Iron challenges

[Skydorm]

It's always so close, have about 150~ when it ends bc i can't send the rest of the iron to the top fast enough.

Could someone explain of the 3 main options which i should focus on? Always went drill till third upgrade, speed about 2 and package just 1 because of the gadget that repack them.

Is that fine or should i take something else?

Also going with the drones and the repack gadget. And when looking back at the map i cleared so far, it's always pretty decent, like almost went for the iron everytime, missed empty big spaces thankfully but still weren't able to accomplish it so far.

Is there maybe a better way to figure out how to find iron fast?

[Mutant Overlord]

No. It took me 3 attemps to beat it on "Challange" after getting lucky with portal. You can do the same.

[Elegant Caveman]

Finally managed the regular 30 minute version with seconds to spare after trying many times, using Iron Worms to start with, and I just got really lucky with map generation/the gadgets I found. Unfortunately, I don't recall what they were... just that I felt really lucky and know I wouldn't have succeeded without that luck.

I've played a fair bit more since, but I'm still a noob. I'm trying the 25 minute one now, but I'm still not sure on what gadgets to use.

One thing I know is I definitely need to become more efficient with my mining. I was mining in layers of 2 before, so I could see everything and make sure not to miss any, but I've since changed to layers of 3, and now I'm even considering layers of 4. If you get lucky and find the X-ray Cave, layers of 4 will show you everything.

Some thoughts:

Iron Worms: are useful for a) giving you more iron and b) maybe mining it faster? Depends what upgrade tree you use. With the quick version, you only get a little bit more iron, but the veins get mined super quick. If you go the slow route, though, you can get a lot more iron... then the issue is getting it up.

Resource Converter: super useful if you can get the special upgrade for it (turn 1 iron into 8), especially if you get it early enough. Without the special upgrade, it's useless for this challenge.

Blast Mining/Suit Blaster: both can help mine out deposits quickly. The suit blaster's probably easier to use. Some people seem to really like the bombs you carry, but I'm not a fan, personally.

Lift: useful to bring stuff up automatically, especially if you get the special anti-gravity upgrade that makes everything shoot up quickly by itself. Even without it, though, the orbs can help.

Drilling Rig: doesn't bring stuff up automatically, but you get a nice 3-wide shaft and things will stay where they are. I've considered this as an alternative to the lift in combination of drones to bring stuff up... my concern is the upgrade costs for the drones.

Underground Station: the minimap special upgrade is really useful for finding stuff, but I think I'd still rather have the lift or the drill.

Probe: can be useful for finding stuff.

Prospecting Meter: might be useful? I haven't really figured out how to use it correctly, but maybe that's just a me thing.

Resource Packer: this can help bring stuff up. Perhaps good in combination with the drill and using drones, as you won't need to upgrade them as much?

Teleporter: this can be useful to save on travel time, though its special upgrade that lets it suck up resources is a bit slow. Might be good with the drill instead of relying entirely on the drones?

Engineer vs. Assessor: I mostly suck at using the assessor, and thus generally stick to the engineer, but the assessor's probably better if you can play it right. Especially with the explosive ball upgrade, I'd imagine, though that works less well with the iron worms approach.

[Osprey]

What worked for me was upgrading the drill and the drones a lot. By upgrading the drill a lot and choosing the power drill upgrade, you can chew through rock like it's butter, allowing you to find more iron and find it faster.

I, personally, didn't bother with the resource packer, since packing iron takes time away from finding more of it. Instead, I chose to go with a large number of drones flying around at blistering speeds. They carried only one at a time, but they compensated for that with volume and speed.

I also took the resource converter as my starting gadget because getting 8 iron from it every cycle really helps. Also, the automated conversion upgrade is essential, since you'll otherwise lose a lot of production capacity by forgetting to return to the dome to collect the iron (since there are no enemies).

With this combination of gadgets and strategies, I was able to send about 250 iron in challenge mode just before time ran out (I could've ended it early, but I wanted to see how much I could get).

Edit: Elegant Caveman mentioning the lift reminds me that I might've also taken that as a gadget later in the run. I think that that and the inverted gravity upgrade helped when I had hundreds of iron lying around and even my drones couldn't retrieve it all in the time remaining. I just started helping them out by dragging the iron to the lift.

