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1

Ideas / Re: Scrap Heap Fun

« on: November 16, 2020, 08:20:56 AM »

In a way, the 3x4 item stockpiles you find in Mats serves this purpose.

Plus, as soon as you enter Mats, you can find random things on the floor. Placing the first random thing in the scrapyard doesn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

2

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: November 07, 2020, 04:28:43 AM »

Benefits:

...

- Buffs Hyp. EM Gauss Rifle

Some of those things listed as "benefits" are either downsides (to me)

Other random tidbits on (mostly) game balance so that my post isn't solely a joke:

- I can see EMDS being a target of nerfing at some point
- Door/special terminal change is playing out nicely I think
- Is the combat too launcher-focused?
- I would like to see the explosive potential of power slot items from EM damage listed in their stats
- Being able to trigger multiple investigation squads from the same alarm trap array via AOE seems dodgy
- Cmb linears need to be prototype (and possibly other/all cmb hovers)
- Something about siege mode giving a substantial flat accuracy buff seems off to me, like it's too easy to obtain the full benefit without a build dedicated to it. Might prefer if it upped the acc % buff per tread slot.
- Don't let us find 2+ of hyp EM gauss / tachyon in lab... it really sucks

I have more thoughts on core exposure but I'll save them for another time as I'm trying out some combat runs and will see how things feel.

3

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: November 04, 2020, 01:28:48 PM »

Also, it's about time someone brought up the core exposure idea from the discord.

Idea: dramatic increase of core exposure of robots and Cogmind across the board, e.g. 2-3x current core coverage.

Benefits:

- Faster paced battles
- More offensive focus
- Positioning and first hits more important
- Substantially buffs early-game flight/stealth (and later-game slightly)
- Makes core integrity more relevant
- Makes core shielding relevant
- Reduced part attrition
- More thematic e.g. you have to protect your exposed core
- Nerfs IR
- Buffs Hyp. EM Gauss Rifle

Downsides:

- Makes crit too strong for the player

I see this as the perfect complement to reducing inventory capacities. Discuss.

edit: I wrote this post separately to my post in favour of no_stack which is at the end of the previous page. It is basically part 2 of that.

4

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: November 04, 2020, 12:39:50 PM »

Whatever the gameplay potential, two_stack bugs me as too arbitrary.

A potential issue with no_stack is a too great loss of flexibility. It's more flexible than storage units not existing and simply giving Cogmind more inherent inventory slots, but you run into issues like... carrying a storage unit you plan to upgrade to feels bad when you can only equip one at a time. Two storage units allows you the nuance of something like Lrg. with another Lrg. in inventory, eventually putting on the second one. Or Lrg+Med with a Lrg. in inventory to eventually go Lrg. x2.

I'm not buying this. With no_stack, you can do the exact same thing of carrying a lrg storage unit while you have med equipped, and hoping to upgrade soon. The only question is how many 'steps' of unique storage units there should be, and what the thresholds should be.

It may well be reasonable at current numbers. You could interpret humpback as 2x storage units, or you could allow players to equip two if they really want to carry tons and then they have to deal with the unusual mass and coverage of double humpback. You might play a wheels build like that. 2x Hcp. for 20-inventory slots seems a reasonable size that isn't annoying to use, you can genuinely carry stuff but it's a manageable inventory.

This is basically the same as 2x original number no_stack. What is the difference between no_stack and two_stack, then? two_stack has the issue of being arbitrary, and it allows for more steps between capacity thresholds. The former is clearly a downside. As for the latter, we can compensate by introducing more storage unit types, say a couple more. But I kind of like having a substantial capacity difference between the storage units so that your choice is more decisive and consequential.

Oh and another difference is that no_stack saves a slot. I think that's a good thing as you get more slots to play with. Perhaps it makes the game easier but I'd rather compensate for that elsewhere.

