Wave defense

Wave defense is a gameplay scenario sharing the common Freeplay goal of surviving long enough to launch a rocket, but with a faster start and heightened threat from biters and spitters.

Players receive a generous array of starting equipment, a basic defense perimeter, and a central rocket silo which can be used & repaired but not mined or moved. All technologies start unlocked: research is unnecessary, science packs cannot be crafted and there is no research menu. Equipment, buildings and other items all have the usual crafting costs and mechanics. Killed players can respawn. The scenario is only lost if the central rocket silo is destroyed.

Three difficulty levels affect perimeter width and attack intensity (Easy / Normal / Hard). Wave defense does not offer adjustment of map generator settings - there is no way to adjust patch richness or use peaceful mode - but the rocket rush scenario might help serve that experience.

Wave defense can be played single player or multiplayer with a team.

Starting equipment

At the beginning of the scenario (and every respawn) each player receives:

• Modular armor equipped with 11 solar panels, an exoskeleton, personal battery, and personal roboport MK2
• 10 construction robots
• A submachine gun with 40 magazines
• A shotgun with 20 shells

The following equipment is supplied in two chests below the silo:

• 600 transport belt, 40 underground belt, and 40 splitters
• 1 offshore pump, 10 boilers, 20 steam engines, 200 pipe, and 50 underground pipe
• 50 burner inserters, 100 each of inserters, fast inserters, and long handed inserters
• 50 each of small & medium electric poles, 15 big electric poles, and 10 substations
• 50 burner mining drills, 50 electric drills, 35 stone furnaces, 20 steel furnaces, and 8 electric furnaces
• 50 assembler 1s, 20 assembler 2s, and 8 assembler 3s
• 10 pumpjacks, 5 refineries, and 20 chemplants
• 8 gun turrets, 50 walls, 20 repair packs, and 20 lights
• 200 iron plate, 200 copper plate, 250 cogs, 200 electronic circuits, and 200 steel plate

The upgrade technologies worker robot speed 4, worker robot cargo size 3 and inserter capacity bonus 7 are also unlocked for free (though cannot be further advanced).

Initial defense is provided as a basic perimeter of stone walls & gates with groups of three gun turrets, all of which can be repaired & pickup up by players. The perimeter will probably need to be reloaded / upgraded / augmented before the turrets fully expend their starting 50 basic clips each, or destroyed, or both. How long they last without player attention depends somewhat on scenario difficulty level. Vision is also granted within and around the perimeter for the duration of the scenario without needing radar coverage.

Biters attack at night

Each night attack groups form and path towards the silo. These waves will grow more aggressive with the day count within the scenario, which follows the same ~7 minute structure as Freeplay and is indicated in the top left (by default). Closer nests will also send more intense waves. These attacks also evolve much faster than Freeplay, with behemoth biters typically appearing around the two hour mark.

Pollution is not enabled, so will not incur retaliation, but artillery shells and player visits will result in the normal biter responses regardless of time of day. In addition to reducing nocturnal attack pressure, killing nests and worms awards points which can be spent on upgrades:

• Biter or spitter nests: 250 points per nest kill
• Small / medium worms: 50 / 100 points depending on size

Points are only awarded for destroying nests and worms. Killing biters provides no benefit other than not being killed by them.

These points awards are the only way to improve weapon capabilities and mining productivity in wave defense, and are halved on Hard difficulty.

Upgrade points

Combat capabilities and mining productivity are not enhanced by research, but instead by spending points obtained from killing nests & worms. The upgrades menu is (by default) in the top left between the day count and admin control. Upgrade costs increase linearly for the same marginal improvement each time, and there is no upper limit to purchases. The 2nd rank costs 2x the base cost, the 3rd rank 3x and so on.

The available upgrades and their base costs are:

Upgrade	Benefit	Cost
Physical projectile damage	+10%	250 points
Weapon shooting speed	+10%	250 points
Stronger explosives	+25%	250 points
Refined flammables	+10%	500 points
Energy weapons damage	+20%	250 points
Laser shooting speed	+10%	250 points
Mining productivity	+10%	500 points
Follower robot count	+5 robots	100 points

For example the first three upgrades of physical damage weapons damage will cost 250, then 500, then 750 points. The resulting total physical damage increase of 30% ends up somewhere between researching physical projectile damage 2 and 3 in Freeplay.

These upgrade categories affect the same weapons as their researched equivalents, for example, refined flammables enhances both flamethrower turret and the flamethrower. Other differences to researched upgrades include:

• There is no laboratory component or research time. Kill nests, get points, choose upgrades, immediately have better weapons, possibly all while still fighting.
• All ranks of each upgrade apply equally to all weapons platforms in scope. Buying the first upgrade of stronger explosives improves both landmines and rocket damage, whereas through research rocket damage is not improved until stronger explosives 3.
• Weapon shooting speed and laser shooting speed can be advanced beyond the Freeplay limits of laser shooting speed 7 and weapon shooting speed 6. Buying 22 laser speed upgrades will match the maximum laser fire rate available in Freeplay. Upgrades 23 and 24 will surpass it, costing 5,750 and 6,000 points respectively.
• The artillery shell range & speed cannot be advanced with upgrade points. There just isn't a way to enhance artillery in Wave Defense beyond the extra range of manual targeting.

Scenario victory

Launch a rocket! Manufactured the normal way from control units, rocket fuel, and low density structure. A satellite is not required. A chat message will indicate the day of victory, after which play can continue but nightly waves will cease and upgrades can no longer be purchased.

The round will immediately end in defeat if the silo is destroyed. There will be no opportunity to build a replacement. The game round can be restarted in the admin control.

History

• 1.1.0:
  • Wave defense can now only be won by launching a rocket.

• 0.18.9:
  • Changed Wave defense bounty system and refactored unit spawning logic.

• 0.18.4:
  • Wave defense difficulty will scale with online player count.
  • Wave defense hard difficulty will give 50% less bounty on each kill.

• 0.17.10:
  • When a player dies in the Wave defense, the free equipment will be removed from the corpse.

• 0.17.0:
  • Wave defense scenario has been reworked to support multiple rounds and a procedurally generated map.

• 0.15.3:
  • Wave defense: Units won't spawn if there are more than 500 already on the map.
  • Wave defense: Added a 'Unit bounty bonus' upgrade.
  • Wave defense: Added Uranium to the map.

• 0.15.2:
  • Reduced wave defense biter power increase as more players join to reduce pathfinding performance drain.

• 0.15.0:
  • New scenarios: PvP and Wave defense.