[Elegant Caveman]

Just tried a run, starting with Iron Worms, went with the slow upgrade that gives more iron.

Got the lift, upgraded anti-gravity so everything goes up by itself.

Resource converter, special upgrade to make iron, got this about halfway through my run.

I thought I was doing well overall, but I finished with about only 130 iron.

I was mining out blocks of 4x4, and I managed to find the X-ray Cave near the end, which was nice, but a bit too late.

Based on that, a couple of thoughts:

- One of my biggest issues was getting through rock, and spending too much time in the higher layers. I should have used my first upgrade to get Power Drill instead of Gravitational Lift.

- The Lift was useful, but not that much, since I still lost a fair bit of time ferrying resources from where they were mined to the central shaft.

- As such, I'm thinking the Drilling Rig might be more useful, with a heavier focus on drones. I'm still concerned with the costs to upgrade them, but they seemed to work out for Osprey above.

- Resource Converter is nice to have, but came too late. It might be worth it if you start with it and upgrade it ASAP, but if you only get it later, it feels too slow to matter much. Cycle length varies[domekeeper.wiki.gg], but it seems to be somewhere between a minute or two.

Tried another one right after (in the middle of writing this post, actually), starting with Iron Worms again (but going for the fast mining instead of slow & extra resources), Drilling Rig, and Teleporter. Upgrade to Power Drill first, and then the Teleporter later.

I got up to about 11 drones with a speed of 70, and though things felt like they were picking up later, once again, the start was too slow.

Still an issue with mining, despite getting Power Drill pretty early, and I only had a decent amount of drones relatively late.

Now I'm considering assessor with exploding balls and/or suit blaster. Having second thoughts about the mining worms.

[Osprey]

Try it again, but start with resource converter this time. That's my go-to starting gadget and it's especially useful on this challenge. Upgrade the water/middle path as quickly as possible so that you're able to convert 1 water to 8 iron as soon as possible. That'll help you get a much better start. With all of the iron that you'll be producing, you'll be able to upgrade your drill faster, which will allow you to uncover iron faster, which will also help your start. If you ever find that you're running out of water, you might consider spending a gadget on the condenser or iron refinement (1 iron to 8 iron) upgrade.

[Elegant Caveman]

Thanks, I'll try that.

I honestly hadn't even considered converting water, since I tend to want to use that for other things.

But starting with iron production straight from the beginning (or ASAP, at least) might be good.

EDIT: Tried a couple of times with resource converter, and that's not something that worked for me.

I'm really starved for water early on, and I'm loathe to upgrade the converter.

Maybe if I get super lucky and get the upgrade for it really early, but that didn't happen the 2-3 times I tested.

[Skydorm]

Originally posted by Osprey:

Try it again, but start with resource converter this time.

Are you talking about getting it when collecting those objects that gives you a selection of base gadgets or can you actually equip those like the abilities from start and i'm missing that option the whole time?

[Osprey]

Hmm. I always convert water and it works well for me. Maybe it's because I always go with the laser dome, which has no water requirement to upgrade, meaning that I can spend all of my water on the converter and drones. I can see why converting water wouldn't work if you prefer other domes.

Anyways, I try not to convert water until I've upgraded it once. Converting 1 water to only 3 iron is pretty wasteful and if you keep doing that, you'll make it harder to get the water needed to upgrade it. I usually save my first few water until I can buy the upgrade with it, then I convert 1 water to 5 iron, which is a little better. Then, once that completes, I usually have the 8 iron needed to upgrade it again and, from then on, I get 8 iron for every 1 water, which is very efficient. If I ever don't have 1 water, then I'll do the 2 iron to 1 water conversion, after which I'll have the 1 water to convert it back into 8 iron.

Yeah, by using most of my early water to upgrade the converter and then convert to iron, I tend to be a little starved for it and not have much for other things, but I reason that all of the iron that I get from the conversions helps me to upgrade my drill and suit faster, allowing me to find water faster. There's generally more than enough water in the mine for whatever your loadout is. It's just a matter of how quickly you can find it.

