Guide for those that are on the struggle bus.

[Sev]

So if you want an easy time on core master. This is how you do it and what to prioritize. As a general concept this is to full clear each floor in 3 days, 4 if you have a delay of some sort.

1: Foundry. Only build ONE of them, building all 5 is honestly a Trap. For a depth of only 200 you will not yield back the iron of 5 foundries before completing the contract. A single foundry makes 5 iron a day and having 5 foundries make 8.5 a day. It takes 4 days just to equal out the iron cost of them. Then you factor in that to build anything besides the first barracks you need to invest 8 more iron into the next floor which is another 2 days. Then all the buildings on that floor cost more... It's just a cascade effect of trying to recover the cost of taking up those spaces on the bottom floor. Just build 1 and be done.

2: Get 13-19 workers in 2 days. Having a huge work force is far better than the foundries. You will mine the iron faster than those buildings make it and not pay extra for higher floors. Also all upgrades with research are better with more units to apply to. A standard build I have 10 workers, 5 carriers, 4 guards. You don't really need guards on first floor if you're destroying where the bugs pop out of but bad spawns happen. Make 2 guard and then Focus on worker and carriers. let the 18th and 19th be the final guards.

3: Digging. Besides killing bugs and spawners you're looking for 2 things day 1. Technology and all the iron you can get your hands on. Everything else beside 1-2 swarmlite doesn't matter. Focusing iron lets you pump out your work force to dig and gather faster. Technology we looking for the ability hold off the waves till we can get a workforce and research online.

4: Technology. We are looking for 2 things.
First an aoe turret that can go the distance. Railgun, firework, and mortar are on top of this list. Also the shield as it provide good stall for a free turret and prevents lots of core damage.
Second is a night time active that attacks to deal with the large enemies on day 3 and beyond. Machine gun and drones are top tier here. Getting both makes the night so easy.

5: Keep workers together. This reduces their travel time since their AI is less than desirable. Up to 4 can work on the same block to quickly drill out the 50m level. If you have to remove a bug spot don't be afraid to just have them dig over at the new spot instead of traveling back to where they were. Workers move very slow at the start and there's plenty of resources to be found. Reduce that travel time.

6: Starting building Sequence. Foundry, barrack, barrack, barrack, Yes you will go to 13 units on day 1. Then hit 19 day 2. You can then sell your barracks if you're confident in your ability to not drop rocks on your work force. Hit up your research and get speed. Your carriers need to make a lot of trips from the bottom at this point. if it's day 3 get one of your night time actives.

7: Going into day 4 you should be going down to 100m. It might take practice but 3 days on the early floors to full clear is doable. 4 days once you have a long way to dig and gather. Focus on research but...

8: From day 4 onward every day do 1 thing for defense. 1 Turret or 1 more active. Either of these will let you easily keep up with the night and not have to cover a large chunk of ground later if you plan to go deeper or are descending slower. Once you complete all your research everything basically goes into defense anyways. Mine faster, research faster, to mine faster, to invest in defense faster.

9: Bug Waves are set by the days, not depth. Faster you move the more resources you have to deal with the waves. Mine fast.

10: This is just extra for anyone really looking to micro but you can still mine at night. If worms are staying deeper in the shaft then mine out the top layers. If they up top mine out the bottom. Canceling and reordering will more all your diggers around. Carriers you can have them stop and go on their way down to pick up. Turn everything red to stop them in their tracks to avoid worms. Turn back to normal the item you want the carrier to go for. Their AI is janky and will sometimes pass the torch onto a different carrier.

Open for questions.

[Phero]

Good stuff. I've done the "remove all the barrack" part often. Had a great run yesterday where all my miners were wiped out by falling sand at 150m and of course I had demolished the barracks...

[Serpent]

first of all. how did you get more than 7 worker? not talking about 13-19 on day 2.
i'm i missing something??

edit: yeah im stupid. i just look at it again and notice barrack also increase worker limit... no wonder i think mining is just too slow.

[Sev]

Originally posted by Phero:

Good stuff. I've done the "remove all the barrack" part often. Had a great run yesterday where all my miners were wiped out by falling sand at 150m and of course I had demolished the barracks...

That always hurts. It's great to get ahead until you get punished. Good luck out there.

[Sev]

Originally posted by Serpent:

first of all. how did you get more than 7 worker? not talking about 13-19 on day 2.
i'm i missing something??

edit: yeah im stupid. i just look at it again and notice barrack also increase worker limit... no wonder i think mining is just too slow.

It's all good. Lot of this game currently is experimenting since we don't have solid numbers to anything.

