Rift and planet materials

The planet and the rift hold materials that earth does not. This page gathers them: how you get each one and what it makes. Follow a name to its own page for the numbers.

Some are mined: a deposit gives two pieces, one for each swing of a Pickaxe. The rest are found in crates, most of them on the far worlds, or made at home; how often a crate holds one is on the loot page. Much of what these materials make also needs the Alien tech perk; the page of each thing they make says how it is learned.

From the planet

Material	How you get it	What it makes
Alien Ore	Mined from ore deposits on the planet, which lie thickest in the crater fields. Found in colony pad pallets and lander cargo pods.	Alien Alloy
Alien Alloy	Made at the furnace from 2 × Alien Ore and Coal. Found in colony pad pallets, colony tool racks, colony supply crates, colony sample crates, lander wrecks and lander cargo pods.	Alloy Suit, Rad Visor, Alloy Helmet, Alloy Vest, Crystal Rifle, Planet portal, Alloy wall, Crystal generator
Energy Crystal	Mined from crystal deposits on the planet, which lie thickest on the crystal flats. Found in colony desks and lab benches, colony sample crates, lander wrecks and lander cargo pods.	Alloy Suit, Rad Visor, Crystal Rifle, Crystal Cell, Planet portal, Crystal generator
Xeno Sample	Found in colony desks and lab benches, colony sample crates and lander cargo pods.	Crystal Rifle, Planet portal
Beacon Core	Found in colony sample crates and lander wrecks.	Planet portal

From the rift

Material	How you get it	What it makes
Rift Shard	Mined from shard deposits in the rift, which lie thickest in the void cracks and on the glass fields. Found in expedition supply crates, expedition field desks, expedition specimen crates and last stand crates.	Rift Stabiliser, Shard Gun, Shard Shell, Rift portal
Void Matter	Mined from void matter deposits in the rift, which lie thickest in the void cracks and in the pulsing growth. Found in expedition specimen crates and last stand crates.	Rift Stabiliser, Alloy Suit, Shard Gun, Rift portal
Anomaly Core	Found in expedition specimen crates and last stand crates.	Shard Gun, Rift portal, Crystal generator
Tear Anchor	Found in last stand crates.	Rift portal
Rift Charge	Made at the chem bench from 2 × Research Sample, 2 × Battery and 2 × Copper Wire. Found in containment crates and last stand crates.	Opens the rift gate in the containment chamber of a lab: one is used up each time you step through.
Rift Stabiliser	Made at the chem bench from 4 × Rift Shard, Void Matter, Battery and 2 × Copper Wire.	Carried in the rift, it takes away 50% of what the rift does to your gear: the extra jams, the faster spoiling, and the chance that a carried item turns into another.

From the Institute’s cells

The Institute locked the objects it found in sealed cells, and you can carry 10 of them yourself. Each is a threshold in the Institute’s catalogue with a case file of its own; follow its number to read it. All of them lie in containment crates.

Object	Case file	What it does
Pale Lantern	T-034	A small lantern with a pale, cold flame. Its light shows what hides in the dark and in the brush, and whatever lives out there hears it hum.
Still Watch	T-035	A pocket watch that ticks too slowly. Wind it and everything near you slows for a few seconds, but the food in your bag ages a day.
Mending Jar	T-036	A stoppered jar of warm green paste, enough for three uses. Smeared on, it closes every wound at once, but its poison seeps into your blood.
Rewind Clock	T-037	A brass clock whose hands run backward. Wind it and everything near you goes back a few seconds, once a raid, but your food ages a day and your gear wears.
Tomorrow Radio	T-038	An old valve radio that picks up tomorrow, once a day: the weather to come, or the plan of a raid site near you. Its static carries far and draws creatures.
Wish Compass	T-039	A brass compass whose needle turns to the loot you wish for. Creatures near you hear it as your footsteps and follow too.
Blood Coin	T-040	A heavy dark coin with a rusty red rim, warm to the touch. Thrown at a container in a raid site, it turns that container’s loot over once, for 500 ml of your blood.
Skeleton Key	T-041	A black iron key whose bit never looks the same twice. Turn it at a sealed cell or a shut shutter and it opens, once a raid, but a door behind you locks for 2 minutes.
Endless Battery	T-042	A frosted old cell that never runs flat. Carried, it runs your flashlight and belt radio, but drains your body heat while they are on. Left in a home charger, it powers it with no generator.
Porcelain Mask	T-054	A smooth porcelain face with no mouth that breathes clean air for you in any poison. Once on, it clings to your skin and won’t come off for 12 hours.

The Rift Key

The Rift Key is no material: nothing makes it and it makes nothing. A sliver of the rift’s own dark, held in an Institute containment key and cold to the touch. The Institute’s notes say only this can kill the source.

Where it lies. In the last stand, the deepest room of a lost expedition’s camp in the rift. Every camp holds it until you have taken one, and after that no camp does. Taking it writes this step into your journal:

The key from the rift

You took the key from the last stand of the lost expedition. The Institute’s notes say it can kill the source, and the source is on the planet.

What it is for. It kills the source. Carry it to the heart of the source on the planet and set it there: the heart burns while the source’s creatures burst from the chamber’s vents, and when it has burned out the source is dead and the key is gone with it. If the raid ends before that, the heart heals and you still have the key. The key has to be in your pockets; one left in the stash at home does nothing.

The source destroyed

You drove the Rift Key into the heart of the source on the planet, and it died. Without it the haze at home will slowly thin.

What you cannot do with it. You cannot drop it, trade it, give it away or put it in a bag or a box, and the rift never turns it into something else. If you die with it, it goes home to your stash instead of staying on your body.

After the source. When the heart dies, the game closes the story with these words. The whole story, step by step, is on the journal page.

The source is dead

The heart tore itself apart around the Rift Key, and the source died with it. The pollution came to earth from here, in a sealed sample on the last flight home in year 43. The key held what Anneli Sund’s lost expedition found deep in the rift in year 32; only during the widening did the Institute understand that it could kill the source.

On earth the haze will thin. Day by day the factories and the dumps breathe out less of it, until they stop. The volcanoes’ vents and the reactors go on, so home will never be wholly clean.

The planet is still out there, the rift is still open, and home still needs you. The world goes on, and so do you.