Dome Keeper: How to Beat the Iron Demand Assignment

To beat the Iron Demand assignment in Dome Keeper, you must treat iron primarily as your win condition rather than upgrade currency. Survival requires buying only the minimum gear needed to dig efficiently and hold off attack waves, while depositing every remaining piece of iron into the dome to satisfy the Guild's delivery quota before enemy scaling overwhelms you.

Manage Upgrades Under Quota Pressure

Standard runs encourage reinvesting mined iron directly into advanced weapon systems and dome utilities. In the Iron Demand assignment, over-upgrading will exhaust the map's ore deposits before you meet the delivery requirement, causing an unavoidable failure.

Plan your spending around strict stopping points:

1. Drill Level 1: Purchase immediately after your first surface run to cut dig times in top-layer rock.
2. Carry Capacity Level 1: Purchase on your second run to haul complete node clusters back to the dome without repeated trips.
3. Primary Weapon Damage Tier 1: Purchase only when incoming regular swarms begin threatening dome integrity.
4. Drill Level 2: Delay until you reach the denser middle rock layers where blocks take more than three strikes to break.

Avoid upgrading weapon tracking, blast doors, or movement speed with iron unless combat survival is impossible without them. Reserve cobalt exclusively for emergency hull repairs so you never spend quota iron on maintenance.

Mining Route and Resource Priorities

Carve vertical shafts separated by two-tile walls. This spacing uncovers every adjacent mineral vein without burning mining cycles clearing empty ground.

Because iron must be hoarded, rely heavily on alternate resources:

• Cobalt: Save all discovered cobalt for structural repairs. Letting shield recharge absorb minor hits prevents premature repair costs.
• Water: Channel water into utility gadgets such as the Condenser, Orchard, or Stun Laser. Overcharging these gadgets provides crowd control and speed boosts without draining your iron stockpile.

Recommended Gadget Synergies

Subterranean gadget relics determine how much iron you can divert from personal stats into the assignment goal. Prioritize relics that solve transport bottlenecks:

Defending the Dome on a Budget

Combat in this assignment is an endurance test using low-tier weaponry. Whether you use the Laser Dome or the Sword Dome, keep damage output at Tier 1.

Focus down ranged attackers and flying spitters first. Allow slow-moving melee units to close distance against your dome shield rather than spending heavy iron reserves on projectile speed or high-tier beam damage. Taking minor shield damage is safe as long as your hull remains intact.

Final Quota Push

Once you break into medium-depth caverns and secure enough baseline combat strength to survive the active wave tier, halt all equipment upgrades entirely.

Check the quota meter after every haul. When known veins contain enough ore to hit the target, stop exploring side paths or excavating hard blocks for relics. Drag the required iron directly to the central dome pod, trigger the completion objective, and end the mission before endgame monster waves outscale your budget build.