You do pretty much all your gathering and farming while inside the safety and relative comfort of a mech in Lightyear Frontier.
Sadly, your base mech can’t do everything in the game. Eventually, you’ll have to upgrade your mech to climb further in the Lightyear Frontier tech tree. This can take a while, and you’ll need a very specific building to be able to do it.
To upgrade your mech in Lightyear Frontier, you need to construct an Upgrade Depot. The recipe comes pretty easy, mind. Like many crafting games, Lightyear Frontier awards you with recipes as you discover and gather new materials. For the Upgrade Depot, I got the recipe after gathering Aluminum, followed by Stone. You may only need the latter to get the recipe. It’s yours for life once you get it unlocked, either way.
How to build an Upgrade Depot in Lightyear Frontier
Once you have the recipe, crafting an Upgrade Depot in Lightyear Frontier is cake. Or pie, if you’re not a cake fan. I don’t judge; all sweet things are equal and delicious in my eyes.
To build an Upgrade Depot, press the build button or key (B on PC) to open up the construction menu. Navigate to the ‘Essentials’ tab, marked by a hollow star. Gather these materials to build the Depot:
- 24 Stone
- 4 Aluminum Rod
- 4 Aluminum Frame
You can place the Upgrade Depot anywhere you like on your homestead, but it is a large structure that needs to be surrounded by space.
If you don’t have Aluminum Frames, you can craft some using the Assembler. You may also need to craft an Oil Presser for Plant Oil. The Assembler requires 10 Aluminum Rods, 10 Stone, and 4 Plant Oil.
Use the Depot to customize and upgrade your mech in Lightyear Frontier
With that all out of the way, you’ll be free to upgrade and customize your mech using the Upgrade Depot. To do so, simply mosey up to the structure and enter it using the ‘activate’ button or key. Next, walk up to the terminal across from the mech and activate it to check out the full list of upgrades and customization options.
The ‘Mech Upgrades’ tab is where you can build a better, stronger mech. There are three tech trees to follow: Farming, Gathering, and Traversal. Hover over the icons to see what you need to gather for the unlock. The first upgrade you should get in the game is Spike Saw Power I, located under Gathering. It’s needed for the Red Crystals you have to gather later. You’ll need to craft 5 Aluminum Parts to get it unlocked.
Mech Customization, on the other hand, seems to allow you to change the look of your mech. I don’t have any parts to swap out yet. I’ll let you know once I find something in green.
