Subverting Mindustry's Core Gameplay With Units

Mindustry. We know it, we love it. You've probably played a bit into the game if you are looking at this guide, and that gives you a very specific idea of what the challenge of Mindustry is: supply chains. Yes, the main goal of Mindustry is to have efficient, fast, and reliable production of resources to support your defenses against the countless waves, or to more quickly get the resources you need to overwhelm others in PvP. Industrial production is the central mechanic that Mindustry is based around.

But what if I told you that you didn't need to bother with all those pesky conveyors and routers. How many times have you just wished you could forget about making a long conveyor line back to the core and just get that far away titanium? How many times have you wished that you could just make all the Surge Alloy you needed without having to set up a complex system for the Alloy Smelter? How many times have you wished that making tier 4 and 5 drones didn't take so many different kinds of resources?

With 6.0 and the power of the processor, those wishes can come true.

The Key is Units

Units can pick up and move resources without the need for costly infrastructure. They are fast and resilient too. Units can't be cut off like conveyor lines, nor do they care about mountains or oceans in the way of their path. Most importantly, it can be easily scaled up or down depending on the situation, or switched to an entirely different resource if needed. Why make a conveyor line from your Surge Alloy to your Cyclones when you can just get a Zenith to carry it for you? Its easier, faster and cheaper than titanium conveyors.

What Units to Use...

Now that we can command units to eliminate the need for conveyors, what units to use?

Flying units are the obvious choice, they're fast and can fly over anything, but they are also rather frail. This makes flying units great for transporting resources around your controlled area, but a bit risky if near the path of enemies. In the rare case where a unit will go near enemies, it may be better to use naval units if possible, as they are also very fast as well as being stronger. If the situation is desperate, then low tier crawler units can be used too, though air units are almost always the best choice. Higher tier units tend to be slower, so I suggest sticking to T1, T2, and T3

By the way, you have a limited amount of units that can exist at once. The higher tier your core, the higher the unit capacity. This means that it is not possible to only use the best units, as you will eventually run out. This makes it practical to find the second best, third best, and so on in case you need it.

The Best Units to Use, Ranked

Let's categorize some units, shall we?

(T4 and T5 units are slow and impractical for this, so I won't consider them here)

Offensive Air - Best choice

This consists of T1 Flare, T2 Horizon, and T3 Zenith

Flares are cheap, very fast, and easy to make large quantities of, making them the best choice for smaller throughput and high speed situations.
Zeniths are slower then Flares, but stronger and able to carry more, making them useful for high throughput and lower speed situations
Horizons are somewhere in between, slow like Zeniths, but stronger than Flares while being able to carry a bit more. Useful in in-between situations, or if you run out of either other unit.

Flares or Zeniths tend to be the default units for many schematics, so make sure not to run out of them

Support Air - Second Best Choice

This consists of T1 Mono, T2 Poly, and T3 Mega

Monos are cheap and expendable, as well as having the unique position as the only unit that stays near the core by default, making them great for transferring resources throughout your base.
Polys are faster than Monos, Horizons, and Zeniths while having the same capacity as Horizons, making them definitively better, while their self healing ability makes them very resilient
Megas are as fast as Polys while having double their capacity, making them even better even if they don't share the Poly's healing ability

While Support Air is definitely better than Offensive it in theory, in practice it is probably best to leave support air units to do their normal jobs. Polys and Megas are very important for proper base maintenance and tend to be far away from the core. Monos can be used as worse Flares if needed, as copper and lead can easily be mined manually

Honorable Mentions

The simple T1 Crawler is the fastest ground unit in the game. It has the same capacity as Horizon while being extremely easy to make a lot of them and fast. They are, however, still slower than every flying unit in the game, making them impractical. However, T2, T3, T4, and T5 crawlers are all about half the speed of the T1 Crawler, can walk over blocks, and hold a decent amount of items, but are much better used for attacking the enemy. Use only in desperation.

Naval units are all decently fast and can all carry a good amount of items, but their extremely limited movement options only make them viable in very specific situations. Even if you could use naval units on your map, the T1 unit, Risso, is the only unit faster than the T1 Crawler, and they both have the same capacity. Higher tier naval units have very high capacity, but at that point it would be better to use T4 or T5 Offensive air, as they cost almost the same to make, can fly, and have higher capacity.

