Death Stranding 2 PSA: Should you five star every facility?

Delivering cargo to the various facilities in Death Stranding 2 earns you likes that translate to a star rating. But is it worth it to five star every facility in On the Beach?

Death Stranding 2 PSA: Should you five star every facility?

Delivering cargo to the various facilities in Death Stranding 2 earns you likes. And those likes add up to become a star rating for each location. As you hit certain thresholds — going from one star to two, for example — you'll earn rewards from that location. So is it worth it to five star every facility in On the Beach?


Four stars is probably enough

So, whether or not it's worth it to five star every location is a little complicated, but the short answer is no — with a caveat.

Image: Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment

As you deliver orders or Lost Cargo, you'll earn likes from the destination. Those likes translate into a star rating. Each star rating gets you a reward or some sort. At C1 South Distribution Center in Mexico, for example, you'll unlock Blood Grenade Lv1 at one star and the Blood Grenade Lv2 at three stars.

Those rewards make leveling up your connection at each facility very much worth your time — up to a point. And that point is at four stars.

Image: Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Hitting the fifth star at each location unlocks a hologram (that you can add to structures) of the NPC you deal with at that facility and a cosmetic patch for your backpack. That is infinitely less useful that the more tangible, fabricate-able rewards you get for star levels 1 through 4.

For example, stars 1, 3, and 4 at the Western Environmental Observatory in Australia unlock improved levels for the Battle Skeleton exosuit (exopants?). At the fifth star, you unlock a hologram and a patch. Nothing against Peter Gates, but that hologram isn't worth the extra trips after unlocking the Battle Skeleton Lv3.

This holds true across almost all of the facilities. Four stars gets you a kick-ass new item, and five gets you a hologram and a patch. The notable exception here is The Lone Commander in Australia. Five stars there gets you the SL-LW Tranq Sniper Rifle — a lightweight and silenced(!) version of an already useful weapon.


Stars earn you APAS Enhancements, though

Image: Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment

All of that said, a new mechanic in On the Beach is APAS Enhancements. These are chiral network boons that give you a boost to you abilities like automatically securing cargo to your backpack (making it harder to drop), improving your aim, or making vehicles self-driving on roads. Each of these take APAS memory capacity, and some star levels increase that.

So it basically boils down to: four stars is where you'll max out your gadgets, but five stars will make your APAS Enhancements more useful.

This post originally appeared on BigFriendly.Guide

Please pardon any formatting weirdness