Peter listened on for another 20 minutes as Clockwork did his best to answer his questions. It was not until he started reading the dungeon core manual after Clockwork left, that he realized just how much his so-called guide had left out. Then again, at least he was concise. A more talkative guide could easily spend all 26 hours that made up the days on Terra explaining all the nuances. Peter would just as soon rather read and figure them out himself.
Still Peter would have swapped out his guide for another in a moment. In the section about starting conditions it was said that the guide could give up to 25% of a dungeon cores initial 50 cards. Most dungeon guides had a heavy influence, at least initially on their proteges. However, Clockwork had given him the bare minimum 5 or 10% that was required for E tier. Peter still got 50 like everyone else, but it was clearly a disadvantage. A really good guide could even take it a step further giving them cards they had acquired from other cores, really expanding the available options. Instead Peter would have the bare minimum clockwork type cards and whatever type he picked for himself.
Peter had more than once dismissed the frustration he felt toward his guide as he focused on what he needed to do. Notably, his future would be split into two different aspects. First, there would be the dungeon core congregations held annually. All the dungeon cores from his year group to the millennials would be present. This was the most dangerous aspect of his existence, since nearly all dungeons were destroyed by the other dungeons. The second aspect was the rest of the year, where he would have to build a dungeon to attract humanoids in to earn life essence. Peter only skimmed through these sections since he needed to focus on what was happening tomorrow.
Still Peter made sure he understood the gist of those sections since they would be important considerations when choosing his type and specialization. Peter had decided to understand everything first before he made the unchangeable, course-determining decisions. A wise decision, he soon learned since his life as a dungeon core could both be simple and as complex as he wanted to make it.
Basically he would have two dungeons, a battle dungeon and then the essence collection dungeon to worry about later. They were connected to each other through the actual core, so he could travel in between whenever. For now he only needed to worry about the battle dungeon and what units to summon for this tutorial battle tomorrow. Once he picked the type for his core, he would get the rest of his 45 type cards. Each one would then be able to summon a unit of the corresponding tier, well normally. Each unit would have at least three stats: Attack, defense, and special, although higher tier units could have multiple special abilities and therefore multiple special attributes.
When he used a type card to summon a unit. The unit would be determined by the type card used. Then the interface would roll for each of the unit's stats. The average for most normal core type cards according to the manual was a 20% chance for the stat to tier down, 30% chance for the stat to be at the lowest rank for its tier or a minus (-), a 30% chance for the stat to be at the mid rank, and only a 20% chance for the stat to be at the highest rank for its tier (+). If certain support cards were used, the main one being doublification, the chances skewed up, and there would even be a chance for each stat to tier up to the next higher tier.
Peter was starting with 50 E tier type cards so should theoretically get 50 E tier units when they were used. Some would have a stat tier down, and if his math was right, there was a 1/125 chance he could even get a tier F if all 3 stats tier’d down for one of the summon.
Of course that was not the only aspect to the type cards. When he acquired an original type card from another dungeon core. He could use it the same way, but then he would also get what were called stock options. A non trade-able copy of the original card that he just used, that he could buy for the same amount of essence a type card of that tier would normally cost. Basically the purpose seemed to be a way to limit the amount of type cards a core could use without continually trading with other cores.
Other than type cards there were the support cards. The support cards could have various rarities: common, uncommon, rare, and epic. He would start out with 10 possible support cards that he could obtain from card packs. Each was a one time use card that could enhance a unit, help with battle, or make some addition to his dungeon. Which 10 he started out with was either straight up dictated or random depending on which specializations he picked.
A quick perusal of the core type options and specializations showed that all of these factors would be affected by his choices. Regardless of what Clockwork said, Peter's normal play style was to play the long game. Which meant he would have to get to the point where he could take on one of the millennials and win. He would take a disadvantaged start, if it gave him a better chance at going further. Still Peter also needed to win this so-called tutorial battle. This was not a game. He would not get a do over. His decision was final, and he could already have crippled prospects after tomorrow if things didn't go his way.
