Put some kind of cap on the number of allies you can maintain.Technically there already is one, as suggested. It affects the alert level to an extent that has been continually tweaked over the past year, and at present the effect is just somewhat low. It's still noticeable to me, though--I ran an ally build for much of my last seed run, until I lost everyone in the space of 10 turns after three demolishers showed up to counter it (really should've thought to take some missile defense :P).
This does mean thermal weapons are not that great. One thing that could be done is to add utils/processors which increase the amount of heat transferred by thermal weapons which gives reasons to stack them. Basically think of weapons as carriers for procs rather than damage dealers.Particle chargers are an extremely good reason to stack thermal weapons!
I think, the only source of powerful cannons are the R branches. It would be nice to have an alternate source.I think we'll get some of this via a new area I'd like to add in the future.
How about some kind of reflect/deflect utility that lets you deflect incoming fire when a slashing melee weapon in equipped.If implemented, I wonder if this should be any melee weapon, really, not just slashing. Or at least potentially any--each might have a different propensity for it.
This could be one realization of the permenant buff idea that zxc and I were discussing in discord. Unique heros. The original combat hackers compensated for quality by quantity, but if that is not an option, we need better allies.While not something I'd want to add in the near term, Zionite heroes would fit in nicely with a rather significant future potential expansion I'd like to do. There is certainly room for more sources of powerful allies, since there are only a handful you can get right now. Others are mostly fodder.
The more I play and look at items and mechanics, the more I think melee and both combat builds are already near perfect as they are now and don't require changes. Perhaps melee could use a small boost in increasing damage but it lacks testing at endgame. In concept, shouldn't melee builds be ideal for 1v1/bosses, along with cannon builds? In fact, you could build them along similar lines. By comparison, it still seems melee is a bit weaker.Basically my impressions as well. This is why I mainly want to focus on the robot hacking. And there are going to be some future melee improvements to make it more valid as a pure style--it's getting pretty close by now but is at a bit of a disadvantage.
Ally Build:This is really cool. Yeah re: drones, I hadn't thought about stacking them and bringing them into maps (thanks GJ). About gradually bringing in allies... the point was that there would be no cap to how many allies you could bring. Right now, if the next map is cramped, some of your allies will never carry over.
With respect to the Ally Build, the subsequent Beta updates have already made some changes in the direction suggested by zxc. It's becoming easier and easier to maintain one for longer periods, now that Tactical Coordination Suites were significantly buffed, as were Programmer hacking capabilities, enabling them to help build your army even when you're not a hacker (they also got rewiring capabilities in 1.2).
To address some specific suggestions, I'm not sure what having allies gradually follow into a new map is aiming to accomplish. And with drones, I'm afraid to make them much more effective (I've had other ideas for them as well...) because they have strong potential to trivialize maps.
Ninja/Stealth:Regarding the tracker count aspect of triangulators, it was because it's not a particularly useful effect (you learn the timings anyway and you can see enemies stop following you with sensors, which all stealth builds will have). Regarding the LOS detecting aspect of triangulators, the motivation was that I don't quite find it useful enough for a single slot. One major limitation is that it doesn't help you detect what distance enemies can see when you are around a corner with the enemy out of your LOS. Finally, the distances are learnable AFAIK, and while the triangulator would help learn these distances, its long-term usefulness isn't very high. I'd rather have another slab of armour or piece of hackware instead of a triangulator. No one else has commented on this - I guess I'm the only one doing pure stealth right now?
Merging Cloaking Devices and Triangulators seems kinda too good for a single slot... same with ECM. Even with just ECM and speed you can escape almost anything--why the need for extra capabilities without expending another slot?
I don't see a particular need to modify this build since it doesn't have a particularly high slot use as is.
Offensive:Yep. This will need a lot more testing now with 1.2's changes. Just I hope you don't remove every stacking utility, because stacking can be cool. :)
Kinetic superiority over thermal might no longer apply given the recent utility modifications that again nerfed crit stacks. 1.2 kinetics are probably... on par with thermal? The fact that thermal damage is effective against everything keeps it in favor as well. Oh, and the ability to outright up damage across an entire volley of energy weapons via particle chargers is... very effective.
Regarding the tracker count aspect of triangulators, it was because it's not a particularly useful effect (you learn the timings anyway and you can see enemies stop following you with sensors, which all stealth builds will have). Regarding the LOS detecting aspect of triangulators, the motivation was that I don't quite find it useful enough for a single slot. One major limitation is that it doesn't help you detect what distance enemies can see when you are around a corner with the enemy out of your LOS. Finally, the distances are learnable AFAIK, and while the triangulator would help learn these distances, its long-term usefulness isn't very high. I'd rather have another slab of armour or piece of hackware instead of a triangulator. No one else has commented on this - I guess I'm the only one doing pure stealth right now?
About gradually bringing in allies... the point was that there would be no cap to how many allies you could bring. Right now, if the next map is cramped, some of your allies will never carry over.Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah that was something I considered earlier, though I thought it would feel kinda weird thematically since they would enter from what is otherwise an empty space... (as there are no return stairs)
Just I hope you don't remove every stacking utility, because stacking can be cool. :)Exactly! That's why I've always erred on the side of allowing stacking unless it's obviously OP, but have since been forced to unstack a few utilities simply because they're so effective once you have a couple dozen slots to allocate. It's sometimes tough to balance a game in which you can eventually nearly quadruple the number of items you can use at once :P
I'd rather have another slab of armour or piece of hackware instead of a triangulator. No one else has commented on this - I guess I'm the only one doing pure stealth right now?It could be up for mods in the future. As per Sherlockkat's input, would at least lowering the energy cost (to practically nothing) make it somewhat appealing? (Note: Technically the impetus behind its current cost was precisely what Sherlockkat pointed out--that it's something you'll probably only blip on for a short time anyway.)
Anyway, this is a build that will continue to get better over time, kinda like the gradual improvements to the summoner/necromancer/ally build.
During the initial implementation I did consider trap stackability, but there is no such UI mechanic and it would open the door to people questioning why other (even smaller!) items cannot be stacked