The Last Caretaker puts you in the shiny shoes of a robot who must rebuild a shattered world. This survival crafting game has a relaxed pace as you explore this strange world and try to rebuild humanity, literally from the ground upward.
To help along the way, you are given a bunch of skills, which are actually blueprints you can use to build everything you’ll need to complete your mission. It can be overwhelming to work out what the priorities are, so we’re here to help.
This game is in early access, and as a result, the information in this guide may change slightly over time.
How To Get Skill Points
You’ll gain skill points naturally as you progress through the game. Skill levels are linked to experience, which is generated by scavenging, dismantling, recycling, crafting, and fighting, as well as completing your quests.
As your skill level increases, you’ll also gain skill points. Each skill level tier unlocks the ability to purchase blueprints using your skill points. Since you won’t have enough skill points to unlock every blueprint as soon as you unlock its level, it’s important to prioritize.
Early-Game Skill Priorities
When you start, your priorities should be electricity and fuel. You’ll need electricity to survive, since you are a robot with limited battery life, and fuel to travel on your ship.
When you begin, you’ll have a torch, repair tool, and a crowbar, which you likely won’t notice until you melee something. This counts as level one, but it won’t take long to get to level two.
The first priority is the dismantle tool. As soon as you unlock this, you can take apart almost anything in your surroundings and gain scraps from it which can be processed into crafting materials. You’ll be doing a lot of crafting, so the items are essential, and you’ll also gain experience towards your skill level from doing so.
You won’t need to craft the dismantle tool, it will be in your tool menu which you can access by pressing T. Once in the menu, right-click on the dismantle tool to equip it or add it to your hotbar.
Get Your Basic Resources Sorted Out First
You get a good amount of skill points here, which is appreciated, since you’ll want pretty much everything you can unlock at tier two. Electricity is your top priority, so go ahead and grab the electric cable and electric cable extender first. These are core items you’ll use a lot to power buildings as well as your ship. You’ll also need electricity to charge your own battery.
Speaking of power, the next priority is the Lumilite solar panel. Not only will this generate electricity for your ship, but you’ll need to craft and place one for an early quest.
Once you have electricity basics sorted, you should get the fuel cable and extender, so you can fuel your ship.
You don’t have to grab the engine cylinder, but if you do, filling up the modules with these can help make ship travel slightly faster and more energy efficient. You will need to do a couple of journeys early on but will spend a lot of time in different areas, rather than traveling.
Skill levels three and four also offer some useful upgrades for electricity and fuel in the form of:
- Consumable Battery: A portable way to recharge your internal battery in an emergency.
- Whisper: A wind turbine which generates energy overnight as well as during the day.
- Diesel Generator: Creates diesel to power the ship from organic materials you’ll find on your journey.
You can also pick up the diesel engine cylinder if you want to upgrade the ship.
Storage And Weapons
Your next priorities should be storage and weapons. At level two you’ll find the Durapack, a small storage container you can place in your ship to store your resources. You’ll want a few of these to stash crafting items or scraps.
Level two also includes the electric pistol, an entry-level weapon which you can charge from any electricity source. This is more efficient than meleeing enemies and helps you keep your distance. It also doesn’t require you to carry around ammo which is useful.
When you hit level five you’ll unlock another weapon, the Bolt Pistol. This hits harder but requires you to craft and carry ammo, so it may not be for everyone.
Early-Game Easy Misses
Things like lights and torches are a preference, but there are a few early skill level unlocks which you can safely ignore until much later on. Here’s why.
Fabricator And Recycler
You’ll have access to both a fabricator and recycler in the starter base, on your ship, at the beacon, and in the large area where you’ll spend a lot of your time. This means that while they may not always be in the most convenient place, you will be able to access these items in most areas, making crafting new ones feel unnecessary until much later on.
Petrol
Petrol can be useful, but you’re unlikely to bother with it in the early game, making these unlocks an easy skip for now. If you want to play with flamethrowers at level seven, then you’ll need to rethink, but until then, skip these.
Mid-Game Skill Priorities
Once you get to mid-game, you’ll want to focus on building more efficient resource systems, as you hit a large base you’ll be sticking around in. Our priorities as we hit mid-game and level eight skill tier are as follows.
Efficiency Is Key
You’ll want to unlock the efficiency matrix at level eight, since this can help reduce your fuel and electricity consumption by ten percent. The upgrade called the Resource Optimizer, also unlocks in the mid-game at level 13.
There’s no drawback with these, so throw them into all your modules to make that power go further.
If you need resources, but power is a huge struggle, you can grab the Voltage Minimizer which trades an 80 percent power reduction for a 40 percent speed reduction. It’s not quick, but it is efficient, and you can leave items queued in both your recycler and fabricator.
You’ll also want to unlock the mid-range wind turbine at level eight, followed by the high capacity solar panel at level 13 and high capacity wind turbine at level 14.
Weapons
Craftable shock grenades at level eight are a nice addition for those clusters of annoying slime mobs. You’ll also find a bunch of weapon and ammo upgrades between levels eight and ten, followed by the Bolt Rifle at level 11 and electric rifle at level 14.
We recommend looking at what type of weapon suits you best in order to choose the best options for these.
Storage
A range of backpacks for ammo, and larger storage containers open up here. You’ll want to grab the appropriate backpack, as well as the large storage container at level 11.
Mid-Game Easy Misses
The main mid-game misses will vary, depending on where you are at the point you hit skill levels eight to 16. If you did a lot of dismantling then you may still consider yourself early game.
Human Items
These levels start to introduce items relating to humans, something you may not even have touched on yet, depending on where you are. These are easy skips until you’ve explored more of the Lazarus area in particular.
These include oxygen resources, as well as a range of weird nutrients in jars.
Gas Cables
Similarly, I got through the mid-skill levels without needing to touch gas at all, so these items are also an easy skip.
End-Game Skill Priorities
At this point, your priorities will depend entirely on how you are approaching rebuilding the world. You will find the last levels include the following:
- Final Weapons And Upgrades: These include an electric rifle, stabilizer barrel, tracer rounds, optical sight, and more grenades. If you are interested in maximizing firepower, then you’ll want to focus in on these as they unlock.
- New Resources: You’ll need to look at oil, oxygen, methane, and distillation at this stage. Make sure to check which you need first, and make sure to check back at the early levels where you likely ignored some of these.
- Human Enhancements: The order you choose these will depend on how you want to shape your colony.
- Module Adaptations: These get more experimental and have bigger trade-offs in the end game, so make sure to read the information carefully.
You’ll continue to build up skill points, so the key here is to make sure you’ve read and understood the items you are unlocking, so you can prioritize based on your colony layout and needs.
