Draft:Mindustry

Mindustry
Mindustry's icon.
Developer(s)	AnukenDev
Publisher(s)	AnukenDev
Release	September 26, 2019

Mindustry is a 2017 tower defense/factory building video game with sandbox and real-time strategy elements, and was the winner of the GDL Metal Monstrosity Jam in 2017. Mindustry was developed by Anuken originally as a small project for the aforementioned Game Jam.

Overview

In Mindustry, the player controls a small ship that defends a structure called the Core. The purpose of the game is to build production lines and defenses to help survive. There are a total of 10 different categories of structures to build, totaling 262 structures between the two planets as of the current update. The structures vary from drills and factories to extract and refine resources, to turrets and walls to defend your assets. There are two current planets that can be played on in the main game; Serpulo and Erekir. Serpulo is the home planet of your faction, the Sharded, brought to defend the planet from the invasive force; the Crux. The second planet of Erekir has a far different and far more deadly enemy of Malis, and their strategies reflect such.

Story

From the beginning of Mindustry classic, the Sharded are set to defend Serpulo from the Crux, their opposing force. In their current state, they are quite primitive, only sending units that range from kamikaze units to gatling units. The Sharded is also rather limited due to the original set of structures being much smaller compared to modern Mindustry.

After Mindustry classic is the modern game of Mindustry, with the entire planet of Serpulo witnessing a deadly event known as the seeding. A sector by the name of Biomass Synthesis Facility originally synthesized spores for use in fuel and plastics, and after a significant attack and the destruction of the facilitators the spores began to spread violently and cover the vast majority of Serpulo. The game takes place after this, when the Sharded re-enter and attempt to reconquer the planet after the Crux has made a sizeable and dangerous presence.

In more recent times, a new planet has been discovered by the name of Erekir. It is much less forgiving than Serpulo. Erekir is an arid and hot planet. This planet has a much more powerful enemy, that being the Malis. Erekir has different technology than Serpulo, meaning the player will have to re-strategize and adapt to this planets more complicated technology, involving the use of gasses and heat.

Neoplasm

there is technically another enemy, called neoplasm but it currently exists as a byproduct of he neoplasia reactor, a powerful reactor that outputs massive amounts of power and heat and is the ultimate form of power generation on Erikir.

the neoplasm is a currently a primitive organism, simply spreading to any fluid block containing water and contaminating it, and with the trailer for Version 8*, it is outright confirmed that the neoplasm is alive, being more than just a cancerous byproduct.

*sneak-peeks are always subject to change

Gameplay

"The core is the heart of the base, once destroyed, the sector is lost."

Starting from a bare building list, the player is to build multiple production lines and defend them, along with the Core. There are three tiers of Cores in Serpulo.

The core acts as the hub for each sector or level, if the enemy manages to destroy the core, you lose the sector or level. Unlike Factorio, the player does not need to manufacture buildings to place them in the world. Instead, resources that are sent to the core are accessible to build structures straight into the environment. However, building time takes the place of needing to manufacture the structures.

Sectors

what sets Mindustry apart from any other kind of construction and management simulation or tower defence game is the sector mechanic. by playing through the planet of Serpulo you come across hundreds of sectors or levels, each one being procedurally generated. the exemptions to this are the named sectors, or the campaign. the campaign consists of premade sectors that teach you the games mechanics, like how drills work and how turrets use ammo.

the first sector is one of the 19 required sectors on Serpulo and is named ground zero, which introduces the most important element to the game; waves. no matter what sector you decide to land on, there will always be waves of enemies to try and rip through your defences, and as you progress more through the game, the enemies you encounter will be more powerful, and the waves more formidable. although unlike Mindustry classic, Mindustry allows you to build units of your own. with both sides sharing the same technology, you and the enemy use the same buildings and units to both attack and defend.

Attack sectors

the sectors in Mindustry are broken into two distinct types; attack, and defence. defence sectors are the most common on Serpulo, while attack sector are more common on Erikir. attack sectors consist of one or more enemy cores that you have to destroy, with the enemy already having a massive presence within the sector. most attack sectors with have unit production alongside regular waves of enemy units, so the enemy is always pressuring your base, even if its something as insignificant as a flare, a weak, quickly produced flying unit.

Defence sectors

defence sectors are more about making a large production line to fuel your factories and turrets to defend the sector. once a defensive sector is captured, it is regularly impossible to lose it unless you forcefully destroy your core. however, there is an actual way to automatically lose a defensive sector, and it happens if it is captured near an attack sector, to which the game will deem it "vulnerable" and susceptible to another attack, which is another periodic wave defence, but the enemies continue to grow stronger and more resilient alongside gaining shields that act as an hp buffer (individual enemy shields, not to be confused for forcefields).

Planets

there are currently two planets accessible from the base game; Serpulo and Erekir. Serpulo is the original planet, not exactly being recognized in Mindustry classic, as that game followed a more arcade game structure, although not rigidly.

Serpulo

Serpulo follows the classic design of Mindustry, down to the router sharing the same design and color scheme to the router as seen in Mindustry classic.

Erekir

the open and tundra aspect of Serpulo is a stark contrast to the restrictive and decollate nature of Erekir. Erekir is a contrast to Serpulo in every way; it has the largest size of buildings, while having extremely restrictive layouts to constrict construction and production as much as possible, it only has 3 unit types, that are as unique as they possible could be from each other, it has the most interesting level design, while being restricted to a linear progression through only named sectors.

References

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