Every wave in The Last Defender is won before it starts. Between attacks you go out for materials, turn them into walls, weapons and machines, and unlock what the next attack will make you need.
Harvest
Your suit beam pulls timber, stone, ore, ice and resin from deposits up to six metres away. Every pull costs suit energy, and the cold drains the rest the further you walk from the core. The suit warns you when to turn back and tells you what the walk home will cost, so an expedition is always a decision about how far you can afford to go.
Craft
You can craft by hand at the core, or build furnaces, a machine shop, generators and a fabricator and queue work for your colonists to run. Haulers keep stations fed, standing orders keep the generator fuelled and the turrets loaded, and walls can be refitted from timber to steel in place.
Research
There are sixteen research nodes across five branches: Survival, Armaments, Fortification, Industry and Reconnaissance. They open ballistas, mines, electric fences and steel walls, then rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers, then power, circuits and the parts to restore the core. Research is slow work for your colonists, so protect them.
Colonists make it all work
Heroes can build, supply and queue work, but only colonists can run the stations. If every colonist dies, the colony cannot manufacture, research or upgrade, so what you spend on keeping them alive pays back in everything else.