The biggest limiting factor for himself and the other dungeon cores would be life essence. Peter could unlock upgrades, buy cards, make traps, etcetera… but he only had so much essence to spend. The biggest question was whether he should unlock a higher tier for his units. Unit’s were classed from F to A and then into the S tier. Dungeon cores started with the F and E tiers unlocked. Unlocking D tier would take exactly half his 10,000 starting life essence. Sure the difference in strength was difficult to argue. A F tier was a weak feeder animal in most cases. From what he could gather, an average E tier was something that could fight against a typical armed adult man with a bit of training, and have a good chance of winning. Although the difference between tiers was reportedly higher for higher tiers. A tier F was a lot closer to a tier E than a tier E was to a tier D.
The problem was that he only had so many cards and essence. All his type cards would start out as E tier. As part of the starting conditions, he could swap them to tier D for a 2 to 1 exchange despite the cost difference being a normal 10 to 1. Which would mean his initial 50 could be 25 D tier cards, but he would be spending half his starting essence to do so. On top of spending half his funds to simply unlock it… If he faced another dungeon that did not make the move his few minions would fall under a sea of enemies. Regardless, Peter knew it was the right move. Even his initial essence was there to start his progress forward. Only a short sighted fool would spend it all building a swarm of weak units…Then again one of those short sighted fools might very well cripple his prospects tomorrow, so who was the real fool.
Other than that, other big expenses were adding more dungeon floors and editing them along with the one he started out with. In the battle, Peter would need both defenders and his own attackers, or he could focus on defense and if he held out then he could send his force forward.
Peter sighed. He needed to look through the options. He decided to read through the dungeon types once again. There were reportedly thousands of possible choices, but he was only offered 100 of them, as were the other 99 rookies, although the 100 offered reportedly differed. He had no clue how his hundred got selected for him. All he could do was pick the best of them and hope his choices had not been from the bottom of the barrel.
His selection would further be narrowed down due to the existence of the six millennials. Based on his discussion with Clockwork, he knew he did not want to fall in one of their factions. Sure he could hide under the shade of their protection, but that could just as often result in him being strangled from what he needed to get strong. Some could apparently be quite controlling. Then again even the other core types would automatically fall under one of the other factions, although their control was generally non existent.
Dungeon cores could trade any of their cards to one another provided the trade could pass the interface’s balance rule. The interface would prevent lopsided trades to some extent, although Clockwork said it was fickle and could be circumnavigated with know-how. But just because things could be traded, did not mean that they necessarily were. Certain factions might not trade with others, unless it was an extremely unfair deal. But the worst thing that could happen would be if a millennial declared a full trade embargo on a dungeon. Which would result in no dungeons trading with you at all, under threat of being instantly obliterated by the millennial that declared the embargo.
At any point in time there were several such dungeons, biding their time till they hit the point where one of the millennials would cull them. Peter casually asked which ones they were, so he could be sure that he did not make such a blunder. All the while he mentally crossed his fingers. Inwardly he thought, who could possibly offer a better deal than a dungeon unable to trade with anyone else. If caught, perhaps he could claim that he had been unaware…
Regardless, the millennials could not touch him until he was 100 years old. There were three various, what Peter would call, ‘weight divisions’ for dungeon cores. The rookie year group, where only dungeons the same age as him could challenge him to battle. It lasted for the first 10 years. After that was the intermediate group that included dungeons from years 10 up to a 100. Finally was the centurion group which included every dungeon older than 100 years, although by tradition the millennials would not act until he got into the higher triple digits. Clockwork said that he had never seen anything under 800 years get culled, and that more often the culling did not happen until the upper 800’s or even the 900’s.
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It did not matter. The youngest millennial was the insect dungeon core, and she was over 4,000 years old. Normal dungeon cores would not ever stand a chance if they played it safe. If he wanted to stand a chance he would need to take risks, make good trades, and win plenty of dungeon battles.
