Cave-insI feel like this would make a number of people basically never want to go through dug out cells, a massive massive nerf to digging. We just had a digging nerf in Beta 10, and even that was cause for some grumbling, and for good reason since digging can be an important part of stealth tactics, but this... would devastate is since some builds would be much more limited in terms of digging, basically never doing it if it involved any earth at all!
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
Remove self-damage possibility when kickingThis is being removed as part of the leg update.
Players rarely kick because self-damage is bad. This would make the ability more fun
Overweight penaltyAlready doing this, yep, although it will debut as a patron build along with other changes to storage balance as well to actually see how it works out.
Increase somewhat for treads (maybe wheels too?)
LightpackFeel free to discuss, though I've mentioned all the Exiles parts will be revamped for Beta 11 to bring them in line with their intended balance purpose, now that people have had a chance to play around with them. ("Disabling effects of other storage units" seems really weird, though!)
Make it disable the effects of other equipped storage units
This encourages early and midgame usage, and weakens it somewhat in lategame
Matter and energy storage utilitiesHere for the record, I see, although despite all the conversation around it so far, it didn't seem to come out as a promising change without a lot of drawbacks (being illogical and therefore against player expectations is a big strike against it, too...).
Make it increase maximum capacity when equipped but not store anything when unequipped or dropped
'Drop on floor' strategy is extremely strong
RIF alert reductionThis has already been done.
Change progression from 25/50/75% to 25/40/50%
Exiles alert chipAlready done :P
Reduce alert gain by 10%
Makes it more useful but not super strong. Can also be shot off.
I feel like this would make a number of people basically never want to go through dug out cells, a massive massive nerf to digging. We just had a digging nerf in Beta 10, and even that was cause for some grumbling, and for good reason since digging can be an important part of stealth tactics, but this... would devastate is since some builds would be much more limited in terms of digging, basically never doing it if it involved any earth at all!
This is being removed as part of the leg update.
although it will debut as a patron build along with other changes to storage balance as well to actually see how it works out.
"Disabling effects of other storage units" seems really weird, though!
Digging is one of the most powerful tactics out there. But it's often the 'easy' or 'lazy' way to do things. It's rarely the only way.Yep, although I think it's in an okay spot right now. Personally for my own style I think it'd be fine, to be honest--bring on the chance of cave-ins everywhere!--but it feels like a whole segment of players would really hate it.
Right, although it wasn't in the OP we discussed it on Discord: the capacity is being nerfed, and mass possibly going up after a review (need to look over a bunch of stats), but the most important part is capacity shrinking.Quotealthough it will debut as a patron build along with other changes to storage balance as well to actually see how it works out.
Oh, I forgot storage! But we've barely started discussing that. Maybe that's next. I don't think overweight penalty nerf is 'enough' on its own. Probably changing the counts to 2/3/4/5 instead of 2/4/6/8 is a good one. Also, their integrity is just over the top. I don't think they need that much these days.
There are likely going to be other effective ways to balance it without needing to deal with making things weird.Quote"Disabling effects of other storage units" seems really weird, though!
Very true, but I think it has a nice effect.
walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)I like this more the more I think about it. It's a big nerf to digging, but digging strats still dominate the stealth space in a way that isn't actually necessary. Cogmind has so many parts and so much intel and other help on the main floors that winning would not be any great hurdle, it's just that the variance of those builds skyrockets instead of looking mostly the same every time. Certainly some of the best items in the game such as sensors and terrain scanning don't get phased out by a change like this, it just gives you a reason to maybe run something else at times.
[storage unit vulnerability]I think it's worth noting that in 7drl Cogmind, storage vulnerability was high enough to be unfun, and that I currently occasionally lose hcp./lrg. storage units to damage attrition, without farming squads or anything silly like that. I could keep them alive with repair stations if attrition was greater, but I would not enjoy that especially as it often means dropping items on the floor and shooing recyclers, that or carrying storage inside storage.
[matter and energy storage]Dropping resource-storage is both overpowered and an obnoxious tactic to execute, there was a time when quickswap didn't exist and dropping the pod/well was much more comfortable in terms of micro, but that is no longer the case. Forgetting your resource-storage on the floor scores very high on the annoying-gameplay scale.
[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.
Cave-insThis 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).
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
Makes digging in caves much worse, probably a good thing as it trivialises cavesDigging 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.
LegsI really like the general idea behind this and there are a number of ways it could be implemented. I like the relationship with momentum because it makes reaction control systems have more synergy with legs, which were already decent with legs but this improves that in a good way. Plus a lot of the leg ideas I've heard have seemed out of Cogmind's style, too similar to other game features ("siege mode, but legs!"), or somewhat ridiculous. This feels reasonable and fits the game nicely.
10% accuracy malus and evasion bonus per point of momentum (caps at 30% or 40% with reaction control)
Accuracy malus uses movement acc malus, so it doesn't affect melee attacks
Only relevant when moving with non-overweight legs
Moving with legs on previous turn locks in malus for current turn
Bonus only takes effect during enemy actions when previous turn you moved with legs
Overweight penaltyI would at least double the penalty from treads (20 -> 40), possibly more but 40 is probably a good starting point. Current overweight penalty for "basic" treads is 160 speed to 180 speed, which is only a 12.5% increase in time/move to gain *double* the mass support, which is significant on treads. Perhaps adv. treads should have a lesser penalty (30?) since being a little faster is their niche and this seems to hurt them more than other treads, although I think them being fast while not overweight looks pretty good already.
