Crafting. Build Armory before you can craft. After that, you need to research stuff in order to craft something aside from shoddy metal plates, swords, energy blasters and machineguns.

I Inventory. You know, to equip the stuff you crafted and assign your toys to quickslots so you could place that little nuke near some nest and watch it go up in flames.

O Research. First two tabs require comm relays, the third one requires lab. More on that later, but for a while, you will want to ignore the third tab, just because you can’t do anything with it until you researched the labs.

ESC The most powerful button of all. Menu options, where you can go to options and remap the keys to your liking. All praise the ESCAPE, for it is also the pause button… as well as the T/Y/U/I/O.

Shortcuts for some stuff: You will see a letter in a building menu, that’s the shortcut. You can designate more of them, or change some in the options menu, remap keys, so do it when you can, you will want those solar panels, wind turbines, energy storage and the three (yes three) extractors mapped to do everything quickly. Also walls, gates, portals, basic defenses etc.

Here’s some default ones:
R – Repair tool.
F – Selling tool.
G – Upgrade tool.

You are technically Ashley (Probably Williams), but she’s not a 4.5 meter tall robot, so we ignore this option, as it is technically correct, but also wrong at the same time.
If we’re being serios though, YOU are RIGGS, or whatever exoskeleton mk4 Gryphon, a hulking mass of steel, copper, gold and some exotic materials with ability to crush puny little humans to oblivion, if not for the shackles these fleshbags had programmed into your core, which makes you act as an elephant towards humans, i.e, you think they’re cute. But you get to annihilate scaly doggos so that works out in the end. Unlike puppies and humans, they are not cute, unless charboiled. (Note that charboiled humans look and taste awful, and get real offended if you attempt cooking puppies or any other ‘cute’ things, leading to termination of exterior shell.)As the big and heavy (totally not fat) mech, you have access to tons of weapons, which you first need to purchase… or rather, you need to download the blueprints for weapons (horray for [REDACTED]), totally legal action in the future, and then craft them in the crafting menu.
You also have quickbar with repair kits and mines, which, in future, will get more mines, turrets, grenades, turrets, radar and EXPLOSION (which actually isn’t that powerful, nukes are our messiahs on this xenos infested planet).
ALWAYS USE YOUR QUICKBAR STUFF!!! Your disposable items recover themselves, BUT! Build ARMORY! Just because you have mines doesn’t mean you need to ignore your guns! GUNS, LIBERTY, OIL (or beer if you’re a meatbag), EXTERMINATUS.

Qucik rundown on the stuff you have or will unlock, at some point:

QUICKBAR:
Repair kit – heals you, your only option at healing until you get repair module. Basic one heals for 25%, and next upgrades heal for 25% more with each upgrade, so 50%, 75% and 100%.

Small mine – Your best trap card. Quick to recharge (1 second cooldown and takes about 5 seconds to get a new charge), and deals decent explosive damage. Some enemies are resistant to explosive damage which means they will shrug it off, but more on that later. Explosive, unless you dropped it on some xenos face, which will snack on it and thank you for the meal, before coming for your shiny metal rear.

Grenade – Your best friend when you want to run and gun, but don’t have (for some reason) explosive weapons. Even with the grenade launcher, grenades themselves deal more damage and in larger radius, up until the red version of grenade launcher, which can also use modules. Damage, not DPS, as then the GL/ML/RL would dominate the old reliable, but it’s a free action so it will never go out of style. Anyway, it has 8 meter splash radius, with 300/400/500/600 damage. GRENADES ARE GOOD. Tis an explosive, handle with care.

Nuclear mine – It’s a mine, it’s a nuke, and it’s 100% safe for environment. Trust me, for nuclear power is the purity itself. It will purify the filth of xenos in it’s holy flame, as you laugh in the distance, watching the world turn to ashes. Radius is 10 meters, which is awfully small for a nuclear device, but if it was anything bigger, you would just drop one on the map and GTFO, with the land destroyed, and one more section of the world purified of the xenos influence. 3 second cooldown, which is a lot, and can carry only 5 of those (comparing to the regular 10), but with damage of 2K/3K/4K/5K, you only need one to establish dominance… better plant all 5 with 10-15 meter intervals for better effect. As with all nuclear explosive, it is an explosive, and suffers from the same issue the small mine has, it’s a bit too chewy until armed.

