While I am okay with the grind and stuff, the one gripe I have is that the small grey slimes do way too much damage (so much so I had to purposefully not get certain blueprints just to prevent them from spawning in so much) and I feel like they should be nerfed. Whenever they swarm, I usually am forced to watch as sometimes hours of my work gets deleted instantly. I'm okay with the orange slimes doing a fourth damage to the fortified walls (as I said, couldn't use other walls lest I spawn the grey slimes in more frequent waves), but for how quick they are, they really should be toned down at the very least. Still enjoying it, however.
I had to check back through the code to make sure I wasn't misremembering, but there are no gray slimes in this game, only spacethumper 1. The good news though is that in both games the enemies just get harder over time, nothing is gated behind certain upgrades, so feel free to research the better defensive buildings to deal with them!
Well, with that knowledge (and being able to build the energy shield's whenever the little slimes that deal like a quarter of the health of the fortified walls), I finally was able to get past the block. That and I just moved my base away from the cave. Still excited to see what else is in store for this game (as I do enjoy this game :D)