Tips for beating the Upside Down challenge

[yeagz]

beat the Upside Down challenge just now!

it was the last challenge for me to finish, and it took me noticeably more tries than any other (probably 15ish total?), so i figure others might benefit from the knowledge i gained

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i do believe a there's a degree of RNG involved.... but i don't think that's a terrible thing. i've found that ALL the other challenges can be beaten pretty consistently with the right starting combo (second hardest for me was projectile hell), so i don't mind getting a little extra replay value by needing to roll the dice a little bit. my feel is that something like 30-50% of the maps i encountered while attempting this challenge were beatable, rather than something absurd like 1/1000. and i definitely fumbled a few strong starts, heh, so there's absolutely a skill-based component (e.g. i always struggle with divers on any map; so huge props to anyone who can beat this challenge when they're around!)

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i tried a variety of starting combos, but eventually settled on tesla + drones. tbh, i don't know if there's anything hugely advantageous to this combo for the upside down challenge, but it feels strong to me in general. because other folks on here said rng plays a role in the challenge, i figured i'd get the best results by working within my comfort zone

but i do think that the engineer can use the upward gravity better than the assessor. this is partially because you can start the run by drilling directly downward from the dome and immediately harvest resources for little/no time spent on transportation. i got lucky enough to quickly find 4 iron for a drill upgrade, then i kept going downward until i hit some thick rocks somewhere in the second stratum. iirc, i found 14 more iron along the way, which gave me the tesla's basic weaponry upgrades (power + echo shot + lingering orb) within the first cycle. got my first combat drones online shortly thereafter.

in a different run, i drilled pretty far into the second stratum without finding a single iron. i'm not sure that it's possible to make a comeback after that kind of start, or to win at all on such a map :/ but again, that doesn't bother me too much

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my first gadget was the shock hammer, and this made a huge difference. getting the first damage upgrade on the hammer is essential, since it lands you a lot of free kills that you'd otherwise miss. but i typically skip the second damage upgrade until late game -- and the stun upgrades altogether. if you don't upgrade the hammer any further you can usually get a second shockwave midway through the wave of enemies, when there's still a lot of them, but you'll miss this timing if you increase the cooldown too much. not to mention the saved resources. in general, i think that the hammer is the strongest weapon gadget, since its damage output will typically outshine my primary weapon (though i might just be a noob :P). you can probably make weapons work for this challenge too though

my second gadget was the furnace. after getting that, i kept up with economy & defense upgrades as they became necessary, but prioritized maxing out the furnace any time i had spare resources. i've also heard that an early drilling rig works well, but i didn't land it in any of my most recent attempts. so i can see the logic on the rig, even if i can't directly comment. but the furnace is exponential scaling, which is huge if you can pull it off

i think i landed the tesla coil's supplement pretty early, which let me delay expensive weapon upgrades and prioritize scaling. the hammer's supplement came later on down the road, which goes a long way toward bolstering defense. i think that my third gadget was the spire, which also did lots of work. final gadget was condenser -- but i'd have done just as well to shred it for some equally unnecessary cobalt

overall, i think a solid strategy is to look for a combat gadget at first, and then a scaling one. you'll definitely want to save this challenge until you've gotten loads of other badges. again, i saved it until i had the full repertoire, but at the very least, you'll be significantly more reliant on RNG high-rolls without a third gadget option + the free re-reroll

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the engineer's other big advantage over the assessor is that you can get free horizontal resource displacement. combining this with the challenge's free upward displacement is extra powerful, since you can move lots of recourses from ore to dome for free

for the first few mins, i'd tether 2-3 resources and pull them along my horizontal shafts in such a way that untethered resources would also get dragged along. the method is to tether the outermost resources, then let them pull the inner ones along for free. this is much easier if you leave the ceilings of your horizontal shafts intact as much as possible. it's sometimes better to leave an iron deposit in place so you can make a clean sweep of the shaft (and it's almost always better to leave water in place to preserve these lanes). you can easily return for them later and let your drones clean up the mess

that's a pretty basic skill for playing engy. the tricky part for this challenge is getting the untethered resources to hit the central shaft at just the right speed. you want them to "fall" directly upward into your dome. but if you drag them too fast, they'll spray everywhere and take even more time to gather

in short, the gravity modifier lets you cut corners as the engineer. i never upgraded my carrying capacity at all, and i leveled up my collection drones much slower than usual. the upward gravity + horizontal sweeps are how i collected most of my resources for the first two strata or so. i did buy the second drone pretty quickly -- great deal for 1 water -- but the two of them were plenty for the map's early phases, since they only needed to clean up my crumbs. as i scaled up and stabilized my defenses, i leveled up the drones fully take over collection and then played the map like one with typical gravity (and hellish enemies)

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on the one hand, practice makes perfect, even in the face of rng

for me, this challenge was the only time in the game where it felt crucial to develop a feel for the game's gravitational dynamics. in other words, i never had to worry about "aiming" resources as they "fell," since i was normally working against gravity to deliver them

and as other people have noted, the hardest part of the challenge is adjusting to the monsters. you need to jumpstart your defenses, then coast on the basics. then, while on that plateau, you'll ideally jump to the next plateau(s) with defensive gadgets & supplements and use resources to scale your economy. and overall, there's no better way to train your combat capabilities than firsthand experience

but on the other hand, you might save yourself a lot of trouble by reseting if you don't have a strong opening hand. this is doubly true if you're confident in your combat skills and gravitational dynamics

that being said, the only time i threw in the towel was when there was an impenetrable rock blocking the central shaft before i hit the bottom of the first stratum (ugh). that just felt like a huge waste. otherwise, each i treated each attempt as a chance to practice dragging untethered resources, even if/when it became clear i was going to lose

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anyhow, i think that's all the advice i can offer for this challenge. in my experience, there is a strong element of luck at play, but there are ways to game it

i'm not on here often, but feel free to ask questions. otherwise, happy dome keeping :)

[Cha0s--]

n

[ninino]

Congrats on beating the challenge!