Increase somewhat for treads (maybe wheels too?)
Support should be relevant in every build, and treads are a bit strong right now
Matter and energy storage utilitiesI think there's some good merit to this idea, as sapping energy off the ground *is* quite strong, although it does come with some side-effects vs equipping (you need to have space to drop it, it only restores when the turn increments so you may have to wait to refill, etc.). There's also some awkward behavior if you have empty storage in your inventory, because you will sap matter/energy from storage on the ground into storage in your inventory, and not always gain any benefit to your useable active resources.
Make it increase maximum capacity when equipped but not store anything when unequipped or dropped
'Drop on floor' strategy is extremely strong
Cave wallsThis has always been an awkward problem since it is one of the few (if not the only) places where tiles have a distinct advantage over ASCII. Tiles revealing more information than ASCII is common in roguelikes, for obvious reasons (that isn't to say it should also be the case in Cogmind). Removing cave walls would make digging easier (especially from stray shots, which I assume is one of the reasons the walls exist to begin with). It also makes sense that walls would be harder and more compacted than looser dirt inside. I do wonder how caves might look if segments of the current wall tiles were made into dirt, so there was a mix while you explored, and it would also make the walls less reliable for guiding digging routes. 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.
All cave walls are earth
Fixes the advantage tiles has over ascii
TrapsNo 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.
I really like it, too, actually, just imagining what the wider result would be. Guess this one could be brought up on Discord in #cogmind to watch everyone go crazy for a bit? :P. OR, just release it like that so people have less time to worry about how "bad" it might be and actually try it.Quotewalls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)I like this more the more I think about it.
I completely agree, but a very lengthy discussion of this on Discord didn't seem to produce any convincing alternatives that were clearly better. Also changes here could really mess up a lot of otherwise fun meta...Quote[matter and energy storage]Dropping resource-storage is both overpowered and an obnoxious tactic to execute, there was a time when quickswap didn't exist and dropping the pod/well was much more comfortable in terms of micro, but that is no longer the case. Forgetting your resource-storage on the floor scores very high on the annoying-gameplay scale.
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?Cave-insThis 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
Yeah this was one of the other ideas I was considering more strongly after the Discord discussion, as it seems like it might be the best approach. Logically speaking it's weird you can't extract all at once, but it's definitely less weird than other alternatives. I wonder what others think on this. Then at least less would have to change overall, and the related meta could be preserved as little or as much as we want, based purely on the rate.Matter and energy storage utilitiesAnother option may be to put a cap how much you can pull from the ground, maybe to something like 100/turn. I'm actually not sure that matter is quite as exploitable as energy, which could make balancing them both but maintaining some level of consistency difficult.
This also exacerbates an issue that many kinetic builds have in SPOILERIf necessary we could possibly increase the effectiveness of Desublimators to help compensate (?), since they're only found there.
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.
Quote[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.
Cave-insThis 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).
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
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.
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?
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.
Makes digging in caves much worse, probably a good thing as it trivialises cavesDigging 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.
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 inSpoiler (click to show/hide)
This also exacerbates an issue that many kinetic builds have inSpoiler (click to show/hide)
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.
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.
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.
[resource storage]I don't think an 8-coverage part rarely getting severed is an issue. Also don't think Desub needs any further buffs, it's already very strong and sometimes you don't find it at all before your matter greed punishes you. It's an inherent aspect of spoiler-map that matter can end up an issue, can always mix in thermal cannons, possibly after it's clear that your ideal desub scenario won't be panning out. Kinetic weapons are by no means weak in this map, not anymore.
make earth tiles only have a cave-in chance by time, not checked per-move as wellEww, overloading prop every time you dig. I think overload shouldn't be particularly desirable for much else than avoiding getting hit by enemies, the time to overload/unload prop in those situations feels better because it's a more difficult situation that makes you pause to think anyway.
[stealth]Getting trapped on a stealth build is already a failure and/or heavy RNG. It is preventable and is not necessarily run-ending when it happens. The ability to safely exit just about any room in the main floors even if the entrance(s) are guarded not only de-emphasizes good and careful stealth play, it results in an annoying play-pattern of always checking walls with digs before considering more legitimate (and difficult & varied) alternatives for navigation/stealth.
[resource storage]On thinking about it later, the extraction rate thing actually seems kinda pointless since you can just swap it in when necessary, essentially requiring that you have another/something else replacable on the build, but this does kinda counter much of the reason for making that change in the first place...
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....even doing the same for matter storage for consistency purposes?
I wonder what storage change might mean for builds like RIF?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.
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)
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.I think that's definitely happening regardless, and Kyzrati has had a long-term goal of reducing maximum inventory capacity for a while now.
You probably don't want to nerf that and nerf storage at the same time.
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 -That's very true and one of the main losses of going no_stack.
it's an interesting emergent behavior / gameplay dynamic to consider and learn about; making storage no_stack simply removes this 100%.
If we simply want to disincentives hoarding, we toggle to least impactful variable wrt. hoarding: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?
1. mass support / overweight penalty for various props (mainly treads and maybe wheels)
2. the mass of those storage units themselves - not the capacity.
