As part of our Game of the Month coverage we’re going to help you survive and thrive through your first quests in My Time at Portia. While the game holds your hand at first, it’s easy get overwhelmed once commissions start flooding in. This guide will give you some tips to make the most of My Time at Portia.
After arriving and following Presley to your Pa’s workshop the day will end and the game will save. In the morning you can finally start to explore the world properly. Your first stop is Portia’s Commerce Guild. The guild doesn’t open for business until 8am so you have an hour to kill before you can take your tutorial quest.
First Steps on the First Day
After leaving your house, run directly across the road in front of your workshop. There you’ll find your first treasure chest. There a more scattered all over Portia containing various goodies. This one has some worn boxing gloves. You’ll use these to fight until you make yourself a sword.
You’ll also want to grab any wood laying on the ground along the way. Harvestable piles have a particle effect above them. Focus on rocks and sticks for now, you’ll need plenty of both as you progress.
It’s a good idea to make a habit of chatting up everyone you encounter on your way. This helps build up your social standing with each NPC. Since friends grant everything from shop discounts to combat bonuses, it’s a good idea to socialize whenever you have downtime.
Once Presley finally shows up to work (or you track him down on the map) he’ll task you with crafting your first axe and pickaxe. Next, he’ll ask you to make a stone furnace. You only need one to complete the quest, but it’s best to make at least two. You’ll need 20 stones and 20 wood logs. Use your axe and pickaxe to gather more resources. Your current gear can only harvest from the smallest stones and trees or bushes.
If you can, try to collect 20 additional wood so you can also make your first storage chest. This will come in handy for all the plant fiber, tree sap, and random ores you’ve picked up. Head home when you’ve got everything or when you’ve run out of stamina for the day.
Getting Crafty
Crafting in My Time at Portia all takes place back at your workshop. You start with a large assembly platform where you’ll craft items that require a blue print. The workbench crafts additional components and equipment. Selecting the exclamation point from the workbench tabs will show you items with an open commission. You’ll also need to build crafting stations to turn raw resources into more refined materials and parts.
You can only craft one item at a time on the platform. You can always retrieve any placed items and select a different blueprint if you need to build something else. This will come in handy once you have several larger projects in the works.
Craft some furnaces before heading into your house to repair as many of the broken floorboards as you’re able. By now most businesses are likely closed for the night and you’re probably out of stamina. Not bad for the first day, go to sleep to skip to the next morning.
Presley will send you to register your workshop at the mayors office next. When you finish, return to Presley for your first official commission and your builder’s license. Hang the license on the wall inside your house for +20 Stamina.
Ignore the bridge commission for now. Instead, snag another job from the board. Storage chests are the best choice early game because you only need 20 wood to build them. You’ll need some money coming in so the sooner you’re earning, the better.
Working Hard for the Money
Quests will start piling up now that you’ve completed the tutorial missions. Frequently, the story missions will require parts or items you can’t access yet. To make the bridge parts you’ll first need to craft both a Civil Grinder and a Civil Cutter.
Mayor Gale will give you a quest to visit the local business owners. Doing so grants you relationship points with each of them as well as some NPC specific resources.
When you go to meet Sophie at her farm you’ll find another treasure chest in her bar with 25 Gols inside.
Back at your house, place your furnaces and fuel them with 20 wood. If you have any extra stones start crafting bricks. Turn in any completed commissions and then head up the hill towards Abandoned Ruins #1. You’ll have to pay a weekly fee in Gols to enter the Ruins.
You won’t encounter any monsters here, just rock and ore. Look for orange colored patches and start harvesting with your pickaxe. This will give you copper and tin. Once you’ve collected the ore head back to the workshop and place it in the furnace to start making copper and bronze ingots.
The crafting stations can only queue 10 items at a time. As long as you keep feeding them fuel and resources though, they’ll keep producing indefinitely.
The next day you’ll refill your furnaces and head back to the ruins, this time to hunt relics. Hit the F key to scan for relics. The bigger the circle, the closer the relic. Today you’re looking for Old Parts so you can make a grinder. You’ll probably also come across some more power stones and data discs while you’re here.
Civil Crafter
Head home and use any stone you picked up while mining to craft two grinding stones in the workbench. Open the assembly platform and build the Civil Grinder. Use some of your copper ingots in the grinder to craft copper blades. You should also have at least 5 bricks by now. Use them to assemble the Civic Cutter. Now you can start working on that bridge.
Buy an upgrade kit from Total Tools and use it with some bronze ingots to upgrade your axe at the workbench. Now you can chop down bigger trees and collect hardwood. Chop trees to gather hardwood for planks and regular wood to keep your furnaces running. You’ll still need bricks and both types of ingot.
Now’s probably a good time to make an extra furnace so you can work on all three at once.
To complete the quest you’ll need two Bridge Heads and one Bridge Body. Start making Copper Pipes (6) and hardwood planks (10). Once you have enough, work on Bronze Plates (5) and Stone Bricks (12). Assemble your bridge and take it down to the river to install it. Congrats, you’ve completed your first major story quest.
Looking Forward For My Time At Portia
Major story quests in My Time at Portia usually require you to build new crafting stations or secure resources from new locations. It’s usually a good idea to stockpile basic resources and components (ingots, planks, furs) so that you can quickly complete daily commissions between bigger jobs.
Low on Gols? If you’re mining you’ll end up with tons of extra rocks.Craft Stone Stools in the Workbench and sell them at Total Tools for some easy cash.
Your next task will be building a Dee-Dee Transport, but you can’t really start on it until you’ve first built a Basic Skiver and upgraded your workbench at A&G Construction. You’ll also want to upgrade your pickaxe so you can gather more ore. Basically, prepare to be busy.
It’s worth noting that since the game just hit early access, the developers are still changing things up. Some parts of this guide might be outdated when My Time at Portia is fully released.
My Time at Portia is our February 2018 Game of the Month. Be sure to check out the rest of our My Time at Portia coverage.
