wall of tips:
-early as possible make sure you prioritize at least 5 in all stats strays to breed a line, above all else always 5+ con and speed
-if you're struggling early, always take a tank, and prioritize any items with thorns at all times; especially if you find the fuckin picket fence looking item that gives 1+ thorns when taking damage, if you have a tank with multiple thorns items and high con and pick abilities you can work with, that can very easily carry you through caves at minimum almost by himself, i nearly even soloed pyrophina with that thorn setup because it can go upward of 50 in long fights, just avoid standing in front of or in line with allies so you don't kill your own team from knockback. cleric+tank+hunter+(fill/fighter) are very good for beginning
-if scared of the daddy shark in sewers, especially early, take a hunter and mage or 2 ranged and make sure you pick up stuff like bramble shot or decent range knockback shit
-general difficulty progression route before act 3 is sewer/caves>junkyard/boneyard>bunker/core>crater/moon, caves is straightforward, boneyard is a semi pia, bunker/core is easier than going through the desert, and crater/moon is much more complicated comparatively to everything else before act 3
-if boneyard boss is a pia, when he possesses someone, do not fight it, let him kill everyone, then his possession will smack him out of them and you'll have 1 unit at full hp to kill him at 1 hp, if you try to fight the possession and fail, then it could have fatally low hp
-as soon as you get cleric, always take cleric unless super confident or farming easy areas, if you're struggling bad, prioritize safety with something like cleric, necro (post boneyard) tank and hunter, all stuff that can heal itself and/or stay at range
-as soon as you get attic, move all cats there, more space than other rooms, i'm lazy so my game plan has always been to have 1 breeding room (attic), keep around 16 cats so no risk of losing the line but not a resource hog, and statwise you want to aim for like 10 comfort, 10 health, 10 mutation, and pumping tf out of stimulation. c h and m are nice but stim seems like the only one that has real breakpoints, 32 is a very important breakpoint for 100% first spell breeding
-you never have to throw your line in the dumpster, if you want super soldiers and are lazy/scared, when you have appeal and stim around 20+, watch strays. every time there's one with a 7, particularly a 7 in a stat you haven't seen, throw it in the breeding pile. if it lives hopefully, eventually you should get kittens with a 7 in that stat. after 2 or 3 kittens with that number, throw the stray in the dumpster, get another cat with another 7 in a different stat, and eventually you should get cats with 7s in 2, if you run out of food, adventure with them in safe areas or use others, repeat until all 7s. keep a cat count around 13-16 to avoid having to use too much resources to do so.
-if desert is scary/annoying, wait until raining at house and it removes the heat wave. take a cleric/necromancer if worried either way, if you see the pink cat miniboss, she's harder than the desert bosses and bunker boss, use extreme caution, she's boneyard boss but harder and without cheesing possession
-in general, never be afraid to let most stuff come to you, and let hunter/ranged units thin them down, and keep cleric within movement of healing people at risk, for bonus points, get stuff like prayer and/or the passive that heals the cleric
-don't be in too much of a rush for house bosses early, just send one stray, hit start and concede unless absolutely sure, your only real reward from them requires doing hard challenge runs after, so don't have to push yourself early for no reason
-if you're not afraid/bored of grinding, the easiest way to power spike is to do the best you can until you can handle caves nearly guaranteed, then do alley hard path, sewer hard path, (take box side path) cave hard path (take box again) and you get 2 furniture a run which starts building your house stats for free
-i learned late, make sure before you send retired cats down the pipe to let them stay several days or until they're old, you can pass more abilities like that
-always keep all red items as long as you can unless you have a good progression use for them, NEVER use fancy bow, only thing you seem to be able to perma "fuck up" once a save, besides which kaiju you choose
-imo especially early it's a good idea to stick to one of each item, no dupes, and no consumables in storage unless they're red, prioritize brace and thorns and +attack/range/basic attack effect for hunter if you have no idea what to do
-you can save scum multiple times if it's down to the wire, save and quit before the last unit dies, then reload, first time a run is free, second time is 1 unit gets 10% chance of failing any ability, 3rd is your full team gets that. so 2 mostly safe retries, 3 in worst case scenario, and then last one is ai control but worse. very useful early on to avoid too much pain when learning, also useful if you have a unlucky early fuck up in a mostly safe run.
