Early Progression help

[Winterherz]

Hiya,

I started the game a few days ago and read through discussion and understand the generall gameplay.

Rignt now i have beaten a few slime challenges and the forst bat one but i am stuck now.

How should i progress?

Lots of ascentions for the bonus and the ponts?

How to allocate them best?

Any tips would be appreciated :)

[ShadowOfTheTree]

For challenges, you need to capture mobs to boost your base (in "Challenge" > "Improvement"). Add a couple of slimes on "training", then on "base improvement". How much is what you have to determinate. I have 50 000 on each... probably because I am quite far in the game ;) (and that's the reason why I cannot help you out on the amount required... 10 maybe?).

For the challenge, you need 2 layouts :
- One for normal mobs
- One for "Lunatic" challenge.

For normal mobs, you need to understand how works the layout. In the statistics menu, you have a "craft" and "challenge" section, where it displays lot of useful things.
Note that :
- If you add a cannon on layer 0 and 1 (and others), you will have a "cannon bonus"
- If you add a blue craft, you will have a "blue bonus"
- same goes for quality.

So what you need to do is to set a blue layout on both layer 0 and 1 (every available layer) with one booster (blue), 2 cannons, and fill the rest with power. All in blue.
This is what you need for challenges (except lunatic).
For the ascension, you need "Challenge base HP" and "Challenge base ATK" (1 point at least), and select only those two. It will boost your base HP and ATK.

For lunatics, you need HP instead of DPS. So your layout will be filled with "Exp" crafts, and your ascension will be only with "challenge base HP".

One last thing (there are too many things to say...), you MUST buy all QoL1 things in the Epic Store. It is possible to buy everything without spending any money, by doing daily quests. Do all quests, buy everything in QoL1 FIRST!

[ShadowOfTheTree]

And once you reach the last challenge, you can read this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1535060/discussions/0/3051733836213392546/

[Winterherz]

Wow thanks a lot for your detailed awnser.

As you said there are so many mechanics and my biggest problem (same on IEH) is what should i prioritize.

I bought all QoL1 stuff - what to get next?

And what to prioritize to spend points after ascenion?

All money cap?

BTW I finished early bat missions with all blue crafts but i had to use the pattern with outer ring cannons fpr shooting speed, 4 booster and 8 power crafts.

I used the same fpr bats because the shooting range was kinda low.
I guess it gets better with more layers and better craft %.

Today i got to the bat boss but could only damage him a little.

i caught some bats and spider and did the first infinite battles to raise my atk.

I just noticed that ascention gives 100& bonus. so wouldnt it be better to do lots of fast ascentions early on?

[ShadowOfTheTree]

Originally posted by Winterherz:

I bought all QoL1 stuff - what to get next?

It depends on your gameplay style.
QoL 3:
Automation challenge tour is quite useful on its own
Automation mission tour is useful too. But probably for a bit later (it is really useful when you have many layers, and you are not stuck in one mission)
Automation retry mission is really useful to farm during a long period (night for instance), and you know the mission will not last the whole night.
Automation active skill is useful (for dailies missions too)
Automatic map expansion is nice to have
QoL 4:
Nitro for active skill will be useful later (after another mechanism will be available)
Fast Attendance is useful, but later
Open all chests is useful
QoL 5:
Formation save is nice to have, but not in the top priority.
Ambition:
Superior nitro for challenge: will be useful later on (after the last mechanism is available)
Poarcher is really useful
Automation treasure chest is useful
Automation craft upgrade is useful
Automation ascension is useful only if you can let your game alone AND you have QoL4 Spirit preset AND QoL3 automation challenge tour (I think it's enough...?)

I tried to add "really useful" when it is - IMHO - more useful than the rest. But pay attention to "later on", which means not to waste your money on it yet.

Originally posted by Winterherz:

And what to prioritize to spend points after ascenion?

All money cap?

For Ascension formation, 1 point in all skills from [gold cap] to the end (if a mission gives you difficulties, you can uncheck "exp gain" and check "blue damage bonus" if blue bricks are too hard. Then uncheck blue bonus and check "red" when no blue brick blocks you and red ones are present)

Then check in "ascension store" what is available.
In the "routine unleash", buy them all.
In the "craft unleash", buy the one you need. I personally buy them all. Probably because I can (note to the dev: a button "buy all available upgrades would be great).
In the "active skill", buy them all (don't forget about the passive upgrade)
There is a section "stat multiplier" which is quite useful. At my level, cap is to be maxed first, because I can have a pretty decent gold gain (you can see that during a mission: if you can buy one brick then you have to wait for 10 seconds for the next brick to be bought... you lack of gold gain).
Exp gain is also useful to increase your level and have more improvements available (in the improvement tab).
In the "Others", Doppleganger is useful if your ball is killing not your cannons (at higher level, you don't need cannon on your layouts, dopple ftw)
Spirit multiplier is really useful, but pay really attention to have a really decent amount of ascension spirit, since it is a must have in the ascension formation.
Equipment slot is nice if you have all your slots already used. => later.
Inventory slot is not useful yet. Once again, I buy them all because I can afford, and it is a bit useful when all slots are taken by expeditions.
(note that you can't probably see all of those, because some are only available in further layers. Note that I can't tell all of them because i'm in the middle of an ascension and the others upgrades are not available yet ;)

Originally posted by Winterherz:

BTW I finished early bat missions with all blue crafts but i had to use the pattern with outer ring cannons fpr shooting speed, 4 booster and 8 power crafts.

I used the same fpr bats because the shooting range was kinda low.
I guess it gets better with more layers and better craft %.

Today i got to the bat boss but could only damage him a little.

i caught some bats and spider and did the first infinite battles to raise my atk.

Yes, unfortunately I cannot help you much on that, because the game changes a lot after the last mechanism is available and a lot of further upgrades are bought. But if you were able to move forward, that's great.

Originally posted by Winterherz:

I just noticed that ascention gives 100& bonus. so wouldnt it be better to do lots of fast ascentions early on?

Try to pay attention to what is improved with this bonus. Look at the statistics, and see what is the difference.
Gold cap is the priority.
Keep in mind that, as in all incremental game, if you have a multiplier of 3 right now, then you need to have 6 later to multiply your bonus by 2. So if a lot of ascension makes your bonus goes from 3 to 3.1, then it might not be that great.
I let you check that :)