Master Pragmata Early Game: Essential Tips for Lunar Survival

Pragmata offers a unique blend of shooting and hacking hybrid gameplay that sets it apart from the sea of samey titles currently on the market. While the game successfully eases players into its creative mechanics, making it accessible to fans of the third-person action-adventure genre, knowing where to focus your efforts during the opening hours is crucial for long-term success. To help you feel confident in your ability to see things through to the end, here are five critical Pragmata early game tips you will want to know before diving into the lunar base.

Strategic Node Management and Hacking Economy

To help you acclimate to the hacking gameplay mechanics during the early part of the game, you'll usually appropriate hacking nodes around the levels to hint that you should use them in upcoming battles. However, you will only have access to one hacking node slot in the beginning, so resource management is key.

When hacking in the opening hours, avoid using your Decode or Multihack nodes against weak enemies. Instead:

  • Save these powerful resources for larger, more challenging foes you encounter later.
  • Hack around yellow nodes on the grid until you reach a scenario where they are strictly better fitted.

Luckily, after progressing further in the game and unlocking more hacking node slots, this becomes slightly less of a problem, especially since you will be able to replenish them along the ground more frequently in combat arenas. Even so, it is a good idea to continue saving your most powerful nodes for specific types of harder enemies rather than wasting them on fodder.

Unlocking Hidden Paths and Training Simulations

While training simulations may initially seem like just a fun side activity, they are actually an immense resource boon for any player. You unlock these simulations fairly early in the adventure, where you can earn important materials including:

  • Upgrade Components
  • Pure Lunum
  • Cabin Coins

These resources can be used to dramatically improve your gear or help you unlock new mods. You will need to search thoroughly in each sector to find and unlock additional training simulation missions, but it is well worth the effort to earn such incredible rewards. Don't forget to check Cabin's Stamp Club after completing some of these missions, as you will definitely want to spend those Cabin Coins as soon as possible.

Optimization: Stats, Scanning, and Auto-Hacking

You get a lot of options for how to take on your mission in Pragmata, with plenty of mods, hacking nodes, and guns to choose from before heading out into a sector. However, you cannot respec the basic upgrades that you invest in at the Firmware Updater, which include your Suit (health and defense), Primary Unit, and Hacking damage.

Because of the limited Upgrade Components you will find early in the game, we recommend leveling all three of these stats evenly until you reach level 10. Getting all of these to at least 10 before specializing will help ensure you are well-rounded enough for any engagement. Of course, if you explore every sector extremely well and complete your training simulation missions, you will eventually be swimming in upgrade materials, meaning you shouldn't need to worry much about specializing too early.

Object Scan is another essential tool that allows you to use a surprisingly long-range scan to track the location of upgrade materials and REMs across the level. While it won't guide you directly to every collectible, it massively improves your ability to find them without falling behind in survivability. This feature unlocks early but requires purchase, so buy it the moment you see it come available; it is cheap and has no upgrades, making it an instant priority.

Even with Object Scan, you might struggle to reach items if a clear path isn't visible. In this case, look for holographic walls, which contain rooms or pathways to hidden collectibles. These always appear as smooth gray metal but give away their presence with a visual cue when you are close. Just approach the wall and press the button that appears on it to clear the hologram and allow passage through to the goodies inside.

Finally, while doing your own hacking can be part of the fun, there are times when it is best left to Diana so you can focus on dodging and shooting. Buying the Auto-hacking ability as early as possible is a huge help for tense combat encounters. It is also cheap, so go ahead and buy it as soon as this becomes available. Just keep in mind that using auto-hacking uses part of Diana's energy, but the trade-off for focusing on survival is often worth it.