Erchius Mining Facility

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The Erchius Mining Facility is a (now) optional mission that you can undertake for Penguin Pete.

In Giraffe, this was an optional mission. In post-1.0 vanilla, it is required to do this mission in order for your ship to be repaired, allowing you to travel to other planets and systems. This essentially makes it a "beginner's dungeon" that was necessary to progress through the game.

In Frackin Universe, however, this role is taken up by another quest (The Dark Cavern, or "Poptop Cavern"), which the player must complete in order to leave the starter world. Upon completing this quest, Esther has Penguin Pete repair your ship right away, thus removing the necessity of this quest as part of the main quest. As such, it has been relegated to a side quest (much like it was in Girrafe.)

As part of an ongoing "vanilla quest renewal effort", however, the Erchius Mining Facility has gotten a major facelift. The entire dungeon has been essentially remade from the ground up (remade in Tiled, whereas the vanilla version still used the png format.) Here are a few (but certainly not all) of the new changes that were introduced in this overhaul:

• Due to its optional status, the entire dungeon is now Tier 3 (whereas it was tier 2 before).
• There are now many alternate routes and secrets that require the microsphere to reach, and the matter manipulator to uncover.
• No more "monster closets". In the Vanilla version, it is possible to cheese the enemies them by shooting at certain places with rocket launchers. Enemies now use Spawners instead, making this impossible.
• More enemies. Not just more moontants, but more enemy variety. Berserk robots, wattspers, and purple moontants with a larger ranged attack join the obstacles that bar your way.
• It was possible to skip a large part of the facility simply by taking an upper path through the facility at the first fork. This is no longer possible, you must take the lower route.
• This also means you must have a sphere tech of some sort.
• Hallways that were once devoid of enemies (specifically, the long shaft preceding the Erchius Horror) are now filled with enemies.

As of right now, the Erchius Horror boss remains unchanged, save for the fact that it can be destroyed by means other than the mining laser (unless you have very high grade gear and a lot of patience, this is more trouble than its really worth.)