Death Stranding | Head Crab Edition (PC) | Director's Cut (PS5)

[Salodin]

Get a high bridge link and visit every paver and at the least drop off chiral crystals. I get more help if I put items into the structure, so when I first visit them I'll cap off the chiral crystals and leave it for a bit. I'll usually come back to it half full by the morning, and you can check the requirements on your map so you can prep a truck with all the mats you'll need to build any stretch of highway.

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[Vil]

Collector's been online since like the second trip I made to him and he has sent a few emails, but I don't know if I've done anything for him since his most recent one. When I head in that direction, I'll maybe try to see if it's changed now.

As for the pavers in the mountains, I checked and actually all 5 of the pavers are outside of the network. I knew that it was an area that kind of weaves in and out, but thought some of them were in it since there are plenty of structures around a couple. Seems they're just really close to the line. Can't imagine my bridge level is any issue. I don't know if it's "high" since I basically haven't picked up any lost cargo or that kind of stuff in several days, but I've got to believe that mid-70s is enough at this point to not be a problem.

I'll worry about those later, but the focus more immediately will be fixing up some ziplines and for those I need to go all the way to the junk collector to even get enough materials to fabricate since I drained every other place dry. Question about those. When you're placing them, will it at least give you an indication of if it's in range of another, or is there a way to measure the distance?

[Salodin]

Itll automatically give you blue lines connecting mid-range zips, red lines for out of range but still visible, and the really far out ones it wont even pick up. If you're in range itll also track the lines thru mountains, although obviously you cant place the line thru a mountain.

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[Salodin]

They dont cost extra to build, like bridges or safe houses. Just keep a level 2 PCC around and you can plop them anywhere. I only upgrade them to level 2 if they happen to be real high up and can serve as a junction, otherwise I just spam level 1s.

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[Kaisha]

DO NOT GO TO CHAPTER 6 UNTIL YOURE READY TO GRIND THRU STORY

Are we talking story in a manner where rather than doing deliveries on your own terms, you're stuck doing only urgent deliveries for story progression solely or something? I'm at what feels like the end of chapter 3 but I kinda want to get more roads laid down before I push onwards to ch4.

[Vil]

Itll automatically give you blue lines connecting mid-range zips, red lines for out of range but still visible, and the really far out ones it wont even pick up. If you're in range itll also track the lines thru mountains, although obviously you cant place the line thru a mountain.

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Thanks. These are a lot easier/more intuitive to set up than I would have expected. Showing the lines in multiple directions while walking is great. I've been messing around working on finishing up the east region and it's hilarious flying by and thinking of how long it took me to go through certain areas during progression.

Probably putting off the actual episode 6 stuff til tomorrow just so I can get this done and put it behind me.

[Malithar]

Are we talking story in a manner where rather than doing deliveries on your own terms, you're stuck doing only urgent deliveries for story progression solely or something? I'm at what feels like the end of chapter 3 but I kinda want to get more roads laid down before I push onwards to ch4.

Chapter 4 isn't what we're used to. Chapter 5 is more or less a continuation of chapter 3, just in another area of the map. I'm in the beginning stages of 5 atm. Not sure how obvious 6 is, but I'd imagine you can see it coming as you near it.

[Vil]

I mean, I'm technically on chapter 6 now and I can't think of any non-progression stuff I'd done before that I couldn't do now. We're not talking game over/missing out on 100% or something like that. There are a couple progression orders that they want me to do, but I'm doing other stuff atm.

Does anybody know if there's some place that indicates which locations you've achieved the "star" in? Sometimes I just end up doing extra things because I'm not sure if I have them capped off. Also I can't get another one flagged for the secret prepper in the East region and it's driving me crazy. At this point I'm so close to finishing that one but nothing. Maybe I should just go scouring the map for lost cargo.

By the way if you didn't know, MULEs can use their hookshot thing on your cargo while you're moving on ziplines. Maybe that's more of an issue because I have one of my stops sort of close to where they camp.

[Salodin]

Are we talking story in a manner where rather than doing deliveries on your own terms, you're stuck doing only urgent deliveries for story progression solely or something? I'm at what feels like the end of chapter 3 but I kinda want to get more roads laid down before I push onwards to ch4.

For the entirety of chapter 6, you are given a pain in the ass restriction that you'll want to rush through. No reason to just stay in chapter 6 lollygagging, just get it done asap.

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[Salodin]

When you select deliveries, they give you a picture of the recipient, and next to it you'll see their star level colored in. That's your rank, and when maxed you'll see 5 complete stars there. Afaik, you can skip those for the rest of the game, unless the person has a specific item only they can make like the Doctor and high capacity blood bags.

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[Vil]

Yeah, that and putting the marker over a place on the map works, but sometimes it's tough for me to tell. The mail menu works well for me though.

I spent like 8 hours working on the east region and all I've got out of it besides the cosmetics/holograms was I think 2 additional autobots so I'm clearly not concerned if it's worth it or not. The harmonica is the best one anyway. All downhill from there.

General observation, but the east is pretty dilapidated now. Bridges look like crap and are getting covered in rust, a watchtower near the distro that I tried to use was inoperable, etc. I wonder if this is a function of how long since you've unlocked the specific region or how long since it was built. Is it really worth reconnecting this nation if it's just falling into decay as I move west?

[Salodin]

Time fall decays everything, roads too. You cam see their health meter at the autopaver; it's in the millions but its still there. I'm trying to beat the game before I gotta deal with the headache of dilapidated buildings lol.

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[Kaisha]

For the entirety of chapter 6, you are given a pain in the ass restriction that you'll want to rush through. No reason to just stay in chapter 6 lollygagging, just get it done asap.

