So I've been playing Cortex Command since I did the Humble Bundle thingy, and it's pretty awesome; only hammerfight's captured more of my attention. I have a couple questions and comments though.

Firstly, comments. This game is super fun; I don't have anyone to play with, though, so I'm really just completely destroying the computer. I have a system; I can win at massacre and survival every time on Nuts! difficulty. That's strictly due to base setup and strategy though; I'm actually really bad at reinforcing myself by having other actors come in. I also have a tough time trying to control more than one actor.

Second, questions. So when I set my base up I'll set up a couple empty spots in the ground next to the gold and deposit someone there to mine it. However, whenever I use my normal base defense technique of crab-bombing from orbit (Fill a drop box with several dozen crabs, drop on invading enemies), it'll sometimes damage the mining dummies who are underground, and pretty far away. Is there an easy way to tell how far a crabsplosion is going to damage something? Or is that something I'll just learn over time?

Next: I have trouble moving and aiming at the same time. Should I be jiggling the mouse more to keep the aiming reticle out or something?

Finally: Is there a specific spot on these forums where it's appropriate to post base designs?

1: Just take evaluation, experiment with multiple explosions to see how it explodes. It's random really.

2: Yeah, the aiming is a bit weird, well, moving the mouse at all is weird. You get used to it.

3: You can post them here, this is the discussion forum.

1. The reason a crab bomb is so effective is that the huge number of movable objects being generated at once causes an overload of them, so Cortex Command has to delete some to continue running. This means that almost any human, crab, door or other miscellaneous actor (including brains) can simply be deleted to stop the game from crashing.

2. You will keep aiming in the same direction so long as you don't lose control of your actor or aim somewhere else deliberately. When you go out of sharp aim, you lose some accuracy, which of course you would if you started walking with a gun.

3. I'm pretty sure a dedicated thread has been posted in this section of the forums already with regards to base designs. Look back a few pages or use the search.

Thanks for the reply. The really interesting thing about crab bombs and my miners is it will sometimes just "damage" them - by which I mean, lowered health, no more gun, missing limbs. Through the terrain. I suppose it could be that each gun and limb is being deleted on a case by case basis, that each is essentially its own actor?

yes that is the case.