Starting Note

It's been another few days after the Aerolyte dev log, and in that time a bunch of small, but noteworthy things have happened. So before I cover Cash Producer itself, I'll first go over some of these small changes.

Important Small Changes

First things first, your total time played is now tracked on your save files! Unfortunately, any time spent prior to this update isn't tracked, so your save file total time played will be slightly inaccurate if you continue to use the saves you had in v0.1.

[Yes, my Dev Testing save file has that much put in but no time tracked, shush]

Now, more importantly for Cash Producer, some changes have been made regarding income abilities.

Income abilities will now start with 50% initial cooldown instead of 25%, meaning that sell-rebuy income strats are slower, and therefor less effective.

Additionally, a new anti-stall system has been put in place. If a round has lasted another 3 minutes after the last enemy has spawned, all forms of slows, stuns, and knockback will gradually get weaker over time. After 5 minutes, all of these status effects are nullified entirely.

You'll only really see the new anti-stall system if you're using top path Drill Sniper, and even then it'll only really apply to super late game rounds like Round 97. Besides, 3 minutes should be plenty of time, and there's no reason that you'd need 5 minutes. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong and I'll have to adjust this system's timers some more in later versions, I'll mainly have to see once Acidic Splatter is reintroduced.

Last thing, on the topic of Drill Sniper, if you remember in its dev log I mentioned that I might need to nerf its ability. Ultimately, I went through with it (which I honestly should've before even making the dev log), and here are the changes:

• Crate value reduced from $600 to $500 (Mega Supply Drop unchanged)

• Cooldown increased from 30s to 60s

  • Combined with the aforementioned initial cooldown change, the new initial cooldown for Supply Drop and Mega Supply Drop is 30s (up from 7.5s)

It'll still be a strong secondary income source, but just not as good as it was going to be (seriously, only losing $205 was a little much).

Anyways, with that out of the way, here's all you need to know about Cash Producer:

Base, Up To Tier 2 Upgrades and The Ability

Cash Producer got changed rather significantly, in an attempt to make the extra snowballing income worse, since it could skyrocket out of control very fast, as well as the Golden Lives effect basically providing immortality.

• Base

  • Coins now have a 15s lifespan

  • Hitbox size increased from 27 to 30

  • Price increased from $800 to $1000

• 1/x/x - More Cash

  • Renamed to "More Coins"

  • Coins per round reduced from 8 to 6

• 2/x/x - Even More Cash

  • Renamed to "Even More Coins"

  • Coins per round reduced from 16 to 8

• x/1/x - Increased Value

  • Moved up to x/2/x, "Sturdy Coins" is the new x/1/x

    • "Sturdy Coins" increases coin lifespan and collection radius

  • Now applies to end of round bonuses from "Round Collection"

  • Price increased from $1500 to $2500

• x/2/x - Golden Lives

  • Removed entirely

• x/x/1 - Round Collection

  • Moved up to x/x/2, "Auto-Collect" is the new x/x/1

    • "Auto-Collect" causes coins to be automatically collected for 50% value upon expiring

• x/x/2 - Bonus Cash

  • Moved up to x/x/3

  • Renamed to "Cash Spawner"

• Ability - Small Loan

  • Debt increased from $2500 to $5000

As with a lot of towers at this point, the introduction of Tier 3 upgrades changed their upgrade structure a bit. This is most noticeable with Cash Producer as the middle and bottom paths got tier shifted up 1 tier each and the top path's coin count was dropped significantly.

This makes the tower far worse, but I feel like that's fine for base Cash Producer, as you'll be encouraged to go down its other paths as a result. For comparison, a 2/2/2 Cash Producer in the original would make $580 per round, plus $1 per enemy spawned, but in the remake it'll only make $390 per round, so income has been reduced by a minimum of 32.8%.

Golden Lives being removed is one of the big things with Cash Producer in this remake. I wasn't a huge fan of the upgrade in the original, so it only felt right to remove it when working the entire game back up from scratch. I do want to bring back life regeneration at some point, but it likely won't be with Cash Producer.

