Arknights Fire Within the Sand – Complete Guide

Arknights Fire Within the Sand is the first season of Reclamation Algorithm game mode. Here’s the complete guide for it.

When the Reclamation Algorithm came out in Arknights, it caused a lot of misunderstanding among players. The Reclamation Algorithm game mode in Arknights has only one season, called “Fire Within the Sand.” This game mode can be hard to figure out, especially for new players, because it has a lot of complicated rules and a questionable guide. We can’t say we’re pros with a lot of experience, but we can give you a complete guide that will help you learn the basics, come up with good strategies, and confidently reach the endgame.

Arknights Fire Within the Sand

When you start your Arknights Fire Within the Sand journey, you’ll be on a huge map with a device in the middle that is very important to your survival. This thing is your HP for the whole run. It will always be a target for enemy camps, and every hit it takes does lasting damage that affects your whole game.

Far to the south of your base is an island that enemies can’t get to. It has two rice fields on it. These fields give you your first daily supply of rice, which is important for keeping your team’s strength up during the game. It’s important to know that these rice fields can’t be moved; they can only be killed. You can only have two of them, though, and your base can be attacked, especially by enemies with catapults, who tend to focus on destroying buildings. As the game goes on, there are more and more of these hits. To protect your resources, you should build more rice fields north of your base, out of the way of enemy tracks.

Map Visibility Matters

Map view is a big deal in Arknights Fire Within the Sand of Reclamation Algorithm. When an operator uses an effect that does damage or has other effects like stopping or removing buffs, it makes the tiles in the affected area visible. Dorothy stands out as one of the best people for this job among the workers. Each of her traps lets you see 5×5 squares, which lets you scout enemies and deal damage from a global range. In general, supporters are very helpful in this way:

• Magallan’s S1 drones are cost-effective, don’t detonate when enemies pass through them, and reveal a 3×3 square area with substantial HP.
• Stainless’s S3 construct offers significant visibility despite its unconventional shape and can be placed anywhere on the map.
• Scene’s buggies, while less useful for scouting due to block 1, reveal the surrounding 8 tiles for visibility.
• In a pinch, Shamare’s doll can unveil a 3×3 square every 30 seconds, although it may not be ideal for scouting large maps.

Global range attacks from operators like Ambriel or Goldenglow don’t reveal the entire map, but they can target any revealed enemy within their range. This means that if an enemy is within a tile revealed by an inactive Stainless’s Metal Crab, they can be attacked or at least charged by the crab.

The Importance of Food

In Arknights Fire Within the Sand of Reclamation Algorithm, what your workers eat is the most important thing. Some players have said that early-game enemies, especially dogs, are too many for them to handle when they don’t have an Abyssal Hunter Squad made. To fix this problem, you could make Low-Pressure Dried Meat by combining 3 Puffball Tenderloins and 1 Water. 

This food item cuts an operator’s DP cost by 8, making it a valuable tool for efficient deployment. Also, mixing two Puffball Tenderloins and one Marrow Fungus makes Victorian Royal Jelly, which gives an operator 1 stamina back and lowers their DP cost by an impressive -18. During boss rush levels, this can make low-cost operators like Myrtle or Cantabile powerful DP producers. To thrive in the endgame, you’ll need access to top-tier ingredients to empower your operators. 

Recipes

Here are some recipes that have proven exceptionally helpful:

• 3 Puffball Tenderloins: Reduces DP cost by -8.
• 2 Puffball Tenderloins + 1 Leg Meat: Reduces DP cost by -8, boosts Attack by 10%, and adds 1 Current Stamina.
• 2 Puffball Tenderloins + 1 Marrow Fungus: Drastically lowers DP cost by -18 and increases Current Stamina by 2.
• 3 Marrow Fungus: Enhances Attack by 50%, adds 3 Current Stamina, and provides Permanent Camouflage.
• 1 Puffball Tenderloin + 1 Marrow Fungus + 1 Crab Leg: Reduces Redeployment Time by -30%, decreases SP Cost by -30% (ideal for Skadi S3 or SilverAsh true helidrop potential), and adds 1 Current Stamina.
• 2 Marrow Fungus + 1 Puffball Tenderloin: Reduces Redeployment Time by -50% and increases Current Stamina by 1.

