Deep Crafter First Hours Walkthrough: From Crash Landing to Automated Factory

You wake up in a crashed escape pod at the bottom of an alien ocean. Earth is dying, your daughter's future depends on this mission, and you've got about 4 minutes of oxygen. No pressure.

This walkthrough covers your first 2 hours — from the opening tutorial to your first automated smelting operation. I've restarted four times now (Early Access reset my saves twice) so I've optimized this path pretty thoroughly.

Minute 0-15: The Tutorial Zone

The game opens with a brief tutorial at the Abyss Research Station. Pay attention here — the game teaches you the basics of O2 management, mining, and crafting, but it doesn't tell you half of what you need to know.

Before leaving the station, grab these three things from inside:

• Free O2 tank from the locker near the entrance (left side)

• Free Scanner from the research table in the central room

• 3 Rations from the cafeteria counter (each heals 20 HP, and you will take damage from the wildlife eventually)

The game doesn't highlight these items. I missed the scanner entirely on my first run and spent an hour mining blind. Don't be me.

After the tutorial dialogue ends, you're free to explore. Your instinct will be to swim up toward the surface. Resist that. The surface has almost nothing — some basic kelp for biogel and that's about it. Everything valuable is deeper.

Minute 15-30: First Mining Run

Head east from the station. About 40 meters out you'll see a cave entrance at roughly 20m depth. Enter it.

The cave is your first resource zone. The walls have copper veins (orange-brown, pretty easy to spot with the station lights behind you) and iron veins deeper in (gray with metallic flecks). Your scanner will ping them even through walls.

Here's your mining target list for the first run:

• 50 Copper (orange veins, cave walls)

• 25 Iron (gray veins, deeper sections around 40m)

• 10 Crystal shards (glowing blue, usually on the ceiling — look up)

Don't bother picking up stone or kelp. Inventory space is tight and those are everywhere. Only take what you need for crafting.

Once you've got the materials, open your crafting menu and build in this exact order:

1. Copper Drill (20 copper) — replaces your pickaxe, 40% faster mining

2. Basic O2 Tank Upgrade (15 iron + 5 crystal) — adds 60 seconds of oxygen

3. Scanner Mk1 (10 iron + 5 crystal) — extends scanner range to 20m, shows ore through walls

The drill is your #1 priority. You'll use it for the next 20 hours until you unlock automated miners. Every swing counts when you're watching your O2 tick down.

Minute 30-60: Finding Your Base Spot

With your upgraded gear, push deeper. Follow the cave system downward to the 80-100m depth range. You're looking for three things at once: a thermal vent, flat seafloor, and nearby ore deposits.

The scanner will pick up thermal vents as bright orange heat signatures. They look like cracks in the seafloor with glowing orange edges. Each vent can support a geothermal generator, and one generator can power about 6 basic machines.

Ideal base spot checklist:

• Flat area at least 8x8 foundation tiles (you will expand, I promise)

• Thermal vent within 50 meters

• Iron within scanner range

• Not directly adjacent to a lava field (the heat debuff is annoying and constant)

Once you find your spot, clear the area with your drill. Seafloor terrain isn't perfectly flat — you'll need to level some bumps. Foundations help but they cost iron plates, so just level the natural terrain for now.

Hour 1-2: Building Your First Base

Build these structures in this order:

1. Geothermal Generator on the thermal vent. This gives you power immediately.

2. O2 Refill Station. Place it next to your generator. Connect with a power line (costs 2 copper wire per segment). Test it — swim up to it and you should see the refill prompt.

3. Basic Constructor. This is your crafting hub. Place it near the refill station.

4. Storage Container. Dump everything you mined into it. Having a clean inventory before you start building production lines saves so much headache.

5. Walls and a Door. Abyssal Stalkers can't enter enclosed structures. Four walls and a door turn your base from "some machines on the ground" into an actual safe zone.

Your first production line should be:

Miner (on a copper node) → Conveyor → Smelter → Conveyor → Storage Container

This takes roughly 40 iron plates, 20 copper wire, and 15 conveyor segments. Mine the materials yourself this first time — after the line is running you'll never mine copper by hand again.

Set the smelter to produce Copper Plates. Watch the first plate slide down the belt into storage. That's your factory running. From here, everything scales.

What NOT to Do in Your First Session

Don't swim past 200m depth. You don't have the oxygen capacity yet and the hostile creatures at that depth will kill you faster than your harpoon gun can reload. I tried it at hour 3 just to see what was down there. Died in about 40 seconds.

Don't build on the surface. Surface bases get swarmed by Abyssal Walkers at night and solar panels produce half power underwater. It's a trap.

Don't ignore the O2 refill station. I cannot stress this enough. If you only build one thing in your first session besides the generator, build the refill station. Running out of oxygen at 100m with a full inventory is the worst feeling in this game.

Don't fight everything. Some creatures are meant to be avoided, especially early on. The Harpoon Gun takes 3 seconds to reload and most deep-sea predators attack faster than that. Swim away. Live to mine another day.

End of Session Goals

After 2 hours you should have:

• A powered base at 80-100m depth

• Functional O2 refill station

• One automated copper plate production line

• O2 Tank Mk1 and Scanner Mk1 equipped

• At least 4 O2 Candles crafted and stored

That's a solid foundation. Next session you'll push to 200m for gold and ruby, unlock O2 Tank Mk2, and start thinking about your first vertical lift system for multi-level factory logistics. But that's a guide for another day.