I wonder what storage change might mean for builds like RIF?Yep, other things that are impacted would naturally be adjusted, too, to maintain their respective balance where necessary/desirable. RIF in particular is very easy to adjust, and wouldn't really suffer from storage changes, so don't worry about that. (It's also easy to run low-storage RIF builds, many people just really like the high-storage kind :P)
Because of the basic game mechanics, storage change invariably almost change everything else too.
it's an interesting emergent behavior / gameplay dynamic to consider and learn about; making storage no_stack simply removes this 100%.Yep, I am in this camp, which is why that change hasn't been made, or even strongly considered, since it was proposed a long time ago. While I do like some of the potential results of <no_stack>, and think it could be interesting to at least experiment with, I think it also really damages a lot of play options.
2. When I mean flexibility I wasn't talking about giving combinations of different storage units being used. The flexibility I had in mind is the ability to adapt to RNG, which the storage gives alongside with "more health/replacements"One thing I have yet to mention is that if I were to do something like no_stack storage (even though I'm not leaning towards it at the moment), it would almost certainly need to be compensated at the meta level by increasing part integrity levels across the board. This would make inventory for spares somewhat less necessary, at least corresponding to the degree that average storage capacity is reduced. (The main problem is this could involve quite a significant amount of rebalancing. I mean, it's actually quite easy to test this type of thing by applying formulas in a test build, but the final product would need more fine adjustments and other work.)
On thinking about it later, the extraction rate thing actually seems kinda pointless since you can just swap it in when necessary, essentially requiring that you have another/something else replacable on the build, but this does kinda counter much of the reason for making that change in the first place...I'm not sure what this means, you don't need an additional backup pod/well in inventory just because you occasionally have one equipped. Finding a currently-equipped util that doesn't discard to swap with isn't really a problem for any build.
max storage by %This is rather similar to filters, though if they were powerful due to needing to stay equipped to avoid losing those resources, then maybe that could be an interesting alternative to filters? The play pattern there is you top off energy/matter during safer periods and maybe you enter the next floor with 2000 matter thanks to 1 compressor equipped? There are ways in which this is worse than a matter filter, e.g. if you expect to be picking up matter from corpses on the next floor. For flight you could enter a floor with 5000 energy stored and try clearing it at a big energy deficit per move... (numbers possibly hyperbolic)
Imagine all storage units being 2x mass of current values. No other adjustments. Thoughts?It sucks and it hurts, for builds that value 0x0.
the ability to adapt to RNGYou can already adapt to RNG by equipping new items from the floor as you lose them, Cogmind's biggest inventory is always the floor you're on and the bots on it. There's some ideal balance for how well you can stick to one build, how well you can retain certain items, and how frequently you lose those items and have to rebuild. Currently I think Cogmind is a bit too much into allowing you to preserve a very very similar-looking build and the exact same item for very long.
Currently, unless you are playing flight or hover, no one would ever play a Cogmind run without overweight.Not true, but acceptable hyperbole. 0x0 legs and treads are occasionally attractive.
I just left a word out of my comment which made it mean the opposite of what I meant to say :P--I'm saying what you're saying. My comment was meant to read "...essentially ONLY requiring that you have another/something else replaceable..." which is why I think it's a pretty unhelpful approach since you can easily swap in when you need resources.QuoteOn thinking about it later, the extraction rate thing actually seems kinda pointless since you can just swap it in when necessary, essentially requiring that you have another/something else replacable on the build, but this does kinda counter much of the reason for making that change in the first place...I'm not sure what this means, you don't need an additional backup pod/well in inventory just because you occasionally have one equipped. Finding a currently-equipped util that doesn't discard to swap with isn't really a problem for any build.
Well I don't know about the 2x values, since that's zxc's suggestion and I haven't looked at any math myself, but regardless of mass increase details, technically there's always the option to add more propulsion/support if necessary, no?QuoteImagine all storage units being 2x mass of current values. No other adjustments. Thoughts?It sucks and it hurts, for builds that value 0x0.
it's arguably too many items to deal with as such. They're usually all items that want to potentially be swapped in at some point, so there's more stress to managing them than there is to having 40 potions in other RLs. Yeah, yeah, occasionally it's still fun, but on the whole I'm in favor of that never being possible in Cogmind. Cogmind's better when it's a part-management simulator than an inventory-management one.So you'd agree then that reducing overall storage capacity should be a goal, yeah?
reducing overall storage capacity should be a goalRight, reducing the inventory sizes you can play at or reasonably would.
Well I don't know about the 2x values, since that's zxc's suggestion and I haven't looked at any math myself, but regardless of mass increase details, technically there's always the option to add more propulsion/support if necessary, no?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.
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.
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).
I think there's been more than one mention of weird 0x3 memery at this point with the implication that they're not great so all's fine, so I think it's worth reaffirming that one of the main balance issues with current storage & weight is that e.g. 0x1 treads is oppressively good, with Hcp. you are almost forced into playing with BIG inventories and slower treads because of how good its interaction with 0x1 is.
If you don't double the masses, I'm not sure combat even notices.I personally already feel pressure from current storage masses and they influence my decisions. I currently don't like running hcp storage on legs. I was playing a wheel build yesterday and was using lrg instead of hcp because it represented a worthwhile increase in speed. Not everyone plays extremely slow high-storage builds, and doing so comes with downsides.
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.
