Into The Hive loadouts: prepare for a cave expedition

Prepare your Into The Hive loadout at base: open Equipment, compare items within the category you need, and customize your gear with Augments before the next expedition.

Use these checks to organize your preparation:

• Personal weapon: browse guns and check which entry is marked EQUIPPED. Review the available options within a weapon category before buying.
• Squad support and routes: if protecting teammates is your priority, look at sentries first; a turret can cover your squad against insect swarms. Remember that breaking a destructible wall can open a route through the cave.
• Augments: review your inventory and the installation slots on the item you want to customize.

The Blast Grenade procedure below applies when COMMON THROWABLE DAMAGE I is already in your inventory, Blast Grenade is offered as an installation target, and its SLOT 1 is empty.

Review weapons in Equipment

In the lobby, open Equipment, choose an equipment category, then compare its available items. Guns, throwables and sentries are purchase categories, so start with the kind of equipment that serves your immediate purpose: a different gun for your own shooting, or a sentry when team defense is the priority.

The Equipment interface includes GEAR, AUGMENTS and CRATES sections. Within the weapon view, the category tabs are RIFLES, SMGS, PISTOLS and MARKSMAN. These give you a way to narrow the catalog before comparing individual entries.

Pay attention to each item's status as well as its name. One displayed catalog example has AR-01 marked EQUIPPED, while AR-02 and AR-03 are marked LOCKED. Those statuses belong to that particular loadout; check the labels on your own entries when reviewing what you will bring. A weapon appearing in the catalog and a weapon being equipped are different states.

Plan support for the expedition

Into The Hive supports solo expeditions or squads of up to four players. You enter randomly generated caves, fight insect swarms, complete a mission objective and return to extraction. That gives your preparation several purposes: fighting enemies, supporting teammates and moving through the cave.

For squad defense, review sentries in Equipment. A deployed turret can provide cover for the team, making it a concrete support option to consider alongside your personal weapon. Choosing a gun answers what you want to shoot with; considering a sentry answers how you want to help defend the squad.

Terrain also matters. Breaking through a destructible wall can open a route, so keep route creation in mind when planning your tools. Turret cover and wall breaking serve different purposes: one supports the squad against enemies, while the other changes where you can travel. See the turrets guide and wall-breaking guide for those topics.

Install an Augment before leaving base

Base is where you customize equipment with Augments between expeditions. The Augment inventory has WEAPON, UTILITY and THROWABLE tabs, letting you review those groups separately.

A concrete throwable example is COMMON THROWABLE DAMAGE I, which displays a +10% modifier. If you have that Augment in inventory, Blast Grenade is offered as an installation target and its SLOT 1 is empty, use this sequence:

1. Select THROWABLE DAMAGE I in the THROWABLE inventory.
2. Choose INSTALL to open the target selection.
3. Choose Blast Grenade, then select its empty SLOT 1.
4. Check that the panel reads INSTALL INTO Blast Grenade - SLOT 1 and shows THROWABLE DAMAGE I +10%, then choose INSTALL AUGMENT.

The installation panel states that this moves the Augment from inventory into the selected slot. Selecting an Augment in your inventory is therefore the start of the process; the target item, slot and final installation button are separate choices.

The Blast Grenade panel in this example has three slots:

These thresholds apply to the displayed Blast Grenade panel. Read the slot labels on the equipment you are customizing rather than treating them as universal requirements for every item. The Augments guide covers that part of equipment preparation.

Check armor bonuses and passive ability separately

Armor is another useful part of your equipment review. Read its individual bonuses alongside its passive-ability field so you understand what that particular set displays.

For example, one retained RARE ARMOR SET 4 displays SHIELD +20%, RECHARGE +15% and IMPROVED RECHARGE DELAY +10%, together with No passive ability. The example shows why the rarity label alone is not the whole description: the set has listed stat bonuses while its passive field explicitly says none. These values describe that particular retained set, rather than every armor set with the same rarity.

For a closer look at armor, continue to the armor guide.