Sanitary Pod

[Sakurya]

I can't even come close to beating this one. Anyone else with issues in this one? Let's discuss tips/strategies for this level.

[Cook]

I've beaten it. The run took me 19 hours, 17 of which is just me sitting there, stuck in analysis paralysis. I even recorded it on video. I discovered a broken tactic to easily win sanitary pod on floor 10, and decided not to release the video of my playthrough until the issue has been fixed.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=355840932

There aren't many key differences from Sanitary Pod and Escape Pod, well, except the extreme difficulty change.

Less Heroes- I've encountered as many as 4 other heroes outside the first two you run into. I encountered 0 others during my recorded win.

Researching increases enemy speed by 30%. It's useful to know the enemy speeds, but basically all the enemies are ~18 speed, the floating crystals are 10 speed, and the reeally fast little werewolf anti-heroes are 40 speed.

Advice:
-Getting minor modules in the beginning is finally just as important as main modules. It's just that hard, and it's warranted.

-In the same sense, you should select characters with immediately good potential. For instance, Josh is great as your first pick in Escape Pod Easy, but in Sanitary, his inability to repair or take as much damage as the other operators makes him a difficult choice to recommend (unless you found him later, which is fantastic).

Must have one of these starting characters for 1 or 2 player Sanitary(or luck out and find them floor 2)-
Josh, Rakya, Opbot.
Good Starting Characters for 1 or 2 player Sanitary-
Deena, Elise, Gork, Joleri, Max, Mizi, Nanor, Opbot, Rakya, Troe.
Meh Starting Characters for 1 or 2 player Sanitary-
Ken(unsure), Skroig(unsure), Josh, Hikensha
Bad Starting Characters for 1 or 2 player Sanitary-
Kreyang, Mormish, Sara, Golgy, and probably Ayairi (still never played her).
I could back up my logic for any of these tiering choices, so feel free to ask.
If 3-4 players, move josh to good, joleri and gork to great. Note! This only applies to starting! If you happen to find any of the bad characters +5 floors, they may be fantastic choices; it depends on your team composition and equipment loadout.

Good Starting Team Comps
Joleri and Rakya- Joleri has great starting values, but the values are not as attractive as other character stat gains. Since she starts off with such high health, it's actually fine to pick her with the intent of ditching her later! This is fantastic to do in 4 player because you're guaranteed a 5th character by floor 2, and a 6th by floor 4. Rakya is a great frontline or backline operator. This is the most stable of my team comps.
Gork and Opbot-
Picking gork is great because he's probably the best Sanitary Pod character, but only later in the game... In the beginning, you're hampered by gork's inability to move quickly, but once he starts leveling, his health gains are the most significant. Elise may have the most defense, but Gork can also wear armor, so their defense ratings are pretty much on point, but Gork is especially tankier. Since heals cost 2x, a high level gork essentially saves you a lot of money on heals. This comp is not very stable and is dependent on quickly finding a decent speed fighter. Expect to refresh Gork's cooldown at times (which is at most 3 science, since you can always open a door and then immediately refresh). The only reason Opbot's on the team is because Opbot needs to run the crystal.
Rakya and Elise-
A great team if you can get past floor 1 with them (because no runner), and hopefully find a runner by floor 2. Elise's double device slot means that she can change her role from fighter to operator.
Opbot and Mizi-
A more stable pick version of Gork and Opbot, Mizi is immediately more useful, but by the time you have more items than you can equip, you're going to wish you've ditched Mizi by then. This is dependent on finding a 5th hero, which is pretty risky since you may *never* find one.

-You're good at the game, but if you want to win Sanitary, you'll either have to be very lucky or have a very indepth knowledge of the game. I've dug into the XMLs for exact data on module build times,
compared characters by their stat gains per cost, and can always calculate my expected Food/Industry/Science return to build as many as possible before it's unprofitable to do so. You can even calculate variable speeds to variable distances! The beauty of DotE is that it gives you just enough static information to make an informed decision based on probability... do not squander the opportunity to do so. Seemingly trivial knowledge from Escape Pod Easy can form extremely important decisions in Sanitary Pod.

-Account for your ability to micro during your thinking periods. It's very difficult to use all of your abilities and switch items during active phase!

-THINK.

[Sakurya]

Does researching increase enemy movement permanently? Or for just the current floor you're on? If that's the case, I may have to research when I feel I'm nearing the end of the floor. I'm about to give sanitary pod another shot in a few minutes.

[Cook]

If you are currently researching, the enemy speed is +30%. (number of researches past 1 does not matter)

[Dimitri]

Hi Cook, thank you very much for your writeup. I am also trying to beat Sanitary Pod on Easy and having a very hard time. I do think you mistyped something. You list Josh as a must have starting character in your list, but then say that he is too weak. I think you must have meant to put someone else in there. Who else besides Opbot and Rakya do you think is must have?

I have found that Joleri and Rakya seem to work ok, get me to level 3 (which I had not been able to do with some other combos, like Max and Rakya - Max is nice for the science bonus but just can't survive long enough and doesn't dish out enough damage in the beginning). But I am still dying regularly on level 3.

[Dimitri]

I do worry about Joleri's science penalty. But for an early primary character on the unforgiving Santiary, she does very well. She is also very cheap to level, food wise.

[ktanna10]

I just beat it too, it's definitely doable!
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197975705928/screenshots/?appid=249050