Now, the change to Small Loan may sound weird at first, but don't worry, it's neither a buff nor a nerf. If you looked in the Sandbox menu in v0.1, you might've noticed you were able to edit Debt and Life Fortification, if you did raise Debt above 0 and tried it, you might've noticed that you gain both cash and lose debt when getting income. It's a change I didn't feel like mentioning in v0.1 as debt was impossible to gain there, but debt now only takes 50% of your income instead of 100%.

Top Path - Quantity Over Quality

Top path focuses primarily on coin production itself, as well as having the global buff that Maximum Capacity had in the original.

• 3/x/x - Coin Factory

  • Produces 16 coins per round

• 4/x/x - Maximum Capacity

  • Produces 5 high value crates per round, increases the amount of coins all other Cash Producers produce by 25%

If you're looking to get the most out of coin income with Cash Producer, this is going to be your best bet.

Coin Factory is very simple, with the only change being that it produces twice as many coins. It's similar to More Cash (2/x/x) from the original, but as a Tier 3. Compared to the other paths, this is going to be the largest consistent jump with a Tier 3 you'll get.

Maximum Capacity is exactly the same as the original, ditching the coins for a few high-value crates, as well as providing all Cash Producers with 25% extra coins. It's important to note that in the remake, the extra coins are spawned during the round instead of all at the end. Additionally, this upgrade no longer changes Small Loan in any way.

Middle Path - Boost In Numbers

Middle path focuses on providing bonuses based on the amount of Cash Producers you have.

• x/3/x - Grouped Income

  • Increases coin value of nearby Cash Producers by a small percentage, stacking up to 5 times

• x/4/x - High-Value Economics

  • Applies 2 stacks of the x/3/x buff globally. Ability is debt-free and recharges slightly faster.

If you have plenty of Cash Producers in an area, this path might be the best way to boost up income further.

Grouped Income causes the Cash Producer to provide a small boost to all nearby Cash Producer's coin value, and can stack up to 5 times with other Cash Producers. The buff it provides will apply to itself, and the Cash Producer will get actual range that'll show how far it can buff.

High-Value Economics applies the 2 stacks of the Grouped Income buff to all Cash Producers on the field. Nothing else is really changed outside of the ability, Small Payment, which is the same as Small Loan, minus the debt.

Bottom Path - Spawn Tax

Bottom path is more of a gamble than the other two paths, but should provides good income if you can get it up early enough.

• x/x/3 - Cash Spawner

  • Give $1 per enemy spawned, and all coins are auto-collected for full value

• x/x/4 - Income Gatherer

  • Round Collection and Cash Spawner bonuses greatly increased. Ability now doubles ALL income for 5 seconds but then nullifies ALL income for the following 15 seconds

If you're confident in high enemy spawns, then you can take a shot with this path, otherwise it's likely best to just go for Income Gatherer. Otherwise, if you want a lazy option, this path is a good pick for that.

Cash Spawner's primary effect is identical to Bonus Cash from the original, providing an extra $1 for every natural enemy spawn. For an added lazy bonus however, coins produced are automatically collected at full value.

Income Gatherer is almost identical to the original, boosting the Cash Spawner effect to $5 per spawn, but it boosts the Round Collection effect to $2000, compared to the original's $400. The big thing with this upgrade however is the Money Duplicator ability.

Money Duplicator functions identically to the original, providing double income for a short while but then nullifying it afterwards. Unlike the original however, the income nullification now lasts 15 seconds instead of 3. So you'll have to be a little more careful with when you decide to get a burst of double cash.

Ending Note

Cash Producer is still going to be a strong tower for income, but I felt that toning it down was important to do for balancing reasons. One of the big things that could come from this is the impact on Time Trials, but I won't know until I decide to implement them.

With that out of the way, the next dev log will likely be Power Charger and, despite what I said in the Octogon Shooter dev log, it'll likely be the last one for this update as development is getting close to done.

See you all next time!