Community Shopping Record

[ptarth]

We are having some discussion on the shopping distribution and would like some community assistance. If you'd be so kind to keep track of what shops you choose to visit and avoid, what you buy there, and what floor it is on, that would be great. Additional information would be great too (like how many credits you picked up, what items you found, etc), but this would be of the most immediate use.

Example:
Ptarth - Mediocre Player on Normal with Flame Tank
Floor 1 - Did not enter Robot, Consumable, Weapon shops.
Floor 2 - Entered Weapon shop, purchased Acid Maw. Did not enter Robot or Cheap Item shop.
Floor 3 - Killed by Loco before entering any shops.

Posting in the thread would be fine, although we could also open up a google doc or something else if we have sufficient people interested.

[x4000]

Chris - Mediocre Player on Normal with Humble Mech
Floor 1 - did not enter any shops or use any keycards.
Floor 2 - bought something or other from the sacrifice shop.
Floor 3 - bought two small items from the consumables shop, and one passive weapon upgrade from the defensive shop, and one more sacrifice item.
Floor 4 - bought nothing so far.  Stopped here for the moment.

[Misery]

My typical way of doing things:

Floor 1:  Check cheap items shop (have enough money usually for keycards or the minor upgrades), check sacrifice room and see what's in there.   Usually dont enter the other shops due to not having enough money, but this can change based on luck, or what mech I'm using.  The Humble mech sure makes it easier to get into shops earlier.  But of course, I have to have keys.

Floor 2:  Check sacrifice room again (usually keep doing this until I've bought two items from in there).  If I have keycards, I'll start checking the other shops.  Usually most likely to hit up the consumables shop on floor two since it's cheap and might give me something to use later.  If the defensive shop has an HP upgrade item, I'll maybe buy that.

Floors 3-5:  Hope that a weapon shop bothers to show up.   Hope that it actually has weapons in it.  Hope those weapons arent terrible.  The game doesnt like giving these to me.  Heck, it doesnt like giving me the shop itself.  Other than that I'll usually enter every shop, but the focus is the weapon shop.

Floors 6-7:  No real focus, I just go for whatever is a good idea at the time.


If I'm low on keys though the item room and HP upgrade room always take priority.

[Logorouge]

I got my general "mode opératoire" that only varies slightly.

Floor 1: Only check the Cheap shop in case something is affordable. All other shops are usually too expensive + need keycards. If I have at least 10HP I'll also check the Sacrifice room.

Floor 2-3-4: Stock up on passives and HP/energy boosts in all shops as much as possible. If going for money-centric perks/powers, I also start grabbing my favorite drones. Burn excess HP on any sacrifice item that might enhance my current loadout until the costs get unreasonable (8+). If Lady Luck is in a bad mood and shops have nothing interesting, I burn most of my credits on XP.

Floor 5: Keep an eye out for badass weapons. Otherwise I continue the previous floors tactic.

Floor 6-7: Go for the free stuff rooms and rob the Drone shop. If I don't have a consumable before a boss (pretty rare), I'll go buy one when available. If near a levelup, I might burn my remaining credits on XP.

When I have plenty of keys (which is very often the case), I'll enter most shops just to see if there's something new/unusual I might buy just for novelty's sake. I usually get my consumables from locked chests, so shopping is often not required for those.

Custom mechs often throw a wrench in those plans, but I excluded those from my shopping habits description above.

[Draco18s]

My modus operandi is to visit robot shops as early and as often as possible, but I won't bother unlocking one on floor 1-2 unless I have a minimum 35 credits.

I used to not visit weapon shops (I get really attached to things) but have started to fix that. Usually more of a floor 3-4 quest.

[Tolc]

My modus operandi is probably some mixture of Misery's and logorouge's. In addition I'm focussing on buying drones and stuff that buffs my damage or HP. 

[TheVampire100]

I go for robot shops first and weapon shops second but I use up all my keycards if I can.
Robot shops are for me personally the best choice. they give you extra fire power without replacing anything you already have. Weapon shops arethe second best choicesince you can find some good weapons there but if I have already soemthign I want to keep, I skip them.

[Logorouge]

Small addendum to my previous post:

Due to the new Consumable Shop selection and the latest changes made by Ptarth to the Cheap Shop, my shopping habits have slowly changed. I'm now spending a lot more credits in those two shops and burning less in XP. I also started identifying Mysterious Circuits as often as I used to, since they're common enough that it seems worth it.

I'm also grabbing on average one more sacrifice room item in any given run compared to before. The variety of effects available is just too tempting to pass up.

[Misery]

Hm, sounds like the consumable shop change is working out well for you then, eh?

I know I've been darned pleased with it.   Went from a shop that wasn't useful at all, to something now that's pretty much always a good reason to use a key.   Or that much more reason to get the skeleton key item, heh.

Really I'm still amazed by just how much the game changed/improved with this update.

[NickAragua]

Last run:
Mediocre player on Normal using Indigo Dipole

When I say "buy from", I tend to mean "buy all objects which give permanent stat boosts".

Floor 1: Buy from cheap shop. Skip all others, lacking credits and/or keys. Pick up skeleton key from sacrifice shop.
Floor 2: Buy from cheap shop, skip all others (still lacking credits), although I did visit them since I had the skeleton key and they occasionally have breakables in them.
Floor 3, 4: Buy from cheap shop, weapons shop, robot shop. Visit defensive shop, but most of the stuff in there is, how to put it diplomatically, crap. "Reduce movement speed by 50%", how about no.
Floor 5: die

[Misery]

Floor 5: die

An efficient tactic. I approve.

[Monkooky]

Most Mechs on Hard

Leftmost things are bought first if I can only afford some of the stuff.
Floor 1: Cheap shop. Buy any +10 energy available, only buy other stuff if desperate
Floor 2: Visit defensive shop if I've got >=35$$ buy -2missile+4hp buy -20energy+4hp buy +2hp.
Floor 3: Visit defensive shop, same purchases as previous. If >3 keycards, visit weapon shop but probably don't buy.
Floor 4-5: Visit defensive shop, visit weapon shop if I have keycards to spare and don't have a weapon I like yet. Visit robot shop, buy time slow bot if it's there.
Floor 6-7: I have like a bajillion keycards. Open alllll the shops! Upgrade my weapons if need be, buy time slow robots, buy +health items, maybe buy a consumable.

For white gloss I prioritize a new secondary weapon, for blue dude or redshift a new primary.