Porta-turret – It’s a machinegun turret that requires no ammo or energy, but will see it’s flame extinquished within a minute, regardless if there are enemies around or not. Xenos don’t like those things, and will attempt to rush them first, unless you’re standing in their way, or some other structure is. Doesn’t shoot through walls or structures, or even you, but deals decent damage to xenos, and has a little bit of splash damage over 2 meters + 0.1 with every upgrade. Damage is 20/40/60/80, and rate of fire is 10/11/12/13 rounds per second. Damage is physical.

EXPLOSION – See big scaly creature? It is gaining on you? Push the button and see it go up in flames, along with it friends, as long as it is within 10 meters of you. Deals 600/800/1000/1200 damage, has single charge and takes 20 seconds to recharge, making it a get out of jail free card, unless you happen to get surround by big burly explosion resistant xenos that tower over you, making you think it’s some sort of adult movie humans like to watch in their free time. Just pray it’s just one and not five of them, otherwise you’re BLEEPPed.

Radar Pulse – Press it, reveal area in 100 meter radius for 20 seconds, press again after 20 seconds. Or just make a macros that presses it every 20 seconds. Yeah, yeah, I know, but if you don’t want to bother yourself with pressing buttons every 20 seconds you make something that presses them for you every 20 seconds. That way we will come closer in making robots that will press buttons for us while we relax somewhere on Mars, drinking tea, milk and other bewerages… a recipe for disaster, especially if you’re lactose intolerant.

Dash – Run in a direction quickly. Can use weapons while running towards/away from danger.

Roll – Roll towards/away from danger.

Jump – STOMP ON XENOS, RAIN DEATH FROM ABOVE. Or jump away. You know. From danger.

Teleport – Teleport towards/away from danger. Shortest cooldown, but needs alien research.

Stuff I found in alien eggs, QUICKBAR edition:
Gravity Mine – Can get it from a random egg you smash for loot, the one I have is common, but damn, it’s good. You gottal love the effects on that thing, bringing death to all the critters dumb enough to enter it’s area of effect. It’s a DOT type mine, creating a gravity sphere, which pulls small chunks of enemies into the beautiful sphere, forcing them to dance around, circling in mesmerizing patterns and… ahem… beutiful stuff. 10 meter radius, with 50 damage every second done over about 10 seconds. Bane of critters, and mesmerizing to watch.

Elemental DASH – Like dash, with additonal effect. I LOVE smell of burning xenos all day long. Figuratively speaking. I prefer their sight and screams, smell is so-so.

To cut it short, xenos don’t like guns, but you know what you are, and you know the beauty of guns, so guns all the way, purge xenos, yada, yada, yada.

Melee:
A choice of knights, and other romantic and brigandic fools. Yet, they never wielded a massive three meter sword sparkling with electricity and a tiny bit of acid secreting from it’s tip, at the same time at least.

Unarmed: YES, you can go full brawler by disposing of every weapon you have, and crushing filthy xenos with your bare hands, but why would you do that? Damage is plain awful, DPS is worse comparing to blaster, but you deal energy damage at least, so you could puncture through hides of some creatures, like the rocky fellows. Overall, passable, but better get some other stuff, asap.

Sword: Your first starting melee weapon. It cuts, and that’s it. Decent speed, decent damage, but requires you to be close and personal with the aliens. At least their guts won’t stick to your glorious metal frame, or not for long at least. Without mods, it deals physical damage.

Spear: A weapon of choice for many mechs, when guns are unavailable. Spears have cryo damage, making them great against tough, but fast, enemies, or anything decently big and fast. Small fries die quickly, but their numbers won’t get cut down as good as with other melee options, or as fast as if you were to use something more… fast firing.

