Quasimorph Survival Guide

Check out the detailed information in my guide to learn how to survive the Quasimorph.

Quasimorph Survival Guide

Intended to apply to armored/naval vehicles, the survivability onion is a simple way of understanding how to keep ones body intact when engaging hostile forces. This guide will explain how to apply the concept in a world mid-apocalypse where bullets are cheap and life is cheaper.

Preamble: The things most likely to kill you outright (in descending order)

• Panicking (doesn’t matter what you’re up against, misclicks are often a death sentence)
• All Quasimorph ranged weapons
• All Quasimorph melee attacks/weapons (on account of how fast they tend to move)
• Burst capable laser weapons
• Sawblade launchers
• Burst capable rifle-caliber weapons
• Flamethrowers
• Poison based weapons
• Burst capable shotguns (only if they’re close enough for all pellets to connect)
• Nail based weapons (excluding crossbow)
• Burst capable pistol-caliber weapons

Threats should be dealt with in roughly the same order as this list, just make sure to use your brain and adapt depending on your situation.

With Quasimorph being a turn based game, you have an infinite amount of time to consider your next move.

Layer 0: “Don’t be there.”

Shocker, right? You can’t be harmed if you aren’t in a position to be harmed in the first place.
You’ll only be able to apply layer 0 by sticking to faction outposts (or your own ship) so let’s just gloss over this one.

Layer 1: “If you cannot avoid being there, don’t be seen.”

This one boils down to simply staying out of visual range of your enemy; though due to the nature of indoor environments, layer 1 only really applies to hallways and larger rooms/defense missions.

Full advantage of this can only be taken by characters with 7 or more tiles of vision as that is beyond the accurate range of a vast majority of the previously mentioned “quickest killers.”

Layer 2: “If you cannot avoid being seen, don’t be targeted.”

By “targeted” I mean being in a position where an enemy will act on their turn to fire upon you.

For this one you have several options:

• Breaking the line of sight via doors or corners.
• Baiting melee enemies/lesser mooks into standing in front of someone with a deadlier weapon.
• Shooting the hostile with a clean shot on you first to engage pain shock.
• Utilizing flashbangs.
• Stance shifting to open a door, throw a grenade/fire into a room, and close the door in the same turn.

Layer 3: “If you cannot avoid being targeted, don’t be hit.”

You find yourself in a situation where being shot at is unavoidable, oh no!
Maybe you left clicked on a tile instead of right clicking or happened to end your turn in view of a sawblade or cold damage weapon user; either way, you are now potentially up creek and at the mercy of your dodge stat.

• Dodge as a mechanic is self explanatory, a flat % chance of not taking an errant shotgun blast to the face. It is directly influenced by carrying weight and each character comes with a higher or lower inherent dodge stat.
• For simplicity’s sake, consider your dodge stat to be inversely proportional to how high your resistances are as more protective gear is generally heavier.
• Kenzie Yukio is the only merc that is inherently less affected by weight but backpacks (especially servo backpacks) will reduce the effective weight of everything you are carrying.
• Eclipse Blades get up to +40% dodge at all times and Scouts of Hades get up to +100% dodge on a 50 turn cooldown activated by getting shot at. (You only need to be “shot at” as the ability triggers on misses too.)
• If all else fails: COVER IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. Hug that like the grandparents you don’t talk to often enough. (They miss you.)

Layer 4: “If you cannot avoid being hit, don’t be penetrated.” ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Now, onto resistances. These are going to be what saves your ass in most cases:
(From left to right as appearing on your or an enemy’s status screen)

• Blunt = Hammer icon | Blunt melee, 9mm rounds, shotgun slugs.
• Pierce = Needle icon | Pointy melee, EM guns, rifle ammunition, shotgun flechette, nails.
• Cut = Claw mark icon | Slashing melee, sawblades, shotgun shells, 9mm exp(anding) rounds.
• Heat = Fire icon | Laser weapons, flamethrowers, incendiary shotgun shells, 9mm burst rounds.
• Cold = Snowflake icon | All “Q ammo” guns (the purple spheres.)
• Toxic = Skull icon | Poison needle rifles, chem sprayers, spider attacks, spider blood.

