I've spent a few minutes (ha!) looking over the gate system in Haven. I've got a bunch of questions.
FIrst, I don't really understand a tray. Or maybe I do, and don't realize it.
It seems like all the minerals deposited within about 15 minutes becomes a single tray, and each tray becomes a level. My first question: Do I even have this basic behavior correct?
If so, then depositing one mineral at a time, with time inbetween, should make a lot of levels, and produce something deep. Putting a lot of minerals into a single tray becomes ... well, I don't know what.
Some levels on completed gates have multiple options, and the paths between the upper level to the next level changes. It seems (please correct if wrong) that if you want to reach a specific dungeon level, you need to wait for the path to open before you take the elevator down. And, I don't know what makes many different options per level -- is that multiple minerals per tray?
We're told that the goal is to reach the core, but no one has yet. Yet the current third gate -- dark clover, I believe -- DOES make it to the core.
All three currently active gates show 7 levels, but simple counting shows that they are all different depths. How is the "7 levels" determined? Is it just broken currently?
I do like how the columns represent the dungeon levels, and how the one that actually makes it to the core has a very different white bottom.
Finally, I don't know what makes the countdown timer tick down from 3 to 2 to 1 to active.
I still don't quite understand trays, but I can help you understand a bit more. (This may not be entirely accurate.)
>all the minerals deposited within about 15 minutes becomes a single tray
Correct (I've noticed it adding a tray when the display said 15 minutes left, although the display seems to count down from 1 hour, IIRC? I think this is broken.)
>each tray becomes a level
No. The trays determine only the order in which the minerals are added to the gate.
Someone else asked somewhere if adding a different amount of dusk drops to 20 trays would neccesarily create 20 levels, and the answer was no to that too.
Dusk drops push a tray to the bottom (unless other trays have equal or greater amount of dusk drops).
I don't know how to make more options on a level, or whether lots of minerals at once or spaced out makes a difference, or whether red-yellow-red-yellow is the same as red-red-yellow-yellow etc.
I don't even know what mineral combinations do what. I think most people are kind of in the dark about it, which is why some of us are 'experimenting' by, say, trying to make gates all one colour to see what happens.
I don't know what happens when people add minerals without a dusk drop to a gate that already appears to be full. I assume the minerals are just wasted, which makes me curious why they do it. And if they are wasted, do these people still get dividends?
>Some levels on completed gates have multiple options, and the paths between the upper level to the next level changes. It seems (please correct if wrong) that if you want to reach a specific dungeon level, you need to wait for the path to open before you take the elevator down.
Yeah. I guess the aim is to make each trip different, but people just sit there waiting for the levels they want. There are threads suggesting changes to this system on the forum somewhere.
>We're told that the goal is to reach the core, but no one has yet
That's more mmo flavour text. Plenty of us have been, there's not much there yet though. It might be tougher to get there once they actually build the thing.
So technically it's correct since no one knows what is going to be at the core.
>All three currently active gates show 7 levels, but simple counting shows that they are all different depths. How is the "7 levels" determined? Is it just broken currently?
That's the amount of levels until the next town. So to get from haven to moorcroft, it's 7 levels, which costs 70 energy. That's where your journey ends (unless you end at a terminal halfway), and if you choose to continue, that's a new journey that you can do at any gate. You're not locked to the one gate all the way to the core.
>Finally, I don't know what makes the countdown timer tick down from 3 to 2 to 1 to active.
They count down at midnight gametime every two days. Then each gate moves to the left, the leftmost one closes and a new one appears on the right.