Beside the insect millennial, there was the demon, undead, elemental, void, and dragon millennials. That was what they were called, despite that not necessarily being their specific dungeon type. Void and Dragon were the only ones that held true to their dungeon types. The elemental millennial was actually a fire dungeon type and so on.
Other than them there were several other factions that were normally in existence despite their leaders shifting every century or two when the previous one was culled. Clockwork specifically mentioned beast, golems of which clockwork belonged to, humanoid, concept, and a few others. There were a few other smaller factions such as plants, but they were not held in as much esteem.
The only other limiting factor was that he could not pick the exact same thing as another currently living dungeon. Not something that would affect him right now since they would not be listed among his choices, but it meant that there were hundreds of real good options being held down that his selection had not had the chance to include.
He then went to the specializations. There were far fewer specializations. Peter counted 58. They did all sorts of things: various effects that boosted support cards, dungeon functions, etcetera. Peter had to cross reference the manual for most of them, and even then he had a few that he was still partially unsure of. He should have had Clockwork at least explain them all.
Once finished doing his best to understand them all, Peter could not help but to look at the time displayed on his home page. Yikes! He had less than 12 hours left. Made sense though, he was pretty tired despite all the excitement he was feeling. He could never have hoped to be able to partake in such an interactive game, with so many facets. Sure if he lost he would die, but hadn’t he died already… Ouch he was still a bit sore in that regard. All thoughts on the dwindling time and his past life were soon forgotten as he thought through things and re-checked the manual occasionally.
Eventually, though, he came to a decision. As far as dungeon types, Peter quickly narrowed it down to one category, concept. The main reason was that Peter wanted an extremely flexible dungeon with units of all types. The exact opposite of someone like the dragon millennial who exclusively made dragon units and considered all others inferior. Most of the other categories fell under that same regard. Undead dungeon cores would have almost exclusively undead and so on.
However after a few cross references with the specialization list he found a few good combinations, but there was one combination that would absolutely excel if he did a good job accumulating cards from a wide array of other dungeon types. Clockwork had indicated that would be difficult with only access to the lower tier cards, but it was his best option long term.
It was a bit of a risk, but after several minutes of contemplation, and trying to move on Peter realized he couldn’t. Nothing else stuck out, so his brain quickly started to work out how he could win tomorrow despite making this choice. For card type, Peter chose Design. For specialization he chose triplefication.
Design was a concept type. When a design type card was used to summon a unit, it would give the user two options. The first was a choice between three prospective units. The second was the ability to increase one aspect of the unit. Although he could forgo one and get double of the other, meaning he could get up to 6 choices, or not get a choice at all and increase two stats or the same stat twice.
The downside was the chances of getting the various ranks. Each stat would have a 30% chance to tier down versus 20% for the average card type, a 40% chance to be the lowest rank (-), a 20% chance to be mid rank, and only a 10% chance to be at the top rank (+). Of course with the choice feature he could pick the unit that got the best rolls and then even increase one of the stats. On average his units might still be a touch weaker than someone else summing the same amount of units.
However, Peter liked the choice and increase aspects. It would be easy for him to tailor his forces, but he would not have chosen it if he did not find a good specialization to go with it. The specialization he went with was called triplefication. Normally triplefication was considered an uncommon card, but his specialization would make his chances of getting it from a card pack equivalent to that of a common rarity card. He would then get 5 of them for his 5 support cards to start with, and would get 10 of them a year instead of the 10 doublifications that dungeon cores normally got.
Both doublification and triplification were combination cards, with triplification resulting in more powerful units although it took 3 type cards to use. Using one type card might give you a dog. Using a doublification might allow him to get a dog that could theow fire balls. Using a triplification, might result in him getting a flame throwing dog with a metal hide. Even if all 3 dogs were of the same rank, obviously the combination units would still have an edge over the normal one. That was not to say that a single type card could not give something seemingly combined with other type cards, it was just more likely to be fairly basic.
