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2351
Announcements / Progress Update: November 11th, 2016
« on: November 10, 2016, 09:54:09 PM »
We're coming up on another release here. In fact, Alpha 12 has already reached the usual state at which a release meets my standards for a major milestone, but in the interest of hacking a much more significant chunk out of the list of feature requests, balance tweaks, and yet more QoL enhancements that flooded in with the Alpha 11 mega-update, I'm going to put off 12 for another week while I pack in more stuff.
I spent a week since the last update working on Command, one of the final remaining maps of the game, and that's now complete. Then towards the end of this week I decided to add a fun new feature, about which I'll let the demo images do the talking for now, and get into the details for the future release notes
Also this week I finished up my blog series on Weaving Narratives into Procedural Worlds with Part 3, methods. It's an overview of specifically how Cogmind achieves the points covered in the first two parts.
The next bit of news will most likely be the Alpha 12 release preview!
I spent a week since the last update working on Command, one of the final remaining maps of the game, and that's now complete. Then towards the end of this week I decided to add a fun new feature, about which I'll let the demo images do the talking for now, and get into the details for the future release notes
Also this week I finished up my blog series on Weaving Narratives into Procedural Worlds with Part 3, methods. It's an overview of specifically how Cogmind achieves the points covered in the first two parts.
The next bit of news will most likely be the Alpha 12 release preview!
2352
Strategies / Re: Alpha 11 combat strategy
« on: November 09, 2016, 07:52:15 AM »
Ah, in case you didn't know: In pure kb mode if you really need to you can press the Up/Down arrow keys to cycle through the entries and Enter to read the context help. (Or when I'm streaming and want to show something--with the cursor--I also find it easy to hit F2 and swap to the mouse for a moment.)
2353
Strategies / Re: Alpha 11 combat strategy
« on: November 08, 2016, 06:21:40 PM »
That's... already the case 
. Thermal damage is the only damage that transfers heat, as per its context help description. The idea is to differentiate heat transfer of individual thermal weapons so that some, e.g. flamers, could cause a lot more heat build-up in a target than its damage otherwise allows. And by comparison some of the really massive thermal weapons wouldn't be capable of melting a target in a single shot or two simply due to their high damage
. Thermal damage is the only damage that transfers heat, as per its context help description. The idea is to differentiate heat transfer of individual thermal weapons so that some, e.g. flamers, could cause a lot more heat build-up in a target than its damage otherwise allows. And by comparison some of the really massive thermal weapons wouldn't be capable of melting a target in a single shot or two simply due to their high damage
2354
Strategies / Re: Alpha 11 combat strategy
« on: November 07, 2016, 08:30:28 PM »
The reason it needs to be decoupled from damage into its own stat is that certain weapons would be able to transfer ridiculous amounts of heat, or practically no significant amount at all, and it would also change the heat game significantly from the beginning to end of the game due to minor damage scaling and the fact that later on you can stack thermals. We've already seen the effects of this when robot meltdowns were more common in general by having such a low threshold.
But yes part of why I still haven't added it is that a new stat also creates a bit more complication when using thermal weapons.
Also, don't be sad over speculation!
But yes part of why I still haven't added it is that a new stat also creates a bit more complication when using thermal weapons.
Also, don't be sad over speculation!
2355
Strategies / Re: Alpha 11 combat strategy
« on: November 07, 2016, 06:30:30 PM »Maybe the solution to energy weapons is to massively increase the amount of heat imparted on the target?
An increase in heat transferred to the target would be an interesting buff.This has already been planned, something I mentioned in passing on Discord a few days ago, but I've been putting it off to see if and how it's necessary because some of the more commonly used kinetic weapons will be getting a bit of a nerf soon. They've been OP for a while, when stacked.
Heat transfer as a mechanic is less useful for the player if only because the enemy is weaker in the first place and won't last long enough for the effects to matter so much anyway. There are more of them than you.
That said, the idea has been to give thermal weapons a new "heat transfer" stat, akin to the EM-unique "spectrum" stat, which governs how much the target's heat is raised per shot, so it can be decoupled from damage.
I wish I had read this before yesterday, since I had my second post-Materials run ruined by excessive heat, and I hadn't quite internalized whyIn the early game (Materials) heat is not a huge issue, but by the time you reach the mid game you are definitely going to need heat sinks if you use thermal weapons.
