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Messages - Kyzrati

Pages: 1 ... 111 112 [113] 114 115 ... 173
2801
General & Off-Topic / Re: Introduce Yourself!
« on: May 10, 2016, 08:29:35 PM »
Welcome, mathSq!

/r/roguelikes is one of the main communities where you might come across Cogmind in the wild, so that's likely :)

If you've gone back to read nearly three years of blog posts, you are very well versed in the history of the game! I'm curious if down the road you'll be able to do better at Cogmind than DCSS, but either way it usually takes a little getting used to at first.

2802
Ideas / Re: Fabrication Overhaul Discussion
« on: May 10, 2016, 06:56:18 PM »
I don't know if I'd go quite that far... but yeah we'll see how Alpha 9 turns out. I played some with the new system and it's nice, though I'm sure it will be abused and I would like to see how first :P

For everyone: I just posted to the blog an overview of the entire new fabrication system, which has already been fully implemented for Alpha 9.

2803
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #38 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Dark Depths]
« on: May 07, 2016, 07:54:32 PM »
That is an impressive run, just beat my previous record :P. Ragnaroks are awesome (I was using them that run, too).

I think the other good use for additional slots at the end is to start stacking effects. Giving all your weapons a near-perfect hit chance in every situation, for example, means you can use distance from targets to avoid being hit, but still core one of them with every volley even without any explosives (dangerous because they don't leave much/anything to salvage, so you can't rely on them indefinitely). I see you were stacking target analyzers in your peak state.

And you went through a garrison in Access while the alert level was already high?! Truly insane 8D. Yeah I guess it has the advantage of reducing squad sizes, but it also ensures you're going to have frequent visits from angry robots. I should try more garrison tactics...

Interesting that towards the end you were down to relying on Med. Storage.

In any case, I can see how playing at alert level 5 is going to be safer with a part-heavy strategy, given the frequency of encounters exceeding normal play and therefore the balance of spare parts you might normally find, etc. Exciting :)

2804
Ideas / Re: Advanced Volley Breakdown/Analysis
« on: May 07, 2016, 07:57:17 AM »
Quote from: Sylverone on May 07, 2016, 07:46:54 AM
A screen or expanded view that can be called up ('Shift-v' or maybe  holding 'v' down) that will give advanced stats for the current volley, such relative heat production, energy and matter consumption, and maybe a breakdown of the factors affecting hit probabilities at the moment, for each weapon. A combination of graphs and information.

It would be a bonus if it could be called up during targeting to show the hit modifiers vs. the current target.
You'll be happy to know that all of this information is already available on the HUD :) (it's just somewhat cryptic since details like that are for advanced players--check out the "Advanced UI" section of the manual, where all of this and more is described). No button pressing necessary, that's what the volley window is for--as soon as you enter fire mode it shows the heat, matter, and energy costs.

And once you target a robot weapon-specific modifiers are highlighted directly on the parts list next to each active weapon itself (those that will fire according to the volley window--representative letters are grayed out for those that won't fire for some reason, usually because they're out of range).

The one thing you won't see prior to firing are the components of your base hit chance that applies across all weapons--for that you have to have the Calc window active and set to full detail. (That window in particular I still want to update.)

Quote from: Sylverone on May 07, 2016, 07:46:54 AM
A further possibility is to show on this screen the modifiers that other bots will experience vs. Cogmind. All of this might help communicate to some newer players the factors that matter in combat, aside from just being sort of nifty.
This one is planned, just haven't gotten around to it yet. There is currently no way to see your actual defensive bonuses in action.

2805
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #39 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Salami Tactics]
« on: May 07, 2016, 03:46:52 AM »
Noooo... I was going for a high score this time, living on the edge by causing lots of extra destruction and generally keeping the alert level higher, but went down on -4.

I was doing a one-Storage heavy combat run as usual, but there was too much stuff lying around in Zion so at that point I attached a second Lrg. and never dropped back down later despite eventually carrying a bunch of only semi-useful stuff. Overall my build was all over the place.

Really should've focused a bit more. There was certainly no shortage of good launchers in this seed, though. I was finding them everywhere.

This is what I always fear will happen when I head towards danger--more danger comes from another direction :P
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I was headed towards the garrison to take it out when a patrolling ARC suddenly came in behind me... I was in good shape so got out of that mess okay, though. Had to do some point blank AOE, though.