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.Far as I can tell Cogmind has never been a well-balanced game, which of course is something you can say about the vast majority of them. Getting the balance right is inevitably a grind for more complex games. On the whole Cogmind's balance and nuance has improved over time, and players urging the dev to be careful as a general rule seems counterproductive, devs of a proper game that they've put a ton of effort into are already predisposed to that bias. This is merely my own interpretation, but there's already precedence of that attitude from the playerbase slowing down work on the game that ended up happening anyway, mainly relating to nerfs that happened to flight and hackware stacking. Some of those changes are fairly old at this point, and the retrospective on them does not tell a tale of the game's build variety shattering without proper recompense, even if you can no longer assimilate bots via what's now known as machine-hackware. That used to be a fundamental aspect of the game and of build flexibility, even treads builds could put on a bit of temporary hackware to assimilate/reboot a sentry in addition to hitting up access(branch) on terminals, perhaps to safely plasma cut them for hvy. armor plating.
walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
dodging behemoths in caves on a flight build, getting SHELL from the SHELL lab, digging into the Q exit prefab, etcetera.But there's various ways for flight to deal with cave Behemoths and SHELL Lab without any digging. I know a good variety of them from experience, because sometimes I like to pretend that the games I play are already good instead of devolving to simple play patterns that shouldn't be possible/reasonable. To me this sound like you don't know those methods and have not thought much about them because of how easy and straightforward the tunnel strat is. I should be concrete here, so some off the top of my head are off-turn spotting, gui./hyp. baiting, drones/allies, ECM, recall(reinforcements), sheer ridiculous speed.
Yeah, I think the purpose of even small cave-in risks is so that players won't take those risks with any strong consistency, it's an emergency maneuver. Of course there is the exception where tanky builds without extremely valuable low-integrity processors don't mind cave-in damage.Quotedodging behemoths in caves on a flight build, getting SHELL from the SHELL lab, digging into the Q exit prefab, etcetera.But there's various ways for flight to deal with cave Behemoths and SHELL Lab without any digging. I know a good variety of them from experience, because sometimes I like to pretend that the games I play are already good instead of devolving to simple play patterns that shouldn't be possible/reasonable. To me this sound like you don't know those methods and have not thought much about them because of how easy and straightforward the tunnel strat is. I should be concrete here, so some off the top of my head are off-turn spotting, gui./hyp. baiting, drones/allies, ECM, recall(reinforcements), sheer ridiculous speed.
You probably aren't aware of how easily Researchers die (or lose their scanner) because you've never had to roll for those kills.
instantly game-losing scenarioPimski, I know you've played Infra Arcana. When the White Spider gives you the bad touch and rolls its 50% paralysis proc for 2 turns and keeps chaining paralysis until you're dead, that's an insta-loss interaction. Even that extreme of an interaction happens to be fair due to various additional nuances, like the fact that there's tells for a spider/summon being in the vicinity, the fact that you tend to have a dynamite/molotov/debuff in inventory... IA is largely a fair game because it only forces you to gamble on "and then you died" interactions once you've burned through your resources, and good play can preserve those. It is somewhat more extreme about such things than the average RL, but that also makes it exciting.
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)?Researchers would be a pushover if they're nerfed. I see them as quite balanced.
This is also within the scope of balance discussions.
The reason I bring this up is that I think additional difficulty should only be introduced insofar as it makes the game more challenging. This challenging aspect is part of what makes the game fun. While the proposed changes to caveins clearly make the game harder, I don't think they lead to new or more interesting decisions. I guess that's the crux of why I'm opposed to the changes.Huh, that's interesting because I would've thought the opposite, including for all the reasons GJ stated earlier. If digging currently trivializes a lot of potential dangers (as it clearly does), then removing that option (or requiring that it be a gamble, anyway) forces you to deal with a variety of different scenarios using whatever other options you can think of, and deal with potential consequences of those options, rather than just... digging around everything.
On a side note, I dislike this format of posting on forums. It feels a lot harder to express myself and to meaningfully engage in discussion. I would personally prefer to just use discord...Yeah each place as its uses, although forums are much better for taking the time to articulate points, and also ensure they're actually able to be easily referenced by those interested in the topic, including me :P
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.Well it doesn't seem minor to players claiming that such a change would basically stop them from ever digging at all! (Unless that's what you mean--agreeing that digging isn't essential for any play styles?)
Though if it gets implemented I would strongly prefer it if the recent melee digging nerfs were reverted.
Have we talked about Zio. Metafield Generator in this thread yet?
metafieldTo an extent metafield feels fine to me because it's prop overloading without the nuisance, you kinda get what you would "otherwise" except the way it plays out is more fun, including the part where you kill Z-Imprinter. And in general fast feels more inherently broken than faster. The suggestions here are potentially interesting though, the one about doubling both downsides and upsides, and how it could be a util that e.g. turns cmb. hover (what you would use, i.e. max integrity) into overloaded prop, would change the identity of the item and how you want to play it.
- Machines that cause corruptionThis 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.
- Alternative sensor changeSensors having a close-to-medium-range identity is something I like, optics for longer hallways. It's currently a bit silly how Exp. Sensors (26) are how you want to leverage Helical Railguns (26), not Spectral Analyzers (16+8 = 24).
- 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
- Mass support utilsbut muh core hover with mass utils strats, they don't tread on the purpose of prop slots when your prop slots are treads for armor
- Subvert disadvantages of fastest prop types
- Tread on the purpose of prop slots
- Probably could be safely removed
- GunsWhile 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.
