Tips and Strategies

Guide for new players that want to improve they runs and improve they chances on higher difficulties

Beginner tips

For trying to do a easier to read guide, im going to try to divide everything on fast to read tips

First of all, playing with keyboard and controller is basically the same. Both are really comfortable and its just a preference on what makes you more comfortable

• Upgrade the drill as your first. This will help you to explore faster the map
  
• Leave a big gap for your main road, this may consume a little more time, but will help you to identify faster when you reach a straight up path back to your dome
  
• Drill leaving two blocks in the middle, this will allow you to see any mineral that may show up
  
• Shoot to one direction before the enemies appear. Enemies are still there even if you don't see them, if you don't hit anything, you just lost a few seconds, if they are there, you are doing extra dps and save some time before having to attack the opposite direction
  
  
• Start with the laser for your dome, sword is really hard to control if you don't know how to use it
  
• Don't worry for the animals on the cave, they don't do anything more than distract and give some life to the underworld, for now...
  

Exploration and mining

For this, there is multiple ways to do it, but this method works for easy and medium difficulty since they tend to consume a little more time than usual if you don't have resources for faster mining

• Like said before, leaving an indication that you reach the middle and straight path forward to your dome is important, you can do it leaving a gap of 3 for it (that also will help if you choose the Lift as your upgrade). This advice is recommended even on brutal difficulty, is kinda a waste of time, BUT, if you have to carry 16 minerals on late game, they don't get stuck every two seconds and fly everywhere
  
• To travel faster going up once you reach the middle, I strongly recommend destroying the corner for easier turn. The idea is exploring the map and creating routes without spending a lot of time cleaning unnecessary rocks that doesn't provide resources
  
• Do a secondary route once you dont see anymore your main gap, this will help you to move in diagonal and not having to do a L shape back to your dome. The faster path between two points is the most straight line possible
  
• Water (or the sphere) is a material that, by its own, doesn't help too much. Prioritize finding more cubes than anything else
  
• Try to upgrade the first vertical line of your character. Drill will help you to explore faster, the speed will help you to spend more time under without sacrificing hp of your dome and being able to carry more will help you to grab more minerals (3 → 5) without slowing down

Recommended upgrades

This, of course, will depend on the weapon and gadget you want to use, still there are some basics that will help you to reach faster some results

• Again, your first upgrade should be the drill no matter what. After that, it will depend if you find Lift gadget or not, since this will have some general benefits on your run
  Your first "to complete" line of upgrades would be a mix of the first vertical line of your character, damage you do on your dome and, radar to know when your enemy is close
  The hp of your base and the resource guide it's something that I don't recommend in medium and hard difficulties since you want to reach faster other more important upgrades
  
• Never shred your gadget, except on high difficulties if they make you choose between Drillbert and bomb, they suck and need too much attention and upgrades to be useful
  
• Choose Lift, it's the most broken one. It will not only help you to collect resources while you explore and mine, but also the upgrade to give you speed will help you to stay longer on the deep parts without having to leave earlier and defend your dome, but also, you can drop resources and the orbes will take care of it
  
• Don't add too many orbes to Lift, it's a waste of resources and, if they grab too many resources and you need them in the moment, you won't be able to take them back to recollect them yourself
  
• Lift, no matter what. Don't even thing in something else

Combat

This is the hardest part of all, not only depends on how much luck you got on getting resources, but also on how fast you are in general aspects

• Upgrade as your first the damage of your weapon. This will help you to kill enemies faster on your first waves and avoid getting damage that later you will need to repair
  
• There won't be any need to upgrade for an aim sight since you can tap the shoot of your laser to see where is it aiming. Of course, this is if you choose the laser
  If you have any vision troubles, I would recommend talking about that with the developer, we may help to add a accessibility option so you don't have to actually spend resources on it
  
• The speed and damage are REALLY important, even more important than the HP of your dome, damage more than speed. Balance them between your character speed and drill damage
  
• LIFT!
  
• Your starter gadget will depend a 100% on which helps you more. I personally like the steam that stop the timer and the extra shield, but I notice in easy and medium difficulty that I barely use them, just for achievements
  
• Like said on the "basic" segment. Shooting before a wave starts gives you a few extra seconds of dps since enemies spawn before showing up on your screen. If you are attacking the correct side, you will kill a few even before they show up, sound will tell you (or the lack of enemies)

Cave Upgrades

Exploring the underworld can give you some advantages for a faster exploration. This upgrades can be temporary or permanent for the rest of the run, some of this upgrades will require you to give a specific material.
I know there are more, but I didn't find them on my multiple runs, so they will be upload after I get them

• First and most important. Almost every time, close to any of this "altars" you will find A LOT of cubes and others, just search for them
  
• The mushroom is a temporary upgrade that will give you a bonus on speed and drilling. After grabbing it, the mushroom will do the effect and will respawn after certain amount of time
  
  
• The triangle altar gives you two triangles, just that. Again, close to it you can see the cubes
  
  
• CAUTION, THIS UPGRADE IS BUGGED AND CAN CLOSE YOUR GAME
  If you donate 2 cubes, you can get a lamp that will reveal two blocks away from your regular view. I wasn't sure if this is a temporary upgrade (thing that I doubt, I think is permanent) since I finish my run shortly after
  
  
• The monster eye will give you for the rest of the run a zoom out of the game. End up being really useful for a faster exploration of the mine and easier to find come back to your main route to the dome
  

Comments

This is my first guide and the game just came out. I will try to update the guide the more I explore and learn more things about it
I'm currently improving to try to do a proper guide for harder difficulties and add it to here, but still, something is better than nothing

Thanks for reading and please, C&C always welcome
Have fun!

[heavy_of_sus]

me personally, i would say never go for double lazer if you're playing withj that dome because its confusing to focus on two lazers

[Toupetit2]

thanks for this guide

[Sonic Chaos 13]

what exactly does it mean by a cycle? im guessing its what the game calls the rounds where you explore and fight as a cycle?

[Pale Dolphin]

The thing which requires water is some kind of an octopus servant? He will roam around the cave and find stray resources you left, and then bring it back to your base.

[agent_blablabla]

theres this thing you can donate water but whats it for?

[Avern]

DONT TALK SHIT ON MY MANS DRILLBERT ;-; he is a good boy and trying his best

[Scrap]

Anything that isn't teleporter or probe should be shredded. I've hit top 5 on a few modes, and honestly my best runs were the ones where I just didn't turn any relics in at all. If you turn in a relic on prestige you better hope it is teleporter or probe, if it isn't, just restart.

The relics make the waves harder and harder for each you turn in.

[LorenzoStupify de Mecha]

Yes yes. I was working on that
With the new patches, this guide is kinda old

[Not an automaton spy]

When you get time, could you make an assessor version?

[HalleysComet]

Drillbert is actually pretty useful. After upgrading it's drill time and drill power, it can almost half your mining time with affordable upgrade cost. Every new wave(or cycle) the drill time will rest so you almost don't have to wake it up