And while still on -5 I was really blasting the crap out of their machine infrastructure when I got into a bit of trouble.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I attached a bunch of hacking gear I'd borrowed from the Zionites and immediately sealed a pair of garrisons on -4, at which point I figured the floor would be much less trouble.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(I also blasted that Behemoth :))

In an interesting turn of events, I lost all power on -4, while fighting lots of guys right outside a garrison, then was getting torn to pieces as I retreated, but wound my way back to a stash of Fusion Compressors which was plenty to power my last Tesla Bomb Launcher for a comeback :)

Tesla Bombs are freaking awesome.

-4 is always where things start to get really rough, and my security level was high enough to quickly start drawing assaults, but at least I'd already shut down three of their garrisons, so it took them a while to reach me.

Here I've set up the terminal to disrupt enemy targeting and intercepted two ARCs.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then not too long after that I got pretty beat up, and all I needed was a few weapons, but neither of the two Haulers that got blown up in the fight had anything for me (both carrying power).

Here's where I went naked :(
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Down to 69 core...

And made it out of there to spot a prototype launcher not far away, hm ;)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In getting it--more Tesla!--I was brought down to 5 core, but found myself in a corner where I equipped everything to wait for the last two grunts who were after me.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They searched all the way to the door and it turns out they'd lost me, but having come to the doorway it wasn't long before they spotted me again and we fought again. I almost had the last grunt dead before he got me...

I'm not very good at hide and seek anymore, though I'm pretty sure I could've gotten away from at least them by hiding behind the machines and they'd leave. But without finding an exit soon after I'd be dead before long with such low core integrity, anyway.

(Note: I also first tried overloading that fabricator as another last-ditch approach, but failed and didn't want to get it traced on the off chance I managed to win the battle.)

...

And now after writing all that and thinking back over the run, I have to say NOOOOOOOOOOOOO again... I could've saved myself using the code O8 gave me in Zion. Crap.

Spoiler: Score: 17,113 (click to show/hide)

2806
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Imagine my embarrassment when I assassinated the wrong person!
« on: May 06, 2016, 09:52:52 PM »
Okay, Decker, stop cheating now ;)

Yeah, I've known about this for a while (like, since the AI was first built :P), but was waiting to see when someone would notice.

Now stop it! (Yeah, I'll address it next release...)

2807
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #38 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Dark Depths]
« on: May 06, 2016, 09:24:08 PM »
Oh look, I didn't even have to explicitly say "Decker" and it's known who I was implying ;)

I like having the extra capabilities afforded by using only one storage rather than three. That's two slots that can be put to pretty amazing use with other utilities. I do consider doubling up on storage depending on the conditions, though--depends on the build.

And I did lower their coverage to make them last even longer, yep. The main reason behind that was they already have ridiculous amounts of integrity (to mitigate the serious annoyance of losing one and giving ample time to replace it), so I didn't want them acting as makeshift armor as well.

2808
Ideas / Re: Cycle Propultion
« on: May 06, 2016, 07:13:55 AM »
I have a bad habit of getting injured by taking exercise way too far. Already plenty of messed up joints from this and that, enough that biking became the only thing I could do that didn't rely heavily on any of my damaged parts, and that went fine for a couple years, until recently :P

I find Outside gets more and more dangerous the older you get.

2809
Ideas / Re: Cycle Propultion
« on: May 06, 2016, 04:40:11 AM »
Yeah, I thought it was going to be maybe 6-8 weeks in a brace-thing and then back to normal, but yesterday I had the first real appointment after the ER doctor, and he said in another week we'll see how it's faring and I might need surgery >:(

On the bright side, I'm alive and have my wits about me.

Development this week was slowed significantly, but should be getting back on the fast track again soon. Started work on the fabrication overhaul today...

Thanks to everyone; I won't let you down :D

2810
Ideas / Re: Procedurally generated music
« on: May 06, 2016, 04:32:43 AM »
As for common actions by Workers/Tunnelers/Engineers, those will not have sounds (nor animations) because doing so isn't compatible with the potential speed of the game when you're racing from one place to another. Imagine how it would sound if there were even just a few of them in the same area and you moved around a lot nearby, or even worse, held down the wait key to pass dozens of turns in a couple seconds :P

The plan is to give all machines ambient sounds, though, yes. Right now the stuff that's in there is just to demonstrate it, so it's only a small portion. I'd like to wait until most of the world is complete so that the process to give audio to the remainder (and whatever else is added between now and then) is as efficient as possible. The sounds will be similar in style to what we have now--looping effects that reflect what the machine is (obviously there's room to be creative with many of these machine types ;)).