For those who think no_stack would not allow hauler-type builds, I think humpbacks could serve the niche fine. For two slots, you could get say, 24-26 inventory capacity increase for a total of 28-30 inventory capacity. This is still a substantial inventory. Perhaps you could introduce a Mega Humpback which is three slots and gives even more. But the objective of limiting inventory size overall would be achieved. We won't have people running around with 50+ anymore, and reaching 30 would be a very deliberate strategic choice rather than something which just happens naturally when you slap on yet another storage unit. Oh and you even get humpbacks from exiles, which is exactly where people like to engorge themselves on meme items.

Another reason I like no_stack is because you can design the storage units for different efficiencies. E.g. sml storage would be the most mass-efficient. Hcp the most slot efficient. Humpback the most storage at the expense of slot efficiency. Med and lrg being all-rounders. You can also tweak the values without concern about what happens if you combine them, making for easier balancing. You could ditch the current scheme of +2 inventory for 2x mass of the previous storage tier if you wanted to.

Ultimately, storage units are less interesting than parts that actually modify your combat abilities or infowar capabilities. no_stack does shift the emphasis away from storage units, and I would argue that that's a good thing. There are lots of interesting parts in Cogmind, and it's a shame to pass them up all the time, especially in the early-game, because filling your slots with storage is a necessary evil.

5

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 21, 2020, 02:12:43 AM »

If I were designing a complex I'd definitely have the door controls be on a separate network to the rest.

I've been liking a lot of the posts recently. Pimski's summary of the issues of fabrication I largely agree with. I'm not sure about the suggestion, though. I'd like items and inventory to be used less, not more.

I like the changes Kyzrati has mentioned. But I'll say that I'm not too keen on metafield having a drawback related to integrity. Whether or not it's balanced, it 'feels bad'. I'm also opposed to propulsion overloading for the same reason. Exile items being balanced like that makes sense though, to me.

6

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 19, 2020, 05:29:21 AM »

Buffing by nerfing everything else is my favourite method!

I really like the concept of equilibrium temperatures. Very similar to the heat stuff I was suggesting in an earlier post, where different bots have different heat baselines, and sensors identified bots by their heat signature.

Shielding nerf sounds good.

7

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 17, 2020, 02:27:04 AM »

I think I like the idea of indirect schematic pulling going away, but it's a fairly sizeable shift to the flight game. To compensate a bit, more guaranteed schematics (a la DM and Zh) would be sweet.

I don't know if a reasonable argument can be made against S7 sec-1 terminals going away. One could make a similar argument for -1 C entrance terminals, but I'm less bothered by those.

8

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 15, 2020, 12:39:23 PM »

What if killing Imprinter had a negative event or effect associated with it in late-game? Like maybe the Zionites attack the Complex, and they are hostile to you as well. I'm sure Kyzrati could cook up some lore.

9

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 14, 2020, 11:48:56 AM »

If metafield generated a huge amount of heat, that could work.

Matter consumption is interesting.

10

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 12, 2020, 10:35:58 PM »

Agree that AAs need nerfing. What about removing the large version of the heat and energy AAs? This makes them less of an obvious target for SR and reduces build power slightly for extended.

Also, it would be cool to have more instances of enemies (like S7 guards) holding AAs in their inventory.

11

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 08, 2020, 09:28:38 PM »

  - Machines that cause corruption

This is probably bad because of the possibility of not carrying backup modules because you expect to stay at 0% corruption (at least for a while), getting bumped to 1% because you got close to a machine probably doesn't feel good, neither does equipping something before going past the machine.

Just avoid the machine. Easy peasy. Now, enemy robots constantly going past the machine and dying might be a real problem...

