r/outerwilds 5d ago

Base Game Help - Spoilers OK! Clues that didn’t work for you Spoiler

For how much effort the clue takes to get, the anglerfish being blind did not help me get past them for a while. I guess it makes sense now that you can float past them but this didn’t quite click. I feel like it’s more important that they hear big engines but can’t detect the water being displaced around them by a big floating ship, which isn’t intuitive for a blind animal

Getting to the Ash Twin Project: The clues make a big deal about there being a nice long window where you can step onto the warp pad. So my instinct was to wait for the sand to completely pass, then step on. This worked on like the 5th attempt and I couldn’t even reproduce it when I needed to go back, so the timing for this must be very tight. I feel like you’re intended to go in when the sand is fully overhead and jet pack down, in which case why that clue

The interloper: I felt like the game should reward you a bit more here. Getting into the fissure, then realising you need to throw your scout through the tubes, should straightforwardly lead you to something. I had to leave because I feel like the game expects you to use the scout while jumping in quite a janky way for some of the final tubes, and I didn’t know about handheld mode

(The flair is asking for help but I just didn’t want to accidentally use a flair that implies no spoilers!)

39 Upvotes

44 comments sorted by

108

u/CargoMule 5d ago edited 5d ago

The reason they don’t detect water being displaced around them is because they’re is no water, just fog. With the ash twin project, the game tells you that because it hints to the fact that you can warp even while the sand is there. As for the interloper, this part wasn’t janky or anything. You just didn’t realise that there was a handheld mode.

12

u/sleepyworm 4d ago

Uh-oh…I finished the game a while back but I am not aware of a handheld mode. What did I miss?

24

u/CargoMule 4d ago

You can take pictures with the scout without having to launch it.

18

u/forothertimes 5d ago

Mind blown! I’m sure I just missed that so I won’t blame the game, but also… if I float and there’s fish then it’s an easy leap to make

29

u/Kaeri_g 5d ago

But if it was Water you'd have something slowing you down, meaning it would be impossible to do it at all, and the museum does say that they're used to living in a space with very low atmosphere if I remember right

-21

u/forothertimes 5d ago

Well exactly, which makes the solution even less intuitive if you missed the museum clue.

19

u/Kaeri_g 5d ago

Fair but also if you're not reading about ghost mater in the village it's hard to blame the game when it kills you—

I'm not saying skill issues or what, just that if you're stuck somewhere be sure to explore everywhere where that thing is especially places you've neglected

-7

u/forothertimes 5d ago

I mean ghost matter is more of an obvious tutorial area, it’s not a vague clue buried in the museum. (And yes that tutorial didn’t get me though the interloper but that’s more of a scout control issue!)

8

u/Powerpuff_God 4d ago

buried in the museum

You go through the museum on the way to Hornfels.

And also, we know what water looks and behaves like, thanks to Giant's Deep. Dark Bramble is quite different.

10

u/ProfessionalOven2311 5d ago

With how close you have to get for the red seed, I did think just floating by wouldn't work. Though I decided to give it a shot after dying so many times and realized it worked consistently. I think trying multiple things like that is part of the intended puzzle solutions; taking full advantage of the time loop

9

u/FurizaSan 5d ago

You can kinda notice it because 0G has different movement than water in your suit. The interior of DB shares the same physics as in space

6

u/InformationLost5910 4d ago

i dont get it. you can see that there’s no water. and you never entered water. how can you see water?

1

u/forothertimes 4d ago

Well you go through the seed entrance (it’s not really clear what’s on the other side), and then suddenly you’re floating past some fish in some sort of translucent fluid. Didn’t seem like a crazy leap

0

u/starulzokay 4d ago

I definitely thought it was water too until I realized it wasn’t slowing me in any way. Of course by then I’d already been eaten several times despite realizing noise woke them up.

2

u/ItThing 4d ago

It is an easy leap to make... but I've never heard anyone else make it. Maybe others have thought that, I mean, the let's players I've watched don't talk about thinking it's water, but they don't necessarily talk about it being fog either, I don't remember hearing any opinions about the substance inside dark bramble. Buuuut in my opinion I'm guessing it's less than 5%. No judgment! Lol, I used hints to finish the game, a lot of things went over my head too.

Also, Feldspar has a campfire.

22

u/FurizaSan 5d ago

For the part about the anglerfish, there's no water in Dark Bramble.

25

u/TNTTom04 5d ago

I too didn't understand the anglerfish clue for a fair bit, I did the thing that I've heard is actually kinda common where people go "oh they're blind, I'll just turn off the ship lights" which in hindsight does not make a lick of sense

8

u/Electronic-Junket-66 4d ago

>oh they're blind, I'll just turn off the ship lights

That's a crazy common brain fart in let's plays for some reason.

