Orbital: The Workshop & Currencies – ICARUS

In ICARUS, you leave your technological progress on the planet behind when you finish a drop, and the true progression comes from unlocking missions — and new technologies in the Workshop. In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of how the Workshop functions, and how to earn the Currencies you need to unlock and craft Workshop items.

Note that this guide is a work in progress, and we will be updating it regularly with more information and advice.

How to Get Currency for the Workshop

There are two types of currency in Icarus:

• — RenCurrency: AKA “Rocketbucks”; what you earn from most missions in ICARUS.
• — Exotics: After completing each type of Extraction mission, Exotics will begin to appear in other missions.

You can see what kind of currency you’ll receive from a mission by selecting it on the Prospect Tree, then looking in the bottom right corner of the mission briefing window. However, you won’t be able to see the amount of Exotics you earn on a mission from the briefing, because your Exotics reward depends on how much you bring back with you on the dropship.

The Workshop

This is where you’ll spend your hard-earned rewards. In the Workshop, you can unlock special consumables and equipment that you can bring to the surface with you. You can also unlock better envirosuits, which can dramatically increase your chances of survival, and even bring other useful stuff like coal or medicines.

If you hover an item in the workshop, you can see 2 costs: what it costs to research, and what it costs to craft. You only have to pay the research cost once, but you’ll need to pay the crafting cost each time you create the item (including the first time).

Loadout: How to use Workshop Items

Once you’ve crafted your sweet new 3D-printed axe, you’ll want to use it! To take items to the surface with you, you can equip them ahead of time from the Loadout menu, or you can do it right before you go on a mission — you’ll get a chance to check your loadout and equip anything you want right before you begin the mission.

One important thing to note is that you can take any Workshop items in your Hotbar or Suit slots back up to Orbit with you. Make sure you’ve got any Exotics in the Dropship Cargo, and make sure you don’t have any Workshop items left in your inventory — put it all in the remaining Dropship Cargo slots, or put it in your hotbar (Water and Oxygen items can stay in their suit slots).

Make sure that when you’re leaving the planet, you drag any Workshop items and exotics you have in your inventory into the Dropship Cargo section, or into your hotbar. (Note that you can’t take items you created on-planet with you).

How to Repair Workshop Items

To repair tools you crafted in the Workshop, simply drag them from your Dropship Cargo into the “Your Items” inventory. This will immediately repair broken or damaged items.

We hope this guide on the Orbital aspect of ICARUS was helpful! Please leave questions and suggestions in the comments below.