[Neyreyan_Youtube]

Or just use laser watchtowers, mortar and whatever else. It seems the key is to get good daytime skills like the drones/buffs or dig and keep 6 workers, 2 carriers and 2 guard while rushing all tier 1 upgrades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWDUEtuGY98
Probably this combination is a bit op with 4 laser watchtowers and a mortar on every level.
I got bad rng since i didnt get the building that makes the 2nd resources or the core repairing building, not much else

[NILBOG13]

Originally posted by Sev:

So if you want an easy time on core master. This is how you do it and what to prioritize. As a general concept this is to full clear each floor in 3 days, 4 if you have a delay of some sort.

1: Foundry. Only build ONE of them, building all 5 is honestly a Trap. For a depth of only 200 you will not yield back the iron of 5 foundries before completing the contract. A single foundry makes 5 iron a day and having 5 foundries make 8.5 a day. It takes 4 days just to equal out the iron cost of them. Then you factor in that to build anything besides the first barracks you need to invest 8 more iron into the next floor which is another 2 days. Then all the buildings on that floor cost more... It's just a cascade effect of trying to recover the cost of taking up those spaces on the bottom floor. Just build 1 and be done.

2: Get 13-19 workers in 2 days. Having a huge work force is far better than the foundries. You will mine the iron faster than those buildings make it and not pay extra for higher floors. Also all upgrades with research are better with more units to apply to. A standard build I have 10 workers, 5 carriers, 4 guards. You don't really need guards on first floor if you're destroying where the bugs pop out of but bad spawns happen. Make 2 guard and then Focus on worker and carriers. let the 18th and 19th be the final guards.

3: Digging. Besides killing bugs and spawners you're looking for 2 things day 1. Technology and all the iron you can get your hands on. Everything else beside 1-2 swarmlite doesn't matter. Focusing iron lets you pump out your work force to dig and gather faster. Technology we looking for the ability hold off the waves till we can get a workforce and research online.

4: Technology. We are looking for 2 things.
First an aoe turret that can go the distance. Railgun, firework, and mortar are on top of this list. Also the shield as it provide good stall for a free turret and prevents lots of core damage.
Second is a night time active that attacks to deal with the large enemies on day 3 and beyond. Machine gun and drones are top tier here. Getting both makes the night so easy.

5: Keep workers together. This reduces their travel time since their AI is less than desirable. Up to 4 can work on the same block to quickly drill out the 50m level. If you have to remove a bug spot don't be afraid to just have them dig over at the new spot instead of traveling back to where they were. Workers move very slow at the start and there's plenty of resources to be found. Reduce that travel time.

6: Starting building Sequence. Foundry, barrack, barrack, barrack, Yes you will go to 13 units on day 1. Then hit 19 day 2. You can then sell your barracks if you're confident in your ability to not drop rocks on your work force. Hit up your research and get speed. Your carriers need to make a lot of trips from the bottom at this point. if it's day 3 get one of your night time actives.

7: Going into day 4 you should be going down to 100m. It might take practice but 3 days on the early floors to full clear is doable. 4 days once you have a long way to dig and gather. Focus on research but...

8: From day 4 onward every day do 1 thing for defense. 1 Turret or 1 more active. Either of these will let you easily keep up with the night and not have to cover a large chunk of ground later if you plan to go deeper or are descending slower. Once you complete all your research everything basically goes into defense anyways. Mine faster, research faster, to mine faster, to invest in defense faster.

9: Bug Waves are set by the days, not depth. Faster you move the more resources you have to deal with the waves. Mine fast.

10: This is just extra for anyone really looking to micro but you can still mine at night. If worms are staying deeper in the shaft then mine out the top layers. If they up top mine out the bottom. Canceling and reordering will more all your diggers around. Carriers you can have them stop and go on their way down to pick up. Turn everything red to stop them in their tracks to avoid worms. Turn back to normal the item you want the carrier to go for. Their AI is janky and will sometimes pass the torch onto a different carrier.

Open for questions.

I tried this and I still get swarmed by 150m, the bugs are too fuciking tanky and they rip through shield turrets. I dont care what some super nerd(not you) says about this being so easy, I keep getting overrun.

[NILBOG13]

So, play the game like you're reading a script? I want to enjoy a game, not need to rush through like some Starcraft weirdo. The difficulty needs to be fixed, period.

[A J]

Originally posted by NILBOG13:

So, play the game like you're reading a script? I want to enjoy a game, not need to rush through like some Starcraft weirdo. The difficulty needs to be fixed, period.

I had fun with the demo but after awhile I had a similar impression, that the game is forcing me to follow a specific optimal strategy. There's not much space for rewarding creativity or experimentation, the only variation comes from RNG to get the useful tech.

[Malikyte]

Agreed. Right now there is a blatantly obvious "meta build" and everything that falls outside of it is basically useless. The difficulty ramps up too much too fast, thus punishing experimentation or, gods forbid, different playstyles. That's why I made my thread recommending mutators a la Unreal Tournament 2004. Having different options and variations will make it easier to tailor the fun to the way the individual player wants to enjoy the game, instead of hard-locking you into playing it a specific way.