• Percy Fawcett is the merc you want to take when you plan on facing heat, cold, and toxic heavy factions as he gets 5 points in every resistance. Making him a Tunnel Rat or Spaceborn Ghost will increase his resistances by a minimum of 20% across the board.
• The vast majority of human enemies will be using one of the first three damage types (pistols, rifles, shotguns, melee weapons) and most armor will give you at least one point in blunt, pierce, and cut.
• Civil Resistance in particular seems to use more flamethrower and buzzsaw units alongside shotguns and pistols. Dress for cut and heat primarily, blunt and pierce secondarily.
• Research based factions equip more of their fodder units with laser pistols, chemical weapons, and electromagnetic guns. Prioritize heat, toxic, and pierce resistances when fighting groups like Daydream Chemicals, Grasshopper Technologies, and SBN.
  (God help you if you decide to fight SBN.)
• Quasimorph missions will almost always contain a mix of enemies using blunt, pierce, cut, cold, and toxic damage. These are the missions you want to max out your cold and toxic resistances on.

(Though it’s almost more reliable to lean on dodge in these situations as good cold or toxic armor is hard to find.)

Layer 5: “If you cannot avoid being penetrated, don’t be killed.”

When you have to be there, and you’ve been seen, targeted, hit, and penetrated ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°); the only thing standing in the way of you dying when you are killed is your ability to treat wounds received.

Basic medicine:

• Drink water to heal a small amount of health.
• Alcohol will slightly reduce pain and infection with an added 10% chance of curing addiction; the accuracy debuff from intoxication will get you killed though so it’s best saved for reducing quasimorphosis by 100.
• Cloth rags will treat pierce wounds and can be carried in large amounts.
• Bandages can treat pierce wounds, and frostbite. (It doesn’t say so but you can also use them on burns, as far as I can tell they work just fine.)
• Splints treat fractures and are easier to acquire than medical glue.
• Three Sorbent is enough to clear an infection that hasn’t reached 100% and it can be made aboard the Magnum for free up to 30 at a time over a 20 hour period. Also treats minor poisoning.

Intermediate medicine:

• Medkits are the best means of health regeneration, healing you for 50 points over two turns. Can be made at workbenches for one bandage, one splint, and one antibiotic.
• Use Barafenil as your main source of pain reduction. Just because medkits and morphine also reduce pain doesn’t mean they’re worth using for this purpose.
• Medical glue is a jack of all trades, highly worth grabbing. They act as a combination of bandages and splints; healing pierce wounds, fractures, frostbite, and burns.
  On top of this, they heal you for 20 points of health over 10 turns.
• Morphine is best used as an alternative to cigarettes and alcohol for reducing quasimorphosis as it can be found in greater abundance. Just make sure to bring Nalaxone with you in case of addiction.
• Antidote is meant to be the thing you use to treat poisoning but honestly if you can use a Sorbent immediately after being poisoned you won’t have to waste an antidote on 10-20% of poisoning.

Expert medicine:

• Antibiotics are kind of “too good” to use and are better put towards making medkits; they do also treat a good amount of poison (which is fine considering antidote is a bit harder to find) but so does Sorbent which can be made for free.
• At least two Naloxone should be taken with you for every stack of morphine you intend to bring as a means of reducing quasimorphosis.
• SANG-B blood bags restore 50 health over 10 turns. Don’t even bother using these outside of Mars and its moons as they also raise quasimorphosis by 50 points. Just use medkits.
• Doctor Jones surgical kits are another example of something being “too good to use” in most cases. It instantly restores 50 health, reduces pain by 20 points, and fully heals a wound. Unfortunately they weigh 4.00kg each and take up an entire inventory slot by themselves. They are more useful being traded for gear or disassembled into some of the stronger healing items like medical glue, morphine, medkits, and Naloxone.

In conclusion

(The game is still in early access so some parts of this guide may need to be changed in the future. It is however, accurate at the time of writing.)

Even with reading this guide, there’s no guarantee you won’t get your pushed in.

Here’s a few parting words of advice:

• Don’t bring anything you can’t afford to lose to the moon. Crossbow quasimorphs will warp in and nail your ass to the wall at the speed of mach Jesus.
• Ensure you bring enough food if you’re going anywhere other than Mars and its moons.
  Even cooked human meat will raise quasimorphosis by 100.
• Don’t forget to bring food entirely like I sometimes do.
• Quasimorphs don’t seem to carry food at all but hulks and other (relatively human) quasimorphs can have some on them.
• Combining one spider meat and one tin can at a stove makes a filling meal that won’t hurt you or raise quasimorphosis.
• Don’t be afraid to run the ♥♥♥♥ away and bait the enemy into weaker positions.
• ALWAYS STAY IN COVER! If there is an enemy on your screen that can kill you in one attack it is not safe to leave cover.
• Use grenades and break walls to flush out enemies that won’t move from cover.
• Burst fire is your best friend against most types of cover. If you can hit them once and induce pain shock, use that opportunity to get a better angle or retreat if you have to.