All info provided in this guide is accurate (as far as I am aware) as of the 29th of January, 2023. This guide is still a WIP, so the information provided is fragmentary at best, but presented here as I obtain it so that everyone can benefit from my work, while also throwing in some lore-friendly flavour to the presentation. I hope this guide is informative to everyone both rookie and veteran alike.

Originally posted by Lore:

Looking through the notes, you find scribbled pieces of advice scattered throughout the whole notebook. You decide to note down all the scribbled notes yourself into a single spot to make it easier to look up in future.

The base is filled with enough basic resources to begin building the basics of everything, but I would instead recommend going all in on building the large variant of any modules you add to the station. This is due to the current issue of not being able to demolish or upgrade anything you have built previously, requiring you to instead build a second module of the same type in order to expand further. This opens up the station to a larger number of leaks if you do not have access to seismic stabilisers.

Of course, the choice is up to you, just note that the more modules you build, the more prone the base becomes to seismic damage. You have been warned.

The initial survivor awakes, and the second one is not that far away, but the third will take a bit to find. Finding all the survivors you can will help in establishing the station faster, so while the AI is urging you to quickly head into the base to protect your crew from the incoming magnetic storm, you should still have plenty of time to find the 3rd life pod.

Pause the game and take a look around with the camera, and see what you can find. If you need to climb, task the crew member who has the best physical ability, as they will be able to climb faster. Once you find that 3rd life pod, bee-line your best physically fit crew member to pick up your 3rd survivor, then hightail it into the station.

Check the guide written by Zo.vA here for better info on how to find the 3rd crew member here:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2926070145
If you don't have confidence in your ability to do this, wait till the magnetic storm passes before sending one of your crew over to recover them.

This guide by Zo.vA best explains how to upgrade everything in the station. This is just one of several things the game fails to explain, so many thanks for Zo.vA for sharing this info with everyone!
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2921013935

If you've progressed through the game long enough, you will begin to find the environment around the station changing, becoming much more difficult or even downright impossible to navigate with a standard EVA suit. In comes the workshop.

Make sure to build the workshop module at your station to open up the ability to craft useful equipment for your crew to use both inside and outside the station. The most useful items you will want in this scenario is the EVA cooling module and zip-lines, the former to traverse past those hot areas, and the zip-lines to traverse past gaps quickly.

As you have a choice on which 3 crew will survive, below is a list of all of the currently available crew, with a brief list of reasons as to why you would want them to be the survivors. Note that each crew member has specialities they are better at than others. This is incredibly useful earlier on as it speeds up the completion of those tasks, but anyone can do any task, given enough time.

Depending on the crew available to you, you will want to assign specific tasks to different crew members, and get into the habit of relying on them to perform those tasks.

• Capable Driller: Relatively reliable at drilling for resources. Assign him to mining for raw resources to provide to the station.
  
• Super Athletic: Your best man when exploring the surface of Io on foot. Useful for cases where you need to access far off resources on the surface.

Recommended Crew: Best if he stays inside the station to expand and repair it fast, as well as help out in processing the required building materials to expand the station further.

• Repairman: Need those holes in the wall to be repaired? No-one does that better than him. He doesn't even need a repair tool to do the job!
  
• Capable Refiner: Decent at transforming base resources into building materials needed around the station.
  
• Base Builder: No-one can expand the base faster than him, building new modules, work stations and upgrades for all station related builds faster than anyone else.

Recommended Crew: Best if she stays inside the station to take full advantage of her skill-set, with access to the refinery, space farm, drilling deck, and a kitchen in the crew quarters.

• Drilling Expert: Need resources? She's your woman. She needs help from no man. Assign her to drill for resources and it will all be there back at the station like magic.
  
• Refining Expert: Again, need resources? She's your woman. Those building mats will be ready before you know it once she steps into the refinery.
  
• Food Expert: ...and again, need resources? She's your woman. No need to worry about feeding your crew with her around to tend to the space farms and cook all the crew meals.

• Medical Expert: If you expect to receive a lot of injuries due to poor repair skills or being exposed to the magnetic storm, he will help heal your crew faster than any other.
  
• Athletic: While not the best, he is competent enough to be relied on if no-one else is available to explore the surface of Io.