- Guns
  - Lower coverage to make them less like 'cannons but bad'
  - Lower resource costs as well?
  - Promotes more weapon slots and gunslinging, especially non-KI crit

While I kinda miss Com. Railguns and Coilguns, and they were more satisfying than Com. Mass Drivers are... a general change to guns probably isn't warranted. Gunslinging with 3-5 weapons at once is already enabled by the frequency of kinetic guns (Sentries, Hunters, etc.) and while the coverage is a part of what blocks even more weapons than that from being a great build, the idea of 3-5w gunsling is partially to have your weapons serve as integrity that you pick up from the ground. You want some distribution between engines, treads, and guns getting shot or you're wasting all of those items when they drop. Thermal gunsling is not competitive due to a combination of thermal gun integrity, heat, and qcap being good on the better thermal guns like Dispersion Rifle. It's fairly satisfying that grunts actually lose their weapons quickly if you keep missing core, means you don't always need to EM them.

I'm not sure I find this convincing except for the risks in messing with enemy bot loadouts (though ultimately I think you would kill enemy bots much faster if gun coverage was reduced). We have determined that storing tons of items in inventory is bad, and while most builds don't need to do this, gunslinging does need a decent store of backups due to its levels of attrition. It also seems like a sensible way to better differentiate guns from cannons. Why should guns be almost identical to cannons except in damage?

edit: I remembered that the dig change also removes cave-in for walls. This could be used tactically and would definitely be a buff for combat. I picture more 'interesting' scenarios involving builders. Some potential for cheese involving penetrating weapons though.

Attacking from inside walls should still cause them to cave in.

I think it is important that they do not, because that renders 2 tile digs with melee risky and annoying. This is one of the main things I wanted to fix with the dig suggestion. I don't like using ranged weapons for doing small digs.

Also I even noticed at least one thing on your list which is in the game already

:thinking:

12

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 08, 2020, 05:11:20 AM »

Some new suggestions and brainstorming I've been doing, mostly my own ideas but some are rehashing discord convos. I realise some of these suggestions are huge reworks and therefore unlikely to be implemented, but don't see anything wrong with brainstorming and posting here.

