Sketchy's Contract: Beginners Guide - SteamAH (2024)

Hi there, this is a guide to help you (and possibly any crewmates you may have) with your first couple days working for Sketchy. I will be using the default controls in this guide, so keep that in mind if you change any of your keybindings.

After starting or joining a new game, your character will wake up at a diner counter with a tablet yelling at you about a contract you need to complete. The tablet has several notes about your objective, how to complete it, and how progression works in the game. The diner has an arcade and a shop, but until you complete a contract you can’t use any of them.

Whenever you are ready to start on your contract, head inside your ship and to the pilot seat in the front and press E to get in. Use your mouse to choose the blue planet in the upper left, and then select the location on the right, Port Coral. This is the only area you have at the start, but the other locations are not too expensive to unlock after you finish a couple contracts. The first time you travel through hyperspace, you will exit in the orbit of Orcoon. You will have to hold E again to tell your ship to land at your chosen location.

Now that you have finally touched down, the first thing you will want to do is get yourself a weapon before you step out on the planet. At the back of the ship there is a flamingo on a stick which is a free weapon to help defend yourself against some of the creatures that will be lurking. The yellow capsule next to the flamingo will recharge your O2 and flashlight battery, and there will be several that spawn scattered throughout the buildings.

The main entrance to the facility is underwater, so you will need to hop into the water and swim down to the elevator to gain access. There are also a few things that may be lying around at the bottom of the water you can collect, but they are large objects that you can’t put into your inventory. In the first room there are 5 different doors, but you won’t be able to open the orange or red door yet until you find the access codes for them. It is usually a good idea to scan the area [Right Mouse Button] for any loot or bugs you might not see right away.

Loot, enemies, hazards, and suit charge stations will randomly spawn each time you land at a location. Sometimes your first room will be completely empty, while other times it may have a crate, a landmine and a crawler trying to bite your ankles. Explore around and try to get as much loot as you can, but be careful of any enemies you may come across. During your first contract you will run into hatchling egg pods and crawlers. They are fairly weak, with hatchlings doing 10 damage and dying in 2 hits while crawlers do 15 damage and die in 3 hits. Enemy corpses can be taken back to your ship as loot. A hatchling corpse is worth 10 and a crawler 20, but they are large items and won’t fit into your inventory slots.

Hatchling Egg Pod

Crawler

The main thing you will be wanting to search for are the access crates. They can contain a few credits, a piece of loot, or the access code to the next area. You need to be careful, as there is a chance that an access crate could actually be a mimic in disguised, and they do not play around. They deal 25 damage and they will take 5 hits with your flamingo, so I recommend only killing one if it is absolutely necessary and you are at full health. You won’t be able to carry the corpse of a mimic unless you use the shrink ray to shrink it down. You can tell the difference between a normal crate and a mimic by using your scanner. If Access Crate is spelled correctly, you are safe.

Access Crates and Level 1 Access Code

Mimics

If your inventory gets full, drop things off on the lift at the main entrance and continue your search for more goodies and the access code. If you find yourself low on health, you can choose to sacrifice a bit of your loot and drink juice and soda you find laying around, or if you have found enough credits in crates you can use those to buy chips from a vending machine. Chips heal 25 health, while juice and soda don’t heal as much. Feel free to stockpile extra healing on your ship if you feel you need it. You also fully heal any time you go back into orbit, so if you have gotten your hands on a good amount of loot don’t be afraid to head into orbit for a full heal.

When the day reaches 9pm, you have the option to stay overnight, or to head back into orbit. If you stay overnight, the area will not reset and you can keep attempting to make progress through all of the security layers. Your ship will leave after midnight with everything in it, and more enemies will show up.

After every day you survive and have gathered loot, you will gain experience for your suit. Each time you gain a level you will get one point to put into your choice of 5 stats: Health, O2, Stamina, Flashlight, and Melee Damage. I recommend grabbing Health at the start, just to help gather more loot in case you get a lot of bugs at the start of a day, or a bad mimic spawn.

At the end of your 3rd contract day, you will need to head back to Sketchy’s Belt and turn in your collection.

Once you get back to Sketchy’s Belt, it is time to turn in everything you have collected. Load up your inventory and hands and head out of the ship, you can use the two platforms to help you take your prizes over to the turn in to the south. You don’t have to worry about falling anywhere at the outpost, as any place you can walk off has zero gravity.

Take your stuff up to the cardboard box and Press E to add the item to the box, if you just throw in items with G they wont be counted towards your quota. As soon as you place the item it will be counted, so don’t worry about things possibly flying out. After you have put everything in, press the red button on the table and confirm with the Y.

If you didn’t make your quota, you will lose your accumulated credits and any equipment you have. If you made quota, you will receive your payment in a fast food kiddie box. You will be paid with credits, claw machine coins, and gotcha coins. The amount you receive will depend on the total value of everything you brought in. Now you can head back out and work on your next quota, but you should go back to the diner since you have money and coins.

Contract Payment

Just inside the diner on the right are the claw machines and gotcha machines. The left and center claw machines have various plushes, while the one on the right has other toys and fun decorations. The gotcha machines hold charms you can equip on your weapons.

