Well, it is not very hard to figure out, but I would still call it an exploit because normally you can't place most objects, such as turrets and mines, directly in water.
Well if you couldn't, it'd be harder to move around >_> I have my whole base built on water lol. I don't see what's wrong with it.
I share some of the opinions of other posters here regarding some aspects of the game, others not so much. Here are some of my observations so far. 1) I would like to see a way to gradually increase damage output without having to increase the number of turrets. On my highest level map, just looking at my base in build mode causes an FPS drop. While all those rotating turrets look cool, I'd like to be able to do more with less by adding something different. Additional facilities have been mentioned as is a good idea because it offers the downside of being something else to defend. Also if "facilities" were required to be a minimum distance from each other it would encourage expanding out instead of expanding up. It would also curb tower use somewhat because they are not quite as effective if the have to cover a larger area below them. 2) Increase enemy difficulty without increasing enemy numbers "significantly". Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good horde rush. But I'd rather see "hordes" restricted to a certain number of specific waves like night waves, but with lower powered enemies during that wave. Then during other waves the full strength enemies use other tactics like increased speed or something else. All this is for the same reason as above, it looks cool but gets to be impractical. 3) Have a reason for every block at every stage of the game. What I mean by that is, give me a reason to still need tier 1 weapons when I'm at wave 80 with 30 howitzers. The mortar is a good example, it will do little damage to mobs at wave 80, but it's an AOE slow effect if you mod it that way. Make the tier 3 weapons all pure DPS and give more mod options like slow, stun, or something new to the lower tier weapons. And to prevent having super low end turrets thru the first stages you could even make the specific mod dependent on the barracks level (i.e. slow effect unlocks at barracks 2, stun effect unlocks at barracks 3). Another block the needs attention is the power block. The only reason I use these is for teleporters. Either remove the self powered mods from certain blocks (perhaps all tier 3 turrets) or give them another late game ability like a damage reducing shield or damage boost to energy weapon turrets in range or something. 4) I'd like to see more support blocks. For example I'd like to see the spotter item turned into a radar block that has a range it covers just like any turret. If you want to see mobs coming from further away or hit them with long range indirect fire you would need to build observation posts. Or how about a shield generator or ammo dump block that increases ballistic weapon damage or something. Just more diversity in general. Now let me conclude that if none of this or anything else was implemented until the next game or not at all, I would still be completely happy with my purchase of this game and will continue to recommend everything you guys make.
Tech metal could be expanded; at the moment, I have a 330hp block with salvage and a 350hp block without salvage, and that's all I can do to differentiate them, but it would be great if there were a whole bunch of tech metal blocks that could be modded with resistances to various types of damage, like particle-resistance for blocks high up in a fortress that are likely to be targeted by disintegrator Goblocks, explosive-resistance for blocks closer to the ground but out of the reach of melee troops that are more likely to be threatened by rockets, impact-resistance for ground-level blocks that will be attacked by melee troops and shooters, maybe an electro mod that gives a block a chance to stun melee enemies each time they hit it, and HP and repair mods for blocks that are generally resilient but don't shine against any particular enemy. Maybe make the resistance mods work like the slow and stun mods, where you can max out one type of resistance at 5/5 mods and get something like 80% resistance to that damage type, or mix them up with 1 mod giving 30% resistance to melee and bullets, one mod giving 30% resistance to rockets, one mod giving +20HP, one mod giving +1HP/s repair and one mod giving a 10% chance per hit of stunning an enemy. Detector mods could do with a nerf, since night-time becomes meaningless once every turret has one. How about putting a range limit of 20 blocks on detector mods, so that enemies don't get blasted by long-range turrets as soon as they spawn, and there's a reason to use the short-medium range turrets, or give them a range limit of 10 blocks and allow detector-modded turrets to target enemies beyond that range with reduced accuracy if they're attacking something (giving their position away with muzzle flashes and the clatter of steel blades that turrets with advanced sensors can pick up on), thus making spotlights and target lights useful again for seeing enemies at night, with detector mods being a safety net you fall back on so that your turrets aren't helpless when the lights go out, or when ranged enemies target them from unlit areas. Also, how about the ability to fork defences and equipment, so that you could create two versions of the heavy plasma turret; one version that's optimised for damaging tough targets, and one that's optimised for slowing large groups of enemies, and use both at the same time to cover different situations in a battle, and create a plasma rifle that's got it's AOE maximised for taking out large mobs of weak enemies early in the game and another one that's got it's DPS maximised for tanky enemies like giants later in the game, and have alternate versions of turrets that have a repair mod to help them last longer in quickstart games, where they don't auto-repair between waves. More variation between waves would be good, rather than having what feels like the exact same battle over and over again. Sometimes there's a wave with more shadows than usual, but it's generally just the same random mix of enemies over and over again, and it would be nice to get a wave that was dominated by elites and hammerers, and then another wave that was almost entirely shooters, rockets and disintegrators. Also, you know how in Plants vs Zombies, you get to see the zombies you'll be facing before a level starts so that you can select the right plants to counter them? Perhaps something similar for Block Fortress, so that people can tweak their defences a little (making salvage mods more useful) and choose an appropriate equipment loadout for their character to counter what the next wave will bring, instead of just sticking with the same thing all the time? The stim pack has HP mods that add +20 HP, but that's worthless at high levels. A +10% HP mod would be more appropriate, so that it would be of equal value regardless of level. In fact, changing all the HP mods to give a percentage HP boost rather than a flat +20 HP would improve balance, since the flat +20 HP mods are much less valuable for blocks that already have high HP like flamers than they are on fragile blocks like machine guns and target lights, where a single +20HP mod gives a 40% HP increase to machine gun turrets and a 66% HP increase to target lights.
