This guide is targeted to players that already have a working knowledge of Ironcast, and want to try to improve their chances of success. Please refer to one of the other guides on Steam or www.gamefaqs.com for basic game information.

When you select nodes, you click on one and move the mouse to others of the same color, and you can't connect to different colors. Generally.

For some nodes, like an overdrive node, or a crate in certain levels, you can make these act more like link nodes on your first match. Say you start with an energy node, then connect to a overdrive node, you'll have to connect to another energy node to confinue.

See above that when I tried to connect to the ammo node, that it didn't work.

If instead you don't connect to the overdrive node, and instead mouse around it to the other side of the overdrive node, you can connect to any arbitrary node (like the ammo node I want to connect to).


You can also do this with multiple nodes, as long as they're all in a straight line (including diagonally).

Above I Moused from the lower repair node to the upper ammo node, and was able to go through both repair nodes. I could have gone the other direction without needing this behavior in this particular case though.

Above I can't move from the coolant node through the overdrive node to the repair node because they're not in a straight line (I could get the match from the other direction though starting from the repair node).

Once you've made a match, you generally can't reuse the trick above, but a link node can reset this property, so that you can use it again.

On the left you can see that I can't go through the overdrive node to connect from an ammo node to energy node because it's already an estabilshed match. On the right, though, because I went through a link node, I am able to connect from a repair node to a coolant node (I can collect the other coolant node as well - I would NOT be able to if I started with the coolant node). Do note that it's better to connect to the repair node in this particular case, so it's not always better to use this exploit, but in some cases you get additional matches, or maybe clear out that lone node that's preventing good matches.

This may be a minor advantage, but do note that every match has more value than the last match (up to a cap), so if you can add an additional node this way, it will likely be the most valuable node in your match.



As a side node to the developers, please don't patch this out, cause I really enjoy using it when I get the chance.

The calculations used for % bonuses are on a per node basis, not on the total. So as a result, the 10% scrap bonus isn't really 10%, but more like 8%.

Note to devs - feel free to patch this one >_>

AI no always be very smart.

If your opponent has a light cannon (20-22 damage per shot) and a energy lance (100 damage), and you have a shield strength to block 20 points of damage, the AI will sometimes choose to attack with the light cannon for a measily amount of damage rather than the obvious use of the energy lance which would clean your clock. If instead you had a shield strength of 30, the energy lance would always be used. As a result, sometimes it's better to not max out your shields depending on the enemy's loadout.


In the above example, the enemy attacked once with their lance, and once with their light cannon.

You generally get a blueprint (or have a chance of a blueprint) for every enemy you defeat. As a result, if you have good damage output, then multi-ironcast missions can be a very good source of blueprints. Also, you can only get one of each blueprint, so what happens if you get all the blueprints in a tier? Well all that's left are rare blueprints or blueprints from the next tier.

If you could ever get to the point where you could destroy an ironcast with one match, then you could destroy an unlimited number of ironcast as you get a bonus match for each defeated enemy. Note though that at least some stages have a hidden maximum number of Ironcast you can fight - there's no indication in the mission description.

According to XpanD, the following missions seem to go on forever (provided you're still within the turn/gather limit):

- The Spoils of War/Rations
- Our Greatest Asset
- The Heist
- The Burning Edge
- Distraction
- Fuel for our Fire
- The Race? (haven't gotten too far into this one yet, it may have a >1 cap like Munitions/Spies)

Also note that subsequent ironcast are at their weakest on the first turn. You can definitely wipe out an ironcast before they get a chance to act (although in my experience, that will drain your reserves so that you probably can't repeat this many times in a row). A good strategy may be to let an ironcast survive an additional turn so that you have reserves and matches to spend on the next opponent before they're ready.

This doesn't always work out, but it's good to keep in mind. This is highly dependent on your damage output, so you may be able to snowball early advantages.

Thanks for taking the time to read this guide. It's my first guide, but I hope it was helpful. Feel free to comment if there are any errors or other tips that should be added.