Mindustry - Tower Defense meets Factorio ?

I played some last night, it is indeed awesome!

Fungal Pass…passed!

I think it was the pyratite that got me through. Pumping pyratite into a rear line of Hail turrets, which are the smaller artillery, seemed to do it. Also, occasionally providing fire support by switching between the mech and the flyer. If a front line of turrets is chewing up my attacks, move in and take them out with the flyer. If the Scatter anti-air turrets are impeding your flyer, hop into the mech and take them out with impunity. It feels all the more Herzog Zwei when you join the shooting. I’m looking forward to unlocking the better mechs.

And I only realized near the end that those purple resources along the pass weren’t lead. They were titanium! Dadgummit. I hastily built some launch pads and managed to get about 400 titanium before I left. But it would have been so much easier if I’d known that was titanium earlier. I could have build the heavy duty artillery turrets! And I could have scooped up so much titanium to bring back.

-Tom

Tom so this seems to be a game that is F-U-N for you, on the other hand I don’t get the sense that you enjoyed Factorio on the same level as this from the few times you’ve mentioned it. What do you think are the things that you prefer in this vs Factorio?

Well, Factorio isn’t out yet, so who can say? :)

To be honest, Mindustry has me stoked to get back to Factorio. But the problem for me is that I think Factorio is missing two things that Mindustry absolutely nails: 1) what fancy pants game designers call “the new user experience” and 2) the forward pull of a unified campaign that plays at a level higher than any individual map. Factorio will hopefully get a better new user experience by the time it leaves early access. And for all I know, maybe it does have a campaign like Mindustry’s. I should check. I booted up Factorio the other day and couldn’t even remember or figure out how to build my first building, so I didn’t stick around long enough to explore.

But Mindustry is really easy to get into because it tricks you into thinking there are only a couple of resources and turret types. All the crazy complex stuff gets unlocked over time. The maps, the resources, the weapons, the enemies, entirely new systems like power, ammo, liquids. You might never even know that stuff is in there until it’s introduced, which happens after you’ve mastered the other bits and pieces. It layers very neatly, very accessibly. Factorio both scares and excites me. But Mindustry tricked me into thinking it wouldn’t be scary, while also exciting me.

Of course, that layer stuff is just the campaign. You can set up a full-blown scenario with all the bits and pieces present. But then you’re missing the campaign structure, which is the other thing that really works for me. As near as I can tell, most games like Factorio and Rimworld are all based on individual maps. You play the map, you win or lose, reset to zero. I might be wrong about this, since I haven’t played enough of either.

But Mindustry is all about having your headquarters with however many resources you’ve earned, which techs you’ve bought, and which maps you’ve unlocked. From here, you have all sort of options based on what you want to do next. Do you need titanium to unlock better walls? Do you want to push up the resource chain to get straight to thorium so you can bring it into play on the earlier maps? Do you want to hit the survival threshold on a map so you can bring in your own resources to try to beat the objective? Do you want to just do the challenges to unlock maps? Or do you just want to farm a bunch of resources, because you’ll be able to use them on the tech tree or even to jumpstart another scenario?

So I’d say it’s those two things that really tricked me into getting hooked on Mindustry. That it’s really accessible and that the campaign is aces. I don’t doubt Factorio is more complex, and it might be richer (?) because it’s a more detailed resource chain management system. But we won’t know until it comes out.

-Tom

Whew what a write up!

sogood

This is one of those game types where what Tom is looking for aligns pretty much perfectly with what I’m looking for. The only thing keeping me on the sidelines with Mindustry (and mind you, I already own it) is that timeline LK posted and the sense that if I wait a bit it’ll be even better.

I know, right? But keep in mind it’s been out for a year, so the dude has already put a year into moving up that timeline. But this is definitely one of those games that’s only going to get better.

Speaking of, can someone find me that timeline? I can’t find it from the itch.io page or the wiki.

-Tom

Maybe we could evaluate and create an end-of-year top 10 list for all the best road maps in gaming! Call of Duty, Battlefield Starwarsverse, Anthem, Fallout 76, Artifact, Mindustry, duking it out for the top spot. It would be really cool to show some sort of appreciation for this generation’s fan-made content.

So like games with the best post-launch support roadmap?

No, screw the games. I’m all about the roadmaps.

Is there any kind of “fast forward” button in this game? e.g. you’ve got one of the early maps sealed up ok and you just want to farm all the resources.

I know you can skip to the next wave, but that doesn’t seem to give you any more resources.

There is not45.

-Tom

LK linked it in the original post, right below the Steam listing.

.https://trello.com/b/aE2tcUwF/mindustry-trello

Call me shallow but I just can’t get past the 80’s graphics on this one. My loss I guess.

Not as far as Tom is , but I just maxed out my tech tree with the resources I have, I need sand to progress so onward to the next map.

Made it to wave 60 on Desert Wastes with an SS rating, but need to go back and get yet more silicon because everything good requires scads of the stuff.

Heh heh heh.

I wasn’t interested in this game, but now maybe I am. It sure isn’t nice to look at though.

Pshaw. For me the game could fit snugly in this thread.

If you graphics naysayers can’t handle Mindustry, how are you ever going to play Gemcraft or Creeper World?

-Tom