Xiaodan

Xiaodan's body

SPOILER WARNING*This article contains information that may ruin your enjoyment of discovering the game's secrets for yourself. Proceed at your own risk.*

Xiaodan is a former Planet Crafter located on the same planet as the player. They were sent to the planet in the year 3055, three years before the player's arrival. They left several written messages behind, as well as an abandoned base. While the nature of the crime that led their being a Planet Crafter is unknown, they claim it has been small.

Xiaodan's base and landing site is located south of the starting area in the Wastelands, through the osmium-iridium cave. Their base has a drop pod, two living compartments, and an indoor ladder leading underground. Their main base is located underground.

While their former occupation before being made a Planet Crafter is unknown, they state knowing enough about the terraformation process to be able to succeed. However, they consider the landing site to be bad. Xiaodan spends one year underground to escape from the icy, toxic surface and attempts to grow seeds underground, though with little success. Throughout the year, they are also unable to find much iridium to heat up the planet's surface. They were able to calculate that the planet would be in an ideal time to attempt terraforming two years after their arrival.

In the lowest floor of Xiaodan's base, there are several walls that can be deconstructed to reveal rooms full of messages from Sentinel Corp. All 34 messages left on the walls contain the same greeting and initial instruction that the player also receives upon arrival on the planet, sent within the same year of 3055. It is unknown if these messages were all sent to Xiaodan, or if Xiaodan found them from other wrecks of Planet Crafters who had come before.

At the end of Xiaodan's base in one of the rooms of messages, Xiaodan has a final message cursing Sentinel Corp for sentencing them to death by making a Planet Crafter.

The player can find Xiaodan's body in a hidden wreck east of the player's landing site, blocked by a deconstructible rock wall (672:3:314). In the late game, this wreck will be underwater. Their body is half buried in the ground face down under a rock, along with another copy of their final message cursing Sentinel Corp. There is also a chest full of high-tier loot next to the body. The cause of death is unknown.

Xiaodan is presently the only other Planet Crafter who has ever been seen on the surface of the planet.

With the addition of Volcano biome, one more base formerly belonging to Xiaodan can be found at (-865:88:-421). The base is entirely subterranean, contains some wreckage, chests and lockers, plus two new messages from Xiaodan in 3055. One complains at length about how uncomfortable Xiaodan is with the coldness of his first base and bemoans the lack of food and necessity to move again. Other simply waxes dramatics about how captured and doomed Xiaodan feels at the moment.

Given that Xiaodan`s body is found next to the message that can be also found at the first bunker, it may be surmised that Xiaodan had moved to Volcano base at some point to seek warmer climes, but was forced to return to the first base due to food shortage issues.