Dungeon of the Endless

TLDR: Use Sara Numas + Aftershave, Elise Ness + HR Manual, Tear Gas|Smoking Gun|Neurostun|KIPs, watch for Chimera Keepers & Hurna Riders. Hardest part of this are game crashes.

Due to the nature of the dungeons being procedurally generated, there can be no absolute fits-all guide. However, I would like to add a guide here to help offer some advice to make this easier for others based on my experiences with the game. The excellent Dungeon of the Endless Walkthrough by B1ueSeptember and Memoriesofwe provided is great, but doesn't give a specific set of considerations that I believe will serve getting through Endless Mining better than general play on other modes.

Endless Mining is an endless mode. So once you get to the 24th floor and the achievement pops, you can close the game. You will not reach an exit, unlike other modes.

As with most modes, you can only enter this dungeon with two characters. However, you will find plenty of them showing up on many floors of the dungeon. This means you shouldn't feel too pressured if you happen to lose one, as they can be replaced.

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Sara Numas

The big question is; who to take first? The answer is easy. Sara Numas.

If you have come this far, you may recall Sara as the incredibly squishy one that dies very easily. This is remarked upon in the walkthrough even. And you'd be right. What we are looking for is the "Aftershave" item.



As this is endless mode, you are guaranteed to come across at least one, if not many, of this item (in other modes, using Sara can be a greater risk as you may not find an aftershave to use). Aftershave gives a character the ability to "skulker". This means they are invisible. They cannot be detected by monsters, they will never be attacked. But! Before you start giving this to all of them, remember that the monsters will go straight to your crystal if they do not detect your heroes. So you should only give aftershave to Sara.

Why Sara? She's the fastest character in the game by a huge margin. Second fastest is probably Golgy Phurtiver (spider-girl), but even she is a large step down from Sara. At times, Sara can go so fast your screen can't keep up. As she can skulk, she doesn't even need armour to off-set her poor defence. Instead, give her additional speed increasing armour or offence increasing (never slow her down, however).

The reason this is so important to get Sara's speed is two-fold. First, the obvious, she's the best crystal carrier in the entire game. When holding the crystal, her own defence is meaningless - it's the crystal that's attacked. Yet, she remains tremendous speed. She can even keep up with some of the slower characters when carrying it! This becomes imperative on the later floors when all you want to do is exit, she can rush straight there. Using anyone else will slow them down to a crawl and make exiting a lot riskier and more difficult.

The second reason are the enemies that will ruin your day, only she can reach in time. She also has the personal skill of "Neurostun Lite", which slows down any enemies in the room she's in, giving her time to kill them. She also has the active skill "Run Away", allowing her to slay multiple nuisance enemies across the dungeon.

The Hurna Rider. (Rhino riding creatures)

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...

As you will have discovered, these guys will ruin even a standard match. On endless, they will obliterate you. Even without them, you can wind up with a gigantic tide of enemies, so you can imagine these guys will open doors and you will be overwhelmed. You will even be able to deal with multiple riders using Sara when her speed is bolstered, allowing her to quickly run across a dungeon (especially if "Run Away" is triggered) and she will slow each rider down when she's in a room with them thanks to "Neurostun Lite". You should always send Sara to kill these creatures instantly. The game does alert you when one of these things is headed towards a door.

The Chimera Keeper. (evolving, immobile guys)

[IMG]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...[/IMG]

These creatures build up over a series of stages. Their final stage is the one that will wreck you. At stage 1, they're easy. Stage 2 they buff themselves. Stage 3, they buff all monsters in the room. Stage 4 is when they will become a massive problem as they buff all monsters on the floor! So if you have a massive wave of enemies engaged with your heroes, they will be buffed by this thing at Stage 4, no matter how far away it is. Send Sara to deal with it ASAP and she will prevent this from even happening. She will kill it and it will never even know she's there and let her kill it without striking back. They are immobile and will not advance on you, forcing you to often cross the breadth of the dungeon to get to it. Fortunately, the game does alert you with an icon that there is one present and you can follow the icon to its location.

This enemy will probably also be the final enemy you need for the 50 mobs achievement, as they are less common than all others and come in small numbers. In Endless Mining, you'll see them far more in floors above 15.



