Planetside

Planetside is the second priority ops mission.

Description
The scouting mission on Habitat 7 has met with disaster. The planet is far from the golden world the initial scans indicated; instead, its atmosphere is toxic and wracked with deadly electrical storms that struck the shuttle. Survive the hostile conditions and locate any survivors from the rest of the Pathfinder team.

Alec Ryder theorizes that the alien tower is linked to the planet's dangerous weather. He believes accessing the tower may enable your shuttle to leave. Ensure that he and the rest of the team survive until your father gathers the necessary information.

Objectives

 * Locate other members of the Pathfinder team
 * Optional: Test your weapon on a damaged fuel cell
 * Protect Fisher
 * Optional: Scan the dead alien bodies
 * Optional: Search the shuttle wreckage for supplies
 * Optional: Check on Kirkland
 * Locate the second shuttle
 * Take cover near the shuttle
 * Defend the Pathfinder team from hostile aliens
 * Optional: Collect ammo and additional weapons
 * Defend the Pathfinder team from hostile aliens
 * Locate the Pathfinder
 * Optional: Locate Greer
 * Optional: Explore The Cave
 * Optional: Investigate the flares
 * Optional: Investigate the alien ruins
 * Optional: Find a way to access the sealed room
 * Optional: Investigate the alien facility
 * Optional: Investigate the crashed alien ship
 * Follow the Pathfinder
 * Defend the Pathfinder
 * Join the Pathfinder
 * Optional: Order Cora and Liam to defend both flanks (0/2)
 * Defend the Pathfinder
 * Decryption Progress
 * Open the door

Research Opportunities
Taking the time to explore Habitat 7 can yield a decent amount of Research Data (RD). 40 Milky Way RD, 330 Heleus RD, and 150 Remnant RD. Most RD items are worth +10 but the creatures/enemies are worth +50.

The are several problems with scanning items during the mission.
 * Most of the scanned items use the word "Unknown" in the scanned name except for the Milky Way items and a single Remnant item.
 * Scanning an item in one area will make other similar items show up as already scanned in other areas not yet visited.
 * With the large number of routes that are available on this mission, the exact route and the specific items scanned is highly variable. This requires that you take extra time to systematically scan everything carefully in each area to make sure that all RD can be found.

For the reasons listed above, this can be a real pain to find all of the RD. The good news is that subsequent missions don't have this naming problem or as many identical items to scan on the same mission.

For a complete list of RD items with example pictures and scan data, see Planetside Research Data.

Achievements and trophies
The following achievements and trophies during this mission:
 * First Contact.png First Contact