- More machinery with real effects
  - Machines that confuse sensing
  - Machines that confuse tracking (allows you to juke bots)
  - Machines that cause corruption
  - Target specific machines with terminal hacks to rewire them or disable
  - Machines that contribute matter to fabrication network
  - Machines that aid tracking abilities of extermination squads
  - Machines that facilitate the hauler transport network (disabling it removes TNC distress call ability)
  - Machines that cause heat
  - Machines that interfere with combat targeting
  - Some machines that allow terminal hacks while operating and inhibit the hacks if disabled
  - Other machines that inhibit terminal hacks while operating and allow the hacks when disabled
- More static defenses
  - Turrets which are immobile and tanky
    - Hack, destroy, or avoid
    - Different types based on items
      - Energy mantle turret provides shielding for nearby allies
      - Visual processing turret provides enhanced vision for nearby allies
    - Don't show on sensors
    - RIF interactions
      - RIF ability to be ignored by / allied
      - Turret couplers?
- Transmission jammers to not require LOS to target
  - It was changed to require LOS to nerf cheese that can be nerfed in other ways
  - Instead, within-squad communication can be non-jammable
  - This results in more consistent and predictable jamming
- Sensors to change to heat sensors
  - Bots have different heat baseline levels
  - Sensor determines range, signal interpreter determines heat threshold for detection
  - Provide heat sensors to other bots to detect Cogmind with the same mechanic - hunters?
  - Meaningful penalty to running hot and good incentive to use cryofiber webs
- Alternative sensor change
  - Sensors merged with signal interpreters as a processor
  - Sensors made short range like Imp Sensor Array
  - Nerfs sensor range, stops swap tedium, protects sensors via low coverage
- Heat made into a much more persistent and in-depth threat
  - Reduce all sources of heat dissipation so heat buildup in combat is unavoidable
  - Increase heat thresholds for effects
  - More heat thresholds for effect severity
  - Larger effect of heat on accuracy over the course of a fight
  - Reducing dissipation buffs heat shielding
  - More variable ambient heat levels (caves negative heat?)
- More depth to terminal hacking
  - Change machine hacking trace mechanics
    - Lower detection chance
    - Getting a trace started will dispatch an investigation squad X turns from now
    - Trace progress contributes to squad dispatch accuracy
    - Effects: more squads on the map if you keep getting traced, less automatic hacking up to the limit
  - Hack to tunnel through other terminals to protect your location
  - Target a quadrant of the map before deploying a hack to access data records
    - Instead of access(main/branch) providing simple map-wide results, search targeted areas
  - More 'hacker-like' feel to hacking
  - More interactions with other machines
    - Hack terminals to redirect matter to fabricators or unlock fabricators?
  - Operators remotely detect hacking attempts at their terminals
- Alert changes
  - Gain alert when spotted by a robot, not on killing it
    - Gain alert for reinforcement squads on dispatch
    - Gain alert for investigation squads only on spot
    - No repeated alert gain for the same squad
    - Promotes true stealth
    - Gives non-combat builds more to worry about
    - Removes disincentive to blast robots that have seen you already
  - Alert contributes to enemy density (alert X = X squads added to floor per Y turns)
  - Alert floor to reduce effectiveness of alert purging?
  - Alert purge replaced with reduced alert gain for next X turns?
  - Assaults to not have uber-tracking, but dispatched to an area instead
    - Reduces death spiral a bit
    - Promotes moving from a battlefield
    - Still operates as a clock but with more nuance
  - Recall(extermination) replaced with redirects
  - Extermination tracking ability gets stronger with proximity?
  - Extermination as the anti-hacker version of assault squads?
  - Extermination squad tracking changed to high, finite turns like 250
    - ECM will have a new use
    - Redirects can delay them and eat into their tracking time
- Flight overhaul
  - Current slower flight units merged with hover as the 'fast-end' of the hover spectrum
  - New flight units start at around 20 base speed -2 modifier
  - Less support, more fragile
  - Purely stealth the same way that treads are purely combat
  - Removal of 10 speed soft cap, instead all prop is limited to -1 modifier past 10 speed
  - 11 flight units to hit 5 speed (significant resource costs limit power of 5 speed builds)
  - Increased evasion from speed
- Materials changes
  - Higher enemy density, patrols, around outskirts, as well as the better item caches
  - Provides mats its own flavour and allows for more stealth while also being easier for new players
  - Gradually expanding map like scrapyard?
- Metafield
  - Needs more disadvantages
  - Energy/heat upkeep?
  - Integrity decay?
    - New stat for items? Exile loot? Vortex items?
- Mass support utils
  - Subvert disadvantages of fastest prop types
  - Tread on the purpose of prop slots
  - Probably could be safely removed
- Guns
  - Lower coverage to make them less like 'cannons but bad'
  - Lower resource costs as well?
  - Promotes more weapon slots and gunslinging, especially non-KI crit

13

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 07, 2020, 11:40:48 PM »

Though if it gets implemented I would strongly prefer it if the recent melee digging nerfs were reverted.

Yes, the idea is to get rid of the move/attack based chance to cave-in. Then it's back to simple digging for 1-2 tile walls.

If it's purely time-based chance to cave-in for dirt, there might be an issue with incentivising ranged weapons to dig out a long path before flying across. Melee would be dumb because to dig further, you need to expose yourself for the duration of the attack, and repeat that for the course of your tunnel.

One solution to that might be to make cave-in chance not flat, but increase over time. E.g. 5% chance per turn, increasing at a rate of 1% per additional turn.

Have we talked about Zio. Metafield Generator in this thread yet?

I think I've only used it once, or maybe not at all. It does seem a bit broken. I think solutions based on adjusting integrity or coverage feel kinda bad. What about making the energy upkeep insane, so that it's about giving speed with slot efficiency, not speed with slot efficiency and energy and heat efficiency? Or perhaps it can generate heaps of heat. Heat should be used way more by the game mechanics (more on this later).

