I have a confession to make - I have to cheat

[Milcroy]

This game. Permadeath - roguelike. I can't finish the damn normal mode. Period. Call me noob or whatever but that's the truth. I consider myself veteran gamer but I haven't been able to finish this game yet.

I have started saving the sav folder in the documents folder so if team gets wiped, I can restore.

I feel extremely guilty and not sure if I am worthy of the pending achievement through cheating.

Rant out.

[Navas]

Lol. Don´t be shamed. This game is freak hard. I always play on very easy mode, and it´s still hard. I´ve already finished Drill pod, refreezerator and armory pod.
I read a lot of guides, wiki etc.
What is your difficulty? Why do you think you always loose?

[Milcroy]

Originally posted by Navas:

Lol. Don´t be shamed. This game is freak hard. I always play on very easy mode, and it´s still hard. I´ve already finished Drill pod, refreezerator and armory pod.
I read a lot of guides, wiki etc.
What is your difficulty? Why do you think you always loose?

Hey Navas.
Well I have completed very easy which took about 50 hours to win, only on the normal pod. Normal mode is just nightmare from floor 9 ish. My best is floor 10.
There is always something lacking which bites me.
I almost always use Max as my door opener and runner at level 10 with level 2 pilfer (+2 dust at opening doors). 1 operator very early then save, save, save until a tank hero near level 8,9.
I have no trouble saving 500+ industry, 400+ food by level 10. +2 science per turn from Max guarantees I dont have to build any science. I can reach level 7-10 quiet easily.
I know all the enemy variations, and if I know there are no module attacking creeps this floor, I almost always farm every door.
My traps are neurostun, tear gas, pepper spray variation. Anything that buys me time. I prefer my modules doing all the killing.
Level 10 is a joke. You have minor module attacking creeps, straight runners for crystals, AOE DUCKERS, exploders, rooms with no nodes but full of green gas. You struggle to keep going forward one way only to realize the exit is not here.
$(*U)%(@#%)(@#%@#%
I have read so many guides.
Oh and I have lost a keyboard to one of my tantrums. Thats the truth.
Rant out.

[Che Eder]

Hey, don't worry, the game is hard ;)

The most important thing to learn is when to keep exploring and when to get the hell out of there.

We just managed to get the last floor all lit when taking the crystal, so that was fun. But the two floors before we left before opening every door.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821143248

[MrModeste]

Strange, you seem to make the right choices. I'm just going to throw away a few ideas that may or may not be of some help.

- Using and abusing the Pause function.
- Using Science to restore your skills.
- Putting heroes in unpowered rooms, wait for a few seconds after the door is opened to prevent spawn, then move them to safety/chokepoints.
- Going the economy way always seemed to work well for me: 2 operators with high wit and focusing on industry.
- Always going the further away from the crystal, making sure you only face one room at a time at each chokepoint (for example if you're at a cross, only follow one direction). I try not to change direction unless I'm finished with the current corridor, then I make my way from the doors the furthest away to the closest.
- Farming dust when you feel you can handle the monsters (but I think you mentionned it already).
- I don't think the fastest characters like Sara and Golgy are necessary. Any decent speed character (30-35 ish) should do the trick, if you light your path in a logical way, occupying last rooms with heroes.
- I like KIP Cannons, Tesla Modules, Smoking Guns, their DPS is insane. Combine them with Neurostun and Tear Gas for defense reduction, works pretty well.
- Aftershave is a real killer, makes bosses a walk in the park.
- Opening last door completes current researches, even if it needs 2 or 3 more turns.
- Door powered from both sides? No spawn anywhere, when you open it.
- Dust merchant? Use your dust at the end of the floor if you feel comfortable, and resell the items at next floor.
- Biomass Cannery/Factory are tricky, and are not worth it before lvl IV imo, but if set up cleverly (with a neurostun/dps module combo), they can really be worth it.
- Preferring tanky chars for melee (shoutout to Joleri), so that frail but powerful range DPS can blast away from behind.
- Be lucky!

I think you're already aware of most of these points if you've read guides, but who knows. They're not even necessarily great tips, but thanks to this I've managed to win on Easy in the Escape Pod, the Infirmary Pod, the Armory Pod.

Also, as usual, I believe that this roguelike/lite really rewards being greedy. If you play it safe all the time, you risk getting short on resources or not unlock powerful items. Sometimes you gotta go for it and hope it's going to turn on for the best, even if you're tempted to go to next floor.

