Creeper World IXE Gameplay Introduction

In Creeper World IXE, you and your fleet of ships have been dispatched by O.D.N. to liberate worlds seized by the IXE. In between you and the liberation of these worlds is a fluid called the creeper that destroys everything in its path. Unfortunately, you are in the creepers path, the only question is if that is unfortunate for you or the creeper.

Information on the UI can be found on the user interface page and more advanced strategies can be found on the tips and tricks page. This guide assumes default keybindings, these can be changed in the settings menu.

A map is a grid of 512 by 512 pixels that can each be set to a number of different materials that have their own physics and properties. You can only see all of the properties of a given terrain type using the editor, though you learn the important properties from playing the game. Some important resources to note going in are kirkium, that gives you extra energy when collected, AC Ore, which can be collected to create anticreeper, and creeper eater liquid which damages creeper on contact.

By mousing over a tile on the map, you can see what terrain type it is using the rightmost section of the bottom UI. A blank spot here indicates the terrain is blank; you can think of it as being air.

Your Apex Ship is your main base, it is required to build and supply your units with ammunition. Unless the mission starts with the Apex ship already deployed, you can deploy your Apex Ship anywhere not covered by terrain that blocks your ships. Select the Apex Ship from the build menu on the bottom UI and place the Apex Ship where you want to set up your main base. Using the same method you used to place the Apex ship you can place build ghosts for your other units; these units do not spawn in fully built and need to be constructed. The resources to build these units are created at the Apex Ship if it has sufficient resources to do so and need to travel to the build ghost you placed. These resources are in the form of packets; single pixels that navigate through open space to reach their destination. Once all the build packets arrive at the build ghost, the unit is constructed.

(gif of unit being placed)

When hovering over a unit in the build menu, a mouseover should appear telling you the name of the unit along with a number in square brackets, this is the total energy cost to build the unit. Note that this does not include the energy to supply the unit with ammo. Units will be automatically supplied with ammo unless they do not use ammo; ammo packets are dispatched from the Apex Ship and navigate to the ship in the same way the build packets move. This means that disconnected ships cannot be resupplied and will eventually run out of ammo.

(gif of ammo packets moving to 1 ship, second ship isolated in cave not getting ammo)

You can select a unit and give it a new position the same way you placed the build ghost initially for the unit; when you do this the unit will split itself back into packets, which will travel to its new destination and rematerialize there. The unit will not function until it fully reassembles itself so be careful sending ships forward into combat.

Different ships come with different components, from weapons to energy generation to weird abilities. You can see a more detailed breakdown of various units and their effects on the Standard Units page.

Some of your ships come equipped with an Excavation Lathe capable of digging up some terrain types and building shields to protect you. This lets you reshape the terrain around you to narrow your enemies attack vectors or open up new paths to attack the enemy or open up objectives.

(gif of terrain being terraformed)

With no unit selected, clicking on the map will set terraform markers on diggable terrain, denoted as colouring the tile pink, in a small box around your cursor. Holding tab and scrolling your mousewheel will adjust the size of this terraform marker, and holding control while clicking will remove all terraforming markers in a the box instead of placing them. These options can also be accessed using the Terraform Controls section of the top right UI.

Lathes will terraform any terraform markers in range, starting with the closest. Lathes have a long but finite range, so you cannot terraform terrain across the map from your ships. You can use this terraforming to gain access to resources you did not initially have access to.

In addition to removing terrain, you can also hold tab while setting terraform markers on air to paint shields, denoted as a green color on the tile. Shields are a terrain type that your ships can shoot through but the creeper needs to destroy before it can get through.

Terraforming is extremely powerful and its biggest limitation is the creativity of the player; you can do some wild shenanigans using the terraforming tools.

On most maps, the biggest threat to your survival will be the creeper, a fluid that flows through open space to reach you so it can destroy you.

(image of creeper fighting ships)

Each tile on the map can contain up to 2147 units of creeper; this density determines how the creeper flows using a fluid simulation. Several of your ships come equipped with weapons capable of attacking the creeper, most default weapons attack the creeper automatically if it is in range and does not require player input. Be careful though, as the creeper does damage to your units on contact and blocks energy packets so overrun ships will likely be destroyed.

Creeper is produced by a number of map features including emitters, fixed emitters, throwers and Breeder Terrains. Eliminating these sources will reduce the amount of creeper being produced and is generally recommended. Most enemy structures can be destroyed using a Nullifier, while breeder only generates creeper if there is already creeper on it.

