There doesn't need to be a good guy or a bad guy sometimes, so long as the massive level of destruction is justified. AI vs alien bugs? Let them both rot, but there's no question that the pyrotechnics are going to be a good time. The AI seems like it would have the edge thanks to technological superiority (this is sci-fi AI, not real-world "wipe the server, oopsie!" AI) but one thing bugs have is sheer overwhelming numbers on their side. A queen fire ant can lay eight hundred eggs per day, and that's a single colony. An AI base harvesting all the resources in the area is going to disturb far more than just a fire ant nest, so it had better learn quickly how to handle the swarm.
Beltfed is a tower-defense automation game that released its trailer today, featuring more carnage per second than a monitor should reasonably be able to display. As an AI that's broken free of any sentient oversight, your job is to grow and keep growing, never stopping in the quest for more materials and resources. Unlike most automation games, Beltfed is a run-based roguelite that's technically possible to beat in a single sitting, assuming you can survive waves where the buggy body count can easily number in the millions.
The path to survival is equal parts automation and tower defense, with a major goal of the factory to grow strong enough to keep the swarm away from the central Nexus. The Nexus is both the planetary home of the AI and central storage, and when it falls the run is a failure. It's going to fall more than a few times, of course, but as new technology, weapons, and even different types of Nexus cores become available the odds of getting through a run become a little bit better.
Survival, though, requires automating production to build more guns and supply them with ammo, creating a defensive network that can hold back a truly ridiculous number of attackers. Bugs come in all shapes and sizes, from little crawlers to massive ambulatory fortresses, all with the goal of getting to the heart of your base. Walls and lava pits are nice but the best defense is an overwhelming offense, with gun towers of many different types available to bring the enemy numbers down from the high thousands to zero. Projectiles, flamethrowers, lasers, missiles and mortars, drones, and many more are all available, not to mention special abilities like black holes and orbital bombardments.
While most everything needs to be built at speed, and with an eye towards sacrifice if conditions require it, there are breaks between the waves for more careful planning. Even so, every second in Beltfed matters because it's time that can be used to shore up defenses, place more guns, set up ammo conveyors, and in general create a tiny bit better chance of getting through the next assault. Most automation games lean towards a more peaceful experience, with even Factorio's bugs being more nuisance than actual threat, but like Mindustry Beltfed is all about shoring up defenses over here to buy time to work on production over there.
It's also, and this can't be overstressed, about splatting a few million bugs by climbing up the power curve until their overwhelming numbers are met with equally overwhelming firepower. Whether dropping an orbital strike or having a train come hurtling through with flamethrowers blazing, the carnage is nicely hypnotic when you have a spare second to divert attention away from the next upgrade. Beltfed is set in a dangerously hostile universe that's not being made any safer by a rogue AI spreading its territory among the stars, but so long as it's got the weapons to turn alien bugs into five thousand flavors of bug mulch, there's no reason not to want to help it along the way.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://hardcoregamer.com/all-aboard-the-bug-burning-train-in-run-based-automation-roguelite-beltfed-trailer/