14

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 06, 2020, 11:51:43 AM »

Fielding an idea related to prop penalty. What if being overweight slowed you down in proportion to the percentage of support you were overweight by, according to a coefficient given by the penalty stat? That would result in a more gradual gradient of slowdown, a bit like wheels now. More granular. The coefficients would be set such that it would still not be a good deal to go overweight, but going slightly over would be playable.

E.g. penalty of 3.0x means if you are 50% overweight, you will be 3.0 * 50% = 150% slower.

This might be more intuitive and also introduce more nuance, while avoiding the awkward ramifications of 0x1 and 0x2 thresholds giving you a whole lot of support to work with minus additional consequences.

Trap chance and flight hopping could perhaps remain activated at the overweight edge for additional incentive to maintain a perfectly supported build.

15

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 06, 2020, 09:57:56 AM »

I encouraged others to post but they aren't doing it. We had a short talk on discord about the (not new) idea of making caves one single large map instead of the two normal size ones now. A lot of people were fans (me, Sherlock, Raine, Tone). It's not a balance issue but it could definitely be fun.

16

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 04, 2020, 09:39:30 PM »

Note again that MTF's digless run is still a challenge run even after proposed nerfs, because 1-tile and 2-tile digs would still be possible post-nerf, and I would argue that they are more common than 3-tile digs. Smaller digs are important for mobility, if not outright stealth. A 3-tile dig is more like a bypass of a sequence of corridors and rooms. As emergency access passages are a lot of fun, maybe they could be made more common in conjunction with this dig change?

One major point in no_stack's favour is that it frees up slots for other utils (and consequently potentially freeing slots for other slot types). It definitely takes the emphasis off storage, which is perhaps a good thing, as storage isn't actually a type of part that contributes to interesting gameplay or build variety in the present.

We could perhaps have more storage units, such as the Mini Storage Unit, or the Super High Capacity Storage Unit, to fill out the spectrum more. The benefit of capping inventory size and taking the focus off storage units is still there.

Kyzrati mentioned that no_stack would require integrity buffs across the board, but that's not how I pictured it. Stealth builds should cope similarly to now, or would even be buffed. Combat would have fewer spare parts, but this would be offset by the extra slot(s). I think you could get away with no other changes than adjusting storage units themselves.

edit: I remembered that the dig change also removes cave-in for walls. This could be used tactically and would definitely be a buff for combat. I picture more 'interesting' scenarios involving builders. Some potential for cheese involving penetrating weapons though.

17

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: October 04, 2020, 09:20:08 AM »

I've switched to the side of mass increase for storage units, but I think no_stack is OK too. Either way, I think some kind of change to storage is in order.

Smaller intervals or some other system for overweight penalty might work if they don't overcomplicate the game.

I maintain that the digging nerf I suggested is not all extreme. It's a small adjustment only. I think people who are against it right now perhaps don't realise how minor the change would be.

18

Strategies / Re: Chronowheel Uses *Spoilery*

« on: September 30, 2020, 09:17:53 PM »

Couple from Benjamin on discord:

Extra chance at generating zion hero when leaving exiles

Extra chance at getting metafield and other unique drops

19

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 30, 2020, 10:15:18 AM »

Perhaps if you anger one researcher but get away, he alerts all the researchers on the floor and they all become hostile.

20

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 29, 2020, 09:27:53 PM »

What if you didn't get scanned instantly? It seems too extreme for a single turn. What if the scanning process took two or three turns, and was persistent across scans (so if you get scanned for one turn in two separate researcher incidents, you get scan confirmed)?

This is also within the scope of balance discussions.

21

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 28, 2020, 11:17:54 PM »

And a final closing thought based on some of the storage and hacking propsoals I've seen on here and on discord:  I don't know how others feel about this, but I think Cogmind -- overall -- is for the most part reasonably balanced and quite fun.  I'd be very careful about making any large overhauls to fundamental parts of the gameplay experience. 

Agree with this. But we can talk about crazy things without committing to them.