[Osprey]

Originally posted by Skydorm:

Are you talking about getting it when collecting those objects that gives you a selection of base gadgets or can you actually equip those like the abilities from start and i'm missing that option the whole time?

I'm talking about choosing it as your starting gadget when you start the assignment. Once you select the assignment, a button will appear to the left of the dome selection area. Click on that and you'll get to choose which gadget to start with. Only gadgets that you've previously won with will be there, so you'll need to have chosen the resource converter during a run and then won with it in order to select it. For my first few assignments, I totally missed the option to choose a starting gadget, so you wouldn't be the first.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Osprey:

Hmm. I always convert water and it works well for me. Maybe it's because I always go with the laser dome, which has no water requirement to upgrade, meaning that I can spend all of my water on the converter and drones. I can see why converting water wouldn't work if you prefer other domes.

There's no combat in the iron challenges, so dome upgrades don't matter.

Originally posted by Osprey:

Anyways, I try not to convert water until I've upgraded it once. Converting 1 water to only 3 iron is pretty wasteful and if you keep doing that, you'll make it harder to get the water needed to upgrade it. I usually save my first few water until I can buy the upgrade with it, then I convert 1 water to 5 iron, which is a little better. Then, once that completes, I usually have the 8 iron needed to upgrade it again and, from then on, I get 8 iron for every 1 water, which is very efficient. If I ever don't have 1 water, then I'll do the 2 iron to 1 water conversion, after which I'll have the 1 water to convert it back into 8 iron.

Yeah, I waited until upgrading to at least 1:5 before converting, but it still didn't feel like it helped.

Maybe I just got really unlucky with finding water, I'll have to try it again.

And you're right, the second upgrade is only iron, not water... I tend to forget that.

Still, that's 11 iron and 3 water you can save if you get lucky with finding an upgrade early enough. I know that's not a huge amount, but it's significant early on.

Originally posted by Osprey:

Yeah, by using most of my early water to upgrade the converter and then convert to iron, I tend to be a little starved for it and not have much for other things, but I reason that all of the iron that I get from the conversions helps me to upgrade my drill and suit faster, allowing me to find water faster. There's generally more than enough water in the mine for whatever your loadout is. It's just a matter of how quickly you can find it.

That might be my issue... I still have to get better at finding stuff.

[Osprey]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

There's no combat in the iron challenges, so dome upgrades don't matter.

Oops. Yeah, I momentarily forgot the context here.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Osprey:

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

There's no combat in the iron challenges, so dome upgrades don't matter.

Oops. Yeah, I momentarily forgot the context here.

lol

---

So I tried a couple more times with Resource Converter, and it just doesn't seem to be helping me. I guess it's my playstyle, I don't know.

I -almost- got it... had 200 iron when timer ran out, but was away from my base.

Drilling Rig, upgraded to have more side drills, Iron Worms (fast version), Resource Packer upgraded so it recharges fast, lots of drones running around picking stuff up. Teleporter would be nice to have as well, but that's probably asking for too much gadget luck.

Tried to repeat the almost-success, no luck yet. Gonna try again a few times before switching strategies... this is as close as I've come.

[Osprey]

If it makes you feel any better, I confidently tried the challenge again tonight and failed the first time, myself. Haha.

I did beat it on the second try, though. What worked for me is that I took the resource converter and upgraded it as quickly as possible so that I could convert 1 water to 8 iron as often as I had water. I then prioritized upgrading my drill and upgraded it 4 times, the last being the one that costs 22 iron (the first time, I upgraded it once again to 32, but I ended up being about that much iron short, so that's one thing that I learned not to do).

With my first gadget, I wasn't given any better offers and didn't want to waste water rerolling, so I chose the prospecting meter. That ended up being useful a few times, but not that important. For my next choice, I chose the iron refinement upgrade for the resource converter, because I wasn't finding enough water to keep it running, similar to you. As soon as I had some water, though, I upgraded it with automated conversion and set it to automatically convert 1 iron to 8. From then on, I didn't need to babysit it or worry about water. Also, not having to worry about water meant that I could go really wide with my mining and strip mine every 4th or 5th block instead of every 3rd, since that was still likely to find most iron pockets.