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Elise Ness

The only characters in the game I would advice not using are Gork and and Lady Joleri Tulak. Gork is strong, but his lack of speed is so horrendous he becomes a massive liability when headed to the exit and he is absolutely incapable of moving to areas that need backup. In theory, Lady Joleri should be a fine character. However, in later levels she is detrimental to the efforts as her ability "Dust Thirst" and "Hold the Line" reduces your dust income!

My choice for second character always goes to Elise Ness.

[IMG]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...[/IMG]

Elise is a tank-style unit, but is exceptionally versatile. She doesn't gain massive defences, instead she heavily relies on great Health Regen instead. She is slow, but not so slow as the likes or Gork or The Warden, allowing her to get to the exit safely and move from point-to-point if you need to backup an area. She has no armour slot, instead an extra item slot, aiding her in versatile nature. You may want to give her a speed boost, but a great option is to give her the "HR Manual", which awards her "Team Spirit" kill, increasing her attack and defence for other characters in the room. She already gains one of the best passive skills in the game, "Iron Fist", which increases the damage dealt of everyone in the room. As because it's her personal skill, it will level up, further increasing damage.

Be careful of her "Shrapnellizer" active skill, however. It will damage other heroes and modules when she uses it, but it will also make her an impassable wall of carnage. This should be used as a last line of defence attack.

She also, importantly, has the operate skill. Her wits aren't high enough to make her very good as an operator, but that doesn't matter. As this is endless mode that goes on all the way to floor 24, you'll need stronger fighters, rather than operators, at the later stages of the playthrough, meaning a very strong character who can provide even low operating skills will be a nice boon.

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Modules

The best minor modules, I believe, are as follows;

Smoking Gun

[IMG]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...[/IMG]

The best weapon module in the game, especially when it's levelled up. The downside to the weapon is its overheating, but this issues decreases as you level up the technology for it, extending the amount of time they can shoot and reduces the amount of time they're out of action. These should be put in your primary 'room of death' where your heroes are expected to be. On later floors, you cannot leave heroes alone and will want to group them into such a 'room of death' whenever possible.

Neurostun

[IMG]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...[/IMG]

If you are at the point of doing Endless Mining, you are probably an old hat when it comes to this absolute requirement for success. Adding one of these exponentially increases the effectiveness of every other module in the room by slowing enemies down. If you two weapons in a room, the enemies will pass through faster than those two can kill them. Have one weapon in a room along with one neurostun and that one will will kill them. These should be the most common module on the map. Pretty much, any room you have weapons in should have one.

Tear Gas

[IMG]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...[/IMG]

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that this is the best support module in the game (after neutrostun, of course). I tried the others, such as suppressive fire, autodoc shards, dust field generators... and then I discovered this masterpiece. Tear Gas does damage over time to enemies, much like a weapon module, so paired with neurostun, that's useful. However, it's true use is that it halves the defence of all enemies in the room (and more when levelled up)! Put this in your 'room of death' and win.

Tesla/KIP

Earlier on, place teslas in your outer rooms to both distract and deal with the nuisance that are the crystal-enemies, the Silic Zoner.

[IMG]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dungeon-of-the-endless/ima...[/IMG]

Usually these enemies are annoying, but in later floors they really can become a serious problem as you'll be short on industry and keep having to rebuild modules they destroy. Earlier on teslas will help to take them down better than any other weapon. However, this will eventually change. Especially as we are on Endless Mining, your science will eventually reach silly levels and the KIP cannon will become a shocking one-hit kill. The major downside, even then, is that they take such a long time to fire, meaning that the Smoking Gun still proves more useful in your 'room of death' than the KIP. Instead, put KIPs in the outer rooms, where they can one-shot annoying Silic Zoners, or anything else, that wanders through, slowed by a neurostun which will give the KIPs opportunity to hit more of the enemies before they get through.

The set-up

Your primary battle room, the 'room of death', should have one Tear Gas, one neurostun and then all Smoking Guns. If there is a large number of nodes in the room (ideal) have one of those nodes a KIP (on later floors, or tesla on earlier floors). Rooms that are further away from your battle room will benefit from neurostun and KIP (on later floors). You can use lots of prisoner prods because they're very cheap, if ever you're in doubt. Remember, you can delete them for better weapons if you feel they're not working out.

LAN

Useless. Truly. The thing doesn't add enough defence to your minor modules to make it worth bothering with. The annoying Silic Zoners do a lot of damage to minor modules and your heroes will be too busy dealing with the main swarm. The best defence against the Silic Zoners are KIP and skulking Sara. If you do have spare industry, then of course it doesn't hurt to have one, but the cost is likely not worth it, as those modules will be destroyed with or without this thing.