22

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 28, 2020, 09:29:28 AM »

The main potential complication is if currently 0x0 builds transition into 0x1 because 0x0 doesn't seem affordable. 0x1 is double mass support, after all --- can't really add +5 prop to a 5-prop build, and then where's my option to potentially equip reaction control on legs. That's not exactly how it would work out in practice, but you get the point. It is currently "necessary" to run some amount of storage unit(s), and 0x0 would become harder. The builds with too much inventory already run overweight and care relatively less about extra mass.

This seems to be an argument against simply increasing mass on storage units. If that can't work out, then the other options are no_stack or reducing cap.

But I'm not yet convinced. If the support cost is too great, the player can use something other than HCP. Such as large storage units. For the same mass, you can store 50% more items. But at a greater cost in slots (33% more). All of this sounds reasonable to me.

A mass increase is certainly harsher on flight than no_stack. That is another aspect to consider. Flight would be quite comfortable on no_stack large storage unit's 16 slots. If say, mass costs are doubled, then it would take an extra util slot and twice the support to break even with the no_stack proposal. If you don't double the masses, I'm not sure combat even notices.

23

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 28, 2020, 02:52:37 AM »

I wonder what storage change might mean for builds like RIF?
Because of the basic game mechanics, storage change invariably almost change everything else too.
Like can you run an effective RIF build with just 20 storage? (Hcp +16 and innate 4)

RIF is a bit bonkers right now. You can definitely run RIF builds without carrying dozens of couplers around. It's more fun as well. You can replenish your couplers as you go along. If need be, coupler values can be upped to compensate slightly for reduced inventory capacities.

Or does changes like this simply kills flexibility in certain builds. (while you ONLY provides a bit more flexibility over early game in material due to a couple more util slots because of no_stack, and this small benefits never comes into play for the rest of the game anywhere)

The saving of at least one util slot is beneficial and provides flexibility to builds across the board and across all phases of the game. It's most noticeable in the early game because saving slots is a bigger deal then, but it's not limited to the early game. It does remove the options of various combinations of storage units being used, but at the same time, I'm not sure that's an altogether interesting part of gameplay or strategy anyway.

I like the more treads (and maybe even wheels) overweight penalty proposal more, and it already directly impacts the dynamics when it comes to storage.
You probably don't want to nerf that and nerf storage at the same time.

I think that's definitely happening regardless, and Kyzrati has had a long-term goal of reducing maximum inventory capacity for a while now.

Also like Tone said on discord, multiple storage slot already incur a penalty with regard to wasted util slots, and people do get punished by it -
it's an interesting emergent behavior / gameplay dynamic to consider and learn about; making storage no_stack simply removes this 100%.

That's very true and one of the main losses of going no_stack.

If we simply want to disincentives hoarding, we toggle to least impactful variable wrt. hoarding:
1. mass support / overweight penalty for various props (mainly treads and maybe wheels)
2. the mass of those storage units themselves - not the capacity.

Given that overweight penalties are being adjusted, upping the masses of storage units as well could have the desired effect. Imagine all storage units being 2x mass of current values. No other adjustments. Thoughts?

24

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 25, 2020, 07:55:48 AM »

Getting trapped on a stealth build is an essential part of the experience.

Overloading prop to tunnel sounds bad. I don't see how we solve that without removing overloading.

25

Ideas / Re: Balance Overhaul

« on: September 24, 2020, 09:45:55 PM »

Thrilled to have such detailed responses.

Now it is worth noting than when I speak of domination, machinehacking specifically does not get dominated by anything, even less-utilized hacks like enumerate(patrols) are incredibly powerful and I foresee a need to nerf machinehacking in some way if other in-the-meta strats get nerfed, it will dominate the game again in a rather obnoxious way and I'm surprised how little players talk about its power-level, to some extent I read that as players still experimenting with new things like RIF and forgetting to consider whether hackware is just better than couplers.

Maybe a nerf through a new mechanic or something? Like... as you get detected more often, main.c gains familiarity with your hacking fingerprint, which has some effects down the line.