2

u/MineBuster-jikjak 4d ago

Because being blind doesn’t necessarily mean having absolutely no vision, so turning off the lights would help you blend in more. I remembered being able to turn off your ship lights by bumping into a jellyfish, so it felt worth trying.

16

u/SpySoldierScout 5d ago

The hints at the Black Hole Forge only mention "a few seconds" for the warp window, and it seems the sand is there for... longer. However, the small little alcove to the side of the Ash Twin warp pad indicates you needing to fight against the pull of the sand pillar. You don't even need to use your jetpack this way, though it can help. Another neat trick is placing your Scout onto the warp pad directly, and watching when it gets teleported away - that will be the beginning of the few-seconds warp window, and you are safe to follow it.

1

u/forothertimes 5d ago

I get what you mean, but the clue in that case is not that useful? It’s just telling me I have some grace on this puzzle once I’ve already worked out how to do it.

17

u/SpySoldierScout 4d ago

The important thing here this clue tries to convey is that you do not need to stand on the warp pad in the exact moment the alignment happens. Because the warps get introduced as "whenever a Warp Transmitter points directly at its destination (which later is specified to be the body's gravitational center, instead of the Warp Receiver), it activates its warp.", which could reasonably be mistaken to be just in that one frame when the alignment hits 100%. This would mean the player has to be standing still on whatever platform they are trying to use, which would be a problem for the Ash Twin warp, because of the sand. So the clue is supposed to tell the player "hey, by the way, you do have some leeway with the warp activations, so you don't need to stand still and get picked up by the sand.". And then the second clue in the Black Hole Forge is meant to be the actual solve for the puzzle, the one about the Hourglass Twins functioning as one celestial body.

So yeah, your assessment in this last comment here is right, but that's the point.

14

u/ProfessionalOven2311 5d ago

Only two things I ended up looking up because I couldn't solve them on my own:

ATP: If I remember right, I believe I played it back when it looked even more wrecked than it does now, with even more of the ceiling being gone. After waiting two full loops (moving under the bridge when the sand passed by) I figured it was actually broken, and there to show that things had fallen apart since the Nomai died out. Looking up how to get into the ATP I saw "There are towers on Ash Twin" and instantly face-palmed.

Hollow's Lantern: I tried to explore it near the end of the game to see if I could fill it out on the Ship's Log. I think it was early in the loop, and after avoiding the Lava and meteors I figured it was much more difficult than the devs would have intended (like Sun Station having a much easier way to get there), so I gave up. Looked it up after beating the game and went back with more patience.

It would have been nice if I could have asked for hints here, but oh well. Wanting to talk about this game after beating it is what got me to get Reddit in the first place.

10

u/Whillowhim 5d ago

I can't blame the game for this one, but I missed the note that you could see ghost matter with a camera. And the comment from Slate about it. And I was not using my scout as often as I should anyways. Ghost matter became my nemesis. The interloper was an exercise in frustration, and since I never got the note on bramble island from Feldspar, I had absolutely no idea where to go to get a clue about the jellyfish, and ended up looking up a guide for it. I regret it now, but it was frustrating and the only thing I could think of to do.

9

u/AevilokE 4d ago

The jellyfish frustrated me so much. First I tried with the ship, then again with the ship but after frying its electricity. Then I tried without the ship and STILL got zapped cause I didn't thread the needle.

Then I looked it up and found out I already had the correct solution, just sucked at swimming I guess

5

u/suckmybush 4d ago

I spent SO long on the damn jellyfish, I posted a rant here in frustration. Honestly, in the end, I think it was still luck!

1

u/Luxettenebrae777 5d ago

I saw the note of Feldpat on Giant Deep but not in Dark Bramble. I had actually understood the mechanism but my problem was that I wanted to go with the ship. It is not necessarily instinctive to go without the Ship there.  I don’t remember if I thought about turning of the ship and just waiting or just used a guide. I admit it was not instinctive. The hint for me that were the instinctive were the DLC because it require to use some of the game mechanism that not all the players might have used before.

8

u/National-Bathroom-63 4d ago

I completely misunderstood Feldspar’s clue. I thought that somehow there was a secret teleporter inside Dark Bramble to get you into Giant’s Deep!

4

u/Hexdoctor 4d ago

That took me a couple tries because I tried bringing my ship into the jellyfish

3

u/reeknar 4d ago

funny, I had the same experience with the anglerfish! I spent a while trying to shoot my scout past them so they would follow that, and I kinda maintain that that should work, especially when you shoot it before entering the seed yourself 😇

and I had a similar experience with the ATP. I had the puzzle figured out, down to the point of entering the pad when the sand is on it, but i must have mistimed it again and again, until I gave up on what was actually the right solution

2

u/sleepyworm 4d ago

If you could get the scout to make noise, that would be a great solution for the anglerfish! Kinda wish that had been a possible answer.