Have you tried the latest version? I threw a track I had into the caves as ambient background noise that permeates the entire area. Not necessarily the direction for that stuff, but it's an idea. No one has even commented on that yet, actually. Once the machine ambient effects are in there, then we can see what style of map-wide ambient can be used without ruining everything else :P

2811
General Discussion / Re: Is This Game Right For Me?
« on: May 05, 2016, 08:08:33 PM »
Good points! I agree about the strategic value of managing the wider aspects of progress including the world state, and that's something that only starts coming into play with more experience, but perhaps that's the proper way to examine the games.

The relative freshness of Cogmind makes sense as a factor as well, since the long-term impacts of some approaches/decisions truly aren't worked out, and are even in flux when a system changes due to alpha progress. While DCSS is "worked out," though, that doesn't mean the strategy isn't there, it's just not something you have to question and probe quite so much.

It might also be difficult to confirm a roguelike's exact position on the strategic-tactical spectrum because in some ways it depends on a player's personal approach.

It's interesting you mention autoexplore, which is more telling in this discussion than I thought it might be. In DCSS you can definitely autoexplore your way from encounter to encounter and do fine, while such a feature in Cogmind would just get you killed :P. The increased chance of death could technically be attributed to both tactical and strategic concerns.

2812
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #38 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Dark Depths]
« on: May 05, 2016, 07:53:02 PM »
Inventory size can be overrated. In the best combat run I've ever had I spent almost the entire time with an inventory of size 6. That run also went through about four caves.

In the caves the key to surviving with a low inventory is to force close-range combat, snatching parts mid-battle when they're vital. (Well, Interrupters are a great option, too, but you have to find one first :P) But yeah it's still quite dangerous!

If you pass up the storage caches, the next best thing is to at least take a smaller unit from one of the non-combat bots. Fairly easy to acquire, and by the time you reach the mid-game, Haulers even have Lrg. Storage.

2813
General Discussion / Re: Is This Game Right For Me?
« on: May 05, 2016, 08:19:57 AM »
Quote from: zxc on May 05, 2016, 07:58:39 AM
@K: I always find it interesting how you describe Cogmind as more tactics-oriented than DCSS along the strategy-tactics spectrum. I think the opposite: that DCSS is more tactics focused while Cogmind is more strategy focused. I also get a sense that combat runs are more strategy focused. :o
Huh. My angle there is coming from the idea that DCSS has its roots in traditional cRPGs, with XP, skills, and lots of permanent stats and effects, where you can decide how you want your character to develop over the long term and generally stick to that plan.

By comparison, with Cogmind you don't always have as much long-term control.

Certainly both are still very tactics-oriented.

This is assuming that, when fully distilled, the definition of "strategy" is more about the decisions with a long-term effect, and "tactics" refers to localized decisions and how you fight individual battles.

I think that differentiation can, however, shift with experience (in Cogmind).

The really good players can allow strategy to have a more permanent impact on play, assuming you can either lose very few parts (common with good speed runs) or simply lose fewer parts vital to a strategy and replace any that are lost with parts that can play a similar role to keep that same build concept rolling.

From what I've seen, for beginners and intermediate players it's almost purely a tactical game. Positioning is everything, and you want to grab whatever parts are most useful right now, rather than thinking in the long term.

I hadn't yet thought about the link with player experience, especially once you know how every mechanic works, and what kinds of places you can visit in the world and what you can do there, then can use that information to your advantage in maintaining continuity.

2814
General Discussion / Re: Is This Game Right For Me?
« on: May 05, 2016, 02:14:47 AM »
Quote from: Shobalk on May 04, 2016, 08:22:13 AM
I want to see Cogmind 2.
Me too, can't get ahead of ourselves here, though :) (but it's fun to think about)

2815
General Discussion / Re: Alpha 8 Discussion/Feedback (spoiler-free)
« on: May 05, 2016, 02:10:37 AM »
Heh, 3c is veritably ancient now. So much has been added since then, and a few major system tweaks means it plays much better overall :D

2816
Everything REXPaint / Re: Import txt into RexPaint - paste from win clipboard / import command
« on: May 04, 2016, 06:43:32 AM »
I figured you'd already batch-processed yours since you came up with your own solution :). But thanks for spurring me to make the addition.

2817
General Discussion / Re: Is This Game Right For Me?
« on: May 03, 2016, 08:37:19 PM »
Others can weigh in (especially the DCSS+Cogmind players :P), but my 2 cents:

There are plenty of DCSS fans who also play Cogmind, though the games are quite different in some ways--Cogmind emphasizes tactics over strategy a lot more than DCSS does (though DCSS is still a very tactical roguelike compared to the classics). Know that while you can come up with a long-term strategy and character build in DCSS, that might not always pan out in Cogmind and you can end up suddenly having to find a new strategy (the chances of this decrease with meta experience, but it's always a possibility).