Cause if you have to follow the same exact strategy just to make any progress every single time you play, that's not fun. At that point all you're doing is following a prewritten formula.

[Sev]

So the 5 foundry start can work but it's a using the core's health as a buffer to get the value out of the 5 foundry. To go to the max depth you for sure want to have 5 foundries running. This start hit a point where you need the repair station and you'll just go back to full health because your econ has finally kicked in to that point to spam out defenses. Though I've always been last bar or 2 health wise on core doing this which is why I changed to the barrack spam start.

[Ghost]

If you sell your science labs, will you keep your research results?

[GrandpaGamer]

Originally posted by Ghost:

If you sell your science labs, will you keep your research results?

No. You need to retain the labs to keep the research.

[Sea Base]

Originally posted by Malikyte:

Agreed. Right now there is a blatantly obvious "meta build" and everything that falls outside of it is basically useless. The difficulty ramps up too much too fast, thus punishing experimentation or, gods forbid, different playstyles. That's why I made my thread recommending mutators a la Unreal Tournament 2004. Having different options and variations will make it easier to tailor the fun to the way the individual player wants to enjoy the game, instead of hard-locking you into playing it a specific way.

Cause if you have to follow the same exact strategy just to make any progress every single time you play, that's not fun. At that point all you're doing is following a prewritten formula.

I very much disagree. I've done D3 a whole variety of ways now, 5 Foundaries works just fine, small workforce (focus research) works just fine, mass workforce works just fine. 5 Bars is a good laugh.

It's the turrets that's the deciding factor. If you dont have the shield, you are kinda boned unless you are rushing. If you don't have the fireworks at the bottom of the shaft, you get chewed up by enemy mass since nothing else deals with it nearly as well.
If the shotgun wasn't so short ranged that it's functionally useless for the middle of the shaft, it could be a good alternative to the fireworks. But as is, no other AoE turret comes close for the dps that's needed.

[Sev]

Originally posted by Sea Base:

Originally posted by Malikyte:

Agreed. Right now there is a blatantly obvious "meta build" and everything that falls outside of it is basically useless. The difficulty ramps up too much too fast, thus punishing experimentation or, gods forbid, different playstyles. That's why I made my thread recommending mutators a la Unreal Tournament 2004. Having different options and variations will make it easier to tailor the fun to the way the individual player wants to enjoy the game, instead of hard-locking you into playing it a specific way.

Cause if you have to follow the same exact strategy just to make any progress every single time you play, that's not fun. At that point all you're doing is following a prewritten formula.

I very much disagree. I've done D3 a whole variety of ways now, 5 Foundaries works just fine, small workforce (focus research) works just fine, mass workforce works just fine. 5 Bars is a good laugh.

It's the turrets that's the deciding factor. If you dont have the shield, you are kinda boned unless you are rushing. If you don't have the fireworks at the bottom of the shaft, you get chewed up by enemy mass since nothing else deals with it nearly as well.
If the shotgun wasn't so short ranged that it's functionally useless for the middle of the shaft, it could be a good alternative to the fireworks. But as is, no other AoE turret comes close for the dps that's needed.

With no shields I find that grenade launcher works well. Especially if you pick up a slow turret so they have more time to aoe. Just put 1 on each wall on each level and it'll clear the smalls good. Mortar is also an alternative.

With combinations the auto turret/ poison turret and laser turret(bonus to low health enemies) work for clearing. Also since each focus different health units. Mix and match is what you have to do sometimes unfortunately.

[Sea Base]

Originally posted by Sev:

Originally posted by Sea Base:

I very much disagree. I've done D3 a whole variety of ways now, 5 Foundaries works just fine, small workforce (focus research) works just fine, mass workforce works just fine. 5 Bars is a good laugh.

It's the turrets that's the deciding factor. If you dont have the shield, you are kinda boned unless you are rushing. If you don't have the fireworks at the bottom of the shaft, you get chewed up by enemy mass since nothing else deals with it nearly as well.
If the shotgun wasn't so short ranged that it's functionally useless for the middle of the shaft, it could be a good alternative to the fireworks. But as is, no other AoE turret comes close for the dps that's needed.

With no shields I find that grenade launcher works well. Especially if you pick up a slow turret so they have more time to aoe. Just put 1 on each wall on each level and it'll clear the smalls good. Mortar is also an alternative.

With combinations the auto turret/ poison turret and laser turret(bonus to low health enemies) work for clearing. Also since each focus different health units. Mix and match is what you have to do sometimes unfortunately.

As I said, only if you are rushing. If you are not, that doesn't work on D3.