Best Device Or Artifact
 

I have the good fortune to have found a Firax artifact called the Light Bulb of Submission. If you have it on board your ship, it gives the constant benefit of "L.O.S. not blocked on planets." I didn't even have to research it, since I already had the Hand Scanners device for the away team, which has the same effect.

With this artifact, I can give the away team an enviromental protection device while having the full Hand Scanners effect.

It's great! It makes it much easier to explore planets, shipwrecks, and caves, because you can automatically see where everything is.

I just did my first deep cave dive, in a planet in Sector 33 (hard difficulty). I've got great weapons and spacesuit, which I crafted myself. I've got the Hand Scanners effect. And--critically important--I have an officer with Field Medic 2, so the away team can heal up from minor losses. I always take six officers with me to beef up hit points and to speed up officer advancement.

With this combination, I don't think there's a limit on how deep you can go if you've got one of the infinite caves. I quickly got down to level 16 but then had to go to work. At that point I had over 5000 oxygen! The oxygen level was RISING as I went deeper, because the Hand Scanners effect makes everything so efficient.

Tonight I'm going to see if I can get deeper than 100 in that cave.

It's a terrible mess when you leave the planet, because you leave scores or hundreds of resources spread out all over space, which you can go back and pick up.

Love this game!

BTW, as you go deeper into the caves, you run into some . . . surprises.