Before We Leave

The goal of this scenario is to build a shelter on Planet 4 before the Mega Whale destroys all the planets. Unlike other whales in this game, the Mega Whale eats the whole planet in one pass. You must have all needed resources and peeps evacuated from the planet before the Whale arrives. You however do not need to save all peeps on the starting planet. They can be sacrificed to the Whale.

The challenge of this scenario is planning what to build and making sure you have transported enough of the right resources to where they need to be while under the pressure of a ticking clock counting down to destruction. Remember that the pause button is your friend. Use it liberally to stop time while you plan layouts, load trade ships, move around the map, etc. Down on the D-pad is how you pause the game.

You start this scenario on Planet 1, the outermost planet. You have all technology available from the start and massive amounts of resources to use to build all that you need to get to Planet 4. You need to transport these resources because you will not be able to create new tools or stone as the massive deposits for iron and stone are removed from this scenario.

You have 2 hours before the whale destroys planet 1. After that you only have 1 hour for each subsequent planet. You can't just go from planet 1 to planet 4. You must first colonize planet 2, then colonize planet 3, then finally 4. The reason for this is spaceships and the final shelter require you to mine Crystal in order to build them. There is one Crystal deposite on each planet you must find. The deposit on Planet 1 has 10 crystals. Planet 2 has 8 crystals. Planet 3 has 6 crystals. Planet 4 has 10.

Buildings and their build order on planet 1, island 1:

3 or 4 huts, a shipwright, wind generator, 3 or 4 more huts then upgrade all huts to houses, a port, launch pad, and finally a space port. Build a colony sailing ship as soon as possible. When it's complete, make a game save. Find the island with the Crystal deposit and colonize it. Or reload your save if it took longer than you'd like. Immediately build a trade ship. Once built, manually load it with 12 steel, 10 tools, 4 glass, and 4 gadgets for a wind generator and move it to island 2.

On Island 2 build a road to the purple Crystal deposit, elevator if needed, 2 huts touching, a well, 1 potato, and the wind generator. Once the generator is built, then place the Crystal mine. Send 12 steel, 8 glass, and 8 gadgets (plus 2 tools if you had to build an elevator) on the trade ship for this. You can make a third trip and bring back 8 more gadgets to upgrade the mine as well as bring good clothing/food to your peeps. After doing this, I attached this trade ship to a shipping lane to automatically ship crystals back to Island 1. (You can also opt to build another hut and ship over more peeps to work.)

You need 6 crystals to build a colony spaceship. 1 crystal to build a trade spaceship. And 10 to build the shelter on Planet 4. We start with 10 crystals in this deposit on planet 1. This is the only deposit on the planet and is the most a deposit will have. Others will have less. I built 2 trade spaceships and 2 colony spaceships on planet 1. I ran out of time and had to build the final colony ship on planet two when I first played this. (While writing this guide I did manage to launch all 3 colony ships from planet 1. The final ship launched with only 5 minutes left before the whale arrived. I would still suggest shipping enough resources to planet 2 to build a launch pad and a colony spaceship anyway.)

I queued up a trade spaceship first and then a colony ship and then another trade ship as each was completed. This leaves 2 crystals on planet 1. We have to colonize planet 2 and ship 4 crystals back to here to build the second colony ship. Once planet 2 is colonized, you can begin construction on the 2nd colony ship. Even though we don't have enough crystals, it will build all of phase 1 minus the 4 crystals we are missing.

Once the first trade spaceship is ready, load it with 35 tools, 20 stone, 12 steel, 8 glass, 8 gadgets, and 7 wood in preparation for its trip to planet 2. I launched my first colony spaceship with 1 hour 29 minutes left on the countdown clock. On the second trade ship, I loaded 30 steel and 30 stone for the second launch pad and 30 glass. You could load this instead with supplies for another wind generator, but I never built any more, instead opting for wood generators. When trade ship 2 arrives at planet 2, do not send it back to planet 1. It's probably best that it stays idle here to immediately carry the 4 crystals to planet 1.