(though having 5 weapon slots on a flight build might have been suboptimal)Very
2356
General Discussion / Re: Alpha 11 Discussion/Feedback (spoiler-free)
« on: November 07, 2016, 05:58:45 PM »
Welcome back, Marc 
Definitely lots of progress--I was just recently thinking back to the first Alpha where almost every branch exit was locked and we didn't have all the neat QoL features that have been added over the months. Now I'm working on some of the final parts of the game! (Although there is still some early/mid-game content I want to expand on as well. I'll get back to that.)
It's taken a long time to get here, but it's been worth it! Alpha 12 will be out before long with even more improvements and new content
Definitely lots of progress--I was just recently thinking back to the first Alpha where almost every branch exit was locked and we didn't have all the neat QoL features that have been added over the months. Now I'm working on some of the final parts of the game! (Although there is still some early/mid-game content I want to expand on as well. I'll get back to that.)
It's taken a long time to get here, but it's been worth it! Alpha 12 will be out before long with even more improvements and new content
2357
General Discussion / Re: Questions About CogMind
« on: November 07, 2016, 05:54:48 PM »
Cogmind is written in C++ (as is REXPaint--same engine). I've talked about just about every aspect of development on the dev blog, and also in r/roguelikedev FAQ Friday posts. I talked a bit about the language/library choices in the first one, though technically you can use any language to create a roguelike.
r/roguelikedev is definitely the place to be if you're looking into working on a roguelike in particular (though it sounds like maybe you're not--just ASCII). (I do plan to one day write an introduction on how to get started with roguelike development, as well as cover (on the blog) some of the more basic architectural components of Cogmind and the engine.)
Good luck!
r/roguelikedev is definitely the place to be if you're looking into working on a roguelike in particular (though it sounds like maybe you're not--just ASCII). (I do plan to one day write an introduction on how to get started with roguelike development, as well as cover (on the blog) some of the more basic architectural components of Cogmind and the engine.)
Can I copy designs from RexPaint into a word document?Sure, you just press ctrl-t to export an image to a text file and can copy it into a Word document, although as text it won't retain color information... To get color info into a Word doc you'd have to write a converter from one of the other color-including export methods. (But why would you want to use Word? It's not a good approach for art. Or maybe you just meant a text doc?)
Good luck!
2358
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #64 [Alpha 11] [Seed: Demolition Time]
« on: November 06, 2016, 06:14:50 PM »
Ahaha, now you've got to win All The Seeds.
Nice to see someone finally taking on the ally build strategy! Still more features to come on that front...
Nice to see someone finally taking on the ally build strategy! Still more features to come on that front...
2359
Strategies / Re: Alpha 11 combat strategy
« on: November 05, 2016, 05:40:36 AM »
Very well put together, Decker. Excellent points all around.
Edit: I also like how this guide is spoiler free
Per Kyzrati's request, I avoid discussing the specifics of the less useful utilities.Clarification for everyone else: Beginning with Alpha 12 a large number of utilities will be adjusted, with the most significant changes aimed at those which in the past have been clearly suboptimal or even outright useless (many of these have simply lived on since the 7DRL). It will be a project spanning multiple releases (so not everything will be updated right away), and I'll be calling for opinions on suboptimal utilities later, but first I have a lot of ideas to get in there myself.
Edit: I also like how this guide is spoiler free
2360
General Discussion / Re: Charting the NPCs and their factions [MAJOR SPOILERS]
« on: November 05, 2016, 05:12:15 AM »
I'm surprised Sherlockkat hasn't shown up in this thread yet given how much he knows, but I guess he's hoping to track down the same missing chunk of lore he's been after for a while now.
In fact, even I'd forgotten one of the more esoteric methods, but was reminded of it while working on the latest map today and came back here to comment. My guess is it'll be a very very long time before anyone figures this one out (by accident). But it's quite powerful...
Too bad you can't create traps in this game.There are... some unknown ways
In fact, even I'd forgotten one of the more esoteric methods, but was reminded of it while working on the latest map today and came back here to comment. My guess is it'll be a very very long time before anyone figures this one out (by accident). But it's quite powerful...
2361
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #63 [Alpha 11] [Seed: Scenic Route]
« on: November 03, 2016, 11:14:58 PM »you could probably farm Access forever...Until it's updated, that is! Hopefully there's enough time to do that for Alpha 12, but the feature list is already piling up to overwhelming levels...
2362
Announcements / Progress Update: November 4th, 2016
« on: November 03, 2016, 08:20:05 PM »
About time to report in again! Lots of things going on...
I'm currently working on the final branch of the game, which is about half done at this point. Yep can't say anything about that
Over on the dev blog there's a new ongoing series about Weaving Narratives into Procedural Worlds. The latest post includes a diagram somewhat abstractly mapping out all the major NPC encounters in the game, which doubles as a meta game for players who've already done a lot of exploring, trying to figure out what's what. That's happening over in this thread. Naturally this involves major spoilers.
