Hello and welcome fellow Astroneers. I am Ducky Obrien and welcome to my guide on the Holiday Update. The Holiday Update was released on December 16th, 2019. This update adds the first ever community goal where everyone can work together to unlock hats. As the community meets milestones, System Era will also donate to Extra Life, helping out their local Children’s Hospital in Seattle.
The community mission consists of collecting gifts strewn about the surface of every planet. I would recommend doing it on Sylva, as the plants are the most docile there. Collecting the gifts, packaging them with the packager, and then sending them up to Exo Dynamics via the newly introduced Exo Request Platform will gain you points. Gaining Points will unlock new cosmetics along with contributing to the community milestones.
- 400 points will unlock the Frosty Palette.
- 2,500 points will unlock the Frosty Visor and the Frosty Mask.
- 100,000,000 points (community total) will unlock the Holiday Top Hat
There are three different types of gifts with 3 different point values. The Exo Request Platform is used to send packaged gifts up. It takes 1,000 Bytes to research, is printed from the Medium Printer, and costs 2 Resin and 1 Aluminum.
- The Steller Object – It looks like a star ornament, is gold colored when packaged, and gives 60 points once returned.
- The Cubic Object – It looks like a toy block, is silver colored when packaged, and gives 15 points once returned.
- The Automaton – It looks like a toy robot, is bronze colored when packaged, and gives 5 points once returned.
- Other new additions include the return of holiday tethers. They look rather festive. The photo mode now has a special holiday frame as well.
I know everyone loves math so here are some numbers to consider when picking up the toys. I would heavily recommend avoiding the toy robots at all costs and here is why.
Every time the exo request platform is sent up, you must spend 500 bytes.
- To reach 2,500 points using Automatons alone, you would need 500 of them, along with 500 packagers. You would need a total of 31,250 Bytes. A total payload of the Exo Request Platform would be 40 Points.
- To reach 2,500 points using Cubic Objects alone, you would need 167 of them, along with 167 packagers. You would need a total of 10,417 Bytes. This is 3 times faster than the robot. A total payload of the Exo Request Platform would be 120 Points.
- To reach 2,500 points using Stellar Objects alone, you would need 42 of them, along with 42 packagers. You would need a total of 2,605 Bytes. This is 12 times faster than the robot. A total payload of the Exo Request Platform would be 480 Points.
Stellar Objects are more rare but you would need to gather more than twelve robots in the time you find one Stellar Object to make it worth while in terms of time spent, but you still spend twelve times the graphite as well as the Bytes to get the same amount of points. I would recommend going only for Cubic Objects and Stellar Objects. The cubic objects are more than plentiful and the Stellar objects are easily found once you get the hang of spotting them from a distance. All the objects sparkle in the dark and in the daylight.
The method I used was to fly around a planet with the jet pack while carrying an Extra Large Platform C equipped with Large Storage Silos, Medium Storage silos full of hydrazine, packagers, ammonium, and beacons, as well as two RTGs, one oxygenator, and one rover seat. The hydrazine is used to refill the jet pack. The ammonium and RTGs are used to unlock the Pyramid Research Aids to get research on Glacio. the packagers are used to package the research, the Pyramid Research Aid Tops, as well as the toys. The Pyramid Research Aid tops will be shredded later to get more scrap and in turn get more graphite and hydrazine via the Trade Platforms. You get two scrap per Pyramid Top so it is worth it. The beacons are there to be dropped every once in a while so you don’t get lost. I rotate through the colors as I get further away from the base so I can roughly estimate my distance by the color of the beacon. The rover seat is used to save periodically. Sylva is the safest and easiest to navigate. This process will still take a while and be ready to spend many hours doing this. It took me quite a while to unlock everything.
Thank you so much for dropping by. I hope this guide was of some use to you guys and if you have any questions, comments, or things you would like to see, please feel free to leave a comment down below. It’s getting pretty cold where I live so hope you guys bundle up and stay warm. If you would like to donate to a Extra Life and a children’s hospital, I’ve linked System Era’s ID in the first paragraph. I am also contributing to extra life, and donations through my link will go to the Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital located in Chicago. Thank you guys, and Once again, catch you guys next time!
Ducky Obrien 