There is a non-choice in the game. Players must either farm all the dust they can, or die trumped by a horde of monsters.



I think that there should be a way to demolish or barricade a room, thus reducing the necessity of huge amounts of dust, as an alternative mechanic. It's a scorched earth tactic, because you also lose all possibility of using major and minor modules.



DEMOLISH/BARRICADE MECHANICS:



Can only be done in a room with only 1 'valid' door, i.e.



It either only has 1 door, OR:

All doors but the last lead to other rooms which were already demolished/barricaded.



AND cannot be done on the exit room (duh).



Barricade/demolish would cost science, or science and industry (science needs more uses). It could start at 10/10 and have cost increases per blocked room, like the major modules cost progression. It doesn't matter if it is called barricading or demolishing, the result is the same. Access to room is lost for good and evil alike. Reduces pressure on dust necessity, which is good to make the dust 'less valuable', and increases importance of other resources as well. Strategic option with lasting consequences, has less spots for potential major/minor modules.



It would require a character skill, or item granting that skill.



Item ideas:



The DIY safe building manual - Nothing is safer than inside a safe. Or in this case, outside. (barricading route)

Tahine Rikhota's Terrorist Recipes - Not all uses of homemade explosives are evil. Also tastes delicious. (demolition route)

So, in several respects, this would work the opposite of how lighting works? I.e.:



Current Mechanic:

• Light a room to block monsters from spawning in it.
• Uses 10 dust.
• Requires that the room be connected to an already-lit room.
• Can be undone.
  
  

Proposed Mechanic:

• Destroy a room to block monsters from spawning in it.
• Uses X Science and Y Industry.
• Requires that the room be connected to only one non-destroyed room.
• Cannot be undone.
  
  

Do I have that right?



I'm not saying it's good or bad; I just want to think through the implications.



I can see two main uses for this:

1) Save 10 dust when lighting up a wing of the dungeon. In this situation, the ability is equivalent to buying 10 dust for X Science and Y Industry.

2) Block a side room off of a long dark hallway to reduce the risk of two waves hitting your defenses at the same time.



I can see this taking some of the randomness out of a floor. It doesn't matter if you open multiple empty side rooms near your crystal; if you can't spare the dust to light them, you can just destroy them. Again, I'm not sure whether that's good or bad.

gorbadock,



Yes, you caught the gist of it.



It is not equivalent to buying 10 dust for X science and Y industry, because you cannot use this 'dust' anywhere else. It's close to it, since you free up some dust. But you also lose a room in the level. If this room has a major module, or a stele, or research crystal, or npc, it's gone.

The reaction you have is the best I could expect! 'I am not sure this is good or bad...' Precisely! It depends on context.

If the player just lost a hero, or a lot of modules, and/or is in a tight spot, s/he may elect to bring down some rooms at the fringes to reduce the need to keep them lit, and reroute that dust to other places. BUT it's a one-way direction, player can never go back.



Increasing costs make it sure it has diminishing returns to prevent spamming; also causes slower progression b/c resources are spent upon an immediate need, instead of in a permanent improvement.



This just gave me the idea for another monster:

Bring up a BORE WORM into the game. This subterranean monster creates a new room/door where there was none before.

The bore worm is a rare random event, which may happen on higher levels (5+).

Upon opening a new room, a bore worm maydig into a wall to a pre-opened room. It will be very angry and will spit an area-attack acid. If left undisturbed, it will go away after 3 spits, which should destroy most minor modules unless the module defense upgrade is present. If attacked, it will keep spitting acid until its health is depleted. Once its health bar goes to 0, it goes away, instead of dying; they are resistant and very very big, 'health 0' means they lost their will to fight.

The new room may have an arbitrary number of other rooms attached to it, but will eventually lead to a dead-end; unless the devs implement multiple exits. In the latter case, the Bore Worm may uncover a faster way to the exit.

Operating minor modules in unlit rooms:



Spending 1 science per module per turn to keep minor modules operational in unlit rooms can also be a good way to make the game viable with less dust. The player would turn on/off 'operational in the dark' per room, like it can turn on/off dustlight.

Demolish/Barricade Mechanics

I like the basic idea of demolish/barricade mechanics. Mostly because of the cost for the barricades is ultimately paid in dust. With less monsters spawning you'll have less income which means that you'll have to consider not only where you place the barricades but when. That being said I'm not sure there is enough of a penalty to warrant making the barricades permanent. Generally speaking I tend to have good incomes for food and industry, so a flat fee to build the barricades (even if the it's increasing per build) doesn't really balance out the potential utility. I think a few tweaks to the mechanic might help balance this out.



Please take these ideas as separate points which can be use in whole or in part for balance.



1. Instead of simply creating a lit room from the cost of industry & food, a barricaded room would also reroute any waves that would normally spawn in that room to another unlit room. This would maintain the strategy in deciding when to deploy barricades as you wouldn't want to reroute the monsters into shorter/less defended areas. It would also put the missing dust back on the table but considering the reroute effects I think this would balance out.



2. Barricades are temporary. The cost still goes up per deployment but the barricades only last through 3-5 door openings. This way they could still be used to shore up you defenses, but they wouldn't provide the a permanent alternative to lit rooms (at least without rebuilding them).



3. Barricades reopen when the crystal is picked up. Keeps things difficult when leaving the level, and potentially increases the ultimate cost of using barricades. Having potentially given up dust income by using barricades, you're not confronted with more unlit rooms when escaping. May potentially make barricade placement and even more important call.





Forward deployed minor modules

I'm not sure how I feel about this option. It strikes me a being potentially overpowered without an additional penalty on module effectiveness/damage.

The beta features may have changed the game balance, but barricades are a nice option.



I thought of them as being a permanent solution, but I think that your options could work as well.



I like more the concepts of temporary barricades and reopening them all on picking the crystal up, not so much the monster rerouting. For the barricades to be temporary, there must be some monster bashing at them to wear them down. But if all 3 are integrated to the barricade idea, I ultimately would approve.



Gotta play 0.8.5, since I haven't yet, to see how things have changed in the game balance.

The update added the Emergency Generator major module, which costs 30 industry and lights a room for no dust cost. Operating it increases the chances of mobs dropping dust. It serves the purpose being discussed in this thread: It gives the option to use industry in place of dust for one room's worth of spawn-prevention. The limitation is that you have to use a major module slot to do it. At first glance, I like this idea. It's there for when the strategic situation REALLY calls for 10 extra dust, yet the disadvantage keeps it from being an absolute-must-have in all situations.