Base Defense....tough

[GreyMack]

Really enjoying the game and it is excellent value for money but man am i taking a beating on the base defense. I'm only on level 3 and i just get swarmed by about stage 42. The turrets despite me upgrading them don't help much and i can't cover all 3 sides.
Maybe i'm doing something wrong as i often don't have much credits to spend.
Is there something i'm missing?

[Raf]

hi GreyMack!

Yes, base defense gets one more enemy lane each new level, so difficulty increases a lot.

Have you tried the easy game mode? This will get you some extra energy and weaker enemies in smaller waves.

You can also explore the maps as you can find more energy generators to capture, allowing for more turrets and defensive, warhead factories and ammo distilleries will help both by producing useful items and by distracting enemies.

Try different combinations of turrets and barricades. An upgraded grenade launcher behind a barricade can be very effective. You can make a lot of machine gun turrets and upgrade them all for defensive saturation, or you can focus on tesla turrets closer to the reactor.

Try repositioning the turrets closer or further away from your reactor, or create two or more lines of defense.

Make use of the super weapons Carpet Bombing and Neutrium Missile. Carpet bombing may be usefull to clean up a larger area of weaker enemies.

Create a couple of attack drones to take care of enemies getting too close from the center reactor.

Complete the first levels a few times to accumulate credits, then invest in a plasma gun and a lot of warheads and fuel before trying the next defensive level.

Those are a few tips I can think of right now, anyone else having kickass strategies please share with us!

[GreyMack]

Thanks for the quick response, i must be either rubbish or doing something wrong and quite frankly it could be either.
Level 3 on Base defense every single time i get obliterated at stage 42 when the flying units appear. I have tried some of your suggestions (still on normal level) but i can't survive.
The reason i'm wondering if im doing something wrong is i never have any energy to build anything. I lose the front two energy beacon things nearly every attack because my towers can't defend then when the level finishes i have no energy/credits to rebuild.
To cap it all somewhere around stage 35 ish there's virtually no cap between the stages and even if i had energy/credits to build something there would be no time.
For a level 3 game it's crazy hard which makes me wonder am i missing a funedmental mechanic of the game which is stopping me from building up a better base?

[Raf]

Well I think you should try the easy mode if you haven't yet. There's no shame in it :)
Also, there are some random areas where more generators can appear, you can restart the map a few times.

The base defense game mode sure is a bigger challenge than the campaign mode. If it's clear that the defensive mode is too difficult, I can do some balancing, but in my tests, although it took a lot of strategy, effort and running around, I got to beat them all in easy and normal.

[Horward]

I was able to finish level 3 with the following strategy:

- Do a run on the first level and stock up on munitions and credits. Start level 3 with the missile launcher and either tesla or laser gun and at least 300 missiles. Use missiles liberally on groups of enemies and large mechs.

- Plan to rebuild the generators every round. Never have less than 10 energy on hand. Use the spacebar to pull up the build menu so you can build faster.

- Use tesla turrets near the towers and close to the reactor. Plan on rebuilding them. You don't have to wait for one to finish before you can build the next one.

- Use upgrade or replace instead of repair. The game seems to just not register repairing at all after the early rounds. I can get the icon to come up, but it won't accept the command to actually repair the building.

- Landmines are a cheap way to shape the pathfinding. Enemies seem to know where they are and avoid them.

[Horward]

I finished level 3 but level 4 was just a mess. No turret would last more than a round or two, so I stopped building them around round 5 and just resorted to running around and dropping bombs. This worked fine until round 48, which seemed really silly to me. Some other observations:

- I've never seen anything but the tesla and missile turrets last longer than a few seconds against anyone. Machine gun turret saturation doesn't even work against the lightest infantry.

- The little cars with infantry inside are overpowered and kinda broken. Hitting one with a rocket sends it flying so now you have to chase it down to finish it off and they easily take out even tesla turrets. They are more of a pain than mechs or the flying enemies.

- Fuel isn't helpful at all. I'd rather see it replaced with coolant so that you can fire your tesla cannon more often as long as you have coolant, then when that runs out, it fires like it does now.

- Flying enemies falling and doing massive damage is irritating. As soon as a flying enemy hits the field, you have to have already had an upgraded missile launcher or whatever turrets you have are gone. Either the flying enemy takes them out, or it dies and kills your turrets by falling on them.

All that being said, I really do like the game. The campaign missions are well balanced and I liked the secret paths with the generators. The warhead factories are a nice touch as well, especially with ammo carrying between missions.