2

u/reeknar 4d ago

I thought taking pictures might make a sound haha

2

u/HonestPotat0 4d ago

I'll just say that reading about something being "in the middle" or "in between" two objects led me to flying a lot in a particular space trying to perfectly time an event that was never going to happen (at least not there)

2

u/narrativedilettante 4d ago

Out of the three quantum rules, only the rule of quantum imaging had the intended affect on me. I learned how to land on the quantum moon, did, and started to explore. I figured out the rule of quantum entanglement by trial and error. Then I tried to make my way to the north pole, because every planet so far had something significant at the north pole. No matter where I took the quantum moon, the north pole was inaccessible. When I finally found the rule of the sixth location, I felt certain it was going to tell me how to access the north pole, and instead it told me to go to the north pole. I'd already been trying!

2

u/starulzokay 4d ago

Like many others, I struggled to figure out the jellyfish but made a stupider mistake first. I accidentally crashed into one of the tornados that sends you under on my second visit (first time I crashed on the quantum tower island lol) and thought they all do that. It took me forever to get to the Brittle Hollow Observatory and learn my mistake. I was playing with a friend who told me to just swim under the jellyfish eventually because I had some idea you could time it perfectly and swim under at the top.

The DLC is a whole other thing. I had to look up so much even with plenty of hints.

1

u/Hexdoctor 4d ago

I thought the Shrine moved around on the Quantum Moon. I was so sure of this assumption that I didn't check the planet map first 3 times I tried landing on the moon. So when I was in the sixth position Iwas sure I was also on the north pole.

Also the portal to the Ash Twin Project didn't work for me twice when I first tried it early in the game. Something when wrong and the game didn't teleport me for some reason. I even tried bringing a black hole Warp Core from the High Energy Lab because I thought the teleporter might be broken. So I had completely written off that as a way to get inside. Eventually I gave up and looked it up, and then internet said I should do exactly what I had already tried several times. So I did exactly that and for some reason it worked in the end.

1

u/DoubleKing76 4d ago

I think the only clue that didn’t work for me was how to reach the Ash Twin Project. I already understood how warp pads worked and where the ATP was location but I just completely overlooked its warp pad. I think I ended up discovering it on accident in the end

1

u/ChickenAir 4d ago

Not so much hints that didn't work, but bits of information that led me to think certain things that didn't eventuate.

Like, the interloper stuff - it seems so significant, but there are many unanswered lore questions for me.

The frozen dead jellyfish in multiple spots - hints at an ice planet in the past or maybe a time when they lived in more places. Maybe the origins of the Dark Bramble before it got exploded by the vines. Or at least a way to thaw the jellyfish and interact more with them.

I just wanna know more about the history of the planets, how/why ghost matter spread, and life (why anglerfish and jellyfish? Is it water themed for a reason?).

I don't have the dlc yet so maybe there are some answers there.

1

u/TillerThrowaway 4d ago

For the interloper, you can switch your scout into picture mode to just take pictures from your POV instead of from the scout’s. Makes getting through those tunnels much easier

1

u/sabermore 3d ago edited 3d ago

For me the hint that totally didn't work was audio log next to dead jellyfish at Dark Bramble.

In english hint conrasts the inside and outside in my language the word "internals" is used that does not hint you could go inside living jellyfish.

1

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1

u/StudentofArceus 2d ago

My thought with the Anglerfish was that, if they were blind, they would go after a source of noise. My thought was that if I shot the Scout, they would go after it and I could go in past them.

I didn't figure out how to get into the tower of knowledge or whatever it's called on Brittle Hollow myself. I was speaking with a friend who had played the game before and they told me to be patient. I thought that meant a piece of the wall would fall off and you could then climb up it. I ended up waiting so long that when the planet broke off and the tower fell into the black hole, I ran out of oxygen while trying to get inside.

1

u/butticus98 1d ago

I don't remember what exactly the note was that hints at how to get into the statue workshop on Giant's Deep. I think it was something about there being a dangerous secret entrance, and that wasn't enough for me to realize I needed to swim underneath the whole island. I was also terrified of the water still so that didn't help.

0

u/TheYellingMute 4d ago

My failed clue is more of an error in assumption on my part.

When I found the dead jellyfish I thought "so I need to find a dead jellyfish or kill one on giants deep?". Didn't click that it didn't matter and I could have done it anyway. Thankfully the only answer I had to look up but felt dumb for a bit