Approximately Up Steam Achievements Guide

Approximately Up ships with 22 Steam achievements on the full retail app. They span the first tutorial click through rare deep-space challenges: no-rewind runs, live animal transfers, trench dives, black-hole tunnels, and “survive the star” close approaches. This guide lists every achievement name and description from Steam’s public stats page, then groups them into practical hunting routes so you do not grind blind.

Achievements sit on the paid Steam app, not the retired demo. Confirm unlocks on your Steam profile after purchase. Pair this page with Time Rewind, Missions Walkthrough, Planets map, and the Objectives Log completion % added in patch 1.0.006.

Complete achievement list

Achievement	Steam description
Tutorial Completed	Successfully complete the tutorial.
First Milestone	Complete your first objective.
No Rewinds!	Complete the objective without using Time Rewind.
One Step Further	Discover a new planet.
Houston, We Have A Submarine	Reach a depth of 1000m below sea level.
Solar Storm	Encounter a solar storm.
Baaa-ck To Headquarters	Bring tutorial sheep to Headquarters.
Wool Age	Transport a sheep from Earth to the Moon alive, then release her into the wild.
Ice Age	Transport a mastodon from the Moon to Earth alive, then release him into the wild.
The Long Way Home	Complete the journey.
When The Thrusters Go Quiet	Complete every available objective.
Event Horizon	Travel through a Black Hole Tunnel to a new universe.
Jurassic Surprise	Encounter a dinosaur.
Edge Of The Known	Find Tenebra, the farthest known planet.
Way Forward	Activate a Black Hole Tunnel.
Saving The Twins	Prevent a planetary catastrophe.
Need For Thrust	Reach a speed of 1 000 000 m/s.
Green Trench	Reach bottom of Green Trench.
Golden Thruster	Complete every objective without using Time Rewind.
See You Next Week	Travel safely from Aundara to Outcast, or from Outcast to Aundara.
Almost Crispy	Get within 1 000 000 meters of the Sun and survive.
Small But Spicy	Get within 100 000 meters of the Red Dwarf and survive.

Percentiles on Steam shift quickly after launch — early unlock rates for tutorial and first milestone sit high, while Golden Thruster and star-skimming challenges sit near zero. Treat rare % as a difficulty signal, not a spoiler blacklist.

Fred's Quest event trailer — submarine and ocean-planet prep

Early unlocks (first hours)

1. Tutorial Completed — finish the Earth tutorial loop described in Getting Started. Hold R when prompted, recycle the unsafe starter hull, then open the manual with M.
2. First Milestone — complete any first objective from the Objectives Log (O). Package retrieval and early delivery jobs count.
3. One Step Further — leave Earth’s immediate neighborhood and discover another planet. Moonstep unlocks are the usual path; see Moon Landing.
4. No Rewinds! — finish a single objective with Time Rewind (P) unused. Practice on green-tier jobs before orange cargo runs. Read Time Rewind so you know what you are refusing to press.

Mid-game flavor and comedy runs

Baaa-ck To Headquarters asks you to escort the tutorial sheep to HQ — plan cargo space and gentle landings so the animal stays alive.

Wool Age and Ice Age are live-transfer challenges: Earth sheep → Moon release, and Moon mastodon → Earth release. Build a pressurized/safe cargo bay, keep power on life-support-adjacent systems if your build needs them, and avoid violent RCS pulses. Co-op helps: one pilot, one wrangler (Co-op guide).

Houston, We Have A Submarine and Green Trench reward true underwater engineering. Hybrid space–submarine hulls, floodlights, and depth discipline matter — community event history around Fred’s ocean planet is useful practice even after the demo events ended. Watch the embedded Fred’s Quest trailer for tone, then design for ballast and crush-depth confidence rather than vacuum-only thrusters.

Solar Storm, Jurassic Surprise, and animal/dino encounters are exploration flags — keep sensors and cameras powered so you notice the moment instead of flying past it. Patch 1.0.008 made the Moon → Basalt hop about 99% safe from deadly storms, so hunting this achievement may need intentional route work rather than a guaranteed fry on that transfer.

Endgame and mastery

• When The Thrusters Go Quiet — clear every available objective. Use the Objectives Completion % from patch 1.0.006 to see remaining gaps.
• Golden Thruster — complete every objective without Time Rewind. This is the long campaign discipline run; blueprint stable hulls and refuse panic rewinds.
• Way Forward / Event Horizon — activate and travel a Black Hole Tunnel into a new universe.
• Saving The Twins — prevent a planetary catastrophe (story beat tied to late progression).
• The Long Way Home — complete the journey end state.
• Edge Of The Known — reach Tenebra, called out as the farthest known planet.
• See You Next Week — survive the Aundara ↔ Outcast transfer either direction. Patch 1.0.005 moved Aundara closer to the Moon (95M); still pack fuel, RCS, and radar for the Outcast leg.
• Need For Thrust — hit 1,000,000 m/s. Stack high-thrust vacuum engines, drop mass, and pick a long burn corridor — then plan how to slow down.
• Almost Crispy / Small But Spicy — survive extreme proximity to the Sun (1,000,000 m) or Red Dwarf (100,000 m). Heat-resistant frames, redundant cooling/power, and abort burns matter more than raw speed.

Recommended hunting order

1. Tutorial → First Milestone → One Step Further
2. One clean No Rewinds! objective
3. Sheep / mastodon comedy transfers when cargo skills feel solid
4. Submarine depth and Green Trench once hybrid hulls work
5. Planet discovery + story beats (twins, journey, tunnels)
6. Mastery: full objective clear, Golden Thruster, star proximity, Need For Thrust

Co-op achievement tips

Steam unlocks are per player, but ship design is shared. Agree whether rewind is allowed before a Golden Thruster attempt — one panicked P ruins the run for anyone chasing the no-rewind meta. Keep clients on the same patch (Patch Notes) so version mismatch toasts do not interrupt a depth dive.

Related guides

• Time Rewind — what Golden Thruster forbids
• Missions Walkthrough — objective chains
• Blueprints — save achievement hulls with B
• Patch Notes — post-launch QoL that affects hunting
• Launch Guide — languages and purchase context

Achievements in Approximately Up reward the same loop as the rest of the game: build, crash, rebuild — just with a Steam badge when the rebuild finally sticks.