Claw and Gotcha Machines

Over at the main counter of the diner is a robot who you can buy supplies for your next venture. You should grab a Boom Box for a source of healing outside of juices and chips, and then based on how many credits you received get a new melee weapon. The Hedge Knife does 20 damage over the 10 of the flamingo, and will allow you to collect herbs and mushrooms. The Shovel does 30 damage and will let you dig up buried treasures. The Pickaxe does 40 damage and allows you to harvest ore from special nodes that spawn on maps. The shovel and pickaxe are heavy weapons, which means they have slower swing speeds, but they can damage mimics while they are stationary.
After you have finished deciding what you want and confirm your purchase a little drone will bring your stuff to you in a nice little box.

There is also a salesman at each location but you must wait 45 seconds for it to be delivered to you or pay extra for faster delivery.
Salesman and Drone

Planetside Salesman

If you are going to step away from the game, wait to stock up on a new weapon and Boom Box until you come back. Sometimes your inventory doesn’t save between sessions.

You may also decide to spend your credits on unlocking new locations for 200 credits, just remember that as you gain suit levels, enemies gain more health and stronger enemies will be spawning as well.

This guide will continue as if you bought a new weapon and a boom box and plan on going back to Port Coral.

Now that you have returned, better equipped and a higher suit level, you can get yourself a better assortment of loot. Be careful though as you will be coming across stronger and more dangerous enemies now. The ooze enemies you come across are immune to all attacks, so give them a wide berth if you come across any of them. There are two fish enemies, Tyrhanna and Garruuhda. The Tyrhanna are not too difficult, even if you are still using the flamingo. The Garruuhda are very dangerous, they hit for 40 damage but they have a lot of health. If you choose to fight one, make sure it is somewhere you can get out of the water because you will probably need to heal up even at 180 health. To use your boom box for healing use LMB to turn it on, and then set it down with G. It will have a small disco ball letting you know what the healing range is, so just hang out and let the healing soak in.

Oxy & Cloty

Toxy & Jelloti

Tyrhanna and Garruuhda

With your new melee weapons you will be able to get your hands on some new loot. With the Hedge Knife you can get valuable herbs as well as edible mushrooms that restore a small amount of health and a good amount of O2. Your shovel can be used for buried treasures, which the scanner will point out to you. The pickaxe will mine ore from special rocks that appear on the map. You can find all of these scattered around outside the buildings and some in outdoor areas at the higher levels. You can also find a lot of herbs underwater as well.

Valuable Herb & Edible Mushroom

Buried Treasure and Ore

Work your way around the main building checking crates, while avoiding any mimics or ooze type enemies you come across until you find the Access Code for the next level. Once you have found it, head back to the computer inside the ship and use that to unlock all of the doors with an orange security lock by typing [ACS], hitting enter, and then [LVL 1 (3 digit alphanumeric code)] and hit enter again. You will not need to put anything in brackets or parenthesis when using the computer. After gaining Level 1 Access you can head back inside the main building and take the orange door on the left and ride the elevator up to a brand new area.

The first thing you will find as you enter into level 1 is a teleporter. It is missing the power generator that it needs to operate, but once you find it you can teleport back and forth between here and the medical base next to your ship. There are a couple of outdoor areas accessible on this level, the first one you will most likely notice is an enclosure that has a giant crab. Unfortunately, it is not friendly and usually there are some crates/buried treasure/ore that you want to grab from in there. You can work your way around it if needed and it isn’t able to fit through any of the doors if you need to bolt. The mimics in this area are a lot more deadly as well, having more health and dealing 50 damage. You wont be able to collect the corpses of the large crabs or mimics unless you have a shrink ray to use on them.

Teleporter & Generator

Depending on how your luck has been, you may or may not find the access code for level 2 before it starts getting close to midnight. Staying overnight will not be as dangerous as the first outing since you have a boom box to provide you slow but steady healing. Make sure to grab anything you might need out of your ship, because it will leave until 8am the next morning. This also means if you find the next access code you will have to wait until it returns. A new enemy can also appear almost anywhere on the map, the Night Crawler. (similar to Xenomorphs, and deadly) Take your time exploring and keep an eye out for them, they cannot open doors so you can look through the windows to see if one is prowling around before entering a new room or hallway.

Assuming everything has gone well and you survived the night, you can take the time to take your spoils back to your ship, input your new access code, and level up your suit. To get to Level 2 enter from the main entrance again, and take the red door on your right. You will notice there are growths everywhere when you get to the teleporter room, as well as a notification that the air is not breathable so your O2 will be constantly draining. There will be a suit charge station on one of the walls in this room, and you will be using it a lot while exploring this area.

There are now lasers in the hallways that act as an environmental hazard and limit what paths you can take in this level. Some you can duck under and others you can sprint and jump over, but the double lasers are impassible without taking damage unless you shrink yourself with the shrink ray. The lasers deal 100 damage if you touch them. At night all of the lasers will turn off, but you have to be very careful of night crawlers lurking around. Keep a close eye on your O2 levels and return back to the teleporter room to recharge as needed.

Level 2 & Lasers

Don’t push yourself too far into level 2 if you are not confident or you still don’t have a lot of suit levels and gear to withstand the new challenges. If you have made your quota just grab stuff from safe locations or have a little fun exploring outdoors and head back to orbit. If you made it into Level 2 then you have probably already exceeded your quota for your contract, so you will be able to come back stronger and better equipped.

The Level 3 access code will unlock remote buildings scattered around that have more valuables and possibly contain alien eggs. The eggs have a value of 150, but you have the option of giving them to a vendor on Sketchy’s Belt to unlock pets. If you are in a group, turning in an egg counts for everyone.

Pet Vendor

Thanks to Orchard Box for their excellent guide; all credit belongs to their effort. If this guide helps you, please support and rate it here. Enjoy the game.