Plotting your route in Pacific Drive is central to the game, so it may seem like it would be obvious. In a way, yes, it is, in other ways, no, not at all. Here are some tips on doing it.
Using the Route Planner
The Route Planner is on the West side of your garage. You canāt even complete the tutorial without using it, so Iām going to assume that Iāve said enough regarding its location.
When you open it, youāll see all the map nodes youāve unlocked, as well as the state of them. It wonāt tell you exactly what youāre in for, but it will give you a good idea of what route would be the safest to travel.
The first thing you will want to note when planning your route is that only certain nodes will be selectable. These are the ones that allow gateways that will safely end your run and spit you back out at the garage, as well as any objective spots. When you’re planning your route, you’re only selecting the destination, which has to be one of these nodes.
When you select a destination, a route will be highlighted, but thatās just a suggestion. Once you leave the garage, youāll be able to choose your direction to get there. Choosing a node should be based on your goals for the trip. If youāre looking to advance the story, youāll be trying to push as close as possible to the objective marked node. If youāre just looking for resources, you might pick a safe spot. If youāre looking for a specific kind of resource, like, say, marsh eggs, youāll want to pick a biome that has them.
Once you upgrade your antenna, you can pick more than one node to visit. One is usually enough for me. By the time I get to the end of any route, my car is either too beat up or too full of trash to really think about going anywhere else.
Understanding the Route Planner
Youāre given a great deal of information on each node in the map at the time youāre leaving. This doesnāt change as time advances. When youāre prepping for a route, youāre going to want to consider conditions and contents.
Starting at the top, you get a view of what type of map it is. Below that, youāll see the chances of available anchor energy (Stable, Unstable, and Corrupted), as well as how youāll be leaving the map. It will read āKLIM for Exitā if you can leave via a gateway. If it says āNo Stable Exits,ā it means youāll just be leaving by following the road and will have no choice but to proceed to the next map. Finally, if it says Dead End, you want to avoid it at all costs. Not only can you not open a Gateway, but you canāt drive out, either. Youāll have to abandon your run, and Iāll outline this in more detail in the next section.
Below this are Junction Conditions. These are modifiers that generally make things more dangerous. They might say something like āEerie Darknessā or āSpark Surge.ā If you know youāll be running into specific conditions, you can prepare for them by outfitting your car to withstand things like radiation or electricity. You can learn more about discovered conditions in your logbook, but it won’t tell you what a condition you haven’t seen means.
Next is a look at the contents of the zone. This includes how dense the fuel, abandoned vehicle, resource, or houses are on the map. In addition to this, these gauges will tell you how much radiation and many anomalies are present. Finally, the likelihood of bad weather and the speed at which storms fall upon the region is shown. These will tell you how to prepare. For example, if there isnāt much fuel in the maps on your route, you may want to pack some pre-filled fuel cans.
Finally, the exact contents of the area are at the bottom of the list. This will tell you the specific types of anomalies that are present, so long as youāve scanned them. It will also tell you what resource containers are available (box trucks, sodium lights, etc.), and the anchors in the area. However, all of these will only be visible if youāve scanned them. Whenever you see something new in the zone, make sure you scan it so you can better prepare.
Finally, if a zone is in a wriggling orange cloud, it means that the area is unstable. This means more anomalies, radiation, and conditions. If you can, avoid these areas. If you canāt, Iād suggest just putting the pedal down and getting out of them as quickly as possible.
Avoiding Dead Ends in Pacific Drive
One of the most frustrating moments I had in Pacific Drive was when I accidentally wandered into a dead end. When that happens, you canāt jump into a gateway to get back to the garage, nor is there a safe exit you can just drive through. The game literally tells you to take the L and abandon your run. Doing so causes immense damage to your car and dumps all the resources you collected. This means the run ā regardless of how long you spend on it ā is scrubbed.
Pacific Drive doesnāt let you plot a route directly into a dead end. You canāt leave the garage doomed to end up in a situation where you must abandon. In order to wind up in a dead end, you need to navigate into it while en route. That means that once you set out on your route, when youāre selecting the next leg of the journey, youāll want to watch the map to see if youāre about to hit a dead end.
I would suggest that you donāt try to proceed past your destination. If you arrive at your destination, even if thereās a drivable gate out of there, I recommend just taking the gateway out. Dead ends suck. They suck so bad. Perhaps worse than anything else in Pacific Drive. Itās better to be safe than sorry. Donāt take unnecessary risks. Watch for dead ends.
Published: Feb 22, 2024 08:00 am