Full ranking

1. Offensive Air (Flare line)
2. Support Air (Mono line)
3. Crawler Ground (Crawler line)
4. Offensive Sea (Risso line)
5. Support Ground (Nova line)
6. Offensive Ground (Dagger line)

Units as Defense

Obviously, units will naturally go the the enemy spawn and destroy anything they see there, but what about multiplayer? Or, what if you want your units to defend an area away from the enemy spawn? With the power of 6.0 and processors, you can do that too. Simple code will allow you to get any unit to sit in place and act as a turret, but more advanced code lets them walk around and seek out enemies by themselves. What units you want to do this with are really according to your situation, but assuming that you're using your units to carry resources around, I can make some suggestions.

For Stationary Units

1. Offensive Ground
2. Support Ground
3. Offensive sea
4. Crawler Ground
5. Offensive Air
6. Support Air

For Seeking Units

1. Crawler Ground
2. Offensive Sea
3. Offensive Air
4. Support Ground
5. Offensive Ground
6. Support Air

Example Schematics

Ok, you think, now I know that Flares are great at moving resources around, how do I get them to do that? While you could write code yourself, the first tip I was taught when learning to code was to check to see if somebody has done the work for you already. With that mindset, here are some schematics to get your search started. I'll let you figure out the rest from there.

As a side note, I did not make any of the schematics that I have listed here. Hopefully the creators of the schematics wont mind me advertising them here.


Logic for taking resources from your core
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2350104629

Logic for taking resources to your core
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2350111086

These two schematics by Goobboy are all you really need to ditch conveyors, I highly recommend both of them.


Use units to make units
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2310997132

This schematic is in a series of smart unit factories by Nat that I highly recommend looking at. While you could recreate Nat's smart unit factory using Goobboy's "Import From Core" schematic, Nat's smart factory more efficiently uses Flares by having them take different resources.


Logic for defense units
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2360425487
This one is good for protecting a specific area

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2376407457
This one is a bit confusing, but is good for protecting the entire map

Logic for mining units
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2660414596
2021 Update: A newer schematic in case you just want your extra units to mine for you

Explanations for how to use the schematics are all on their respective pages.

2021 Update: Everything and More

A newly released schematic, namely this one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2639723180 by Thundermagnet, does almost everything you could possibly want with air units. Want them to mine or defend a point? Just use the touchscreen, its that simple. The one thing it doesn't do is carry items to and from other buildings, but this is a minor complaint as that feature is a whole other beast. I highly recommend checking it out and giving it some kind of Steam award too, this schematic is just that good.


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[Karen]

i gave you the most expensive award, this is actually amazing bro!

[Sly-Scale]

Hey, can we get a list of technical names for all the resources? I keep forgetting that Blast Compound's technical name is @blast-compound. You know, with a hyphen... instead of an underscore.

[Nescius]

why?!
that last guy made a goddamn CPU

[genderneutralnoun]

Oh, I'll try that! I haven't actually unlocked containers yet in my playthrough, I've only recently gotten into this game.

[Egui]

There is a better way, but you're thinking about it wrong. Instead of having a processor for every drill, use conveyors to transport all of the resources to a container, then link the "export to core" code to that. The Goobboy codes I have listed here are amazing, but they unfortunately only really work with 1 building at a time. The drone system is best for lower throughput operations, if you need very high throughput, even long conveyor lines are worth it if you have the space. But, if you need to use drones for transporting a lot, I just use multiple microprocessors connected to the same building.

[genderneutralnoun]

Is there a better way to have this set up with one microprocessor connecting to multiple buildings? My Flares keep only collecting from/depositing to the same one or two buildings when I connect to multiple buildings, generally the ones connected to the processor first. E.g, I put the Export to Core schematic down next to five coal drills, I connect the processor to all five coal drills, my Flares only collect from drill1 and drill2. I assume it's because they prioritize the drills that are higher up in the order they're connected to the processor, but I'd really like to not have to place a microprocessor for every building - especially since you need to put more processors for multi-input stuff like the Pyratite Mixer, which gets painful when you have to edit each one to target the correct resource. I don't want to seem like I'm complaining - this is way better than having to manage all those conveyor belts - but if there's an easier way, I'd like to know about it.

[Egui]

Oh, and I recently found out that my guide got stolen and posted onto Steamlists: https://steamlists.com/mindustry-subverting-core-gameplay-with-units/

I'm flattered, but it's still theft, even if its just text.

[Egui]

Smart Miner added! It looks great!

[Thundermagnet]

Eugi, I have since updated a smart miner, and thought it could be relevant to this article as well- it mines literally anything that can be mined with any unit that can mine.

Find it here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2660414596

[Egui]

Wow, thanks for everything. That’s great advice too. I just want to say thanks especially for putting so much work into your schematics, it really helps the whole community and shows off what a great game this is. ( P.S. thank you for the award, I have awarded your schematic as well )