Tethers

Description
The is one of the items in Astroneer that you can craft right in your backpack. It is an essential item to have in early exploration, and throughout your play-through.

Crafting
Tethers can be crafted in the small printer of the backpack, using one compound. Each tether stack holds up to 11 tethers.

Usage
To place a tether (post), press the T key (by default) so that your player holds a tether in hand, then left click to place the tether on the ground (or wall, or even ceiling).

A tether line will be created between two tethers (posts) that are close enough. When holding a tether in hand, a transparent line will show to which tether the new one will be connected to when released.

When the tethers are not connected to any base or vehicle, the tether lines will be black. In that case, the player doesn't get oxygen or power from them. Tether lines can also be blue when connected to a an oxygen source or dashed blue/yellow when power is also flowing toward a player.

Vehicles can link to tethers, but they will only act as a source of oxygen, unless the vehicle has a power source. If the player runs out of power while tethered to a Vehicle, the Vehicles internal power will begin to feed to the player, but will not recharge the player, only provide power on demand.

Only the player can get power through a tether, Vehicles and bases will not receive power.

Once placed, tethers can be picked-up again and put back in a tether stack by clicking on the stack in the backpack. Shift-left clicking (See Note) on a tether will automatically put it back in the backpack wherever there is room.

Note
(As of v.0.29.80 [EA Launch], make sure you leave a space in the top left of your bag if you don't already have tethers. If you have something there and you don't already have tethers, they will disappear.)