[storage capacity]

I feel a hard "no" on med-storage giving you 3 slots of inventory, 4 strikes me as the point where the fun starts and you're not just getting marginal benefits from equipping a unit. It's worth noting that med. is supposed to be somewhat effective if it's all you have, because of mass-considerations or because for whatever reason it's all you have on the floors where it's what you get from Haulers, or Recyclers once Haulers are more dangerous to kill. I would much rather see a no_stack applied to storage.

First impression of doubled values is... positive? It makes me question whether +16 inventory for one utility slot is more powerful than current builds, so at the very least it would not be crippling. Perhaps the bigger question is whether 64-mass properly prevents a situation where every single combat build runs 1x hcp., it could be just barely enough if being non-overweight on legs/treads ends up being more attractive than it currently is.

Reducing storage unit capacity does feel bad, a bit like how the hackware nerf felt bad. 64M is probably within range of most combat builds, but humpback would be an option too. Maybe we could discard the old values and start from scratch. Small = +4 for 12M, Medium = +8 for 24M, Large = +12 for 48M, HCP = +16 for 96M. Or 10M/20M/40M/80M?

We could also make HCP 2x slot and increase the inventory size bonus further. E.g. +20 for two slots, and increase humpback further. But it seems like humpback already fulfils the role of maximum storage regardless of slot efficiency.

Cave-ins

Simplify to two rules: walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
Mostly a player nerf because digging is extremely strong, but some flexibility is offered regarding walls

This would be a major nerf to current stealth builds and one that creates a risk that players should probably never take, given that these stealth builds often have several essential but weak parts (flight units, sensors, processors, etc) and little storage for backups or temporary removal, and losing one of these pieces can be detrimental to a run.  This kind of risk already occurs when put in a position where you have to take shots from enemies, but is much worse in the case of a cave-in, which I believe does not respect part coverage.  Combat builds likely to not care about this risk, so this continues down the path of nerfing flight builds (the primary users of stealth tactics and digging); but feels like a step too far, as it is likely to remove the "digging through dirt" option for many players (which is fine if this is the goal, but it seems like the current game design wants multi-tile digging to be an option).

I'm not sure it's a 'major nerf'. It's basically just eliminating two things: hiding in dirt indefinitely (cheesy), and making wall-earth-wall digs risky (for ONE tile!). Wall-earth-earth-wall is already risky in the current system, and so on.

On the other hand, this restores one of the larger impacts of the recent melee-digging nerf, which made it very difficult to destroy reinforced barriers in common prefabs where the reinforced barriers are surrounded by walls.  Melee weapons are one of the best ways for destroying reinforced barriers (especially for faster bots with momentum bonuses) -- towards the end of the game, very few ranged weapons are capable.  The melee-digging nerf has made it so that in many of these prefabs you now have to risk a cave-in as you are melee-attacking from one of the adjacent wall tiles.  If walls never caved in then you could still attack from them.

Additionally, having walls never cave-in would restore the killhole tactics that were the source of the melee-digging nerf, albeit in much more limited locations.   Another option would be to make both walls and dirt always be unstable, which would eliminate this.

The reinforced barriers thing wasn't something I thought about. I don't have an opinion on that. For kill-holing, some degree of that is cool I think. Depends on just how cheesy it can be.

That'd be my biggest worry--stealth builds could much more easily get trapped in rooms with no safe way out (due to incoming hostiles, for example) unless they're willing to risk it one way or another. Maybe that's okay, though? Require a bit more forethought and preparation than almost always having a pretty safe way out of things?

This happens anyway.

Also compared to the current rules, in terms of stealth digging this only actually comes into play for wall-earth-wall scenarios. So maybe it's not quite as big of a hit as it seems, given that we already nerfed that approach as far as melee digging goes. Having experienced a bit of the difference so far, it only comes into play so often unless you're being greedy or careless.

