First 100 Minutes Walkthrough: Glacier River to Scout Ship

What Is the Optimal Opening Sequence in Beyond These Stars?

The first 100 minutes of Beyond These Stars act as a carefully interlinked ecological puzzle. You start with a handful of Peeps, a Home Spaceship capable of basic fabrication, and a valley on Kewa’s back where the eastern Copper Ore vein is cut off by suffocating, oxygen-starved terrain and dormant, dry forests.

If you expand in the wrong order—such as burning through your starting Tools before setting up an Ore Smelter and Toolsmith, or failing to breach the glacier channel before your starting oxygen zone fills up—your colony will grind to a halt. This walkthrough divides the opening 100 minutes into four deterministic phases.

Phase 1 (Minutes 0–25): Landing Core & Adjacency Setup

Immediately pause the game upon landing and survey the hex grid around your Home Spaceship. Notice the green watered tiles near the central pond, the forested ridges, and the dry riverbed leading toward the eastern Copper Ore and Iron Ore deposits.

Exact Build Order for Minutes 0–25

Phase 2 (Minutes 25–50): Wire-Free Power & Tool Bootstrap

Around Minute 25, your starting stockpile of Tools will begin to dwindle. Without Tools, Peep efficiency plummets. To manufacture Tools on your own, you need Iron from an Ore Smelter and a Toolsmith—both of which require Power.

However, Power Lines cost 1 Copper + 1 Wood, and the Copper deposit is currently outside your breathable atmosphere! Here is how you solve the bootstrap paradox:

1. Build an Iron Mine: Place a Mine (10 Wood, 8 Stone) on the nearby Iron Ore deposit inside your starting oxygen zone. Make sure a Hut is within 16 hex tiles!
2. Use the Touching Conduction Rule: Place a Burner Generator (10 Stone, 4 Iron) on the downwind edge of your settlement, leaving 4 adjacent hexes empty for its -25% pollution adjacency bonus.
3. Touch Smelter & Toolsmith to the Generator: On the remaining 2 hexes touching the Burner Generator (or chained directly off each other), place your Ore Smelter (12 Stone) and Toolsmith (10 Wood, 10 Stone, 4 Iron). Because powered buildings conduct electricity directly through shared hex edges, both buildings power up with zero Copper and zero Power Lines!

For advanced grid layouts once you unlock Copper, consult our Power Grid & Conduction Guide and Building Adjacency Bonus Layouts.

Phase 3 (Minutes 50–75): Breaching the Glacier River & Reviving the Canopy

With Iron and Tools stabilized, you now need Copper to unlock Power Lines, Cleaners, and advanced electronics. Look toward the Copper deposit: you will see brownish Dry Forests sitting beside a dry riverbed blocked by elevated rock tiles near Kewa’s glacier.

How to Flood the Dry Riverbed

1. Research & Place the Landscaper: Construct a Landscaper (12 Wood, 10 Stone, 4 Tools) within 16 tiles of a satellite Hut near the upper glacier blockage.
2. Excavate the Channel: Select the Landscaper’s Lower Terrain / Dig Channel tool and target the rock hexes damming the glacier water.
3. Watch the Biome Revive: As soon as the rock barrier is removed, turquoise glacier water rushes down the trench toward the Copper vein. Every hex within 4 tiles of the new river becomes watered, and the dormant Dry Forests along the bank burst into lush green canopy—projecting 4 tiles of breathable atmosphere right over the Copper deposit!
4. Start Compost & Saplings: Build a Compost Heap (8 Wood, 6 Stone) to convert Wood Waste + Crop Waste into Compost, and a Tree Nursery (10 Wood, 8 Stone, 2 Tools) to grow Saplings for custom forest buffers.

Read our dedicated Terraforming Waterways, Compost & Saplings Guide to master fertility engineering across Kewa’s shell.

Phase 4 (Minutes 75–100): Pollution Control & Launching Jose’s Scout Ship

Once your Copper Mine is operating and your Ore Smelter is smelting both Iron and Copper, you can string Power Lines to separate your industrial zone from residential Huts.

Finally, research and construct the Spaceport (30 Stone, 20 Iron, 15 Copper, 10 Tools) on a flat hex cluster. Once stocked, Jose’s Scout Spaceship blasts off into orbit, unlocking the Galaxy Map where you can scan asteroid belts, space stations, and planetary outposts. Continue your journey in our Galaxy Map, Scout Ship & Planetary Outposts Guide.

Beyond These Stars Official Gameplay Walkthrough Trailer — YouTube

Beyond These Stars Official Gameplay Walkthrough Trailer