Add me if you want to do some multiplayer!

PS: As long as you play the game the way you want to and have fun, I don't see why you should be ashamed of anything.

[Milcroy]

@ che eder, mrmodeste thank you for your dettailed response. i appreciate it

[Navas]

Try to make your heroes do the most damage, the minor modules just help with it.
At chokepoints you put your hero and defensive minor modules like neurostun combined with tear gas. The rooms next door you put attack minor modules like tesla, KIP, but also pepper spray and viral.
Pepper spray is a must. You reduce the number of monsters attacking you and gains an ally.
I never use production minor modules, the major modules do this very eficiently.
Don´t forget to put a HUD module.

[Che Eder]

Great tips from Navas and MrModeste. Just some little additions:
Always keeping one direction is good. But before we do that we usually try to get at least one room on every site of the reactor lit. This prevents having to open a door right next to the reactor at a later time with monsters running past your hero causing you to lose dust.

Even better than going one way: Finding a loop, as in for example start at the right and find a way that leads to the bottom of your reactor. Keep the last door closed and the mobs have to walk the long way around.

And never underestimate the shop. It's not of much use in the first floors, but later having a steady income of dust through an operated shop can make things so much easier.

And last tip: Before building too much try to find out which mobs there are on the floor. If there are tons of anti module mobs you need to act different. Or for example pepper spray might actually hurt you if you build it in the wrong place when those fat exploding guys are on the floor.

DotE allows so many different strategies, just keep trying different things. Though sometimes bad luck will just get you. Like one run we tried to focus on mostly buffing heroes, which worked great. Until we found a stele that made the heroes useless for seven turns :P

[Timerlane]

Personally, I feel like Too Easy is usually a bit too easy once you have a decent handle on things, but Easy ratchets things up to the point where having the RNG decide it hates you, really hurts. I'd love for there to be a middle difficulty with the harder monsters from Easy, but the economic/base resource outputs of Too Easy.

Anyway:
- Prisoner Prods, Teslas and KIP Cannons.

Also: Tear Gas should be in every room that you intend to do 'serious' monster-killing in; Tear Gas is easily one of the best modules in the game, both cutting enemy Defense and applying a constant health drain to every single enemy in the room.

Prisoner Prods are nice and cheap to use and research in the early game. Perhaps a bit more relevant in Easy than in Too Easy.

Teslas are an excellent value for damage, cost, and RoF, and prefer to attack those obnoxious Silic Zoners and Bulldozers first(if the floor is spawning Zoners, always make sure the first 'defended' room they'll enter contains Teslas, and optimally Tear Gas to help kill them even faster).

KIP Cannons offer brutal burst damage, at the cost of you needing to 'always' leave a buffer of about 150 Science around for maximum damage. Worth it, though, and towards the end of the game when you're probably not researching much anymore, is right about when you could probably use them most.

Smoking Guns and Viral Injectors auto-target those annoying Hurna Shamans(those 'Mage' monsters, whose attack massively lowers Hero attack power as long as they live).

The Emergency Generator can save your life(or at least make things much less inconvenient) on those very last floors. Very expensive, but being able to light rooms with Industry can be a very helpful last resort when Dust is extremely, extremely scarce. Just beware of anti-module monsters.

- Farm Dust; monsters are not (really) your enemy. Your goal should not be to completely shut off monster spawns, just control them, so your Heroes(and turrets) can harvest more Dust from them. Maybe it's just me, but realizing this felt kinda revolutionary.

Note that monsters that die directly to Tear Gas 'DoT' never drop Dust. High-level Tear Gas + Neurostuns may be brutal against even the most massive monster mobs, but you're potentially missing out on lots of Dust if you rely on it too much.

Hikensha and Golgi have/learn a passive ability, Nyctophila, that increases the chance of Dust drops from every single monster that dies in the same room as them(note that while the movement speed bonus mentions unpowered rooms, the dust bonus does not, so you can happily leave them operating a module in a powered room with turrets, and potentially reap loads of dust).

- Level primarily for new skills, not to raise stats. Perhaps annoyingly, 'optimal' play needs you to look up or have memorized at what levels Heroes learn skills. You can see if a Hero will learn an active or passive skill on the next level-up by hovering your pointer over the button, but it won't tell you what it is unless it's the second/third level of a skill they already know.

Weapons, armor, and 'devices' often raise stats far more than a level or two would, so saving up resources to spend with Merchants may well be a better value unless you know a very useful skill is coming up.