The main reason Peter went with triplification specialization was that it would increase the odds of getting a unit to tier up completely. Late in the game this would be especially important since there was no natural way to get S tier units and they were a dungeon's true trump cards in battle. According to Clockwork the best way was to use doublification or triplification or one of the various support cards. In the short term the specialization would be more costly to utilize since he would have to burn 3 type cards each time he used one. He would run out of cards he traded for faster as well, which was a constant worry according to Clockwork.
However the reason he liked this combination over a couple others was the stock option. For the design core, the stock option was a roll of a D6. Where he could get anywhere from 1 to 5 with 6 being a 5 and also a reroll. Meaning he could get anywhere from 1 to infinity for each original type card from another dungeon he used. Of course he would likely never get more than a reroll or two, but still he would potentially get more than most other dungeon types. The worst case was one stock option for each original used, although he had seen 2 or even 3 far more regularly for most core types. On average he should be getting more than most others from each original card he traded for. It was basically a requirement since he would have to use combination cards more often then most did. Not that it would be some great advantage, since he would still have to pay to use the options.
Peter was far from sure that his decisions would result in victory, especially tomorrow. Reading through the other options, there were plenty of other good ones out there. Like Clockwork had said there were certain choices that would make the beginning easy, such as one specialization that would start the dungeon with 5 epic cards although it would be next to useless later on. Then again there was something to be said about having a great start.
Peter even saw a core type, Hive, that would not allow a specialization. Clockwork had actually mentioned this. Two millennials had one of these types: dragon and void. With just one type card they would have a significantly reduced chance of a tier down, and even have a 5% chance of a stat tier up. Statistically, it would be difficult to get a unit to fully tier up like 1 in over 8,000 with only one card, but they would have an even greater chance of a full tier up when using combination cards.
Someone else had selected the Hive type core at some point between his first and second look through the list. Appearently his 100 choices overlapped with other rookie’s choices. Peter had actually had 5 choices disappear since the start, while he read through the manual. Not that he missed them, at least 4 of them had belonged to millennial factions including the Hive type. A concept for sure, but one that likely went with the insect faction. Clockwork had mentioned that would be the case for many, but he would have to determine which ones would be like that himself.
All to say, his choices were not some super overpowered combination that was an oversight to game balance of the interface. They had some advantages and disadvantages as did all the other options. They were the best aligned with what he wanted according to what he understood about this whole ordeal, but he would still have to make them work.
His choice made, Peter worked to finalize the rest of his plan. He did not have all the pieces to decide everything since he would want to trade and hopefully see who his opponent was first. Tomorrow they would be introduced and then they would have several hours to mingle, where he could trade cards, getting what he needed. Finally, they would get an hour to prepare for their battle, which he would need since he did not plan to summon any units until this preparation period began.
Still there were a few things that he could do and decide today. First, he elected to spend 5,000 or half of his life essence to unlock D tier. It would at least allow him to trade for D tier cards. It cost 10 essence to buy an E tier card from the interface. A D tier would cost 10 times that at 100 essence. Also if he converted his 50 E tier type cards he would only have 24 at the D tier not including the 2 he could not combine since they were of different types.
It meant he would not have a lot of minions say compared to someone who spent all 10,000 essence on E tier cards. Enough then he would likely easily be overwhelmed regardless of what he did, but other dungeon cores should be looking at other things like unlocking the second floor for 1,000 essence and editing their dungeon layout.
Peter wasn’t going to make that call for sure yet, although he was leaning towards not buying a second floor. Instead he spent several hours designing several layouts for his first floor using the design builder on the interface. He saved but did not implement them. He would really have to make a judgement based on who his opponent was and what type cards he was able to trade for. By the time he was putting his finishing touches on his third design he had to call it quits. There were a good 6 hours left. Enough for him to get enough rest to be sharp and at the top of his game.
