Seeing a lot of people say pick hostile proximity meter first on here. No, no, no.

[Mossflower]

Actually, the proximity meter is definitely not what you want first. After a few games you can get a pretty good feel for when the enemies come on the first wave, and even if they do show up, you're right next to your dome in the early game! You can get up there no problem if you stay nearby. The first thing you want to pick is *the drill*. Skipping radar early on is a decent speed up your early game. The first few minerals are basically given to you when you drill down a few tiles. The rest you need to hunt for and drill is the upgrade that will speed that up.

[Wese]

Same, especially the first wave you can easily beat even if you are late and you get a pretty good feeling when the next wave will come after a while of playing. I went for the same strategy, I'm picking up Timer normally after Wave 3.

[Jeff]

yeah before wave 1 should be drill -> carry speed -> movement speed

After that it can be a toss-up between drill 2, carry speed 2, or sometime even weapon damage depending on situation. Possibly meter as well if you hit the right ore break point in time.

[null]

I think proximity meter and resource count should be base features.

I personally found Drill+Bags(about triple speed together)->Proximity Meter to be the best starters for me. I found that I was only able to get back 10/11 ores up on first wave and the number was consistent throughout my runs.

It's a personal preference, because I tend to get carried away with digging even with the sensor. Also, I found that the sensor is not really optional for me on 3rd wave, because that's when I'm deep enough for way back to be long enough to cost some HP.

[Forblaze]

My opening for YAFI is drill > carry > speed > weapon damage > proximity > reflect/laser speed > drill 2 > carry 2 > speed 2 >weapon damage

When you're so close to the dome it's not too big of a deal if you're slightly late arriving.

[David]

Yeah I also think the proximity meter is pointless until you have at least a couple of upgrades like drill and carry capacity.

When the enemies come, not only are you already nearby, the enemy wave is also extremely weak in the beginning.

I don't even get the health meter until I have a couple of Cobalts to spend on either repair or passive buffs, and I usually don't repair until I've upgraded maxhp - although staving off the maxhp upgrade to spend elsewhere e.g. on weapon upgrades isn't a bad idea at all.

[=F.F.M=Witchcraft]

Depending of blocks hardness, I tend to buy speed first to get drill / bag on next base return , if hard block directly drill

[neuran1337]

Thanks for the discussion guys! I finally managed to finish the first level and made it through the next one afterwards first try :)

[bloodgem64]

I knew at some point I should stop taking it first, just haven't yet.