The hardest mode in The Outer Worlds is also extremely rewarding because it changes how you’ll play the game. Food, water and sleep are suddenly incredibly important to your survival. Damage has longer-lasting effects, you won’t be able to regenerate health, and fast travel is almost completely disabled. There’s a lot of roadblocks when it comes to victory in Supernova Mode, but that just makes winning all the sweeter.
After playing the game for way, way too longer — we’re going to provide a few quick tips to make your hardest-mode playthrough just a little easier. Whether it’s secret tips, suggested playstyles, and settings to improve companion survivability, you’ll find all our tips in the complete guide below. Personally, I think the first one is easily the most useful; a way to get around the no-saving and limited auto-save problem. With one little trick, you can drop auto-saves everywhere.
More The Outer Worlds guides:
- The Outer Worlds: 20 Tips, Tricks & Secrets I Wish I Knew | Beginner’s Guide
- The Outer Worlds: How To Respec | Skills & Perks Reset Guide
- The Outer Worlds: How To Fix Constant Crashes, Low FPS & Tweak .ini Files | PC Fixes Guide
Fast-Travel To Your Ship For Unlimited Auto-Saves Anywhere
Here’s a handy Supernova trick. You can only fast-travel to your ship, the Unreliable, in this difficulty mode, and auto-saves are also extremely limited. You can only save (or auto-save) in your ship. There’s a way to break this system.
When you fast-travel to your ship, an auto-save will be generated at the spot where you just traveled from. Load your new auto-save file after travelling, and you’ve now got an auto-save anywhere on the map. You can’t fast-travel anywhere else, so this is a great way to generate saves anywhere on the map.
Keep Your Companions Alive! Change Their AI Behavior
In the settings, scroll over to your party members to alter their AI Behavior. You can order them to be more passive, stay further away from fights, and only use ranged weapons. Make them play defensively — because if they die, they’re dead permanently. At the start of the adventure, this is a pretty big deal. Later on, once you have good armor and weapons for your teammates, it isn’t quite so bad.
Stealth And Guns Are Your Best Option For Survival
The early game is tough. You won’t die in a single shot, but you can die very quickly if you don’t play carefully. That’s where stealth comes in. The stealth damage bonus you get for a surprise attack really, really helps in the hardest difficulty mode. Enemies don’t respawn quickly, so you can take out enemies one-at-a-time. Just run and hide, then wait for the alert to cool off.
There’s A Cot In The Hangar — You Can Only Sleep On Your Ship
In Supernova, you can only sleep (or fast-travel) to your ship. That might seem like a big problem, because your cabin doesn’t unlock until after you’ve collected a new item to power your ship. Actually, there’s a secondary cot you can use across from the workbench. It’s kind of easy to miss, and you’ll be able to use it before finishing up the first questline.
Sneak Around And Steal Everything — You Need Lots of Food / Water!
Food and water is key to survival in Supernova, and thankfully that stuff is pretty plentiful. If you’re a good Stealth player, you can grab everything you need from player houses, abandoned building, or breaking locks at the General Store. Food and water, generally, are pretty cheap and most vendors sell that stuff. It’s useless in the main game, but absolutely required here.
Don’t Worry About Wasting Ammo — Take On Enemies Carefully
Ammo is plentiful in every mode. You can buy more if you really need it, but I recommend using one-shot weapons early in your adventure. Powerful guns like the Hunting Rifle are extremely useful. Just select a secondary weapon like the Assault Rifle. It requires more bullets to kill enemies, so save the ammo-soakers for tricky situations. Later on, you’ll be overflowing with bullets.
Upgrade! Use The Tinker Station To Deal More Damage & Improve Armor
Increasing Science to 20+ so you can get the Tinker ability at the Workbench is critical. For a small fee, only 50 bits at first, you can increase the stopping power of guns, or improve defense on your armor sets. It’s a great, economical way to stay alive and kill your enemies faster. Just remember to save those caps for tinkering, and don’t waste them on repairs. You can break down weapons / armor for parts to repair what’s broke.
Melee Is Just Too Dangerous — Stick To Shooting
Melee is totally viable in every other mode. In Supernova, at the start, I think it’s way too dangerous. You’ll get splattered if you’re not careful, and getting shot by multiple angry marauders at the same time while you charge in is an instant death sentence. There might be a perfect melee build that actually makes Supernova easier, but I haven’t figured it out yet.
Once You Leave The First Area, Equip Two Companions & Select Perks Geared For Survivability
Your rugged companions become a whole lot more useful after leaving the first area. When they level up, select perks to make them tougher — more HP, more armor, etc. You’ll also want to bring both of them, and equip them with the best armor you can spare. You’ll be shocked how much easier it is with those guys around.
Don’t Worry About Failing! And Take Your Time
For my final tip, I suggest patience. Lots and lots of patience. In this mode, you’re going to die and have to restart a lot. Eventually, it isn’t that much of a problem, but early on it takes some serious getting-used-to. You can always fast-travel to your ship to drop a quicksave at certain locations, but nobody wants to go through two loading screens every time you want to save. Make sure to take it slow, kill enemies one-by-one, sleep at regular intervals, and soak in the sights. This isn’t a mode for rushing!