Tactical HUD

You definitely want this. As this is so important, you should keep it further back from the front-lines. It powers up your heroes attack and can be operated, so I usually add a mechanical pal in the room. I wouldn't, however, leave someone to operate it (unless it's actually on the front lines with Elise) as their actual attack power is more important on the front-lines (or operating a shop or industry module). This major module becomes far more important on later floors, so don't worry about researching it ahead of the other, more important, modules you'll be needing.

Reaching Floor 24

First of all, remember to pause. Especially now as your deadliest enemies are the Hurna Riders and the Chimera Keepers, so you'll need to send Sara to hunt them down, pausing will help you navigate through the rooms, back and forth between your main party and Sara's hunting missions.

Floors 1-12 should play out similarly to a standard play-through. Remember that science is now the least important of all the skills by a large margin. You have 24 floors to get whatever technologies you desire. I strongly recommend that you focus on specific technologies that you believe will help you most, don't worry about trying to research everything. Food is essential, make sure you have a large stock. It will not only heal your units, but level them up and some of their skills will be essential in holding the line. Industry is the most vital, however.

Don't Operate Shops on Early Floors

I know this would seem counter-intuitive. But, you cannot take dust between floors. If you amass plenty of dust on one floor, it's gone for the next. Your industry and food, however, you'll need it on those later floors and you can take it with you. Unless you're pressed for dust, set up your shop with a mechanical pal (in a safe place) and that should be enough until you're around floor 8, or perhaps even more. Judge yourself on whether your dust production is crucial, because I guarantee you'll be running out of industry on later floors, where you will want it in lieu of dust. When you are on later floors, definitely operate your shop.

Emergency Generator

One technology often overlooked is the Emergency Generator.

This major module can light a room without dust. In later floors, post floor 20, dust is almost impossible to come by. If you have saved up a lot of industry, the emergency generators can really help you get out alive. Keep in mind, they are extremely fragile! The best way to use them is at the end of a dead-end series of rooms. Rather than waste your dust on lighting them, you can build an emergency generator and light up another room instead. This is most integral when it comes to the first rooms around your crystal. The worst thing is to have a dark room right next to your crystal! Better to light it up, even at the cost of industry. The emergency generator is expensive, so I wouldn't recommend using them until much later when you find dust a struggle to come by. Operating them does also increase dust loot! So I would add a mechanical pal in the room with one, if not an operator (if you have no shop) on those later levels.

By the last five floors, I was able to spam a few of these generators, bringing light to many rooms between my crystal and the exit, thereby reducing the number of threats, and then bee-line it with Sara, while the other heroes stood at the last lit generator room. Highly effective.

Get to the Exit

You will notice the last five floors are swarming with huge numbers of enemies. The rewards of trying to get more industry/food by this point are null as the effort in staving off the waves will cost more than you are likely to generate efficiently (especially if one of the Hurna Riders gets through). Don't bother exploring, or anything. Just get to that exit. Sara can make it if everyone else pushes ahead of her.

You Can Delete Research Crystals

I may be the only idiot who didn't realise you could do this for many runs, often frustrated to find research crystals spawned in annoying locations I needed to build on. If you're an idiot like me, congratulations. You can delete them. As said, research if far less important in this run. Once you have the key modules (all the major modules and the minor modules of Tear Gun, Smoking Gun, KIP, Neurostun) anything else you research is just extra.

Buff the NPCs

If you can light up a room with an NPC, this will work in your favour if they're on the front lines of your territory. Basically, it's like having an additional hero on the floor. So get them to do your work for you! In this case, I would use the dust field generator or the suppressive fire. I have noticed that even when the lights are then turned off in the room, they seem to still have the buff. Not sure why, but it's a handy trick in any case.

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Summary

I hope this helps others make it through as I have. For context, I reached around floor 20 when I lost a character and I only lost her (Elise) because the game glitched and she wasn't able to enter the exit chamber (GRRR! Amplitude!). After floor 20 I was spamming emergency generators as needed and aiming only to find the exit and get out ASAP, using Sara to run for it with everyone else holding out close to the exit until they could go in after her. As I mostly got to the end with my original crew, I believe even with less luck than me, it is very doable if you know how to play the game and consider using all of the suggestions I have given in this guide. Many parts of this guide work in any playthrough.