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On that note, orders don't go away yeah? I can always just go to old locations with my new toys later and get them done quicker? Although some of the side stuff I've done in Ch3 so far have had beneficial rewards to speed up my getting around.

[Salodin]

On that note, orders don't go away yeah? I can always just go to old locations with my new toys later and get them done quicker? Although some of the side stuff I've done in Ch3 so far have had beneficial rewards to speed up my getting around.

You're still in the same general areas, just with a restriction

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[Salodin]

Learned some more things that might help yall out

Autobot deliveries dont give you as big a Like bonus, and they dont tick your rank up. However, ranks are dependent on total number of Likes, and if you use your bots to stack points, then the next time you stop by with even a piece of small lost cargo, you'll be given rank ups equal to what you should have based on Like total.

I got a double rank up from the chiral artist cause shes so far out of the way that I waited until my bots had done a lot of work there. On the way out I setup ziplines, so getting her final star wont be a pain in the ass but also not a priority since final stars are just cosmetic afaik.

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[Malithar]

I'm in chapter 5 atm, but I'd be really surprised if stars don't do something, such as different endings or perhaps some other sort of reward near endgame, such as collect 25, get x, etc. I'm up to 9 atm I think. Not sure if I'll grind them all out before the end or just save some for after I've beat the game.

[Vil]

I'm really only expecting a trophy for all of them. At least it keeps track of how many 3-4-5 and how many areas unlocked in your stats. I think I'm at max for 21 of the 24 places I have on the network, so at this point I've got to just go for them all, right?

final stars are just cosmetic afaik

Some places do have rewards (usually another upgrade tier) at 5*. Generally they seem to be done by 4, though. There's also the private room option at some of them. Probably not something that you'd use a ton, but I've stopped in for ammo/etc. fill-ups a few times.

The Collector stopped being stingy and I was just able to zoom through the final 4 stars. Well worth it.

Also, screw you, Peter Englert. That 3rd (?) delivery was crap and I still don't even have the first star filled up. I'm fine with these getting more difficult or even just more tedious, but at least show me something. Show your face, Englert!

[Salodin]

Man, fuck Englert. I only do his shit if I happen to have roads built to reach him. I refuse to walk lol. I'm just about done connecting every center I have access to with a zipline or road. I'd have capped my stars last night but the missions I was getting were all duplicates for places I've maxed out /eyeroll.



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[Kaisha]

Are roads shared contributed at all online? The impression I get is they like to sit on low resources client-side, until you make certain progress, then suddenly they're within 300 metal/etc needed to clear waiting on just you, without fail thus far. Never seen one finished by another player, just feels like a smoke & mirrors situation here despite seeing player signs for requesting materials near one, as well as seeing booster signs placed where roads 'would' be if I had them finished up.

[EDIT] Well, after another hour I saw some onscreen notifications of names that were actual PSN IDs contributing to a road thing, but it was for ones ahead of the part where I'm at, so it may simply just be a case that you get to share any resources that perhaps active players in your 'lobby' are doing at the time, but never enough to complete a road? In either case, finished chapter 3 after

Spoiler: show

17 hours of overall gameplay....am I slow at this shit or was that chapter just that long to do primarily just the main missions with the odd side-mission when convenient? I still got stuff I want to finish off in the region still too, like the road further south to avoid that hell. Maybe I'll just wait until I get that hookline thing to make path to that one weather station less a pain in the ass also.

I also put a few hours in playing it via remote play to my PC on the local network, and man, with a vanilla PS4 limited to 720p/60fps streaming, the bitrate absolutely murders the game's texture detail. Almost looks like I'm playing it on low texture settings at times with how there's zero detail due to it getting all blurred out by the compression. Makes me curious how a PS4 Pro fares in that regard since it can do 1080p streaming output, and also makes me curious if Sony will double-down on a better encoding chip for the PS5....or let it do what the Xbone can which is just dump a the video feed over ethernet barely compressed.

[Vil]

I don't think that's necessarily slow, though I'm sure you'll find that some of that stuff could have been held off too. My playtime is ridiculous but I think it's bloated because of leaving it on at times and/or because sometimes I just feel like going for a drive and/or sightseeing. In maxing out many stations, I also did it the slow way (not realizing how to do premium orders for the longest time) which probably put an incredible extra amount of time on 3 in particular.

Since I started going build crazy with the roads, I've seen exactly one portion completed by others, and it was the portion right after the center midway up the mountain. When I was finishing the road to South Knot, people were contributing while I was doing that. Quite a lot of people that I've seen on twitch don't seem to put a ton of effort into roads and in the mountain areas I've seen them using vehicles which is just sluggish and terrible unless you absolutely must move more than 250kg of stuff at once.

Yesterday I got up to episode 8. Some thoughts on 6 and 7, and the one little thing I did so far in 8:

Spoiler: show

Episode 6 wasn't even bad and I don't know why it caused such an uproar. In fact, it may have been one of my favorite episodes so far, outside of it being so linear compared to like episode 3. No BB? Big deal. The mountain design itself was fun, and the whiteout in the last portions of it was great. As for Episode 7, ugh. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm terrible at shooter games, so this was not a breeze for me. I don't really understand the health system in this game and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be shooting these guys with. Also, could I have had my own gear when starting this? I had a freaking Bola Gun only lmao.

Along those lines, has anybody gone and replayed these war stages? In a private room, if you click on the figurines behind the bed, you can replay. I thought I was getting just a CS or something, but it was making me actually play and I ended up having to reload a save. This seems to be just to get a better grade if you want?

Engler, I hate you! I hope your piping hot pizza got cold after a zipline ride through the mountains! I'm now fully convinced that it's story-progress related and you'll only get stars/be able to see a likely great cameo towards the end of the game. Kojima was probably laughing his ass off when he came up with this knowing the meltdowns that it would cause.