Infinity Drive

"Nobody entirely knows what an Android experiences deep within their own minds. How far does it go? Where does it end? Why are there so many robots in here?"

Infinity Drive is an endurance mode where the player must overcome waves of increasing difficulty for as long as they can.

Despite the name, Infinity Drive is finite and can be finished - there are 49 layers in total.

Basic premise
Infinity Drive begins on layer 1. Each layer (numbered 1-49) consists of either a boss, or wave(s) of enemies. All waves/layers are hardcoded, and not randomly generated.

To advance to the next layer, one must overcome every wave (or defeat that layer's boss).

Between layers, the environment often changes (holes, walls, rotating floors etc). All layers are the same overall size and circular shape.

The drive is over when the player runs out of Battery, or completes layer 49.

Like Daily Drive, players are ranked in terms of which layer they failed on (finishing is awarded an ∞ symbol rather than a layer number). Score is only taken into account if two players failed on the same layer.

Layer color
Like Daily Drive, the color of the text displaying the current layer number directly corresponds to your current performance.


 * Blue: Lowest value spawns.
 * Green: Medium value spawns.
 * Red: Highest value spawns.

The net result is that the higher the spawn value, the more challenging each wave becomes, however the greater density of targets will mean you will be able to kill faster and spawn more batteries.

Dropping the combo chain at any time results in the layer color turning blue.

Holding the combo chain for an entire wave changes the color from blue to green, or from green to red. Note that a layer can consist of multiple waves, hence there are potentially multiple chances per layer to move up in layer color.

Holding the red layer color becomes more and more important as the Drive progresses and waves become more difficult, and is all but necessary past Layer 30.

Strategy
Your ultimate goal is to prevent the Battery from running out, which means:


 * Killing enemies as quickly as possible, in order to spawn the battery quickly,
 * Holding onto the combo chain as much as possible, in order to maintain red layer color and thus the highest possible battery spawn rate,
 * And not getting knocked down.

Unlike any other mode, getting surge kills is relatively unimportant, since layer number primarily determines your leader-board spot and not score.

Starch is recommended for this mode, as survival is much easier due to her high-DPS laser and versatile micro missiles. Cactus is also a decent choice due to her well-rounded primary and high-DPS flamethrower.

Try to keep both Firepower and Accelerate topped up as much as possible (30 seconds is the maximum, with each instance of a powerup granting 15 secs), and use Shutdowns when caught in a difficult situation. During a Shutdown, focus down the enemies that are giving you the most trouble.

Make good use of the invincibility frames granted by a weapon swap, e.g. dodging through mines as they explode, hopping through lasers, or dodging into a crowd of enemies to grab a Shutdown.

Use your secondary a lot to maximise DPS. This applies to everything, but particularly so in Infinity Drive. The most DPS-efficient way to use your secondary is to wait for it to fully cool down, then unload it all at once. If you're in a dangerous situation, consider using less than all of it at a time, so you can still dodge soon after.

Spectres of both types will make your life a hell if you don't get rid of them quickly, especially on later layers. Accelerate is useful for hunting them down.

When battery is super-critical (less than 5 seconds or so left), DPS down close targets to make the battery spawn on you, rather than across the screen.

Infinity Drive takes around 45 minutes for a typical run, which can be mentally draining and result in a lack of focus when it's most important. Consider pausing and taking a short break around the halfway mark.

Layers 1-6
Waves consisting of mostly basic enemies like Kegs, Fidos, Drones, Wasps, Mega Kegs, Titans, Bullet Turrets, etc.

Overall difficulty is roughly equivalent to an Area 1 or 2 level.

Layer 7: Embryo
The entire layer consists of the Embryo boss fight.

Since you can have a maxed weapon and/or powerups coming into the fight, the fight is a bit easier than in Campaign mode, and usually serves as a battery top-up.

Layers 8-14
Turbo Drones, Laser Turrets, Jumbo Fidos, Reaper Spectres, Vector Factories, Super Mines and Maser Turrets are gradually added to the pool of mobs that can spawn, in roughly that order.

Overall difficulty is roughly equivalent to an Area 3 or 4 level.

Layer 15: Vespula
The entire layer consists of the Vespula boss fight.

Since you can have a maxed weapon and/or powerups coming into the fight, the fight is a bit easier than in Campaign mode, and usually serves as a battery top-up.

Layer 16-22
Fetch Fidos, Orbital Factories, Mine Canisters and Tendril Factories are gradually added to the pool of mobs that can spawn, in roughly that order.

Overall difficulty is roughly equivalent to an Area 4 or 5 level.

Layer 23: Justice
The entire layer consists of the Justice boss fight.

Since you can have a maxed weapon and/or powerups coming into the fight, the fight is a bit easier than in Campaign mode, and usually serves as a battery top-up.

Layers 24-30
The difficulty increases higher, up to Area 5-level difficulty and beyond.

Banshee Spectres are added to the pool of mobs that can spawn at Layer 30, completing the list.

Layer 31
This layer is especially important because in order to access the Dark Embryo fight, you must be red layer color when finishing this layer. In other words, it is necessary to hold chain for the final two waves.

[more information about said waves]

Layer 32: Dark Embryo
If your layer color is red after completing Layer 31, this layer will consist of the Dark Embryo boss fight. Otherwise, it will consist of a single wave of enemies of typical difficulty of the layer depth.

The boss fight is difficult, but gives you a hefty battery advantage if you can overcome it without dropping the combo chain, granting you a battery advantage that is often critical in the coming waves.

A good strategy is to save both of your powerups from Phases 1 and 3 (as Phases 1-4 are not difficult) and use both of them on Phase 5 (the hardest phase). The goal is to end Phase 5 quickly before you have to contend too much with Ideally you will want a Shutdown plus a Firepower, then another Shutdown for Phase 6, but you'll have to take what you can get.

Layer 33
Layer 33 is particularly difficult as it contains both a spinning floor and a central hole, in addition to many difficult enemies.

It is an extremely common sticking point for many players, and coming into this layer on Red with a topped up battery from Dark Embryo is a huge leg-up to get you through.

Layers past 33
WIP. Suffice it to say that they are extremely difficult and even small mistakes will be heavily punished. Maintaining Red color is basically mandatory or you will fail.

Sometimes you will seem like you're doing OK, then pay for your mistakes on a later layer.

Trivia

 * The IndieBox instruction manual (see the top of this article) contextualizes the Infinity Drive as an internal experience, a type of dream or hallucination perhaps.


 * Something interesting happens if you complete the Infinity Drive, only one person (besides the developers) knows what.

Statistics
The following is a histogram depicting how many players have gotten to each layer (as of January 2017, but it's unlikely to change too much).

As you can see, Layers 13 and 21 are particular sticking points. Barely anyone at all gets past the 31-32-33 gauntlet.