Another rock layer between the soil and bedrock that can be dug out like soil but is impervious to weapons like bedrock, so that you can dig trenches and other defensive structures in it. Soil's useless for that, since it gets obliterated by AOE weapons.
I think both of these ideas could be easier to implement if done with various types of block add-ons like block armor is now. Lets say you have a block armor that offers 75% melee resistance with a 25% ranged damage penalty or vice versa. Or how about having at least 2 different turret add-ons that are exclusive (meaning if you have one you can't add the other to that particular turret). Using the laser as an example you could have a "focusing lens" that increases single target armor penetration and a "pulse generator" that turn the turret into a pulse laser that can lay down suppression fire over a large area. I also think it would be cool to be able to change the laser and plasma colors.
Not that I know of, but it could be useful to place mine shafts and drills in water if your base is in water...
Mining Strategies Often times in later waves I find myself wondering whether its best to build either a mine shaft or mine drill so I decided to sit down and crunch the numbers. The first shaft and drill will cost you $50 each. Your 18th shaft will cost $2152 and your 12th drill will cost $4302. Breaking those down I've come up with the following (this assumes 3 "m" per shaft per round and 4 "m" per drill per round). 10 Mine Shafts, total cost:$1629, produces 30 "m" per turn 7 Mine Drills, total cost:$1602, produces 28 "m" per turn 11 Mine Shafts, total cost:$2082, produces 33 "m" per turn 8 Mine Drills, total cost:$2452, produces 32 "m" per turn 12 Mine Shafts, total cost:$2648, produces 36 "m" per turn 9 Mine Drills, total cost:$3727, produces 36 "m" per turn 13 Mine Shafts, total cost:$3355, produces 39 "m" per turn 10 Mine Drills, total cost:$5639, produces 40 "m" per turn Now with these numbers you can see that you really waste a lot of resources by building more than 9 drills. The 10th drill costs $190 more than the 17th shaft would. However those 9 drills should focus on depleting the vulnerable outlying mineral deposits during the first 20 rounds or so. After that move them closer to your base. Getting a total of $7082 will allow you to build 9 drills and 13 shafts for a total of 75 "m" per turn, which is pretty good I feel.
The only mods I have on drills and shafts are self-powered and salvage. As far as my turrets, all of them have self-powered, salvage, and detector. If a particular turret has a special property like stun or slow I max those (i.e. laser and mortar), if not I do 5 ROF and 2 damage.
Hmmm... Were you able to build those blocks in the water (or did that area get flooded after you built them on land)? In theory, you're not supposed to be able to put turrets, mines, etc in the water...
If you build a 3x3 square of blocks in the water and then delete the center block it will be a bedrock space in the hole you can build on. If you then delete the other blocks, the water will fill back into those blocks, leaving the turrete or mine surrounded by water
Now about those shadows... Firstly, thank you Fouresaken for such a brilliant game, you have truely created a game which ballances creating, destroying, defence, etc... All the the things us gamers love! Now about those shadows... I'm past level 200 in survival mode - green hills. My base has evolved and now can pretty much withstand most attacks very quickly, howitzers, orbital lasers, MIRVs probably being the key, but also have many lasers, a few vortex turrets, heavy plasma etc. now its true that I have used what some are calling an exploit to get this far due to the pesky shadows! However now that the next release will resolve that issue one needs to develop new strategies to deal with them. I have been experimenting using a combination on nukes, obviously a maxed out portable heavy plasma, and recently the portable freeze gun. Some levels its very successful, however others they still get through. The beauty of this game is that you can establish and explore a strategy within the constraints of survival mode. Build architectural wonders and see them slowly get destroyed creating places that have a feeling of ancient relic and mystery, which you can explore... and then get back to blasting the little blockers... Forsaken - I feel without some form of automated shadow killing means, that in the later levels all ones time will be running around chasing these creatures, limiting the time to explore other ideas. Post level 200 a shadow leaders HP is almost 5000. This is a minimum of three portable heavy plasma shots, or 4 plus nukes, or freezing the little guy and plasmering him for almost half a minute. I am not that arrogant to make suggestions, however I just want to make a point for your consideration. Absolutely best game I have played in decades! Pics: 1. Shadow leader HP 2. Base at level level 150 3. Base post level 200 4. Upper deck 5. Lower deck 6. Other view of base 7. Mission control!
I wonder who had passed me on the Green Hills survival leaderboard. I stopped in the mid 150's partly due to the expense of dealing with shadow leaders, but mostly because of lag on my device. Our bases seem quite different though. My bases are short and squat to allow more turrets to bear on any specific direction and to reduce the range at which laser mobs can engage me. I use armored light blocks to distract shadows while I nuke/HPG/PR them down and everything else falls to the howitzers, lasers, and MIRVs. Foursaken has already stated the next update will have a motion detector that can detect shadows so this will solve the shadow issue I feel. Also mines and depth charges will be fixed so those too will be another option. I do have a couple of UI suggestions though. First it would be nice to be able to see the total number of rare minerals you have on the pause screen. Its a pretty minor thing, but I'd like to know if I can buy that next mod or not without quitting the map and reloading. And secondly, it would be a HUGE convenience to have a folder system for map saves. I have a lot of saves, and it gets a little cumbersome scrolling through the list in its current state. Save folders would alleviate most of this.
