Stranded: Alien Dawn - The Survivors

Hey Survivors!

We're back again with another look at one of the key elements of Stranded: Alien Dawn. This week we'll be taking a look at the survivors you'll be managing after their ship crashes on an alien planet. The survivors are the heart and soul of Stranded: Alien Dawn. Their individual traits, personalities, and skills will influence your choices, while also shaping your progress as you work to manage their wants and needs, as well as their tasks to survive on this alien planet.

Let's embark on this journey together!

Traits and Skills

At the beginning of Stranded: Alien Dawn, you'll pick a team of 4 survivors from a pool of pre-made characters to manage after their ship crash lands. Each survivor possesses a unique backstory and personality, which in turn will inform their level of ability in eight key skills, as well as their specific character traits. They are fully realised characters, not randomised avatars. Their traits will have an impact on various things, from a survivor refusing to eat meat, to how quickly a survivor might improve their skills, or whether or not they can help improve other survivors' moods. Some traits that a survivor possesses may even completely limit them from leveling up certain skills, leading to outright refusal of performing certain tasks. Your choice of survivor can be both help and hindrance, so make your choices wisely!

Skill levels will determine where a survivor's strengths and weaknesses lie. A survivor can have high skill in combat, but low skill in research, to name one example. Looking at a survivor's skills should give you a clear idea of what tasks they will excel at and what tasks you may avoid assigning them to. Performing specific tasks will afford your survivors' experience points in certain skills, and once you've accumulated enough experience points their skill will level up. Higher skill levels open up more opportunities for an easier, and potentially more comfortable life on this alien world.  Do you want your survivors to be able to make more varied, delicious foods? Level up their cooking skill! Want someone who's speedy at cutting, mining and scavenging? Level up their physical skill! Want to make sure there is an experienced doctor in the crew, that can provide superior health treatments with a high success rate? Level up someone's healing skill! Survivor's will have particular affinities for skills, but they can also be indifferent to certain skills or totally incapable of processing a particular skill. Keep an eye on those skill levels and focus on what's necessary for the current situation.

Happiness and Meltdowns

Survivors also have happiness levels which you will have to manage. A survivor's happiness reflects their overall mental health, so make sure to provide for their wants and needs. The environment around them, the food they eat, their interactions with other crew members, and their day to day work load can effect their happiness levels both positively and negatively. Survivors are more susceptible to meltdowns if their happiness levels drop below a certain threshold. If a meltdown does occur they may start binge eating all your food supplies, neglecting their duties, or even worse! Therefore, it's important to get to know each survivor well and understand their dislikes and likes so they don't wreak havoc in your camp.  

As you check your survivors' mental health, you'll be presented with a live log of recent events and how much each had an impact on their happiness. This way you'll be able to see what is troubling them and what you can do to increase their happiness. Boost their mood by making sure they have things like comfortable and warm sleeping spots, a varied diet, and rest and recreation throughout the day. Check your survivor logs once in a while to better understand your survivors and what they're going through.

As you continue to grow your camp and unlock more research in the tech tree you may even discover ways to create beverages, stimulants and relaxation substances that could restore energy and increase happiness, so make sure you are doing your research!

Relationships

Your survivors will form unique relationships with each other. These can result in special bonds, but also conflicts if their personalities don't mesh. They say there is strength in numbers, so you'll have to find ways to alleviate as much conflict between the survivors by working to avoid potential clashes between them. The outcome of the relationships between survivors can't be controlled entirely but if you try managing survivor's schedule and activities assignment it could potentially deter disagreements. If things do get too heated, you may have a fight on your hands.

On the flip side, survivors can also form loving bonds with each other. Even love can bloom on an isolated alien world. Watch as your survivors experience all the little joys and troubles of life as a couple, just like in their home planet.

Survival is not just about adapting to the harsh environment, preventing starvation and disease! There is significance in also maintaining your survivor's emotional states, utilising their strengths and keeping them alive together. Nurturing your survivors will prove beneficial in the long run for sure.

That's it for this week's survivor guide! We hope this was enjoyable and gave you lots of helpful insight into the characters that shape Stranded: Alien Dawn. Share your thoughts and questions down below!

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See you next week!