12 pieces of Destiny 2 advice for you, the elite Guardian, and also you, the rando blueberry

Destiny 2 is full of mysteries. Here are some things you might not already know about Bungie's latest, even if you're a returning player.

You can't know everything about Destiny 2, and if you could, you'd be bored of it already. You can know these few tips we've collected, though, and we invite you to peruse them at your leisure.

Some of this advice is aimed at beginners, who turn up in matchmaking queues and need a little guidance, and some of it is just easy to miss stuff even veterans may not have grokked in their Destiny 2 play time so far.

Regardless of your experience and play style, we hope you find something here to improve your Destiny 2 experience. If not, why not consult our Destiny 2 guide?

1. Take off that dirty shader

Many early loot drops come pre-equipped with a shader, and because these shaders are low-level, common fare, they're often very ugly. Many of them are called "Worn" this-or-that, and they're supposed to make you look battered and grubby, as a Guardian on the run should.

Well, unless you're a Titan, you'll want to sack that right off. Just inspect each of your armour pieces and remove the ugly shader, resetting the equipment to its default look, and you'll get an instant brush up. Now there's a dashing Hunter/pristine Warlock!

2. Empty chests? You've triggered an anti-farming lockout

Farming region reputation to earn Legendary engrams is one way players choose to level up their Destiny 2 characters, although it seems just as efficient to just get out there and do stuff until you hit the first soft cap. But Bungie doesn't want you to run around in circles opening region or random chests or gathering materials from resources nodes, any more than it wanted you to shoot into a cave for hours on end, and so it has capped the number of materials and region tokens you can earn doing just that.

You can loot four random chests and gather four materials from nodes every five minutes without triggering the lock out, but if you go for a fifth within this window, you'll find that the next chest or node you tap will be empty of anything but Glimmer.

This does not apply to the chests you receive as rewards for completing Public Events in Destiny 2, or to things like High Value target loot drops - it's only region and random chests. However, it looks like the chests you find on Cayde-6's treasure hunts may be affected, so make sure you give yourself a bit of a break before going for one.

3. Your first Lost Sector each week grants bonus rewards

Lost Sector chests loose a bit of oomph once you approach 270 Power, but the good news is that after weekly reset you'll find the goodies inside are a bit better than usual, with a chance of earning an Exotic engram for your pains.

Speaking of Lost Sector chests, you can refill them with (standard) goodies by fast travelling away and back again - but similar to the anti-farming lockout above, Lost Sector chests will stop refilling if you do this more than about three times in a few minutes. Go open a different one or do something else instead.

4. Hold onto those Ghost shells with extra reputation token perks

Since we can't farm chests, materials or Lost sectors without triggering a lockout, how can we maximise our reputation token earnings? The answer is Ghost shells.

The difference Ghost Shells with a "chance to earn extra tokens" perk makes is much more significant than you'd think. It will easily more than double the stingy rewards of the Crucible, especially if you complete Challenges, and make a big difference when farming Public Events or other Destiny 2 Activities, too. Makes sure you have an appropriate Ghost perk at all times, and you'll be swimming in Legendary engrams in no time.

Ghost Shells are mostly commonly found in Bright Engrams, but if you received the Kill-Tracker Ghost as part of your Destiny 2 pre-order and purchase bonuses, you can keep buying copies of it from Shaxx for a handful of Legendary Shards. Hopefully you get one with the right perk right away, but make sure you hold onto any with an XP bonus, too...

5. The Bright Engram XP farming loop

This one will rapidly fill your boots with cosmetic items. You know how you get a Bright Engram every time you "level up" after 20? What you want to do is take something you got from a Bright Engram and dismantle it so you have enough Bright Dust to purchase a Fireteam Medallion. (You may be lucky enough to just score some Bright Dust in a Bright Engram too.)

Head off to your favourite region, apply the Fireteam Medallion for the XP boost, and farm Public Events. Not only do Public Events award a nice stack of XP, they have a chance to drop good Legendaries and Exotics - especially if you trigger Heroic Public Events, one of Destiny 2's best sources of loot.

By the time your Fireteam Medallion wears off, you should hopefully have earned enough XP to open another Bright Engram - and eventually you'll receive a Ghost Shell with an XP boost perk. Combine this perk with a Fireteam Medallion and you'll be swimming in Bright Engrams.

Remember, you can use Bright Dust to purchase individual cosmetic items in Destiny 2 as well as relying on RNGesus to deliver you the cosmetics you want. You ought to have so many goodies after a few cycles of farming that you can break down some of them and but that Shuffle Dance or whatever you're chasing.

6. Learn how to use the Scorch Cannons

Sometimes Fallen enemies will drop Scorch Cannons, which also come in Arc and Void varieties. You'll notice them in the weapons arsenal Public Event, for example.

Now, these are great fun - but you can do a lot more damage with them if you understand how they work. Like some grenade launchers, the Scorch Cannon projectiles won't detonate until you lift your finger off the trigger. If you hold down the trigger after firing, they'll lodge in their target and begin charging up.

If you wait for the sound of the cannon to go into its fourth and final stage ("ding ding ding ding ding!") and only then let go, it will do significantly more damage across a wider area. Please do this rather than waste all your ammo on piddly little booms.

7. Don't dismantle Rare or better scout rifles

Keep hold of five Rare (blue) or better scout rifles; lock them with the right thumbstick so you don't forget, or just drop them in your vault as soon as possible. Just trust us on this one.

8. Have you found the Lore tab yet?

All Exotic equipment and a good number of Legendary weapons and armour pieces have lore attached to them. These little stories and background details used to be locked away in the Grimoire, but nowadays you can read them by inspecting the item and then pressing the left trigger.

9. Check out a vendor's full engram range

Wondering whether it's worth farming a particular vendor's engrams? You can see what they have on offer next time you earn one. Simply hover the cursor over the engram and press triangle to see what the possibilities are.

You can even inspect all the individual bits and bobs, and read their Lore and other details, if you like.

10. Check your objectives

We've been really surprised by how many players don't seem to realise this: whenever you're on a mission of any kind, the white arrow on the radar shows the direction you need to go. Just follow it.

If the arrow isn't enough, bring up your Ghost and look around - a white objective marker will show the route you need to take to get where you're going. Remember it may be above or below you!

Finally, the mission objective shown on the HUD or relayed by characters can be really vague. Bring up your Ghost and you'll get a more complete description. This can mean the difference between punching 200 Legionaries and Phalanxes wondering why they won't drop the items you need and realising it's actually Psions you need to take down in order to proceed. Hooray!

11. Weapon mods make a huge difference

Weapon mods are there to be used. By endgame you'll have dozens of them at least, so use them freely - you can always buy more. Although everybody's chasing those +5 Power mods for Infusion right now, more common mods can make a huge difference to your current loadout, and turn a useless boomstick into a deadly one.

If there's a class of weapons you really don't like, have a think about why and see if you can address it. For example, if you prefer to play at medium or long range, a recoil reduction mod turns an SMG from a waste of space into a useful tool.

12. Rally the flag

If you arrive before a Public event starts, interact with the flag to refill your Super, abilities and all ammo stocks. Nice. You can do this on your way to somewhere else if you just need a quick Power ammo top up, too.