Post by NonpermanentClerk in Mindustry comments

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NonpermanentClerk5 years ago (4 edits) (+2)(-2)

In regard to the most recent beta versions, I will start by saying thank you for returning grass as well as water animations. Also the efficiency text for the thermal generators and certain other buildings are sweet, they should be implemented for all drills and all pumps as well.

Now for my issues:

The research tree is still poorly ordered. Things that immediately come to mind are:
- Requiring something that has more advanced materials as an unlock requirement to unlock later branches that do not need as advanced materials makes zero sense. (Looking at you, mech tree).
- Placing the launch pad so far back in the tech tree really bites. I had minimal desire to play the recent builds until I unlocked the launch pad in the Beta 64 build. The launch pad removed the limitation on how many resources you could collect, lessened the impact of losing (at least you got something out of it), and allowed for researching upgrades with newly acquired materials without needing to relaunch. Without it I would have given up long ago.
- Thorium is required for a lot of the late-game things. Only one map has Thorium (the final map) which makes its usefulness (and all research related to it) incredibly useless. But the best part is that in order to unlock the final map you need to research the Airblast Drill, which you need Thorium to research. So the only way you can get to the last map to get Thorium is to repeatedly launch on the penultimate map, deconstruct the vault on that level, and use the Thorium you get from that to research the drill. (Unless this was a bug because it carried over my save from the last version - which I REALLY hope it is.)
- You can't repair structures reliably for way too long. The mend projector takes long enough to research, then you need to be able to build it and power it for a laughable repair area that repairs very little over a very long time. The mend projector is useless but all you have until you can get enough (I think it was Plastanium?) to unlock the Delta Mech which THEN lets you unlock the Tau mech to repair things yourself OR you can get drones to repair things all over the map when they need to be repaired instead of setting up a Mend Projector temporarily and tearing it down because it costs too much power, covers too little an area, and is too infrequently needed to be set up permanently.
- On the topic of Plastanium, it's obnoxious to make because of how many cultivators you need to get anywhere near enough oil to make production more than a trickle. Once you finally get the oil extractor it's pretty bearable, though. But the cultivators and presses are also pretty much useless.
Scatter turrets are useless. Can't do damage to anything, let alone the bombers that tear everything apart.
Needing to spend resources to uncover a new map in addition to the resources you need to spend to unlock the prerequisite research is incredibly stupid and a major waste of resources. As I said in my last comment, it's just grinding to waste time.
Customizing loadouts is great and should not require you get to Wave 40 on each map in order to be able to do utilize that feature.
You cannot remove a resource type from a customized loadout.
You cannot increment custom loadouts more than 100 at a time.
You always deploy as default mech.
No energy-based weapons target air units anymore. Which is especially bad because the Arcs were the only turrets that actually engaged air units immediately after they entered their radius.
Air units almost always end up flying over the turrets before the turrets actually rotate to face them, making turret usefulness against air units universally pathetic. This is exacerbated by turrets not immediately reacting to an enemy entering their radius as well as them not returning to a more convenient position to engage incoming threats after defeating the current wave.
Tech tree now hides everything beyond what you can currently unlock, makes aiming for distant goals difficult because you don't know what they are.
A third tier of regular conveyor and conduit would be nice.
Details on conduit throughput are needed.
Being able to specify the input and output direction on the conveyor tunnels would be nice so we could use them like tunnels back in 3.5.
Inventory merging with containers was swell and I hope to see that return.
Default shots are hard to see against snow backgrounds.
Still no details on how each ammo affects the stats of the turrets.

Mr.Kitty 2975 years ago (1 edit)

There are some things that you have good points on and bad points on.

The good:

1. Thorium isn't available when it should be.

2. Some essentials are overly difficult(but not overtly difficult) to obtain

3. There is no energy weapon that attacks air units.

The bad:

1. You think that the game is supposed to be easier than what it's designed to be.

2. Turret rotation is fine, if you used the turrets correctly they would do their job and destroy the air units.

3. The plastainium (although annoying) is hard to make for a reason, it's a industial based game, make more power, power more pumps, and harvest like no tomorrow.

4. The customized loadout is designed to allow for replayability, it's so that you can take resourses from hard to maintain maps and send them to easier level so that you can relax and focus on converting what you need to convert.

5. The scatters are extremely useful, they are for air invasions, oh and have you heard of the ripple or hail? They're ground turrets, they're separate for a reason and there's a reason why it's long range.

6. The mend projector is a temporary fix, if it wasn't then just imagine how easy the game would be, it's purposely trying to force you out of the zone and it gets harder.

Unless you actually play the game, and think strategically about it, don't complain about being bad at it. If you like you can ask me for some tips, I've actually put effort in and would like to share my findings.

NonpermanentClerk5 years ago(-1)

I will address your criticisms on my post.

