Atomic Heart takes place within the confines of a massive floating facility called Facility 3826. The main character of Atomic Heart, Agent P-3, is sent there to discover the cause of a malfunction that sent all the robots there into a murderous frenzy.
As it turns out, it isn’t just the robots that have gone haywire but plants too. Many places in the facility are infested with floating, man-eating begonias called Sprouts. The Sprouts are turning on their gardeners, tearing open their skulls and transforming them into garden-variety mutants. Yet, vile as they are, the Sprouts are nothing compared to what awaits Agent P-3 in “As You Sow, So Shall You Reap.”
Obtaining the Mission
Agent P-3 is thrust into this mission as part of the main storyline. While he’s trying to activate the Birch Tree Generator, he’s tasked with acquiring four canisters from the various workshops in the facility.
Upon entering the Pesticide Workshop, P-3 is jumped by a survivor with a gun in his hand. He tells P-3 about the Hemlock, a giant, mutated plant that’s being kept docile with a constant, generous spritzing of PA-400. After a tense exchange, they agree to work together, and P-3 is sent to find a “yellow cylinder” of PA-400.
Finding the Cylinder
This is the more straightforward part of the mission. As soon as the player steps through the door onto the catwalk, they’ll see a yellow control panel to their left and a break room to their right. Don’t play with the control panel just yet; the platform it controls is right where it needs to be. Instead, loot the red chest in the break room, then save and upgrade as needed.
Go around the corner of the catwalk and loot the gray chest, and chirper there. Then, head down the stairs. There's a polymerized body to speak to at the far end of the room under some overgrown bushes.
The next few rooms have Mothers and Mutants that are easily dispatched. Eventually, the player discovers that the "yellow cylinder" is all too obvious. It's actually a big yellow tank on a freight car. Head up the stairs near it and go through the doorway. Pick the snap lock at the far end of the hall, and then open the red chest in the break room.
Now that the whole area has been looted and cleared of enemies, Agent P-3 can focus on getting this pesticide where it needs to go.
How to Move the Yellow Cylinder
The easiest place to get stuck in “As You Sow, So Shall You Reap” is in moving the yellow cylinder of PA-400 polymer pesticide. The control panels that control the freight car only work when they’re given valid input. If an input would head the cylinder the wrong way, the button won’t work.
As long as none of the control panels have been interacted with yet, this step-by-step walkthrough describes exactly what needs to be done to move the pesticide cylinder across the workshop:
- Jump to Control Panel A and press the Forward button.
- Use Telekinesis to move the magnetic platform to the right. Jump onto it and then over to Control Panel B.
- Turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel B and then press the Forward button.
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Move the platform further to the right and use it to jump to Control Panel C.
- Turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel C and then press the Forward button.
- Parkour over the platforms to get to the catwalk on the left side of the room. There’s a green chest and a polymerized corpse to talk to at the end of the catwalk.
- Go through the door off the catwalk and travel down the hallway to head through another door on the right.
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Jump on the spinning freight car and then onto the platform that has Control Panel D.
- Turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel D and then press the Forward button.
- Again, turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel D and then press the Forward button.
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Hop down and head into the next room to climb up to Control Panel E.
- Turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel E and then press the Forward button.
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Move the nearby platform a little closer with Telekinesis and then use it to jump to Control Panel F.
- Turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel F and then press the Forward button.
- Press the Forward button on Control Panel F again.
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Drop down and head into the next room to scale the debris up to Control Panel G. There’s a chirper beside a corpse near it.
- Turn the Rotate dial on Control Panel G and then press the Forward button. The cylinder will slide all the way into the room the mission started in.
- Follow the cylinder into the room and then go up the stairs to the Final Control Panel.
- Turn the Rotate dial on the Final Control Panel and then smash the Forward button.
If at any point the inputs described above don’t work, fret not. Atomic Heart may have some buggy areas, but this isn’t one of them. Head to the next control panel and rotate the dial to get the platform aligned with the cylinder’s path. Then, go back and try again.
When the cylinder is finally in position, it will deploy a ram and smash through the workshop door into the next room. P-3’s new friend tosses a cigarette at the creature, and all Hell breaks loose. The Hemlock is presumably destroyed, and P-3 gets his hands on his beloved canister.
Atomic Heart is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.