• Capable Driller: Relatively reliable at drilling for resources. Assign him to mining for raw resources to provide to the station.
  
• Crafting Expert: Need equipment to gear up your crew? He's your guy. You can consider the workshop his second home.

If you are starting out in the game, rather than randomly having your crew assigned to you, I would suggest going with the 3 crew I recommend to you here, with reasons as to why this would work best to give beginners the greatest means of survival.

Crew #1: Ryan Stephenson
Practically everything related to building new things inside the station require a high skill level in computer science. Why? You are actually manipulating a 3D printer of sorts to build new modules (check out the external view of the station while adding new modules to see what I mean). Ryan has that skill maxed, so whenever he's building a new module or interacting with block terminals, anything he does finishes super fast. Bonus? He can repair things just as fast, so if the station needs some repair work, he can do that too, all without any tools to help him out!

Crew #2: Hailey Williams
Resource supply is kinda important. All those icons on the top left of your screen? Yep, resources. Hailey can mine, process, farm and cook all of them better than anyone else. Best (and only) independent woman, and can be the supporting pillar for the rest of your crew.

Crew #3: Jared Foster
This one can be up to personal preference, but I decided to go with Jared. Why? Well, it was more a process of elimination.

Jonas Winter is the medical expert, but as long as you are careful and bring everyone back inside the station before a magnetic storm hits, there shouldn't be any issues with injuries. Jonas' skills in computer science and agronomy are already overshadowed by Ryan and Hailey's superior skills, with only his athletics being better than the other two. If you are having issues with injuries however, Jonas is the best 3rd crew member, ensuring the downtime due to injuries remains low, while still being able to explore the surface of Io relatively decently.

I was actually torn between Leo and Jared on who to choose as the 3rd crew member, but I ultimately went with Jared. Both Jared and Leo can be considered jack-of-all-trades crew members, but Jared's skill-set complements Ryan's and Hailey's skill-sets better, with Jared being tasked to exo-related tasks while Ryan and Hailey stay on the station. On the other hand, if I chose Leo, there wouldn't be anyone fully competent at exo-related tasks out on the surface of Io, slowing down exploration.

In the early days, you will have a limited time-frame to get all key modules up and running so that your crew survive and expand reliably. If you want to push your luck, you can also task a crew member (or two if you managed to find the 3rd) to mine the carbon and nearby rare earth resources, while a 2nd crew member turns on the station and starts working on building your first set of modules. Your first module is especially important, as building the wrong module first will soft-lock you out of being able to expand further, dooming your run.

Once you have built your first ever bloc connector, prioritise building a refinery (I recommend the larger variant, but the smaller variant is cheaper, your choice), so that you are able to process all the raw materials you can mine around the station into useful building materials. If you've been able to mine for carbon, you should then be able to build a laser chamber to process it into carbon nanotubes, which is a key building material to expand further.

With the refinery built, it is now time to prioritise your crew, as a healthy crew is an effective crew. Build a crew quarters (again, the larger variant is recommended, but nothing wrong with building the smaller one), then build at least two bunks and a refectory. This will provide a better means of eating and sleeping than simply eating a snack and sleeping anywhere on the ground.

At this point, your food situation will probably be pretty dire, so make sure to build the space farm next. You can actually get away with building a small variant of this module, as the need for food (as long as you are always feeding your crew at the refectory) is actually minuscule in comparison to other resources. You will need to build a kitchen in the crew quarters in order to process the space fruit into serviceable meals for your crew to consume.

The modules you build next is up to you, at this point. Don't want to continuously have to explore further and further to mine carbon and rare earth resources? Build a drilling platform so that you can obtain those resources inside the station itself (remember to wear an EVA suit, as the drills are still outside!). You've been a bit careless and some of your crew are getting injured a lot? Build the medical bay so your crew can heal up, just make sure you have someone else on hand to be the doctor to that injured crew. Having a problem with gaps opening up in the terrain, the ground temperature being too hot for your crew to handle normally in an EVA suit, or just things being too far? Probably best to build the workshop module and invest in some zip-lines, EVA cooling modules, oxygen tanks & jetboots so you can explore without worry (remember you need to set up 2 zip-lines, one for each direction).

Oh, and remember to upgrade everything based on what you need to progress so you can continue building up and/or maintaining the station.