Bingo! The only real change is to wall-earth-wall. Shorter digs are the same or better. Longer digs were always risky due to the three-move rule. Wall-earth-wall isn't so common that it's always a get-out-of-jail-free card. This is why I don't think the change is that drastic.

I had another idea at the time which I didn't voice because it seemed to favour flight too much. But since Tone and Kyzrati have voiced concerns over dig changes affecting flight more than combat: make earth tiles only have a cave-in chance by time, not checked per-move as well. Then the faster you travel through the less risky.

Makes digging in caves much worse, probably a good thing as it trivialises caves

Digging in caves makes them much easier for experienced players who are taking advantage of sensors, optical arays, drones, or other data; allowing them to potentially dig around known threats.  But this is actually not such a simple thing for newer players (many find the caves maps difficult based on what I see on discord) and rewards players in general for developing map sense (something that the caves reward in general, which very specific and predictable layouts for those who understand the maps).  If we were only balancing for the top percentile of players then nerfing this aspect would be fine, but I think this is a good feature for the game overall.

Newer players are already having a harder time by not taking advantage of digging in caves to the degree that more experienced players do. So this nerf hits experienced players much more. Map sense and all that is still important no matter what. Caves are pretty much dead easy for experienced players with sensors (or even without in many cases). The big problems I have are with unavoidable ambushes at the start of the map, and chokepoints where you are forced to aggro enemies. But there are always cool ways of dealing with the latter. I'm not a fan of the ambushes.

Note: all this may go out the window if you stole from exiles, but that's on you.

I do like the idea of being able to store energy/matter in your inventory still.  Another option could be to halve the storage while in inventory, so they are more effective while equipped.
Does energy/matter storage share the property of inventory storage units where they can't be dropped due to corruption or severed by slashing damage?  That would be necessary for this change, otherwise losing an equipped energy/matter storage part and watching as potentially 1000 energy or 500 matter vanishes could be devastating in a way that isn't very fun.  This could be very nasty in

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A0 where you are repeatedly ambushed by slashing attacks.

This also exacerbates an issue that many kinetic builds have in

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A0, where matter can be difficult to come by (especially when the Architect constantly consumes resources without dropping matter).  It's an issue I've run into a handful of times and essentially losing at this point in the game because you don't have enough matter isn't very fun.  Perhaps I should just "get good" 

If energy storage were to always consume a slot regardless, there is going to be a breakpoint here where evolving more power slots or using power amplifiers is better than having energy storage equipped.  I haven't looked at numbers on this but depending on where this lands, energy storage could become somewhat irrelevant to a lot of builds that used to use it.  This could also make endgame builds more interesting where you can't rely on large stockpiles of energy storage in your inventory.  Any potential Storage nerfs will also affect this by putting more stress on inventory slots that could be dedicated to energy/matter storage.

Not a big fan of the arbitrary-feeling half space while in inventory or rate-limited recovery off the floor.

You can already lose power slots through severing, so IDK if that is necessary for energy storage. It was only added for inventory storage units because of the huge MESS it made when all your items splurted out.

Matter is more of an issue I think, in general. That part of the game could benefit from matter piles lying around or something. Or maybe base Cogmind matter storage could be increased from 300.

What if energy storage items increased max storage by %, like power amplifiers? That would require combining with power slots. I guess it messes with AI robot balance when many of them using batteries.

Changing energy storage to increase maximum capacity would probably necessitate reducing coverage.

If cave walls became earth it would push players to spend more time digging (essentially digging out every tile in a 3-tile radius to find an opening, instead of just 2), which would cost more time (not always a critical resource in the caves) but be a potentially tedious behavior. 

This is already a thing for ascii players, which is why I was upset to find out that tiles players did not experience this.

No current plans to make full trapper builds viable as their own sustainable thing, so it doesn't really have any bearing on the storage discussion. Not to say they couldn't become something there one day, but it's not intended or balanced for that right now.

That's alright, I just thought I'd bring it up.