- 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
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 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.That approach has as many drawbacks as advantages, and there are good reasons caves are sized as they currently are. Among them are that it forces a certain pace of progression while also offering a return-to-0b10 option at approximately the half-way point, and that current cave sizes make it easier to add and control content without causing too much chaos and undesirable side effects. Larger caves are even more likely to feel empty unless they are simply packed with stuff.
Some new suggestions and brainstorming I've been doingo_O
Just avoid the machine. Easy peasy. Now, enemy robots constantly going past the machine and dying might be a real problem...Quote- Machines that cause corruptionThis 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.
Quote- GunsWhile 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.
- 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
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.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.
Also I even noticed at least one thing on your list which is in the game already :P:thinking:
gunslinging does need a decent store of backups due to its levels of attritionOne of the optimal ways to play 4 weapon slots is to equip 4x kinetic guns and have melee+launcher+kincannon in inventory because they are low coverage, highly efficient, high integrity whereas your active loadout is common items getting shot and replaced. Could play most of the game with just 3 weapons in inventory if you wanna stick to low inventory (would mean equipping the occasional TH/EM gun), don't really need the kingun backups because you don't need to be all-in on gunslinging 100% of the time instead of 90%. The identity that the different weapon categories have here is at least pretty good.
Proposal #1. Make all of the energy and heat artifacts less common. I'm picturing a scenario where you get either (not both, just one selected at random) the integrated singularity reactor or the integrated heat negator *guaranteed*, probably located in the top-right AA shell of the LRC lab? (The one with a tile for a single AA that is sometimes empty.) In addition to this, the lesser integrated reactor and integrated dissipator would be elevated to the status of artifacts that are protected by S7 guard (in place of the integrated singularity reactors and heat negators which would no longer spawn in these prefabs). The net effect is that players get less free energy/cooling on average. The benefits of this are more careful consideration of overall build composition, energy use, and heat upkeep; evolving a third power slot becomes more appealing and an interesting build option; Zhirov's AA increases in value, as does Lab's. Players with the subatomic replicator could still replicate the AAs that they do find. That is, unless...
As it is of some relevance to the recent discussion, I will highlight a run I just played: https://cogmind-api.gridsagegames.com/scoresheets/zdEEsud7mfcDK3ud7.txt
This is a slow-combat (treads) ++ win,with no S7. I've also previously done ++ without S7 using a treads-multirails type of build. What this demonstrates is that energy-greedy strats are not that necessary for doing extended endgame, at least for combat. Something like flight could possibly need a lot of energy supply, I've done a hover++ without R branches that managed to support its energy costs with a VCR, Imp. Fusion Compressor and energy wells. There are alternatives to beating the endgame than just having a ton of AA support from S7, so maybe it's not necessary for those to be as good/frequent as they are, though you do want S7 to feel somewhat satisfying in terms of what you get, and having it occasionally enable certain types of energy-greedy builds is good.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
- 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
- Mass support utils
- Subvert disadvantages of fastest prop types
- Tread on the purpose of prop slots
- Probably could be safely removed
I like the metafield nerf idea that damages propulsion :)
I really don't see how nerfing the energy / heat AA's makes the game any more interesting. I personally don't consider evolving extra engine slots interesting gameplay, they don't *do* anything other than provider power.More engines or Power Amps or Fusion Compressors or Thermal Generators or MD is more interesting than builds just having enough energy for their plan because they replicated a singularity reactor. The latter being good enough for your energy at 1-2 power slots and no other energy generation is maybe a bit too common at the moment.
if I want to go for a very energy hungry build, I should probably go to s7 to get some energy AA's. If I want to focus more on offense (and maybe don't want to run a force field), or maybe have issues with alert management, I could instead go to Lab or T and otherwise skip s7.Yep, sounds good to me. Another balance issue with S7 is that there's so many sec-1 terminals to botnet and purge/recall at, you can exit the map at low-sec/sec-1 without playing an actual hacking build, by just killing operators for a hacking suite or entering the level with ~2 offensive hackware in inventory. If you play combat your build can't die when it has hvy. regen and exp. biometal, so there is no challenge, often just a big & boring map. Currently S7 is an interesting decision/map exclusively for imprinting and I guess if you have intercepts.
2-prop flight, metafield2-prop is slower than multi-prop flight, that is supposed to be the downside of mass support utils there. I think some of the proposed metafield changes are interesting, but I also think metafield isn't inherently busted relative to imprinting, it seems a real choice. I think more than the metafield the fast+stealth builds people play it with still seem far too easy, it's also why the speed of 2-prop flight is inherently sufficient and you never feel like being even faster. Would be nice if this paradigm was somehow solvable with sensor/dig changes. Although metafield with 2x. Exp. flight is very fast, so maybe a lesser speed boost than halving base speed is reasonable too, seems a good item even at worse numbers. I've had runs where the effect was excessive and I could've reached roughly speed-cap even with a worse metafield, those weren't 2-prop builds of course.
Also I can imagine the cheese now where people just run the imprinter all around ZDC till she burns out her prop and they get a free kill... why do I get the feeling there insidious cheese strats behind the proposal of this nerf?Come on man, don't imply that I'm trying to deceive the developer into changing game mechanics just so I can exploit them. Anything that I post here is only because I think it could potentially improve the overall game experience. Finding cheese can be fun but most of us only do it so that the game can be updated and improved, the same as with finding bugs. And poking holes in unimplemented mechanics and ideas is important so it's good to bring up considerations and concerns like yours; that's part of the purpose of this thread. In this case, the damaging parts idea was one of several that I proposed, and the rationale is that it would be similar to cooled propulsion in both function and theme.