Using the terrain to your advantage is recommended against the creeper; hiding in a cave allows the creeper to only come from one direction instead of potentially surrounding you. Shields can also hold back creeper for a time while your defenses can safely fire upon it.

(gif of ships fighting in a cave)

The other enemies are a lot simpler and tend to not be as dangerous as the creeper on most maps.

Spawners create bots that hunt down your units and deal massive damage on contact. These bots can be destroyed by Cannons, Sentinel Cannons and anticreeper.

Phantom Emitters shoot phantoms at your ships that travel through terrain and explode into creeper if they are allowed to hit their target. Coil Ships can shoot down the phantoms and prevent them from depositing any creeper, though they require a significant amount of energy and 2 seconds of firing to do so.

Digimakers activates digitalis, which damages your ships and allows creeper to flow through terrain. Digitalis can be deactivated by the same weapons that destroy creeper, but a more efficient strategy is to cut the digitalis using a Spirit Ship.

Part Emitters spawn particles that float around an area, work like creeper only breeder terrain and damage your ships on contact. Your best weapon against this is the Part Ship which can destroy particles in a single shot.

You can see a more detailed breakdown of various enemies and their effects on the Standard Units page.

There can be up to 7 different objectives on a map; however, on most maps you only need to worry about 2 of them: Activating the IXE Cores and Collecting all Items.

IXE Cores are a set of practically invulnerable objects scattered around most maps. Activating the IXE cores requires each IXE core to be filled with 10 energy ammo, but while active the IXE cores drain 1 energy every 3 seconds. Having all IXE cores active simultaneously on a map will trigger a “Rift Blade”, destroying all IXE cores on the map and granting the “IXE Cores Destroyed!” objective.

(gif of rift blade destroying ixe cores)

There are 3 types of items on campaign missions that need to be collected for victory: Hibernation Pods, Info Caches and Tech Modules. All 3 of these can be collected by dispatching 10 energy worth of packets to each; they do not drain ammo or need to be activated simultaneously like IXE Cores do. Collecting all of them will reward the “Items Collected!” objective.

There is one more objective type that is by default required; Destroying Inhibitors. Inhibitors refers to a type of enemy that in lore prevents you from warping off planet; in game terms there are objectives with “Inhibitor” somewhere in their name and nullifying them is required for victory.

The other 4 objectives are not required by default; you can ignore this paragraph if your goal is to simply win each mission. The “Emitters Destroyed” objective requires you to nullify enemy structures¹⁾. The “Creeper Eliminated” objective is self-explanatory; remove ALL creeper on the map. “Specials Destroyed” cannot be triggered by default, but a mapmaker could set some units to trigger this objective when nullified. The last objective is “Script Mission Complete”, which is attached to IRPL scripting and basically means victory is triggered by custom code.

There are several map elements not listed above, the most important being Upgrade Gems. They are activated in a similar fashion to Tech Modules, if there is a valid path between your Apex ship and the Upgrade gem, packets will be dispatched that will collect the gem. Each gem grants a bonus to energy generation, range and fire rate, making them hugely valuable. Details of the Upgrade Gem numbers can be found on the Upgrade Gem page.

There are 2 variants of stationary turrets (B.O.B. and T.O.M) that each come equipped with a single Sentinel Cannon. These units do not require ammo to fire and will shoot at both creeper and bots in range. They make great additions to defensive operations as they are completely free; however they are hard to use for offensive operations as they cannot move except by the power of gravity.

The basic opening for Creeper World IXE is to get Reactors up as soon as possible. You might want to instead build ships with lathes to collect objects before the creeper gets to them or build combat ships to hold back the creeper. Make sure you do not overbuild too early on as it will take forever for your pitiful starting energy generation to finish a collection of half built ships. You start with 200 energy, ration it accordingly.

For the midgame, the basic goal is to survive. Your reactors take 4 minutes to reach peak efficiency and surviving to that point is generally recommended. Combat ships such as the Defender, Gunship and Frigate will help you deal with incoming creeper and bots. Build other units as necessary to counter the other types of threats on the map; so for example if there are phantom emitters on a map, you want to build Coilships.

In the lategame, you want to push the enemy, either eliminate threats or achieve an objective. Pick something you either want or want gone and push for it; terraforming paths as necessary to get close enough to either nullify, activate or collect that thing. Once you run out of things to push for, you should have won the map.

This is only a basic starting strategy and does not give much in the way of details. More advanced strategies can be found on the tips and tricks page.