Cumulative Cogmind development investment recently surpassed the 6,000-hour mark!
(Also this funny modified version by Caves of Qud dev Brian Bucklew.) We're obviously getting closer to done here, but thanks to strong support from every one of you I've been able to edge in a lot more little features that there otherwise wouldn't be time to do!
After 11 years I finally got a new monitor. Due to the climate here (and simply its age...) the old one one started splitting open all on its own a while ago, and they'd increased in number and size to the point that I was having trouble moving windows/art around to find places that weren't covered in crap so I could see it. No seriously, these cracks have been annoying:
(There are also even more vertical cracks, but you can't see them in the pic because they're too thin.) I never really had enough money to justify getting a new monitor until the old one actually croaked, but on the spur of the moment decided to check the current price of a replacement and--wow, they were on 24-hour super sale for really cheap. Immediately bought
Since the last update I've gotten an earlier than usual start on QoL features for this next release, which I'll just drop here and explain more on release day
Smart manual hacking autocompletion:
Access to query references in keyboard mode:
Optional automatic solo-readying for a newly attached launcher:
As a thanks to those players who've been reporting the most bugs over these months of Alpha, I've handed out a new Bug Hunter badge on the forum, appropriately represented by this little fellow:
. Thanks for your help, everyone!
I'm currently working on the final branch of the game, which is about half done at this point. Yep can't say anything about that
Over on the dev blog there's a new ongoing series about Weaving Narratives into Procedural Worlds. The latest post includes a diagram somewhat abstractly mapping out all the major NPC encounters in the game, which doubles as a meta game for players who've already done a lot of exploring, trying to figure out what's what. That's happening over in this thread. Naturally this involves major spoilers.
Cumulative Cogmind development investment recently surpassed the 6,000-hour mark!
(Also this funny modified version by Caves of Qud dev Brian Bucklew.) We're obviously getting closer to done here, but thanks to strong support from every one of you I've been able to edge in a lot more little features that there otherwise wouldn't be time to do!
After 11 years I finally got a new monitor. Due to the climate here (and simply its age...) the old one one started splitting open all on its own a while ago, and they'd increased in number and size to the point that I was having trouble moving windows/art around to find places that weren't covered in crap so I could see it
. No seriously, these cracks have been annoying:(There are also even more vertical cracks, but you can't see them in the pic because they're too thin.) I never really had enough money to justify getting a new monitor until the old one actually croaked, but on the spur of the moment decided to check the current price of a replacement and--wow, they were on 24-hour super sale for really cheap. Immediately bought
Since the last update I've gotten an earlier than usual start on QoL features for this next release, which I'll just drop here and explain more on release day
Smart manual hacking autocompletion:
Access to query references in keyboard mode:
Optional automatic solo-readying for a newly attached launcher:
As a thanks to those players who've been reporting the most bugs over these months of Alpha, I've handed out a new Bug Hunter badge on the forum, appropriately represented by this little fellow:
. Thanks for your help, everyone!2363
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #63 [Alpha 11] [Seed: Scenic Route]
« on: November 03, 2016, 06:03:32 PM »
Man, that is a sick build towards the end there... Are you fabricating all that Regenerative Plating?
And you still won, again, of course
After noticing that I hadn't actually applied the seed properly this time around, a few days ago I felt like trying out the actual seed and went in for a really quick (real-time) combat run, and ended up dying when I got caught in the open on -5/Factory of all places. Pretty much my worst run ever xD
Visited 11 areas, though--spent a lot of time detouring through caves.
And you still won, again, of course
After noticing that I hadn't actually applied the seed properly this time around, a few days ago I felt like trying out the actual seed and went in for a really quick (real-time) combat run, and ended up dying when I got caught in the open on -5/Factory of all places. Pretty much my worst run ever xD
Visited 11 areas, though--spent a lot of time detouring through caves.
2364
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Zhirov power boost gone
« on: November 03, 2016, 09:17:48 AM »
Back to the OP, I just realized today that you probably settled into your "routine" a bit too lazily to notice that Zhirov doesn't always provide you with a power boost. It can be something else
You definitely attached it, just didn't read what it did!
You definitely attached it, just didn't read what it did!
2365
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Zhirov power boost gone
« on: November 02, 2016, 07:06:31 AM »
I did mention on the chat before that I prefer in-depth feature discussions still take place here, though. That and other occasional better thought-out posts and experience reports. It's 1) nice to keep some more permanent content here for reference, 2) allows lurkers to keep up to date with things, and 3) good to show random visitors that, yes, we do actually have an active community of players interested in the game!