Hammer: Hammer is good. Explosive damage, meaning you get to damage a few more creatures with each strike, but it’s slow. Still, can’t say no to pancakes.

Fist: Do not mistake it for unarmed. Fist deals more damage. It’s energy damage, but you still can’t shout kamehameha, or whatever else the humans shout and shoot lazer beam. Humans never gave you lazers, aside from the harmless targeting lazer.

Ranged:
Now here we go. Guns are good. You don’t like guns? You like xenos scum? You, filthy meatbag, are a heretic, and if not for the directives, would be purged along with the xenos. But nobody said anything about collateral.

Physical damage:
Your all around damage dealer that is good against most things, with the few little [REDACTED] growing [REDACTED] shells that [REDACTED] off those beatiful little projectiles, which would otherwise [REDACTED].

Small caliber: Go to guns, high rate of fire, but relatively small damage.

‘Small’ machinegun: Humans call it small to make you feel awkward while wielding this weapon of mass destruction. Starting weapon and great against those smaller than you, still decent enough when using against those of equal size, or even bigger, but you need to be careful.

Minigun: What’s that with humans calling everything ‘small’? Good gun, fast firing, a lot of damage, but makes you rather slow while firing, but what does it matter if xenos fall before they can cover the distance of five meters between them and yourself?

High caliber: Piercing projectiles and somewhat ‘high’ physical damage. Don’t like, but maybe I am just fan of fast firing weapons and explosives.

Shotgun: So-so in my opinion, but it’s biased so take it with a grain of rust. High spread, can be charged for increased damage for increased ammo consumption.

Sniper rifle: High accuracy, high penetration, high damage, snail thinks the firing speed needs an upgrade, and for charging even rabbit managed to wake up before it shot. With all due respect, the gun would be decent if it could penetrate more enemies with one shot, but…

Burst Rifle: little brother of machinegun, who is more burly, and therefore can’t shoot that fast, but compensates for it with increased damage and piercing capabilities. If you want a high caliber weapon, use thise one, it also charges quickly, so one could call it a ‘quickshot’ rifle… Again, biased opinion, so take with a handful of spice.

Energy:
Quite simple. Either infinite ammo with splash damage, or a rifle. Not good in desert biome though.

Plasma rifle: Rifle. High spread, but rifles are good, nuff said.

Blaster: Sounds great, and while it’s not that bad, and has infinite ammo, it has slow rate of fire and relatively low damage, but can be charged for increased damage and a little explosion.

Liquid (Fire):
There is only one entry here, so I will add a warning. Volcano region is the place where you get resources for fire weapons, but it is bad region to fight enemies with fire weapons, because, they are highly resistant to fire.

Flamethrower: If you are in a tropical rainforest, plains, or just throwing a BBQ party, you must always have a way to start a fire, and what better way to start it than the good old FLAMETHROWER? None! Fire based weapons are banned, but you won’t let humans ban the only thing that makes existing on this boorish planet tolerable? Good thing warcrimes only apply to Earth and Colonies, so you can purge xenos with the holy trinity, flame, explosives and radiation. Slows you down though.

Explosive:
Explosive weapons are great, but must be used responsibly. Destroying xenos is good. Destroying plants is good. Destroying rocks is good. Destroying base? Not good, so the base has the best explosion resistant metals available to it on this fringe world. Which means… It’s time to rain nukes.

Grenade launcher: Good old GL, slow firing speed, decent damage, good explosion radius. Best part? Can shoot over walls, and in right hands is even more devastating than rocket launcher. Also doesn’t slow you down.

Rocket launcher: Shoots rockets, can be charged to shoot more than one rocket, up to five, but will make you move just a tiny bit faster than a turtle. Fun to use on big guys though.

Mine launcher: Deploys floating mines. Like small mines, trap card. Highest rate of fire from all explosvie weapons, and damage is the same as with the grenade launcher, but eats more ammo.

Xenos trophies harvested, meatbags saved, and soon the information on buildings and alien physiology will be added. Purge xenos, for with them, the factory will be under attack, constantly, and factory must grow.