Tools

Tools are the handheld equipment that gates what you can gather and build in Outbound. Twenty of them ship in the launch build, spread across nine families. Most families come in numbered tiers, and each step up unlocks a harder resource node rather than simply working faster on the same one.

Overview

Every tool is crafted at the workbench and every one of them sits behind a blueprint download, so the order you get them in depends on what the Signal Towers along your route happen to offer. That makes tool progression one of the more variable parts of a playthrough: two players at the same point in the story can be holding very different kits.

Tools do not wear out or break. Once a tier is crafted it stays usable, and crafting the next tier up replaces it for gathering purposes rather than competing with it. There is no durability system to manage, which fits the game's no-combat, low-pressure design.

All Tools

The table lists every tool in the shipped build with its crafting cost and the blueprint that unlocks it. Costs are for a single craft at the workbench.

Tool Families

Nine families cover the game's gathering and building verbs.

Gathering Tiers

The three four-tier families all follow the same shape: the tool tier has to match the resource tier. Axe I fells the starting dead logs, Axe II handles the light wood that becomes Silverbark Plank, Axe III the red wood behind Redwood Plank, and Axe IV the blossom wood at the top of the Resources ladder. Pickaxes work the same way against Rocks, Mossrock, Amberstone and Quartz Rock, and sickles against the successively tougher plant nodes.

Because the costs climb with the tier, each upgrade is gated by the tier below it. Axe III wants Redwood Plank and Coarse Metal; Axe IV wants twenty Blossom Lumber and six Hardened Metal, which means the top-tier axe is effectively a late-game purchase even if the blueprint turns up early.

Unlocking Tools

Three tools come bundled into the Basic Tools blueprint: the Building Hammer, the first Wrench, and the Homing Boots. That package is one of the earliest downloads most players pick up, and it is what turns the van from a vehicle into a workshop. The Watering Can arrives with the Gardening blueprint rather than on its own, so unlocking Farming hands you the tool and the crop plot together.

Everything else has a dedicated blueprint named after the tool. Blueprint downloads cost Download Coupons, which come out of the Recycling System and are the same currency the rest of the Technology Tree runs on.

Tools and Weight

Tools occupy inventory slots and count toward the weight you are carrying, so a full kit of four axes, four pickaxes and four sickles is not free. Once the higher tiers are crafted there is little reason to carry the lower ones, and the Encumbrance penalty is a good reason to leave them in van Storage and Inventory.

Tips

• Take the Basic Tools download early. Without the Building Hammer you cannot place furnishings, and without the Wrench you cannot clear the mechanical obstacles that open new routes.

• Craft one tier at a time. Skipping a tier is not possible, because each tool's cost is built from materials that only the tier below can gather.

• The Homing Boots are easy to overlook. They charge in daylight and shorten the walk home after dark, which matters most when you are foraging far from the van near the end of a day.

• Flashlight II is expensive at twelve Adamant Metal and six Electronics, so most players run Flashlight I well into the mid game.

• The Paint Brush costs four Sea Shell and four Paint. Paint comes from Flower Petals or Cactus Flower at the Mortar and Pestle, so grind a stack before you go looking for the blueprint.

• In co-op, blueprint unlocks are shared but tools are not: each player crafts their own. See Multiplayer and Co-Op for how shared progression works.