I have to say that Crystal Caverns is really testing my patience.

[felixader]

So, I want to be fair, I have had 44 hours of really good fun so far in this game.

Its simple in a good way and its loop, albeit extremely messy in execution, is still highly entertaining.
The whole game is quite messy in that way but for some reason i found it so far charming and it is an ideal podcast game at times.

I have also more or less unlocked probably 95 percent of all unlocks expect for the later ones that are locked behind story missions (which aren't properly labeled, or labeled at all for that matter).
So the following is not a matter of difficulty.

After a really intriguing set of short and interesting missions I reached Crystal Caverns.
And I really can't be bothered any more.

Its this combo of frequent attacks, that the level must basically first be uncovered, the clear necessity to built a ♥♥♥♥ ton of small bases for the research labs and providing it with water with one of the most inconvenient and convoluted and not at all explained elements of this game, the Liquid Compressor and Decompressor.

And that is although I love how I can go back to the Headquarter or the Cobalt Mining level to adjust production to have tons of materials for the missions.

But something in how this level is made, how it hinders me, how inconvenient the materials placement is in combination with the darkness and the frequent attacks makes it just extremely tedious.

[Lord Admiral Revol]

Crystal Caverns is meant to be done after Metal Terror. That's where the Liquid Compression is introduced, though to be fair, it's really not rocket surgery. Liquid Compressor is fed liquid, Liquid Decompressor spews out same liquid. Make sure both are the same level, because one level 3 Liquid Compressor cannot feed two level 1 Liquid Decompressor (THIS though, is not explained anywhere).

Also, technically, you don't need to use Liquid Compression. There are geothermal vents in that map. You can, in fact, find them, clean the mud into water, and use that through pipes.

But yeah, Crystal Caverns suck bollocks. Really fun on paper, that you need to dig out the parts where you want to build, in practice, you want to nuke (literally) large open fields for your turrets to engage the enemy and not give them cover anyway, so the entire thing just feels like you want to recreate the radiation desert underground manually (at least, I found nukes to be the most efficient digging tool).

You can alleviate somewhat the problems by building small but strong "bunkers" in the corners and halfway points of the edges of the map, that way waves get aggroed there and you can have a peaceful inner part. I do that on every map. Highly recommend the templates mod for that (seriously, that should be like a basic feature...).

[Ibuprofen]

I dunno what you are doing but the game never was messy for me. But I also always prepared to the max for everything.

I basically bursted through every DLC within 2 hours because I desinfected most maps with radio towers and fusion artillery right away.

I also just move with instant teleportation and plant portals everywhere I go, which saved me a ton of time. When rocks in the caverns been in the way I used double nuke launchers that multiply their hits with each rocket. That just fries everything and gives you a ton of space in no time. I was also pretty lazy most of the time. Build fusion plants right away and just kept distributing the power elsewhere. The game allows you to basically melt through everything as long as your economy can afford it.
A pro-tip I have for you (which is cheesing the games mechanics) is to place defensive outposts on the border of the maps. The enemy waves always target whats closest to them. If it can defend itself they will never reach uncovered structures in the core of the map. Which saves a lot of instead of preparing defenses everywhere.

To some this does not sound fun. But I played on the highest difficulty and was loving to be that OP and collected. It was always fun for me to dominate in a new DLC by simply using way too much firepower for the job. If stuff starts to annoy you, you should think about a more efficent approach. In The Riftbreaker there is always one.

[felixader]

Originally posted by Ibuprofen:

I dunno what you are doing but the game never was messy for me. But I also always prepared to the max for everything.

I basically bursted through every DLC within 2 hours because I desinfected most maps with radio towers and fusion artillery right away.

I also just move with instant teleportation and plant portals everywhere I go, which saved me a ton of time. When rocks in the caverns been in the way I used double nuke launchers that multiply their hits with each rocket. That just fries everything and gives you a ton of space in no time. I was also pretty lazy most of the time. Build fusion plants right away and just kept distributing the power elsewhere. The game allows you to basically melt through everything as long as your economy can afford it.
A pro-tip I have for you (which is cheesing the games mechanics) is to place defensive outposts on the border of the maps. The enemy waves always target whats closest to them. If it can defend itself they will never reach uncovered structures in the core of the map. Which saves a lot of instead of preparing defenses everywhere.

To some this does not sound fun. But I played on the highest difficulty and was loving to be that OP and collected. It was always fun for me to dominate in a new DLC by simply using way too much firepower for the job. If stuff starts to annoy you, you should think about a more efficent approach. In The Riftbreaker there is always one.

Ok.