Build Your Main Base for Convenience, Not Just Safety
Short answer: On Prime’s standard start, the elevated open ground north of the Starting Valley, near the Central Plateau, is a strong place for your first main base. It keeps you close to the landing area and common early materials while avoiding the bottom of the starting basin, which fills with water during the Liquid Water stage.
Your landing pod refills oxygen, making it a useful foothold while you gather iron, titanium, silicon, cobalt, magnesium, and ice. However, your first work area does not need to become your permanent headquarters. Once you have the basics, scout the nearby high ground for a site with enough space for additional rooms, machines, storage, and outdoor structures.
What Makes a Base Location Good?
- Flat, elevated ground: Choose enough open space to expand without squeezing compartments between rocks or building in low terrain.
- Access to early resources: Common ores and ice should be close enough to gather without repeated long trips while your oxygen capacity is limited.
- Convenient routes: A central location shortens travel to the areas you visit most often.
- Nearby open water: Later, water gives you a convenient place for machines such as Lake Water Collectors.
- Room to grow: Think beyond the first few rooms. Leave space for storage, crafting, outdoor machines, and later automation.
A scenic site can still be a poor early headquarters if every supply run pushes your oxygen to the limit. Build for convenience first. You can always add scenic structures once travel and resource collection become easier.
First Shelter, Main Base, and Outposts
Each structure should have a clear purpose. Your first shelter is a small foothold near the starting area. Your main base is the central hub for crafting, organized storage, food, water, and frequently used machines. A specialized outpost is a compact shelter along an exploration route or near a resource area; it does not need to become a second full-sized home.
A Living Compartment with a door provides an oxygen refill point even without power. Add a storage container for emergency supplies or materials collected nearby. Place these simple outposts wherever the return trip would otherwise put too much pressure on your oxygen supply.
A Simple Expansion Plan That Scales
Use a hub-and-spoke layout. Keep one main hub for daily crafting and bulk storage, then add route shelters and resource outposts as your reach grows. Group storage by purpose—such as building materials, food and water, and rarer ores—so you can unload quickly after each trip.
Because many Ore Extractor targets depend on placement, mining outposts belong near useful deposits. Later, drones can move materials between supply and demand inventories, allowing remote extraction sites to support storage or production elsewhere. If oxygen shortages keep cutting a route short, stop and build one or more refill shelters before exploring farther.
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