I am fine with a hard game. I never said I wasn't. Please explain where you reached that conclusion.
All right, how do I use the turrets "correctly" to ensure they have ample time to shoot at air units before they pass overhead?
I understand it being difficult to make, but the sheer amount of cultivators for a single press is immense. How many cultivators is it, even, to achieve the press' maximum output rate? It's just a hassle getting them all set up especially when you have to keep adding another additional cultivator after another to try to reach its maximum output rate.
I don't think I understand what you mean here. What I interpret is that you suggest taking the harvested "lower tier" materials to an easy level to convert them into "higher tier"? Like shipping off to a lower-level with Titanium to make Plastanium on an easy level? If we go through the trouble to grind resources in previous maps, why shouldn't we be able to utilize them in future maps until beating Wave 40 on it? At the very least those resources that cannot be acquired on the map in question until late in the tech tree would be nice to be able to bring along from the get-go.
The sass here is uncalled for. How many scatters do you need to get a good AA defense? When I tried them out I had several which did next to nothing, rarely hitting and doing little damage when they did. When the big bad boss showed up on the final level they didn't so much as dent him. What ammo do you use? How do you set them up "correctly?" Oh and yes I do know about the Ripple and Hail. I know they're ground turrets. I know they're separate for a reason. And I know that there's a reason that they're long range. That has no relevance to my post and served only as a personal attack.
Once again I do not understand what you mean and would like to request clarification. Force me out of which zone? My complaint is that instead of repairing a wall as it's damaged it's easier (and often cheaper due to less valuable resources being used) to just tear it down and rebuild it or wait until it blows up and rebuild it then. 3.5's repair turrets were far more useful than the mend projector unless you constantly feed it phase fabric, and even then it's such a power hog that the infrequency of its repair makes keeping it on more trouble than it's worth.

And you conclude with another unnecessary personal attack. I do actually play the game and I do think strategically about it. I never complained about being bad at it and I do put effort in. In your post you expressed no desire to "share [your] findings" as much as a desire to act superior. Maybe you are better than me, that's fine. But explain how I am wrong and how I go about improving instead of disparaging me.

Finally, I do have a few questions since they are things I've been fuzzy on and would like clarified. I truly am interested in what you can teach.

The main topic involves the best ways to make force projectors resistant to shutting down. Specifically

when the power drops and jumps back up immediately is that cause for concern in that it could lead to power failure despite having adequate power and backup attached to it?
when cooling them, is it better to slap a fluid tank flush on one (or more) side(s) or is it better to have conduits leading from the tank?
when cooling them, how many conduit inputs should I attempt to hook up?
does overlapping force projectors' areas affect their strength?
as well as any other advice regarding the topic at hand.

Tangentially related are the following two questions

are fluid tanks beneficial or do they just increase the maximum capacity of the connected system resulting in less water/cryofluid for the things that actually utilize it?
what is the rate of transfer for the conduits?

Mr.Kitty 2975 years ago(+2)

First of all I do apologize for the rudeness, I sometimes lose control of myself and it's no offense to you I'm sure you tried as hard as you could. I'll try to address all your questions but I may not know some of them due the fact that I haven't done everything.

1. You were complaining about the game, I irrationally deduced the skill of the player was at fault.

2. My strategy is one line of scatters in the front, 3 rows of ripples, and then add as many rows of scatters as you can to the back.

3. Honestly I don't know, I've never taken the time to calculate the actual numbers but it is difficult achieve maximum efficiency with just one plastainium factory.

4. It's odd but I just use it to my advantage, it confuses me as well...

5. I use aboooouuuttt... Maybe 15 in the front line... And another 20 in the back or more, depending on how much room there is.

6. Basically the mends are just weak they aren't the best and I'm currently trying to find ways that effectively use them.

Your other concerns:

1. If your power falters, immediately cut off anything you don't need. Improve your power production and then reattach everything. It's also good to have a large battery system so that you have the chance to fix the problem without disconnecting anything. Now if its all in the green and it just jumps up and down rapidly it's no cause for worry as it's just all the systems running at a different pace.

2. I personally didn't know you had to cool them down. I simply power'em up and they work fine for me. But thinking logically, only pump as much liquid into it as it can handle.

3. Depends on how effective your pumps are, if they produce more than your block needs than one input should be more than enough.

4. Odd wording, mainly due to strength, no it does not strengthen the maximum sheild resistance but it rather just makes two sheilds in one area. Simular to making a wall of 2 rows of large wall blocks.

5. I'll give you an example of my version, it wasn't fully refined so don't copy it completely but it's a good example. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wLcZJpAYWgEA5RM377FcSDVrM2zlhgMv/view?usp=drive...

6. Water tanks are basically containers. Nothing that complicated really, you can use them as a safety guard for your liquid fueled processes.

7. I have no idea, only the dev would know that answer, for now, just do whatever feels right.

Again I apologize for my rudeness. If you have any other questions I'll be happy to help.

NonpermanentClerk5 years ago(+2)

Thank you for your answers, and more than that thank you for the apology, which is accepted. And I apologize if I returned any attitude. It is a pleasant surprise when there is kindness on the internet, so I sincerely appreciate it. I'll give the scatter turrets another go with a greater focus on numbers. Regarding the water containers I get the idea but it's unclear to me if it helps since I can't tell if the things that are attached to it have priority over the tank itself filling up.

Mr.Kitty 2975 years ago(+1)

Ooohh that, well there's an easy way to test that: build a pump, add a pipe going to a empty water tank, and add one more pip leading out. If the water is making a pool and the water tank is empty than the factories are prioritized. If not, then I'm completely confused torwards the mechanics XD.

itch.io

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