There are some stuff that definitely need improvement

[MAKAIROSI]

I played some runs to test different stuff, and some stuff are way under-powered, making them almost useless.

One of them is the worm. And not the worm itself, but the fact it's not *automatic*. You have to pick it up and place it, which means you have to remember where the resource is and go back the next cycle with the worm. You can easily break that resource rock btw too, negating all the work you've done. So yeh, the worm should be automatic.

Then mixing drones together with lift is useless, as they don't work together. Instead, when there's a lift, the drones should instead go to the lift, then travel to an orb to give the item to that instead. If it doesn't find one, then sure, go all the way to the base.

Then there's the drill animal. You have to place it, and then make runs to that place to wake it up. The best use for this would be to place it somewhere you're not actively digging, which means that, to go to that place you will be making a detour. Let alone the fact that you have to pick it up and place it as well, already making one detour in vain.

Since you already have a lot of stuff in your mind, as time is pressing, what's most important is to get upgrades that work passively to help you, not ones that give you even more stuff to think about. Auto-repair, stun laser, drones/lift, all those are awesome upgrades because they help you by having you think of less things. But these certain upgrades just give you an extra pain

[Schobbob]

drones working better with the lift would be nice
got no issues with the other things

[Lax]

Originally posted by MAKAIROSI:

Then mixing drones together with lift is useless, as they don't work together. Instead, when there's a lift, the drones should instead go to the lift, then travel to an orb to give the item to that instead. If it doesn't find one, then sure, go all the way to the base.

This is an interesting concept.

As long as the drones don't do something wonky like traveling lower into the level to place the resources on an Orb if it happens to be beneath it at the time. Even the drones placing the resources directly onto the lift would work for me. Not necessarily onto an orb.

[René - Bippinbits]

This kind of modified dron behaviour would be cool, but it's much trickier than it looks. Simple example with the resource teleporter - they should use that too, right? And the lift, and the portal cave.
So they start bringing resources to the resource teleporter. Now you got 200 drops sitting there, waiting because the resource teleporter is not fast enough. Then suddenly the drones have to decide smartly when the teleporter is too full and to take drops away again from it. The trouble here that this is
- that all these are very "soft" criteria, where hitting the right thing is hard
- every single transportation thing needs its own logic and drones would need to understand the throughput and how it works

I don't see that happening for now, so the explanation is very simple: the drones are dumb, they don't understand that the lift could help, or how it works. They only know that they should grab resources and bring them home.

[Gauron]

Originally posted by René - Bippinbits:

This kind of modified dron behaviour would be cool, but it's much trickier than it looks. Simple example with the resource teleporter - they should use that too, right? And the lift, and the portal cave.
So they start bringing resources to the resource teleporter. Now you got 200 drops sitting there, waiting because the resource teleporter is not fast enough. Then suddenly the drones have to decide smartly when the teleporter is too full and to take drops away again from it. The trouble here that this is
- that all these are very "soft" criteria, where hitting the right thing is hard
- every single transportation thing needs its own logic and drones would need to understand the throughput and how it works

I don't see that happening for now, so the explanation is very simple: the drones are dumb, they don't understand that the lift could help, or how it works. They only know that they should grab resources and bring them home.

I tried to come up with rules to how to circumvent this and halfway throught i realized that its a lot of work to do it especially since the orbs in the lift dont move that fast nor pick up that fast.

- One drone alway has its drop off point set to the lift. The number increase with each drone number upgrade,
- The lift can catch falling resources.
- The other drones have timer on when to pick up resource from the lift bottom, if its up they go that way.
- Drones need to consider the amount of resources falling down in the lift before putting more inside.


Just a question but would it be possible to have a "combo upgrade" where if you unlocked the gravity lift you can make the drones drop materials into the lift? Literally just setting the drop off point to the straight line of any lift point?

[zimny5811]

There is also different point to consider. Drones are really strong on their onw. Them working with teleport or lift would be absolutely overpowered.

[Lax]

Originally posted by zimny5811:

There is also different point to consider. Drones are really strong on their onw. Them working with teleport or lift would be absolutely overpowered.

What if there were pricey upgrades that would improve their AI? Maybe they don't know how to use the lift or other things until they get smarter through upgrades. Like the autonomy upgrade for the defense gadgets.

