What the codex counts, and what filling it pays you

Open the codex list Every milestone with what it asks, the step up from the one below it and what it pays. This opens on First Strike, the cheapest paying rung in the game.

The codex screen shows you one category and the next milestone in it. It never shows the shape of the whole thing, which is what decides whether a rung is worth chasing: 41 milestones across 6 categories, 36 of them paying something, and the distance between two rungs growing from a couple of entries to dozens as a category runs on.

What each category counts

The widest step is the column that decides anything. The prey count asks for 7 entries in total and never more than 2 in one go, so it finishes on the way past. The dish count asks for 405, and a single one of its rungs is 80 entries wide on its own, or 11 times everything the prey category asks for, to move the screen once.

Every one of the 6 categories ends on its own total, so the last rung in each is “collect all of them” rather than a round number short of it.

Those totals are what the codex counts on its own screen. They are not the length of any list on this site, which counts what the game’s tables hold rather than what the codex tracks, so do not expect the two to agree.

The half of the system that pays

The other half of this system is the 93 achievements, and the difference between them is not tone. An achievement carries a name, a group and what it asks for, and no reward field at all: nothing in the tables pays out for one. Every payout in the system is a codex rung. That makes the split clean. Which achievements are worth chasing is about what a run should be planned around; this page is about what the counting hands back.

The 20 recipes the codex hands over

Read the last two columns before the third. The first rung in the whole codex, First Strike, asks for 1 entry and pays Cola Marinated Eggs Cola Marinated Eggs (Perfect) Food · Eggs and Dairy Satiety +36 Morale +16 Stamina +12 400 g 2×2 cells 90.0 Satiety/kg 2 d shelf life Waste at day 6 Eggs and Dairy Amber-colored marinated eggs cooked in cola, with a sweet and savory taste that carries hints of fizzy bubbles. , which needs Cooking level 3 and 335 minutes at the stove. That pattern holds across the table: 14 of the 20 payouts want Cooking level 3, or 5,350 experience, and the codex hands them over long before a run has paid that. The recipe is banked, not usable.

Cheapness is real, though, and it is where the value sits. 10 of the 20 recipes are behind 10 entries or fewer. The other half runs out to 170, by which point a run has better recipes than the one it is being paid. How cooking works covers what a recipe is actually worth once you can cook it.

The furniture payouts are only names

The other 16 payouts each name a piece of furniture, and the name is all the tables carry. Every one of the 20 recipe payouts resolves into the recipe table, which is why the table above can price them. None of the furniture payouts does. All 16 of them name a piece that sits in no other table in the game, so there is no price, no slot, no power draw and no storage to weigh up. Count them if you are completing the codex. Do not plan a room around one.

Being in the codex is not how a piece of equipment is obtained. 87 of the 101 placeable pieces carry the game’s codex flag, 65 of them stocked by a Build Shop, so the flag marks what counts towards the furniture category rather than a way of getting anything. It is not even a checklist of that category: the category asks for 84 entries and the flag sits on 87 pieces. What a piece costs and where it can stand is in the equipment list.

The 5 rungs that pay nothing

The game marks these as reached and moves on. A rung with an empty reward is not a payout you have failed to collect.

What to do

1. Let the prey count finish itself. 7 entries in 4 rungs, never more than 2 at a time, and trapping through a normal run covers it. Where to set every trap has which room catches what.
2. Take the cheapest 10 recipe rungs while you are eating, cooking, planting and building anyway. Nothing in that set asks for more than 10 entries, and it is half the recipes in the codex.
3. Check the step, not the threshold, before chasing a rung. The codex list sorted by Step puts the cost of the next one in front of you for all 41 at once.
4. Do not wait on a codex recipe to feed anyone. 14 of the 20 need Cooking level 3, and the first of them is paid for 1 entry.
5. Leave the dish count past its middle rungs unless you are playing for the collection. Its widest single rung asks for 80 more entries on its own.
6. Treat the furniture payouts as a tally rather than a shopping list. All 16 name something no other table in the game describes.

Quick reference

• 41 milestones across 6 categories, 36 paying something and 5 paying nothing.
• 20 recipe payouts, 10 of them behind 10 entries or fewer, 14 needing Cooking level 3.
• 16 furniture payouts, every one of them a name no other table in the game holds.
• Shortest category: Prey, 7 entries, widest step +2.
• Longest category: Dish, 405 entries, widest step +80.
• Achievements pay nothing. All 93 of them carry no reward, so every payout in this system is a codex rung.
• Every milestone, its step and its payout is in the codex list.