We made it to the third of the expeditions that Hello Games is re-running this holiday season, Expedition 18: Relics.
The holiday expeditions are in progress
We have already been through Beachhead and Titans… well, I have… plus I ran Breach just before the holiday expeditions kicked off and I will have the chance to run it again later this month.
At this point I am kind of feeling like I might have had my fill of expeditions for the moment. They might be better as an occasional diversion rather than something to run on a two week cycle.
So I will likely bow out of the re-runs of Corvette and Breach later this month. But I had not run Relics and who knows when they will re-run it. I mean, probably next year… but maybe not. So I set myself to get in there and get it done.
I was not, however, committed the the whimsical voyage of discovery that I was with Corvette, where I spent ten days doing the whole thing bit by bit.
No way. I went straight to Reddit and found the thread about how to get the whole thing done in two hours, then logged in and set to work.
The expedition initialized
I did not follow it point by point. I mostly took the general guidance that it and past expedition guides offered up, which has generally been to get as much stuff done as you can in any particular location rather than running forward to the next destination all the time. Look ahead and see what the later phase goals are, because it turns out that the planet you start on is often an ideal planet to do a bunch of them.
So I managed to get five tasks done across three phases before I even arrived at my ship for the first time, and I had three more under way. Not a bad start when there are a total of 35 tasks to complete.
We doing asymmetry this time around
Getting to the ship got me six done and I had gathered enough to do the usual repair job you need initially along with enough to help me fuel up the hyper drive for that inevitable first jump.
Of course I had packed some items for the expedition, but you can only access the anomaly after your first hyper drive jump, so you have to get to that point.
The core of the expedition is digging up fossils, and each phase has three similar tasks; arrive at a dig site, dig up some ancient bones to make up a full skeleton, and then put together those bones on a display case.
Those are not all that difficult, the primary hindrance being other people getting in the way. For example, somebody put down a base on top of a fossil bed near one of the dig site… so you couldn’t actually dig there, because the space was claimed.
You take your ship to the system indicated, go to the planet with the icon on it, land near the icon, which will put you in the vicinity of the dig site, then find said site and your done. After that, you go dig up some ancient bones until you hit the right collection of parts. When you turn that in, you get a display case to mount the bones. You just mount them how you like… it is like the British Museum, you can just mix and match parts to make up whatever you want from the fossil record… and you’re done. That will get you 15 of the 35 tasks.
You also have to trade bones with the guy in the station who deals in those things for one of the tasks, so you’ll need some extra bones. You also need to make a bunch of units in cash selling bones and such, but your mounted displays are worth a lot. Selling those will cover you. And you need some bones to cook with, but I’ll get to that.
Don’t stop there though as you will need more freaking ancient bones to get another task done. I swear, I was done with everything but had not dug up enough ancient bones.
More ancient bones please
It isn’t the most difficult thing to do, and each fossil site seems to cough up between one and six bones. But you only need 35 to cover the first three tasks in each phase and 55 to finish this task, so you’ll likely be digging for bones long after those tasks are done.
Also, you may need to keep digging even then as one of the tasks requires you to dig up a specific amount of cubic units of soil. I just dug up some open ground to finish that off.
Given that the Relics update was all about these new fossil dig sites, it makes sense that focus was on those and digging and using the scanner to find sites..
You also have to find a few related things, like memory stones, that were a bit of a pain. The first two I tracked down were in caverns way under ground. But the third… just sitting there on the surface.
An easy to find memory stone
Those yield recipes for structures when activated, but you don’t get to take them back to your main save. At least I don’t think you do. But the expedition was there to show you how to find them and what they did.
There were some new monsters to fight as well, once again something part of the Relics update.
One of the nice things… well, if you were like me and a bit tired of expeditions and looking to just get it done… is that there wasn’t a lot of filler. I did not have to build an exocraft or spend a bunch of time under water… no under water fossil beds I guess. In fact, the closest I got to any water was a task that required the catching of seven fish.
Fishing I can do
I had wrapped most everything up when I had found that 55th fossil and dug up the 2,600 units of terrain. The final task was to cook. You need to make a nutrient processor… you get the plans from a previous task… and cook some bones. Then split the stack so you can fill two slots in the processor with the cooked bones which will let you make bone broth from the task.
That left one task, to give something I had cooked to Cronus, who is on the anomaly, so it is a fine task to leave until you are headed there anyway. Cronus is off to the right as you face from where ships are parked. That did it, I was done with the expedition. I collected the last task reward then the overall reward and was done.
All phases complete
Then it was time to cash out.
Rewards collection
27 million units, 5,745 nanites, and 400 quicksilver. Not bad for the level of effort. I could have optimized for more money or nanites, but I was interested in getting through it more than exploring this time around. And the rewards included a spiffy looking A class multi-tool
At the far end of the Relics expedition
I did not get the whole thing done in two hours. I was probably closer to the five hour mark. I was not completely optimized and I was slowed down a bit because the game does not like it when there are a lot of other players around. I might consider turning off other players… an option in the game, you can just solo it… next time around. There were some issues from the get go, including the floor of the anomaly deciding to not render, dropping me onto a platform from which I could not start the expedition.
I would start the expedition if I could get to the terminal
Anyway, we shall see how I feel on the 16th when the next expedition kicks off.
Related:
- Hello Games – Holiday Expeditions 2025
- Hello Games – Relics Update
- NMS Wiki – List of Expeditions
- Reddit – Run the Relics Expedition in 2 Hours
The Ancient Gaming Noob 