Exploration

Exploration is the main strategic mode in Outpost: Infinity Siege. In it, you explore one of the four regions to gather supplies and uncover additional information necessary for the EUA to prosecure the war against Mechanos. It can be best thought of as a peculiar version of a board game, where you hop between nodes to gather resources, while trying to balance the take against the amount of forces Mechanos will send to intercept you on Recovery Day.
==Basics==
When entering Exploration mode, you can customize your Outpost and select an operative to send on the mission. Fae Pratt, as C.O. 11, is always available, but it's necessary to send others to ensure they gain experience and level up as well. Neither the Outpost nor the Operative can be changed during exploration, but it's possible to outfit the operative with any new gear you recover during the operation. 
While exploring, you select one of the nodes immediately adjacent to your current Outpost location and have a choice to either explore (which results in a Power gain) or elect to loot instantly (which requires an expenditure of Power). Any loot you collect and either carry on you or place in the Outpost is saved between deployments and determines the difficulty of the final Recovery Day. 
Note that you cannot go back to a previous location and are limited by the links from the current node when it comes to traveling. If you want to maximize loot or ensure that you hit the main story objective, keep in mind that you have to include them in your path (all story objectives are completed if you use Instant Loot). Once you hit the maximum number of nodes or decide you had enough, you can return to base by clicking on the starting node and selecting the option. This starts the Recovery Day.
==Mission types==
Each exploration randomly generates a board for you, mixing maps and mission types. When selecting a node, you will see modifiers, giving you a rough idea of the kind of drops to expect when killing Mechanos forces or searching for loot. Mission types include:
* Regular Exploration: Open-ended exploration that can be ended at any time.
* Designated Recovery: You have to locate a specific high-value item and return it to the Outpost.
* Emergency Aid: A defensive mission where you have to protect a squad of EUA troops from attack. Success means you can collect a special reward from them.
* Officer Hunt: Avoid the Spider Sentry's detection and hunt the Envoy's fanatics! AETOS will overwhelm us with numbers if multiple Spider Sentries lock on to us.
Completing a mission or instantly looting a node will give you a selection of additional rewards. These can be operative buffs, outpost buffs, or the high risk, high reward Risk Incidents, which greatly increase rewards, but provide a variety of buffs to the enemy forces, which can break your Outpost if you're not prepared for it.
Note that instantly looting will collect story objectives, but will not yield any blueprints. These have to be found manually, exploring each location by hand.
==Strategies==
Category:Outpost: Infinity Siege