When you unlock Manticore in the Black Market, you can purchase Puffball Tenderloins, Crab Legs, and Leg Meat for gold, which carries over from one run to the next. Marrow Fungus, however, can only be obtained from bosses in No Man’s Land or from rare deer boss events.

Priority 1: Gathering Resources for Your Base

Building your rice fields requires 16 wood and 4 water, which can be challenging to obtain early in the game. Wood, in particular, is crucial for early development as it’s used to construct Gathering Station 1s and Crabbie Pumps. Crabbie Pumps are essential for generating water, a critical resource for rice fields and food production. To set up Crabbie Pumps, simply place them on water tiles in clear water areas. These pumps generate SP, which converts into water at the end of the mission. It’s advisable to deploy them early to maximize water production.

Gathering Stations come in three levels based on their construction materials:

• Gathering Station 1s (wood)
• Gathering Station 2s (stone)
• Gathering Station 3s (metal)

These stations continuously produce minions that gather resources from the environment. They are far more efficient than using redeploy operators for resource collection. Keep in mind that you need to make the most of Gathering Stations by placing them near resource-rich areas. If you don’t recover more than 7 wood when you’ve deployed the station, it becomes a net loss. Ideal placement involves using them near stands of 4-5 trees, yielding 20-25 wood.

Once you’ve established your rice fields, consider building urban barriers to channel invading forces into lanes suitable for your AoE damage dealers. While these barriers are temporary and vulnerable to enemy attacks, they can significantly aid your defense efforts.

Priority 2: Developing an Evacuation Plan

Transregional Communication plays a crucial role in passing crafted items between runs. You can occasionally find evac zones in Conflict Zone maps, but within your base, you can craft a device allowing evacuations from the outset. This ability becomes indispensable as you progress in the game. Initially, you can transfer 5 deployables or meals between runs, and you can increase this capacity in subsequent runs. Follow the steps below.

• Pass four copies of Monitoring Tower 2 to your future self to maximize your runs.
• You can convert certain nodes on the map into new map types using constructs.
• This ability is not limited to your base map and can be used on any map.
• Consider creating high ground tiles or placing Monitoring Platform 2 items for strategic advantages.
• Placing two level 2 combat constructs (like urban barriers or firm platforms) grants a +15% attack bonus to your operators for the entire run.
• This is referred to as the Outpost Node buff and is crucial for unlocking tech tree research.
• Deploying two level 2 Monitoring stations unlocks the Sentry buff, offering two significant benefits:
• Reveals all nodes within two tiles of the Sentry tile when the map is clear.
• Slows down enemies in that node by -15% movement speed.

Priority 3: Early Overworld Map Visibility

Once you’ve gained some experience and secured your rice fields, it’s time to focus on increasing your overworld map visibility. Early-game strategies involve boss rushes for resources. Mountain Pass areas feature a static enemy (a pillar) and a wandering boss (Pompeii or another formidable foe). Defeating the pillar yields a substantial resource haul, including wood, gold, stone, and iron, making it far more lucrative than regular resource tiles.

There are a lot of food supplies, like six Marrow Fungus, and a small amount of gold on No Man’s Land tiles. When you beat the Invading Forces, you will also get a lot of stone, wood, iron, and cash. The hard part is getting to these faraway places on the overworld map. Setting up Observation Posts, especially on the free Revealed tile, can speed up your progress, though. You can see a large area from these posts, and you can find important nodes like the one where the sacred beast sometimes shows up and drops 3 Marrow Fungus.

Using Monitoring Stations and Observation Posts in the right way, you can show a big part of the map in the first few days. This gives you access to high-value encounters, lets you beat early invaders, and lets you make specialized squads of powered-up operators to take on any tasks.

Conclusion

Mastering the Reclamation Algorithm in Arknights Fire Within the Sand is not easy, but you can greatly increase your chances of success with a well-thought-out plan, careful resource management, and a focus on early-game visibility. Keep in mind that the changing nature of the game may require you to change your strategy, but with the information and tips in this guide, you’ll be ready to take on the tasks of this difficult game mode. Have a good day, Doctors!

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