The stated mission of the NovusCorp NARVs is to explore the far reaches of space, expanding known territory and advancing the interests of the company and of all allied life. Your duties are to:

• Locate new habitable planets that can host life.
• Locate and make first contact with sapient alien life.
• Locate exploitable resources (mineral, biological, etc) that can expand available resources or body of knowledge

The NARV is specifically not there to stripmine inhabited planets down to their molten core, enslave native populations, or do other horribly evil things; they are on a mission of scientific exploration.

The most important things to look for are:

• Atmosphere composition: A breathable atmosphere will make future habitation much easier; atmospheres actively hostile to life will make habitation much more difficult.
• Mineral deposits: Mineral deposits may be valuable for ongoing research and may open new avenues of materials research.
• Xenoflora: The Xenobotany department revolves around finding alien plant life, growing it in the lab and discovering its uses.
• Xenofauna: The Xenobiology department revolves around finding alien animal life, containing it in a lab setting and discovering its uses.
• Xenoarchaeology: The Xenoarchaeology department focuses on finding signs of previous alien habitation, and often works as xenoanthropologists to make successful contact with local sapient species.

The Exploration Room connects to the EVA Room, where explorers can get one of the four Exploration Voidsuits from their Storage Units, Oxygen Tanks, Voidsuit Helmets and Magboots that can be filled up at the local Oxygen Canister via a tank transfer valve. O2 tanks can be filled to over 1000 kPa, which will last roughly 50 minutes on normal oxygen feeds. Remember to close the transfer valve before ejecting the oxygen tank!

Once you are wearing a voidsuit, you can retract/deploy your helmet with a tap on the suit, tap the helmet to turn the helmet light on or off, and tap the magboots to turn them on or off.

Once your crew is ready, deploy to the Hangar Bay. By default, there are two shuttlecraft you can fly; the first is the small General Purpose Flyer (GPF), capable of carrying two or three people on basic missions. The second is a Skyrunner-class shuttlecraft with onboard weapons, a universal docking port at the craft's rear, and enough room to easily carry a complement of Marines or scientists or both, depending on the destination. Finally, the ship has escape pods that can double as drop pods at the Military department's discretion.

The Falcon is a medium-range craft that can be used for everything from shuttling cargo to ferrying teams of Marines, depending on what is needed. The craft has twelve chairs, though there is standing room for an urgent military deployment if necessary, and a pilot's seat at the Shuttle Console, which is basically a limited Helm Console meant for controlling the shuttlecraft it is installed in.

The GPF is a very small craft that has the benefit of being able to land safely most anywhere, which makes it useful as a rescue craft for holding larger numbers of crew (albeit in cramped conditions) for very brief windows of time. The GPF does not have defensive weaponry, although it does have an emergency barrier system. It can be flown to land at a Subspace Beacon (such as the ones used in emergencies by the Exploration Team.)

Escape pods that can be jettisoned from the craft in order to make planetfall if necessary or to wait in outer space for rescue by the Rescue Ship. Once deployed, they have basic life support and minimal helm control, so it is important to recover them if they are jettisoned from a ship not currently in orbit. However, these can also be used as drop pods to forcibly board a hostile ship.

One thing that you can do from the ship is to construct a pre-established forward observer base aboardships, then drop it at a beacon planetside. The Overwatch Officer usually has an idea of what he'd like built for his marines; at minimum, Engineers should attempt to create a viable atmosphere, airlocks, a power supply and APC, while the Overwatch Officer is responsible for transporting additional weaponry and supplies to stock the FOB before sending it on its way.

When preparing for an expedition:

• Make sure you get a voidsuit and helmet, either a military voidsuit from Requisitions Office or an expedition voidsuit from the Expedition Room.
• Take an oxygen tank and make sure it is properly filled. The pressure on the tank should read above 1000 kPa, which will provide roughly 50 minutes of breathable air. If it is too low, bring it over to the oxygen canister and connect the tank. Maximize the release pressure and open the valve. Wait until your tank reads 1000 kPa or higher, close the valve, and eject the tank.
• Connect the magboots, suit helmet, and oxygen tank to your voidsuit, and when you equip the suit it should equip all of the components. You can choose to eject your voidsuit's tank at any time to replace it with another if necessary.
• Clicking the suit retracts or deploys your helmet; clicking the boots turns the magboots on and off; clicking the helmet toggles the helmet light.
• There are five Overwatch Helmet Cameras available to the NARV; one is in the possession of each Military Squad Leader, and the fifth is available for Observers and can be found in the Expedition Room.

The Falcon lands at its destination. Everything is hopefully quiet. It's time to do your job.

Some important notes:

• Your team is now out of immediate range of assistance from the NARV. The shortwave radios will not contact the ship; only the Overwatch helmet-cams will be able to communicate. If you took the Falcon, you do have two Holopads that can reach the main ship's AI or communicate with the ship's Holopad system.
• In case of emergency, the only people who can help you are the ones who came with you. Teamwork and communication are vital. This is no time for grudges. Watch each other's backs.
• Asking for help or guidance is not 'lame' or 'embarrassing'. Dying alone in a corner because you were too proud to ask for help is lame and embarrassing. The moment your character feels sick, encounters something dangerous or finds something interesting, you should call it out on the radio.
• Do not split up. Those who wander off alone from the rest of the team are practically guaranteed to die if anything goes wrong. Things will go wrong.