QuoteAlso I can imagine the cheese now where people just run the imprinter all around ZDC till she burns out her prop and they get a free kill... why do I get the feeling there insidious cheese strats behind the proposal of this nerf?Come on man, don't imply that I'm trying to deceive the developer into changing game mechanics just so I can exploit them. Anything that I post here is only because I think it could potentially improve the overall game experience. Finding cheese can be fun but most of us only do it so that the game can be updated and improved, the same as with finding bugs. And poking holes in unimplemented mechanics and ideas is important so it's good to bring up considerations and concerns like yours; that's part of the purpose of this thread. In this case, the damaging parts idea was one of several that I proposed, and the rationale is that it would be similar to cooled propulsion in both function and theme.
All good man! I know you too well to seriously think otherwise, but felt the need to reply in case anyone was reading out of context. Sorry if I sounded overly defensive in my reply :PQuoteAlso I can imagine the cheese now where people just run the imprinter all around ZDC till she burns out her prop and they get a free kill... why do I get the feeling there insidious cheese strats behind the proposal of this nerf?Come on man, don't imply that I'm trying to deceive the developer into changing game mechanics just so I can exploit them. Anything that I post here is only because I think it could potentially improve the overall game experience. Finding cheese can be fun but most of us only do it so that the game can be updated and improved, the same as with finding bugs. And poking holes in unimplemented mechanics and ideas is important so it's good to bring up considerations and concerns like yours; that's part of the purpose of this thread. In this case, the damaging parts idea was one of several that I proposed, and the rationale is that it would be similar to cooled propulsion in both function and theme.
I guess it didn't come off that way, but I was just playing around =P Def don't mean any disrespect, tbh I didn't read closely enough and I thought zxc had proposed it and I was poking fun at him since he always has insidious cheese strats in mind. I don't think anybody here is trying to ruin other people's fun and I truly believe we all have the best intentions for this game, so sorry if that came off like I was disgusted by your proposal or something lol
Of course doing so just restores the cheese potential there... Walls didn't used to cave in, it was added later to block various cheese!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.
I prefer something closer to Proposal #1, which lends itself to more interesting build planning and less absurd levels of free energy and cooling. A lot of players use these AAs as a crutch and it allows players to coast through the extended endgame without having to give any real consideration to two of the game's primary resources. Bringing down the S7 power boost will make endgame build considerations more interesting and promote build diversity.I do like the idea of somewhat reducing the availability of energy/heat AAs in S7. That's always been a bit overkill, mainly due to the extreme variance and it's never had a big balance pass before. Clearly you sometimes just get way too many. Certainly reducing their number affects the loot table in other ways, but that can be addressed separately.
Mass support utils are interesting in that they are usually not great overall, but if you stick them on flight they enable 2 prop flight builds that have way better energy efficiency than standard 6+ flight builds, or if you stick them on core hover you can use treads as prop armor and fly around at 50 speed. I like these usages but I have to agree that 2 prop flight being the best type of flight feels very strange to me. Not sure what a good solution is here but I definitely don't think they should be removed.Yeah I almost never like removing things, either, but these have never been balanced (despite several attempts) and I'm not sure how to do it without some weird new mechanic/requirement...
If the item just burns out parts randomly it's not going to be worth my time anymore, which would be a shame, because I think it's so much fun. If it's just a slow drain on propulsion then that is slightly better, but overall I'd prefer modifying resource consumption instead of having it consume my parts. Also I can imagine the cheese now where people just run the imprinter all around ZDC till she burns out her prop and they get a free kill... why do I get the feeling there are insidious cheese strats behind the proposal of this nerf?It's not random destruction, "burnout" as in slowly damages like the burnout mechanic, which seems fine for a very powerful part. Just not something you use for an entire run, which fast builds are otherwise very good at doing and this one currently just makes them that much better at it.
Metafield is an item you have to build your entire slot distribution and loadout around. If its use becomes limited like this, any time you're not using it, you're limping around on a mutilated build. The very fact that this is even being considered as a nerf makes me feel like the people who have agreed to this suggestion have never played this sort of build.
Metafield takes significant effort and skill to obtain, and again significant effort and skill to succesfully use in a build. If it is not at least as good in-slot as the tier 8* and tier 9* stuff flighthack builds fabricate with significantly more ease, then it will not see play in lategame builds.
The overloading nerf puts metafield on par with triangulator and heat shielding.
Having to overload propulsion is the sign of a weak build that is already doomed to die.
The very fact that this is even being considered as a nerf makes me feel like the people who have agreed to this suggestion have never played this sort of build.This seems excessive even assuming intentional hyperbole, and you should know it as a likely truth that the people suggesting these nerfs have played these builds. As we recently concluded in Discord, you were there, speed is one of the best forms of damage reduction. The damage you take from burnout can easily represent much, much more damage avoided. Changes to metafield could easily call for changes to its energy upkeep, especially if it outright overloads prop and the energy cost of that prop becomes magnified. The spirit of the suggestion seems to be to change metafield from a mainly energy dilemma to an integrity dilemma.
