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Stranded: Alien Dawn – How Do Moons Work?

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  • What Purpose Do Moons Serve In Stranded?
  • What Kinds Of Moons Are In Stranded?
  • What Strategies Work Best For Each Moon?

Stranded: Alien Dawn's latest expansion, "Dunes And Moons," significantly evolves the extraterrestrial survival experience by adding many new features. As the expansion's name suggests, one new feature is a desert-like biome. The other is a handful of planetary moons.

So, how do moons work in Stranded: Alien Dawn? You won't see drastic changes in tides or sudden eclipses. However, each moon will change how the ecosystem around you operates, whether it's wildlife behavior, availability of local flora, or even more random occurrences. Here are the basics you should know.

Note: Stranded: Alien Dawn is an Early Access title still in development. Therefore, its current version does not represent the contents of the finished game. As a result, parts of this guide may become obsolete/inaccurate as the title grows and evolves. Additionally, bugs and glitches may inhibit gameplay.

What Purpose Do Moons Serve In Stranded?

Moons aren't a purely cosmetic feature in Stranded: Alien Dawn. On the contrary, moons create distinct gameplay conditions that affect your playthrough. Moons can add challenges or make your daily life less complicated. Often, they'll do both.

What Kinds Of Moons Are In Stranded?

There are four moons in Stranded: Alien Dawn:

  • Concordia: Concordia is Stranded's neutral moon. Your playthrough stays balanced when this moon gets chosen.
  • Jason: Your party will face more demanding challenges when Jason is active. Luckily, they'll also have plenty of time to prepare and recover from them.
  • Nyx: This moon primarily affects wildlife, making them more likely to attack at night during dark hours.
  • Chaos: This moon, like its namesake, can cause unpredictable in-game events.

Furthermore, you can also choose for the game to randomly assign you one of the four moons, which you must decipher yourself.

What Strategies Work Best For Each Moon?

Learning to operate within the rulesets of each moon takes plenty of trial and error. However, we learned some wisdom kernels while playing through each one.

Concordia is the best moon for new players. Playing under Concordia's ruleset will help you understand the fundamentals of survival, which you'll need to handle the more challenging moons.

Jason will require more effort on your behalf. We immediately noticed that resources were scarcer when playing with this moon. Focus on observing as much flora and fauna as possible from the get-go. This way, you can farm crops instead of trekking for miles for the closest harvest.

We discovered that Nyx isn't too difficult as long as you know what you're doing. One helpful strategy was scheduling half our crew to a night shift. This way, when aggressive wildlife approached our camp, someone was always awake and ready to fight.

Fortification is another vital priority while playing with the Nyx moon. Invest in that research early to construct a barrier around your camp. When wildlife attacks, the barrier will buy your crew time to approach and target the predators. We also recommend laying traps around your camp to inhibit attacks.

Chaos is hard to peg. In our first few seconds of playing, a piece of space debris hit directly next to our fallen spacecraft and injured a survivor. You can't anticipate what will happen. So, try to stay malleable with how you schedule and assign tasks to your crew so you can adjust to any sudden changes.

One modifier that helped us learn the ropes of each moon significantly faster was the Overqualified modifier. This setting grants each survivor maximum skills across the board except for indifferent skills (these are set to six) and incapable skills (these remain zero).

With the Overqualified mod on, you'll accomplish tasks faster and can schedule tasks without worrying about skill restrictions. Consider this mod like engaging in a practice run.

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