Now then, what can you do on a mission? Ideally, your leader will tell you what kind of an exoplanet or asteroid you are going to. If it is just an asteroid, you are probably just going to find rocks and sand for the Salvagers to survey for minerals, but there's always the chance of finding something or someone who has been there before you. If it is an exoplanet, things are vastly more complicated, so remember your Expeditionary Directives.

Without trying to tell you exactly what you should do, here is a list of suggestions:

• Use the Geiger Counter when you arrive to see if the place is irradiated. If yes, let the leader know about it immediately. Your voidsuit is NOT perfectly radiation proof, though it is shielded sufficiently for most places.
• Use the Analyzer to see what the air consists of. If there is any flammable gas in the air, any kind of a spark will set the entire planet on fire. If the air is flammable, let the leader know about it immediately. Weapon fire, welding and many other things produce sparks.
• Check the location of the ship with the RPD (Relay Positioning Device). Remember or save its coordinates to your Notes.
• If exploring an abandoned station or ship, try to find out what happened to it. If you find corpses, examine their injuries. If you find breached rooms, figure out what damaged them. If you find information, take it with you to review later and possibly turn in to CorpComm.
• Collect plants with the Botanical Satchel.
• Whack things with your Titanium Machete when necessary. Especially whack things if they attacked you first.
• Shoot the local fauna with the Net Gun. Once you capture them, drag and drop them into a Stasis Cage. Hostile fauna can break free from nets, so try not to take too long.
• Find alien structures. Try not to activate them; put them into an Anomaly Container instead for proper scientific analysis later.
• Find alien items and try not to die to them.
• But most importantly, stay alert at all times. The moment you are less than a hundred percent focused, is the moment accidents happen.

In space, no one can hear you scream. However, you can minimize the chance of dying horribly with a few safety measurements.

• Don't stray too far alone. If you do go alone, keep your team updated where you are.
• Don't stay silent on the radio. When given orders, acknowledge. When asked to respond, respond. Explorers are (usually) not chatty because they are bored but this is how they check if everyone is alive and kicking.
• Don't leave your own behind, unless you absolutely cannot afford to stay and look for missing or dead team members. If someone died, retrieve their corpse or at least their ID card. If someone is missing, leave no stones unturned until you find them. Nobody is dead until you see them being dead.
• Don't eat alien food or press buttons on alien computers, unless that button is glowing and red.
• Don't hide your injuries. If you got injured or contracted a disease, inform your leader as soon as possible. At early stages, most of them are treatable on the Falcon. If you let them get worse, you might die to them on the spot.
• Don't keep things to yourself. If you find a building, call out its position. If you see a creature, inform your team. Even if it sounds like a trivial piece of information to you, it might save your teammate from running into danger.
• Don't force airlocks. Messing up the Falcon's internal air supply is probably the worst thing you can do and it is very, very, very rarely justified.

Someone forgot to pack something vital, ran into a monster, collapsed from an alien virus, set off a bomb - you name it. A hundred things can go wrong during a mission and something will always go wrong. This guide will not prepare you for every situation but here are some tips for dealing with such situations.

Someone is injured: Help them get back to the Falcon, cycle in and treat their wounds. Bleeding rarely if ever stops on its own. If you are injured, check if you are bleeding - others cannot see it through your EVA suit. The Sleeper and the first-aid closet should have everything you need. If you have no idea how medical works, use first aid kits and read the instructions on the pouches. If someone is severely injured, put them into the stasis bag until you can return to the NARV. Robots and cyborgs may not always be able to perform self-maintenance, so ask them if they need help.

Someone is missing: If someone is not responsive on the radio, always assume they are unconscious. Better safe than sorry. Ask everyone where they had seen them last, ask for help, then immediately go and look for them. Stay alert; they got knocked out for a reason!

Someone is ill: Alien viruses are rather common. If you start to feel ill, immediately go to the Falcon, open the white first-aid kit (found in the closet) and take out the purple “pill bottle (cold medicine)”. Antidexafen rarely fixes the issue but it suppresses most symptoms if the virus has not fully developed yet. You can take two pills safely if you are heading out for a longer period of time. Viruses can be lethal, so do not underestimate them.

Someone is stuck in quicksand: Click the tile to help them out.

The pilot is down: Probably the worst that can happen to a mission. If the pilot is dead, dying, or otherwise unconscious and nobody can operate the ship, immediately inform the Bridge or the AI through the Long-Range Holopad. They can either remotely recall it or they can send someone to operate it.

If someone has passed out for a long time with internals on, move them to a breathable atmosphere and turn their internals off. Unconscious people breathe all the same and their internals will run out eventually.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?: Ah, you've likely discovered a new form of alien life! Hopefully, you've discovered it using a remote viewing drone and can compile useful information on it without dying! Otherwise, your day is probably about to go really badly. If it is clearly hostile and dangerous, all focus should be on retreating from the encounter zone and evacuating the area. If you can safely interact with it and study it, call in the scientists! Either way, remember that you can establish forward bases to give your team the best chances moving forward.

OO-RAH, TIME TO SAVE THE CIVVIES!: So you've been called in to see the local alien life and kill it. Great! Make sure you receive weapons from the four major food groups of death: bullets, lasers, energy weapons, and bombs, as it's always awkward to have to resort to handmade traps and fist loads because your big weapons aren't working. Bring more ammo than you think you'll need and make sure your dropship has all the supplies you'll need before deploying.