Taking some Sable tips on board can help you on the way with your journey, as you traverse the open world and work through your rite of passage known as the Gliding. During this you'll need to solve puzzles, meet with various people, and generally explore while collecting badges and masks, with the help of your trusty hoverbike to travel around on and a honed climbing ability to ascend to new heights. While the world of Midden is relatively safe from threats, there's still plenty to learn about it that will assist your journey, so follow these seven tips for Sable to get your Gliding off to a solid start.
1. Sable can climb higher than you think
Aside from her hoverbike that lets her get across the world quickly, Sable is also able to climb almost any vertical surface. This ability works very similarly to Link’s climbing in Breath of the Wild, and Sable even has her own stamina meter. Sable’s ability is much more forgiving, however, as you can climb very far with a full use of your stamina bar, and it regenerates very quickly when you’re not climbing. Sable also does one last reach as her stamina is about to run out, allowing you to just barely get to the top of some places.
Jumping at walls before climbing will help you get even more distance as Sable can get an extra meter or two for her climb without consuming any stamin. Although, attaching to a wall too late after jumping will cause Sable to slip slightly and will mostly negate any benefits from jumping at the wall, so make sure you time it just right. You can also stop mid-climb without consuming more stamina, so if you need to stop to reassess your climbing route, don’t be afraid to do so. You can also increase Sable’s maximum stamina by handing in Chum Eggs to a Chum Queen and getting a tear from it.
2. Green vines and leaves lead the way in Sable
As you climb up rock formations and buildings, look out for green vines that hang off ledges and cliffs. These generally provide some sort of guidance for where you need to go, and perhaps show an ideal climbing route for you to take. Walls that need scaling might have a small green shrub nearby and some vines handing from the top, while certain windows might have vines hanging outside too.
3. Sable has no combat
You might be pleased to hear that Sable has no combat at all. Despite living in a desolate desert world, for once, nothing is trying to actively end Sable’s Gliding journey. The game doesn’t even have health or damage systems, so there’s no way for Sable to come to any harm while playing. Even with her ability to climb almost anything, Sable won’t take any fall damage if you fall from a high place as she will automatically summon her hover orb to break the fall.
Use this knowledge to throw yourself at every situation knowing that there are virtually no consequences. You can’t die from failing to solve a puzzle or from falling off a giant rock, so experiment with your approaches to different situations and see what works.
4. Use Sable’s compass and navigator to find points of interest
To help you navigate the world in Sable, you can use the compass to display key bits of information and quest waypoints, and the navigator to mark points of interest that you can see. By holding the compass button, a white compass ring will appear around Sable. This compass will usually have a marker for your hoverbike and a waypoint for your currently tracked quest to show you the direction you need to go to find them. Opening the compass will also show the current time of day, how many Cuts (money) you have, and what your currently tracked quest objective is.
As for the navigator, this tool allows Sable to place a marker on any location that she can see. These markers will also appear on your map so you can better see how far away they are. The navigator is really useful to use early on in new areas. If you can get somewhere high up, you can generally see a couple of interesting places that might be worth exploring. Leaving a marker on them will mean that you won’t lose track of them, and you will be easily able to find them later on without having to return to the same spot.
5. Sable can fast travel using the map
Any location you come across in the world that has a name that appears on-screen when you get nearby will likely get marked on your map with a black icon. By opening the map and clicking on one of these black icons, you can fast travel to it, saving you lots of time by skipping on potentially long hoverbike journeys.
This is especially useful for quickly travelling to a station to buy or sell some items after a quest or even mid-quest. However, while it is incredibly convenient, you shouldn’t use it all the time as you might miss out on some interesting people and places on your travels.
6. Cuts can be used to buy maps in Sable
Speaking of maps, you can use the currency in Sable – Cuts – to buy maps from Cartographers and hoverbike parts from different vendors. The world map in Sable is split into several different regions, but they are all blank when you start the game. Buying maps for 100 Cuts will properly uncover each region. Cartographers are generally found high up in balloons so look out for those as you travel through the world. You can get the first map in the game by speaking to the Cartographer in the Ibexii Camp and then speaking to Jadi who will give you some Cuts to buy it.
Some merchant vendors will also sell bike parts, although these are generally much more expensive than maps. Bike parts all look very different and generally represent a particular lifestyle or society in the same way that masks do, but they do affect your bike. Some parts will improve or reduce your bike’s top speed, acceleration, and handling, so you might want to save up your Cuts for better parts. You can apply any parts to your bike by visiting a Machinist. If you find yourself looking for specific Sable hoverbike parts for the Ships of Old quest, then we have a separate guide covering that.
7. Sell items and explore to get more Cuts for Sable
Finally, there are lots of ways to get Cuts in Sable, and it’s always a good idea to have as many as you as you may need to buy certain quest items, or even bribe your way through a quest. The number one way to get Cuts is to sell items to merchants. As you explore the world, you might also find bugs and other random items to scavenge. You can trade these for good amounts of Cuts with merchants in stations and towns.
Specifically, Atlyn in Burnt Oak Station will exchange your scrap metal for Cuts. While you’re exploring shipwrecks in the desert, look out for metal sprockets and large chests of metal that you can loot to get plenty of scrap metal. You can easily return to Atlyn at any time using fast travel to quickly sell your scrap for 15 Cuts a piece. There’s also a quest from a person in Eccria to gather five glowworms in a cave. It turns out each glowworm sells for 30 Cuts so it’s well worth spending some time collecting a huge surplus of glowworms to sell all at once.
The other main way to get Cuts is to simply explore every nook around the world. Urban areas will have small pots that you can interact with to loot a small amount of Cuts from. Some people may also reward you with a few Cuts if you complete a quest for them, so make sure you talk to everybody to see what errands you can run for them.
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