The Ink-Conservation Project

"This mission will test your resourcefulness. You must use a limited amount of ink to reach the goal. Use your ink wisely. No refills."

- O.R.C.A. describing the stage

The Ink-Conservation Project is the 22nd mission in Splatoon 3 story mode Return of the Mammalians.

Access
The kettle of this mission can be found near the pipe leading to Site 3.

Walkthrough
There are no checkpoints in this mission. If the player runs out of ink, they will restart from the beginning with the mission restored to its state at the beginning.

Right after entering the stage and see the two trees, simply walk to the side of the wall to reveal the path. After this, shoot the ink wheel with a Power Egg in front of it and quickly reach the Gusher and go up with it. Doing this too slowly will cause the Gusher to be closed, requiring another blast of ink.

After this, the player will reach a section with many splat switches and ink wheels. Inking the one in the upper-right corner (from the view of the entrance of this section) from its right is the most effective option.

In the next section with a lot of Octotroopers, simply aim at the balloon fish. Finally, aim at the ink wheel in front of the moving platforms carefully and follow it to the end of the mission.

There is enough ink to make 7 shots, more than the mininum number of required shots being 3, so even if the player finds themselves to have wasted some shots (for example finding them using more than one shot in the switch puzzle section), they are still able to finish the stage.

Quotes
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S3 Icon Callie.png Agent 1green
"Huh! Guess you can't refill your ink here..."

"orange ahoy! Sighted just ahead!"

"Now, THAT'S a lot of orange!"

"After that orange!"

"Careful! You're almost dry!"

"Aaand there goes your ink."

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S3 Icon Marie.png Agent 2green
"Hear that? Don't waste ANY ink."

"So...whaddya think'll happen if you shoot the middle orange?"

"Gonna be tough to ink 'em all."

"Hey, watch those ink levels!"

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S3 Icon O.R.C.A..png O.R.C.A.green
"Mission...failed. You ran out of ink." }}