THEL's are even worse than Pulsars. I can build 30 basic lasers for the cost of one fully upgraded THEL (with enough energy to run it). They'll protect a wider area, do more damage - by my tests, 3 basic lasers do more damage than a THEL, and seem to use less power overall (lasers seem to store a charge, THELS use power continiously). Plus I can move basic lasers to where they are needed. Once you place a THEL, you are pretty much stuck with it.
Why do all the weapons suck?
Seriously, a basic laser does 30 damage, a pulsar does only 12? Yes, it fires faster, but it costs twice as much. So I could build two basic lasers that do 60 damage, instead of one pulsar that does like 36? The extra range is relatively unimportant, because the range of the enemies weapons is shorter than that of a basic laser - except for the MS which has a weapon with greater range than any pulsar anyway?
@anyone who says it saves or has saved: Does it save after you close the browser and return? For 90% of people, it doesn't. If it does save for you, what OS/Browser are you using? It's possible that is only saving for Firefox users, for example.
Once the combat gets interesting, the logical place to take this is warcraft style fights between two mining bases, each of which having the ability to build there own waves of attackers to send.
1) In addition to the mothership, it would be good if there was a 'cruiser', which acted like a missile boat but which fired from longer range and kept its distance, and point defences (to shoot down incoming rockets at least in small numbers). There also needs to be a 'raider' ship which arrives randomly, comes out of hyperspace like a MS, moves fast like a swarmer, and maybe shoots rockets like a double strength missile boat. The 'raider' would only attack for like 1 minute or until destroyed. The pirates also need 'tenders' that launch their own repair drones. And there really needs to be mixed waves and more random intervals.
Before upgrading is going to be worth it, upgraded weapons are going to need more advantages. THELs are just bad all around. Pulsars might be sorta worth it if they didn't cost so much and if there was some reason why you wanted the extra range. And there might be some reason to have strong defenses in place if there were either some types of faster enemies, some types of enemies with longer range, or if enemies came in mixed groups (preferably all three).
There are several reasons why upgrading is worthless. The biggest reason is none of the enemies have a range greater than that of basic laser except the motherships. So, there is no reason why a THEL is better than 30 basic lasers, and plenty of reasons why it isn't (30 basic lasers target more different targets at once, consume less energy, and do more damage). With the exception of the swarmers and the Mothership (which never gets to close range anyway), none of the enemies has enough hit points to overwhelm a cluster of basic lasers and even the swarmers only do so marginally. Never upgrading gives you operational flexibility to move things to where they are needed as they are needed and you can do this because with the exception of MS's and swarmers, the enemy is slow.
Ok, the basic problem with the game is that not only can you beat it with unupgraded buildings, but that is actually the best strategy. With the possible exception of level 2 solar panels (when in a position you don't intend to abandon), none of the upgrades are worth it. Plusars are a waste (inferior to basic lasers costing the same amount), THELS are a huge waste (30 basic lasers for the cost of one THEL), and rockets can be placed as needed for Mother ship defense and turned off otherwise.
Smiley: You can already move buildings. In fact, the game is about nothing but moving buildings. That's why it blows so many chunks. If you need to move a building, recycle it (unupgraded buildings cycle at cost) and move it somewhere else. The whole game is 'pause - recycle recycle recyle... build build build... unpause'
@MikesHood: Actually, they always head straight to the center of the screen and will only deviate from that flight plan if they come within a small distance of some target. What this means is that all your infrastructure is safe... if it isn't in the middle or in the direct flight path of a wave. Likewise, a rocket battery located way off to the side will attract no attention even will it blasts away at oncoming waves.
The problem with this being 'the' strategy, is the somewhat limited tactical options become even more limited, since upgrading to even pulsars is a waste of time and the whole game becomes ridiculously obvious. I think I could teach the computer how to play at a high skill level, and indeed quite a bit better than a human player. To me, that is the mark of a poor strategy game. I'd go down to one star now, except that it was fun for a little while before I figured the darn thing out.
Ok. I reached a deadend early on (first few hours of play) with my initial 'intuitive' strategy. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a degenerate strategy was the only successful one at high levels of difficulty. After playing a bit with my new strategy, it would appear I was correct. New strategy - don't buy any upgrades except (perhaps) energy and a handful of rockets to take care of Motherships. The new strategy produces bases that look like broccolli, little flowers of 5 unupgraded miners or basic lasers. Recycle old defenses, fall back, and build new defences as needed. In timed games, generally you are able to mine out the entire field before the time limit, at which point you can fortify until the time runs out.
When I first started playing, I gave this game four stars. Then I encountered a few annoying bugs, and so I gave the game 3 stars. Now that I'm getting good at the game, and figuring out the best strategies and they are annoyingly micromanagement intensive, clicky, and degenerate so I'm down grading this to just two stars.
Straight up unabashed copy of Amorphous+, but lacking the wit, the creativity (surprise that), the polish, and even the game play of the original. Switching out the big sword for a gun does not help the game.
Hmm... Ok, how are people doing the 'hard' mining mode. I'm finding myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I expand, then I'm not able to defend my infrastucture with the overlapping fields of fire that I need to take down o-rings, swarmers, or motherships. But if I don't expand, instead use a compact defence, I don't mine enough resources to develop long range defenses to survive motherships? Does the game eventually get really clicky? Build quick, recycle when the wave hits?
Maybe it would help the lag problem if at the higher difficulties there were 'mark II' and 'mark III' enemies with 125% or 150% standard health and damage. Then, rather than 80 or 100 enemies in a wave, you could get buy with 60 or 70 and still have the same difficulty factor.
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