It's pretty easy to get into the game, which like DCSS is both simple and complex. There's a quick in-game tutorial the first time you play which will teach you all you need to know, and only later on once you're getting at least half way through the game will you probably want to skim the in-game manual to learn some of the subtleties.

The price is what it is for alpha supporters who really want to help fund development and make the game better. If you notice on the buy page, the final/actual price will be lower (and there's a mailing list to be notified when that happens), so you can wait until then if that's an issue. Actually, there will likely be a small limited-time discount coming up soonish, albeit without any extra supporter perks, just access to the game.

There are quite a few LPs on YouTube now--you might be able to tell from a couple of those if Cogmind is your thing :)

2818
Ideas / Re: Cycle Propultion
« on: May 02, 2016, 08:48:03 PM »
We'd have to add sudden "out of nowhere" little girls for that ::). Perhaps just a variant of the deadly cloaked Hunter.

The reference for those who didn't hear the news: After just recovering from a recent leg injury, yesterday I went out and broke my shoulder. Like I said on Twitter: I'm getting too old to be doing flying forward flips on bicycles. Though I must admit this was my first one.

I've got lots of other bruises all over, having rolled to a stop followed by a bike landing on me :P, but the shoulder is the one that will require quite a while to heal.

Fortunately I can still type/code, though in the short term the medicine might threaten to keep making me drowsy. We'll see!

2819
Ideas / Re: Fabrication Overhaul Discussion
« on: May 02, 2016, 09:13:52 AM »
I thought about it more today and the likely new system will be something on the order of global matter stores allocated for the fabrication network (probably on a per map--or map type--level), and you can draw from those stores to build things. (The AI also draws from those stores and occasionally builds things, too.) Better parts will draw significantly more matter (unlike the current relatively small spread), and as the stores drop below a threshold, there is a greater chance of a floor-wide fabrication block and an immediate jump in security level, possibly with more patrols dispatched (we'll see--whatever it takes to balance in the end).

The stores will also increase and decrease on their own over time.

Auto-waiting does pose those first two problems, and honestly I think the best option is still to just show some kind of countdown timer to completion so you know when it's coming, it's not very hard to hold a button for a few seconds to wait out a timer. This timer could be shown directly on the map over the Fabricator itself as it runs to zero. (That would also solve the problem of new players not realizing you have to wait around for it. In fact, this same timer should be shown for repair stations. You can already get the info by right-clicking on the active machine, but why require a click :P)

The optimal play of continuing to do other things while building can still be dangerous. You know you've had those situations where you're like, oh, I'll just check around this corner, or go over to that room, and then be on my way, and suddenly you are in very serious trouble! I don't imagine it being a long wait, anyway, really similar to what it is now, with better hackers who can access high-tier Fabricators getting them even faster. (Like, much faster.) Waiting will be less of a heavy requirement with a global system in place, but I don't want it to be instant.

Quote from: Decker on May 02, 2016, 08:26:41 AM
- Hide-and-seek games: if there is a patrol heading the fab way, then the player has to actively hide until the patrol strolls through. This is easy but not particularly fun.
Same thing: "Easy" doesn't always work in your favor when unexpected things happen... Undetected trap blows a hole in a wall; Hunters masked against sensors were patrolling on the other side; time to party. Just one of many possibilities.

2820
Ideas / Re: Fabrication Overhaul Discussion
« on: May 01, 2016, 11:59:37 PM »
Making schematics more difficult to acquire would work if Scanalyzers were removed, since they'd either otherwise be frustratingly difficult to succeed with, or a good enough hacker could still use them to get anything. Unless we say it's impossible to get anything but common schematics from a Scanalyzer, and the rest have to come via other means. That approach seems to take away a lot of the freedom of the system.

While I wouldn't want to introduce a whole separate alert system for fabrication, some kind of global/larger restriction will need to be put in place on the fabrication side of things for it to balance correctly once the tedium and other limits are removed.

It would be nice if the system scaled so that it's still possible to produce larger quantities of common parts, if you really want to, but the really good stuff will be more limited. I'll think about what other kind of overarching system could be behind that. Certainly now that the matter will be sourced from a central/alternative location, that could play a role as well.

