Mechanics

Quests/Story
Desolate follows a Main Quest Line which tells the story of New Light and brings the player to all the important Locations. Finding a workbench will trigger a new quest to find all the missing parts for a repair. The Biologist will also give minor quests.

The Biologist and the Engineer will provide minor daily quests. Each of them will gift the player certain Blueprints after completing some quests for him.

Traveling
There are two known fast travelling mechanics in-game.

You can repair and use Pneumatic Elevators for 100 scrap or use a portal.

Using the portal will transport you to a random area on the map.

Fighting
On Granichny it is always better to hide. If the player still chooses to fight he can always try to run since he is faster than most Enemies. Certain enemies will escape the fight if severely injured to heal themselves. Killed lifeforms will drop a lootable container.

Combat
Stronger attacks will stagger enemies. Staggered enemies will shortly recover and immediately attack afterwards. It is possible to block certain attacks. Some enemies have a shield on their health-bar that must be destroyed first before dealing actual damage to the opponent. Almost every enemy in the game has a melee weapon or does melee damage. Only some high-rank Raiders and New Light Soldiers wield firearms.

Levelling
The player will gain XP when:
 * Killing Enemy NPCs
 * Killing Animals
 * Completing Quests
 * Discover New Areas

After each level, you earn 1 of three types of points to enhance your character.
 * Skill Point
 * Ability Point
 * Knowledge Point

These points allow you to add new skills to your characters such as increased stamina or hp. Allowing you to pick locks, Night vision and much more.

Looting
The container defines what items are stored in it. But some Items (e.g. Quest items) are just laying around in the world. For more info on looting see Items. Containers: Steel Container, Toolbox, Medical box, Wooden Chests, Wooden Barrels

Death
Upon death, the player is given the choice to spawn at the closest r-spawn point or base. The player is given 10 minutes to find the location where they died to retrieve ALL equipment and loot they had or it will be lost.

If you are playing co-op, you can be revived by your team mate within 1 minute.

Note: Upon re-spawn the player will be at Full health, thirst, hunger and all negative or positive status cleared.

Exploit: Player is able to suicide in base, re-spawn and loot everything back, excludes the need to purchase expensive medicine for trauma or diseases, no side-effects, statistic will record death.