If the item just burns out parts randomly it's not going to be worth my time anymore, which would be a shame, because I think it's so much fun. If it's just a slow drain on propulsion then that is slightly better, but overall I'd prefer modifying resource consumption instead of having it consume my parts. Also I can imagine the cheese now where people just run the imprinter all around ZDC till she burns out her prop and they get a free kill... why do I get the feeling there are insidious cheese strats behind the proposal of this nerf?It's not random destruction, "burnout" as in slowly damages like the burnout mechanic, which seems fine for a very powerful part. Just not something you use for an entire run, which fast builds are otherwise very good at doing and this one currently just makes them that much better at it.
Huge amounts of heat is also possible, also matter req idea. Any would work really. I prefer the damage approach unless its effect is nerfed, though (which is not as fun).
Imprinter is not a problem, can just have her toggle it if necessary.
Thoughts on storage nerfs:
Just to add my two cents; I feel like on flight, storage is already reasonably balanced.
reducing overall storage capacity should be a goal
No current plans to make full trapper builds viable as their own sustainable thing
- Alert changesThis is good but probably needs some workshopping.
- 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
Quick addition about the alert thing: No one seems to have noticed, or at least not pointed it out that I've seen/recall, but you currently gain alert from being partial spotted. That's always been a thing (but you probably wouldn't notice that in particular unless you also had RIF).I literally have never noticed this wtf.
1) Nerf botnet values, as 6% is rather high.I think botnet is fine as is.
2) Nerf operator network values, this is much more likely to have a relatively larger impact on faster builds.I will cry if you do this.
3) Manual hacks currently have an offensive penalty to them, what is it, -15% per security level? Perhaps they could have a defensive penalty too.I think the main issue with this is that defensive hacking % is otherwise constant so it'd be a weird exception to the system.
4) Nerf the offensive and defensive values on hackware. 10 is a nice and round starting value but probably not the smallest viable value for being desirable, the fact that you can kill an Operator for a regular hacking suite feels very powerful for stacking hackware equipped or in inventory.Ehhhh I think they're fine.
5) Magnify the penalty for pulling schematics that are prototypes, and possibly be more strict about making high-value items prototypes, lrn. sensor array comes to mind.I'd take this a step further. Remove direct hacking schematics. I hate scroll of wish mechanics.
But we can talk about crazy things without committing to them.
I recently lost a game on stream where there was a Researcher guarding the door to the S7 cache... I was on treads and didn't have enough hacking to open the door. I tried to use FLK to assimilate the researcher, and it missed. It had a 95% chance PLUS the 10% targeting bonus (which I know doesn't get added on), and yet I still missed...LMFAOOOOOO~ nerd
What if you didn't get scanned instantly?Uh... This actually wouldn't be terrible. I think people would be just as terrified of researchers, so there'd be the same level of fun, but you leave in that "cave-in" style incentive for emergency manuvers.
Cogmind is explicitly designed for even horrendous part loss and misplay to be recoverable into a win, which for a roguelike is probably too forgiving, but certainly runs should still be loseable.Nahhh I think it's fine for a roguelike to have 1shot protection :P
I have always felt that there are too many lower/upper cave maps and they should be compressed to a single (hopefully more challenging floor).I agree! But I think changing the way caves plays is also on *the list*
...
1. Hacking-focused builds can fabricate an entire extended build. This method feels somewhat illegitimate, as it is considerably easier to execute than most other strategies for assembling extended-viable builds. Because of this discrepancy with other strateges, on a lot of the faster build archetypes preparing for extended through fabbing feels rather mandatory. Especially on such builds, the strength of lategame fabbing serves to invalidate scavenger-style gameplay to some extent. This is unfortunate for the people who enjoy such gameplay more.
2. There is no compromise-option; either you are fully equipped to fab, or you can hardly fab at all. If you have enough hackware to fab semi-reliably, the only real limit in the number of items you can fab is the fabricator quarantine. Hackware builds can consistently fab enough in this allotted time to get together a complete build. Scavenger-style builds that run no or little hackware can rarely even fabricate a single item. Destroying hubs is somewhat of a remedy against this, but arguably the contrast between these two extremes is still too stark.
3. Fabbing strategies disincentivize risk-reward options to some extent. Scavenger-style builds are often incentivized to take on branches and fight dangerous out-of-depth enemies for rewards. Fabbing builds don't need to rely on such rewards; they only need hackware, and their extended succes is already pretty much guaranteed. Even if branch rewards can be useful for them as well, there is never a reason to feel forced to take a large risk.
4. Fabbing builds overlap with machine hacking builds. This is a bit overly convenient, as machine hacking is one of the most consistent ways to make 0b10 floors easier in the midgame. This ease of blazing through the midgame, combined with their strong lategame, makes fabbing strategies far too consistent and trivial.
5. Setting up a fabbing-centric build is too straightforward. Fabbing builds require little to no resource-management. Their game-plan consists of a very small number of uncomplicated steps. Get hackware; hack for schematics; fabricate your build; equip the parts and win. This again leads to a lack of meaningful and interesting decisions when playing fabbing builds. (Not because of the lack of risk, which is already covered in 3., but rather because of the lack of meaningful resource management and adaptivity.)
...
but my point is these effects are extremely damaging to low integrity propulsion and as a result are only used sparingly.I think that's probably the point, especially considering that speed is already quite good and not being able to maximize your potential speed all the time is a nice balance goal.
In my opinion if metafield also degraded prop the benefits would not be worth it over just overloading standard cld propulsion because:But if the new balancing factor is part integrity, Metafield's other drawbacks would likely be reduced to compensate! We don't need to make the assumption everything else would remain static in this case...