With my next gadget choice, I chose the lift, because I remembered that being useful, and then my final choice was the anti-gravity upgrade for it. I then concentrated on digging down, rather than very far off to the sides of the mine because I wanted to stay close to the lift and because the largest pockets of iron are deep. This is key, I think. You need to get really deep into the mine to find the largest pockets, and if you stay near the lift, you can drag them to it and, with the anti-gravity upgrade, they'll shoot up to the dome really quickly.

During my first run, I waited too long to haul my iron to the lift, so I started doing that a lot earlier. I ended up barely even using the drones. I think that I upgraded them only once or twice. I really relied on the lift, and I didn't even bother to upgrade it, except for choosing the anti-grav gadget. If the resource converter isn't your thing, you might try taking the lift as your starting gadget. It might start you off very slow, but if you get lucky and can get the anti-grav gadget early, you might be OK.

Anyways, my key recommendation is to eventually get the lift and its upgrade, drill deep down into the mine, extending the lift as you go and not staying too far from it, then drag the iron from the huge pockets down there to the lift. Good luck.

[Elegant Caveman]

That all sounds like my initial attempts, and it really wasn't working for me. Not sure what we're doing differently.

Yes, it's ideal to get as deep as possible as soon as possible, for the bigger iron deposits, and if you can get the antigrav lift down there, that helps a lot.

My issue, though, was that the deep rock was too hard for the drill upgrade that costs 22 (and even 32), so I was wasting too much time drilling. Even with the Power Drill upgrade, deep drilling manually's pretty slow, and I usually don't have an upgrade to spare (resource convert, lift, drilling rig, and resource packer take priority).

Then there was the wasting of time dragging iron over to the lift.

Yeah, it's nice when it goes up by itself, but it was too slow getting it there, I found. Maybe I'm not upgrading my speed and carry capacity fast enough?

This is why I switched to the Drilling Rig: it would drill down by itself, and its upgrade gave me 4 side drills to unvover iron deposits, and upgrades.

With Iron Worms, the iron deposits get mined automatically (don't have to drill them by hand), and drones come pick them up.

Resource Packer with the upgrade compresses the iron into bundles so drones aren't picking them up one at a time.

That's been how I've been most successful up to now, but it's still not cutting it.

This is all with engineer... I tried assessor a bit, but I'm not very good with it.

I like the assessor's upgrade where you destroy whatever block is next to whatever your balls are destroying, and the explosive upgrade could be useful lower down.

[Osprey]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

My issue, though, was that the deep rock was too hard for the drill upgrade that costs 22 (and even 32), so I was wasting too much time drilling. Even with the Power Drill upgrade, deep drilling manually's pretty slow, and I usually don't have an upgrade to spare (resource convert, lift, drilling rig, and resource packer take priority).

Yeah, the rock did get to be little slow to go through with the 22-cost drill upgrade, but it wasn't too bad for me. Maybe I got a little lucky with the generation of the mine, but I also just went around the tougher rock, and the prospecting meter might've helped a little in helping me find the iron.

I can see why the lift and drilling rig might be a good combo, since they both follow the same path and the side drills might help with that dense deep rock. On the other hand, you're maybe putting yourself at the mercy of luck that you'll happen to position the side drills where they'll find iron. You don't have a lot of room for them to come up empty on this challenge.

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Then there was the wasting of time dragging iron over to the lift.

Yeah, it's nice when it goes up by itself, but it was too slow getting it there, I found. Maybe I'm not upgrading my speed and carry capacity fast enough?

This is where the resource converter comes in really handy. Once it's churning out 8 iron every cycle for you, there's enough for you to upgrade your suit and other things, so you don't need to transport the iron that you mine right away. You can just leave it on the ground near where you mined it. Either the drones will come and pick it up or you can just come back and move it to the lift after you've upgraded your speed and carrying capacity. That's what I did. I just let it accumulate everywhere. I had at least 100 iron scattered all over my mine. Then, once I upgraded my suit speed and carrying capacity 2 or 3 times (I think that I settled on 3x for suit speed and 2x for carrying capacity), I went around and carried all of that iron over to the lift, and that didn't take a whole lot of time at that point, assuming that I didn't try to carry too much.