2821
General Discussion / Re: Alpha 8 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]
« on: May 01, 2016, 11:53:33 PM »
Quote from: Decker on May 01, 2016, 10:33:44 PM
I went back to Data Miner. One thing I notice is that while the lore is very nice, the game rewards the player if they go through every terminal/robot and download every item, each time they get there. This could become a chore for a big map like Zion.
In Data Miner it's just a couple terminals that have useful non-lore stuff, and they're always in the same place, so that's easy enough.

In Zion I was a bit worried about that, so to at least somewhat mitigate the effect all stationary inhabitants are those which provide you with benefits. If they're moving around they're purely for lore purposes and experienced players can ignore them (but the lore is random and some of it doesn't appear so often, so it can take a while to find it all--whether you have done so will be easier to discern with some kind of future meta record system).

So you basically just go around in a circle and hit anything that's not moving.

There are also some alternative encounters that could be used to create a potential drawback to hanging around in Zion too long. I didn't yet implement some of the more involved/special cave and Zion encounters. That said, I kinda like the idea that there's a place in the world where you're not running for your life, it just leads to replayability vs. optimal play dilemmas like this in a roguelike...

(@Sherlockkat: I moved the drone+fabricator post over to that thread for continued discussion.)

2822
Everything REXPaint / Re: Import txt into RexPaint - paste from win clipboard / import command
« on: May 01, 2016, 10:59:58 PM »
You've already probably got your own workflow based around your solution (or are done converting everything you needed converted, anyway :P), but I just added command line support for importing .txt images to REXPaint 1.02.

2823
Everything REXPaint / Re: REXPaint questions/bugs?
« on: May 01, 2016, 10:58:12 PM »
Quote from: melrabo on February 12, 2016, 04:23:23 AM
¿is the 'offset' option in the roadmap? The manual doesn't present the option, and it would be a great help to create semaless images. Example of a graveyard in progress in spoiler, first time I realized how useful it would be, to create fake parallax animations.
At your request, I just added image shifting with wrapping in 1.02. You can see a sample there in action as well, where I imitated your style a bit for the test :)

Supports shifting of the entire image, or individual layers separately.

2824
Announcements / Released: REXPaint 1.02
« on: May 01, 2016, 10:51:17 PM »
A bunch of other devs have been making cool stuff with REXPaint, so I took a day after releasing the latest Cogmind Alpha to throw in a few of the easier features on the TODO list (sorry, the tough stuff will have to wait until Cogmind is done!).

The full REXPaint 1.02 (160502) changelog:

* NEW: Image shifting with wrapping (Ctrl-Arrow/Numpad or Ctrl-Shift-Arrow/Numpad for single layer)
* NEW: TXT file importing (conversion to .xp format) supported via command line (see manual Appendix F)
* NEW: Partial PNG image importing (conversion to .xp format) supported via command line (see manual Appendix G)
* NEW: Fill tool includes second mode for 8-directional search
* NEW: Unlimited font size regardless of resolution limits--NOT ideal usage, implemented by request (see "unlimitedFontSize" in cfg)
* FIX: One line junction glyph in the 8x8 CP437 font misaligned

Some of the new features in action:


An imported txt file.


Shifting an image, with content wrapping to the other side.

I also included this experimental tool I was playing with earlier this year, though I wonder if anyone else will actually get any use out of it :P...

Importing a .png screenshot from ADOM into an editable .xp format.


Another from Brogue.

2825
General Discussion / Re: Alpha 8 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]
« on: May 01, 2016, 08:35:46 PM »
Ah Decker, always looking for ways to squeeze out some extra points :P

Almost every machine in the game is worth 25--there are only three special machines (Garrison-related) that are exceptions to that. The score value, like many other score values in the game, are directly proportional to the amount of alert level increase caused by disabling them.

While logically speaking machines should probably be valued differently, it wasn't planned and hasn't yet been considered. I do want to examine the entire scoring system once the world is complete, but it's not high priority right now.

Keeping all machines valued the same simplifies the system and means we don't need to worry about displaying their relative value.

Adding an explicit "value" to a machine would also tend to encourage their destruction for score purposes, when that's not really a primary goal of the game. It exists as a way to allow collateral damage to have an impact on the ecosystem.

But yeah some Cogminds are apparently all about being really, really destructive :P

Most robots are valued more than machines, and realize that destroying robots adds to two performance indicators, both Robots Destroyed (a flat per-robot value) and Value Destroyed (which is where most of the reward comes in, different for each robot and usually ranging from 1-99). The true value of a standard robot is shown in its variant number, until you start getting into prototypes. Ever met a Combat Programmer? They're worth 200 each :)

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