I think you meant indirect hacking here? They're definitely important to the design in terms of allowing for attempts to get a few pieces of a build together, though yeah we can nerf fabbing a bit overall, on which most everyone's in agreement. Part of the issue people see is that flight has a much easier time actually putting together an entire build since they're less likely to lose parts at all, anyway (and generally have a bunch of hackware), while the fabbing system is meant to still be somewhat accessible to combat as well (which it is).Quote5) Magnify the penalty for pulling schematics that are prototypes, and possibly be more strict about making high-value items prototypes, lrn. sensor array comes to mind.I'd take this a step further. Remove direct hacking schematics. I hate scroll of wish mechanics.
How would you guys feel about the overweight penalty kicking in sooner?Indeed we covered that earlier in the thread and that's something which is happening.
I never want to be hurt by seeing a certain stream where a firepult is hauled from mats to -1/C and never get used.Sorry that run hurt you, Vectis. I repeatedly found that unfortunate myself :P
If buffing storage units and giving them <no_stack> makes the game too easy, make the world generally harder to compensate?Actually I think the idea is that for a lot of people it would actually be the exact opposite of that, making the game harder xD
If you disregard all of that, though, the biggest takeaway I want to throw into storage units is that *storage unit coverage and integrity is whack*. It just feels so weird to manage storage unit health... They are so tanky that it feels like they might as well not break at all. I don't know if that's a good thing; tbh I'd be fine if storage units got shot off more often and were harder to come by. Maybe that could be your hcp nerf, since you don't find those naturally in the complex.No, losing storage is terrible, so it's balanced such that you might need to slowly work towards getting replacements, but otherwise it's going to be pretty reliable in the short- and medium-term. We've already been there before in alpha, and it's very very clear that having unreliable storage is like the fundamental bane of fun.
1. I think you shouldn't be able to see the mass of unidentified parts until you attach them.Joshua and I have had this discussion before (https://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=1416.0). It's rather high on the list right now, although I hadn't yet gotten asking around what more people thought of that.
Yeah, and I'm really down with the idea somebody mentioned of scattershotting out builds and forcing playtests to see which are best.Yes that was my idea, and the plan, actually, for example starting with a basic <no_stack> test just to see, but honestly these things take time to properly set up and test so they have to really seem worth it in order to invest that effort, and the support for <no_stack> has surprisingly been very lackluster. People do clearly want change in the storage area, and that's happening for sure, but <no_stack> is a step too far for almost everyone!
All special-purpose terminals, including any door terminals, will no longer be hackable except to open the door or do specifically what they were meant for. They're all level 1 terminals, after all, and having access to that many, especially in certain areas, always made it way too easy. I always liked the thematic concept of using door terminals to hack unrelated systems, but it's OP and not really necessary. In any case, we'll see what kind of effect this has.
How would this look on prefabs where the door is already open, like the Extension and Quarantine entrance variants?No different, just same old Door Terminal.
Door terminal change will make -9 storage significantly harder. Anything to compensate?No, it's fine, and harder is good if true. If referring to non-/low-combat builds, then indeed it should be harder for them--Storage was always meant to be that way, a low-depth dangerous but potentially high-reward area.
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.
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.
Benefits:
...
- Buffs Hyp. EM Gauss Rifle
Some of those things listed as "benefits" are either downsides (to me)
EMDSGot nerfed already, still busted. Busted aspects are:
Is the combat too launcher-focused?In the sense of launchers being necessary, no. You have real alternatives, e.g. gunsling can just miss into swarmers until it enters siege mode and picks off whatever remains. Launchers do happen to be extremely efficient, their matter costs feel sort-of balanced around bad-RNG scenarios where you launch 3-5 times to kill the whole group rather than efficient 1-3 launches then cleaning up with other weapons. Their alert gain doesn't seem significant with the methods there are to manage that, and I think early walls don't even boost alert much --- and they're good for sterilization so this is less of an outright issue nowadays. You do have good reasons not to go launcher-mad in R branches, unless you're explicitly playing for sterilization and discarding the alert management option.
Being able to trigger multiple investigation squads from the same alarm trap array via AOE seems dodgyOnly happens with AoE EM, which is kinda busted in general and it's a flavorful & unique interaction.
Cmb linears need to be prototype (and possibly other/all cmb hovers)The absolute highest-end cmb. hover that's better than antigravs which were already very good and common... yeah, I could see it being prototype. With the other ones it comes down to whether you want to incentivize players to e.g. go imprint and fab cmb. hover because they got a cmb. airjet in Mines, that seems fine as far as branch interactions/incentives go. Having some reason to potentially value hackware or Hubs on imprint is good.
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.Yeah, players are carrying 1x. siege tread on flight/hover these days to fight things like Intercepts. Having at least the accuracy boost scale from the amount of treads sieged would be nice. At the moment it's very powerful to the point of de-emphasizing targeting computers (with some exceptions), so redoing the numbers to nerf 2-prop treads and even slightly nerf 4-prop treads would be fine.
Don't let us find 2+ of hyp EM gauss / tachyon in lab... it really sucksThere aren't that many possible rolls for the L weapon combo, and getting even one PC is very, very good. PCs are currently strangely common*, they really shouldn't be even more common.
I would like to see the explosive potential of power slot items from EM damage listed in their statsYeah I know, might happen one day, just low priority.