TIP For Selecting a Spaceship when 2 ships are orbiting the same planet: press Y to select a ship. If this is not the ship you want, hold down the Y button and move the left stick to the right or left to select the other one. I never used the automated shipping lanes for spaceships. Everything was loaded and shipped manually to not waste time with them flying needlessly between planets.

Once on Planet 2, build 3 huts, a woodcutter, well, 2 potatoes, and the space port. There must be a space port in order for the trade spaceships to travel here. When planning your layout for this island, include plans to build a launch pad at a later time so that you don't block yourself in. After the space port is complete, have your two trade ships move to planet 2. Then build a wood generator, shipwright, and colony ship. Your first trade spaceship will need to arrive with tools and stone before you can finish building the colony ship. When it does, unload it and immediately send it back to planet 1. Build a port. When the colony ship finishes, save the game. Find the Crystal deposit, reload if needed, and build a trade ship once you colonize island 2 to send 12 steel, 8 glass, 8 gadgets, and 2 tools. (You will need a 2nd trip for 4 tools if you have to build an elevator.)

Same process as before on the second island except this time I build a wood generator instead of a wind generator. 3 huts, well, potato, woodcutter, wood generator, crystal mine. I also moved 5 peeps from island 1 to island 2 then created a shipping lane for the crystals to island 1 and some food to island 2. The Crystal deposit on this planet only had 8. Once you have 4 crystals, transport them back to planet 1 on trade ship #2 and build colony spaceship #2. Load trade ship #2 with 35 tools, 20 stone, 12 steel, 8 glass, 8 gadgets, and 7 wood in preparation to send to planet 3. Colony spaceship #2 was launched with 40 minutes left. (This was after messing up and sending trade ship 2 back to planet 1. The planets were far apart and by the time trade ship 1 made it back to planet 2, about 15 minutes had been wasted.)

Rinse and repeat for Planet 3. Continue to have your trade spaceships moving resources from Planet 1 to Planet 2 or 3. If you try to build all colony ships on planet 1, when planet 3 gets close to producing crystals, hold a trade ship there so it can leave as soon as 2 crystals can be loaded.

(If you want to attempt to build all three colony spaceships on Planet 1, then ship the 4 crystals remaining on Planet 2 to Planet 1 and begin construction of the 1st phase of the ship. If all they are waiting for and if you can get the final 2 crystals here with no less than 5 minutes remaining, they will get the ship built and loaded in time. You can always cancel construction of the ship and load the 4 crystals onto a transport spaceship and move to Planet 2 if you don't think you have enough time. An important tip for moving trade spaceships around is to note how far apart or close together planets are. Obviously the farther apart they are, the longer the journey.

If not, then Planet 2 needs these resources to build a launch pad and colony spaceship: 60 stone, 40 tools, 50 steel, 25 glass, 80 wood, 50 fuel, 50 food, 50 water, 50 peeps, and 6 crystals. So...at some point you will need to transport 25 to 30 peeps from planet 1 to planet 2 in order to have enough population to construct a colony spaceship.

I would still suggest you plan for a launch pad/colony ship on planet 2 regardless. I did and still managed on my 2nd playthrough to launch all spaceships from planet 1 and get all needed resources for Planet 4 off planet 1 before it was destroyed. )

At some point before Planet 1 is destroyed, you do need to ship these supplies to build the shelter on Planet 4 to another planet. 32 stone, 32 tools, 40 steel, 20 glass, 12 gadgets, and 32 cement. As well as 8 stone, 16 tools, 12 steel, 8 glass, and 8 gadgets for the last Crystal mine. This will obviously take several trips as a trade spaceship only has room to transport 90 resources at once. So don't leave trade ships idle unless you are waiting to ship crystals to another planet.

Also if you come up short of resources after planet 1 is destroyed, you can destroy buildings, such as the Crystal mine, to reclaim the resources. Thus you can ship these resources and peeps back to your 1st island on a planet.

To win the scenario, you only need to construct a shelter on Planet 4. So once you get there, you need to repeat the same process of building a space port, etc. Having your trade spaceships deliver the needed resources. And finding the Crystal deposit and shipping enough crystals back to complete the shelter. The scenario ends and the achievement pops as soon as the shelter is complete.