I ended up encountering some strange things while further exploring the surface of the alien planet. I also managed to get some side missions done without having to go out of my way. While there was quite a lot of combat it’s still been quite fun.

While out exploring the lands I noticed there are a few unknown encounters. I decided to poke my head into one of them. I was quite shocked to find a giant rat and people having some kind of party.

When things were just getting to the good point of me getting honored as a special guest. Everyone started to flee from the city. Some evil individuals crashed it and I was left. I ended up defending myself not once but twice before being able to flee.

It’s a shame I did not get to run into any of those individuals I met inside that city ever again. I did search everywhere from the top of the map to the bottom. They must have quite the hiding spot.

Next up I went around to the diffraction factions. Some of them had side quests I already had the required items. Such as fish for a fishing mission. Along with some others.

The cool part about working with the European faction is I ended up unlocking quite a few of their units. Granted, I never used them even once. It was at least nice to see there were quite a lot of other units I could use if I liked.

I then went on quite the trip around the map wanting to uncover every spot of it. I quickly learned that different areas have effects on how quickly you can travel through them. I wish I had known at the time that I could have been building roads and teleports back to my base. It could have also been possible I had not unlocked such technology yet. This would end up being something I discovered quite later on.

Quite a few of the areas I found I could not even get access to go into. It was clear I needed to progress the main storyline along further. That would however not end up being something I put much further focus on.

I was supposed to be speaking with the different factions and getting locations to the ruined sites. Oddly enough one of them required an item I had not even found nor would I ever end up finding.

While another NPC was possibly off on some mission, I found an empty spot in one of the faction's bases where it seemed someone should have been. Yet I could not find the guy anywhere.

Perhaps the strangest thing I had found however was when I hovered over a patch of forest. It had such a strange icon I had to go see for myself. Sure enough, there was a giant talking cloud lurking in the forest. I decided to not attack it since it was a cloud after all.

I ended up giving the giant cloud some food. It sort of ate the food if you could even say that is what it attempted to do.

It was far from the only strange thing I ended up running into. A few locations I stopped at seemed to be run by some kind of cult. I decided it would be best to not get myself involved in any cults if I could help it. They were less than thrilled by my unwillingness to join.

One area I had also not put much effort into was unlocking further mutant units or anything of that sort. I ended up coming across a faction who was quite deep into doing mad science experiences.

I also noticed he had quite a few people trapped in cages. It was clear he was going to turn the humans into mutants I decided I could not let that happen.

I ended up fighting off the mutants he had guarding him and taking him out of the picture as well. Afterward, I went around unlocking all the cages that had what I thought were only humans in them. While many of them did reward me for releasing them. Some I would discover were already morphing into mutants and they attempted to exact revenge on me for what I had done.

I also ended up picking up a new suit of armor. It was such a massive leap in damage output and health I would end up using it for the rest of the game. I would perhaps after that go on to loot a half dozen other suits of armor and no matter what I kept going back to the one I looted out of the crazy lab.

Every so often I'd have to return to my base as well. I’d restock my army, harvest, and replant some seeds. There were also quite a few trips back to defend the base from the next horde of beats coming to attack it.

Many times, it was fun just to come back and see if things had changed in appearance. My base was slowly evolving. Taking on a much colder and darker future look to it. All while still having a somewhat friendly welcome sign at the entryway.

Many times, on my return visits my people would let me know how well things are going. Sure, there be some random outbreak of infections, the powerplant breaking down, or some other random event. It was however becoming a lot more peaceful at least I felt it was going that way.

After helping the Euro faction a lot. I switched over to trying to catch my progress up with the Chinese. Sometimes they just needed food and water. Other times they wanted these computer chips I kept finding while clearing out sites.

Like with the other faction. Many of the objectives they wanted me to seek out and do I had already done. I suppose that is a nice advance of going out exploring as much of the map as I had done. I’m always glad when I don’t have to hunt down an NPC again for a turn-in. Just picked up a mission and found out I've already had it completed.

I would end up not unlocking as many of the Chinese units as I would for other factions. They ended up having two bases on the larger map and it seems I was not just far enough long in the storyline to do much with them.

Final Thoughts

Those were some random wild encounters I ended up having. I’m still enjoying how exploring has been on the larger map. I still have so much more of it to explore. For now, all the days I've cycled through in the game exploring the map have not gone to waste since I've discovered I already have quite a few side missions completed.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Xenowars (I don’t make anything from this tracking link).