Or maybe it could be a supplement improvement.

[MAKAIROSI]

Originally posted by René - Bippinbits:

This kind of modified dron behaviour would be cool, but it's much trickier than it looks. Simple example with the resource teleporter - they should use that too, right? And the lift, and the portal cave.
So they start bringing resources to the resource teleporter. Now you got 200 drops sitting there, waiting because the resource teleporter is not fast enough. Then suddenly the drones have to decide smartly when the teleporter is too full and to take drops away again from it. The trouble here that this is
- that all these are very "soft" criteria, where hitting the right thing is hard
- every single transportation thing needs its own logic and drones would need to understand the throughput and how it works

I don't see that happening for now, so the explanation is very simple: the drones are dumb, they don't understand that the lift could help, or how it works. They only know that they should grab resources and bring them home.

To be honest, all I meant was that the lift can "steal" the resources from the drones, and the drones "prefer" to use a direction that involves the lift (so instead of going up and right, they prefer to go right and up instead, to use the center)

So this way, it's *as if* they're working together with the lift, when instead the lift is picking up resources from the drones, you get me?

[René - Bippinbits]

problem is, the resource does not even exist anymore once the drone picks it up. It's only a number, and a "fake" sprite. Might sounds strange, but it's the best solution as otherwise many more things would need to be physics based.

[tye (they/them)]

For the concept of the drones being able to drop off items at other spots i propose that the concept of the drones having a battery should be introduced to balance it out. Where the drone could work at the lower levels shuttling resources, but once it runs out of battery it has to travel back to the dome to recharge before being able to continue working again.

[tye (they/them)]

Also if my understanding of the drones just being A* path finding between two locations is correct, perhaps a possible implementation would be an (in game) upgrade or gadget that allows the "assigning" of a new point or to the structures that resource can be dropped off at (i'm not sure of it's name).

[tye (they/them)]

Circling back to the original question, i find the worms & drillbert to quite balanced with the other gadgets.
With the worms i find the upgrade path where they extract extra iron to be very worth it & powerful in my opinion, as while you wait for the worms to mine you can be uncovering new areas/resources. However, with the path where they mine crazy fast i don't see much of an intensive to use that path, as it is often quicker to just mine it by hand. Although i do usually bring down the worms when i'm leaving the dome after a wave.
With drillbert i've only managed to get it once during a "real" run & it helped me uncover alot of resources & areas. I don't have enough experience to give a such a nuanced take, but i definitely don't feel like it's lacking in balance. Furthermore, as i mentioned with the worms i'd always take a treat with me after a wave, or even just throw it down the middle of the shaft. I didn't feel like much of a cost to me since i already needed to go back down.

[MAKAIROSI]

The point is to have upgrades that you feel like "hm, they all look good" and pick them depending on the strategy/synergy instead.

Having extra stuff in my mind is not good. So if you think the worm is OP, then maybe make it less powerful, but automatic instead.

My point is, when adding such stuff, it makes sense to me to make my life easier, as what I have to do is dig further in to uncover the relic (that's the whole point).

[JZAR]

They need the option for random events throughout a play through. More random stuff needs to keep me entertained while I'm rushing about. Please don't add more start menu selection things that make it take longer to jump into the game. Thank you devs!

[Niffie_G]

Never thought any of that stuff mattered. I'm just having fun with the game. Especially after the update.

[MAKAIROSI]

Just played Tesla and though it's the most interesting-looking, boy is it a great disadvantage compared to the laser. You have to point, click and hold, wait for the reticle to fill up, and release for a single burst.

I mean, I understand that these are supposed to be different game-modes kinda, but why would someone advance in the game to punish themselves? The repellent/droneyard are much better than the shield, so that works out (you progress in the game -> you get something better), but the Tesla thing just becomes more tedious.

As for the mortar, if the air upgrade was automated, then yeah, it would be better than laser. Actually I'm not sure about whether mortar is better or worse, but laser is much more straight-forward.

The Assessor (is that its name?) guy is a huge bonus compared to the other engineer, with the orbs you can clear large fields and you can simply chuck all materials closer to the dome every time. Together with a lift he becomes OP.

The point is, you progress in a game to unlock things that will make your life easier, not things that will complicate the game even more.