But yeah there's Discord discussion going on pretty much every day with both new and old players. And pretty much everyone there, even those who haven't met Decker, have heard of him in some capacity or another. You're quite famous, really
But yeah there's Discord discussion going on pretty much every day with both new and old players. And pretty much everyone there, even those who haven't met Decker, have heard of him in some capacity or another. You're quite famous, really
2366
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Zhirov power boost gone
« on: November 02, 2016, 12:00:36 AM »
I see
2367
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Zhirov power boost gone
« on: November 01, 2016, 11:49:02 PM »
Hey that's piggybacking!
Seriously, though, it would be fun if some Cogminds started doing multiplayer succession runs, as was discussed at some time in the past.
Seriously, though, it would be fun if some Cogminds started doing multiplayer succession runs, as was discussed at some time in the past.
2368
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Zhirov power boost gone
« on: November 01, 2016, 11:37:42 PM »
Hehe, nice job Sherlockkat
2369
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Zhirov power boost gone
« on: November 01, 2016, 09:45:09 PM »
Looks like your routine skipped a step
There's nowhere in the game where that value is ever reset, or even reduced. (Core resets don't have any impact on physical stats.) I believe forgetting to attach it is the most likely explanation here. (Looks like you were on the road to some great things in that run, by the way--a tough area, though!)
There's nowhere in the game where that value is ever reset, or even reduced. (Core resets don't have any impact on physical stats.) I believe forgetting to attach it is the most likely explanation here. (Looks like you were on the road to some great things in that run, by the way--a tough area, though!)
2370
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Dataminer Network hub entry out-of-date
« on: November 01, 2016, 06:37:28 PM »
Ha, and you reported the other one, too (in the alert message), after I'd changed the value... Too bad source constant references aren't allowed in the external text files used to define terminal info. Wouldn't have had to update this separately after making that change :/. Updated, thanks!
2371
Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #63 [Alpha 11] [Seed: Scenic Route]
« on: October 31, 2016, 10:21:57 PM »
Streamed this one (VOD), but this time tried something fairly different from my usual strategy--I went for a heavy combat build. That means treads instead of legs, and minimal propulsion slots. Instead I had a lot of utilities, and a fair number of weapons.
It was a really rough start though. Almost got blasted a few times, and even got forced into the Mines and had to deal with the infestation, but still came out okay and made it to -3/Research before finally succumbing to a relatively high security level.
Even in the mid-game I got sucked down into a chute and, being a slow combat bot surrounded by Crushers, got smashed to pieces and lost everything, after which I hovered around for a bit and built back up to an even better state than before, with a nice array of cannons.
One of the fun aspects of this run was that I went almost pure thermal for much of it, cannon thermal, and therefore didn't have to worry about matter much, which was nice. (Also didn't have to worry about resistant hostiles) And part of the post-Waste comeback was actually made possible by snatching up a Quantum Capacitor before leaving, which gave me some extra firepower while a single-cannon hoverbot.
My backup crowd control weapons were the same pair of trusty Mni. Grenades I had throughout the entire mid-game; too bad I didn't find any better launchers for later!
Good run. Lots of explosions. Score wasn't so impressive, though, and I still haven't won an Alpha 11 run xD. Need to get serious about that!
I will say that a "heavy combat" start would be safer going with legs, since treads are overkill that early (not enough heavy gear to matter), and are just slower. Also, in my case the first evolution should really have been two weapon slots, to be able to bring four weak weapons to bear on targets at once and obliterate them quickly.
It's fairly easy to acquire treads later on by simply farming Sentries anyway.
(Edit: And in retrospect, I now realize that I forgot to restart after entering the seed--distracted by too many things when starting the stream--so this is technically not the right seed run layout.... aaaahh!)
It was a really rough start though. Almost got blasted a few times, and even got forced into the Mines and had to deal with the infestation, but still came out okay and made it to -3/Research before finally succumbing to a relatively high security level.
Even in the mid-game I got sucked down into a chute and, being a slow combat bot surrounded by Crushers, got smashed to pieces and lost everything, after which I hovered around for a bit and built back up to an even better state than before, with a nice array of cannons.
One of the fun aspects of this run was that I went almost pure thermal for much of it, cannon thermal, and therefore didn't have to worry about matter much, which was nice. (Also didn't have to worry about resistant hostiles
) And part of the post-Waste comeback was actually made possible by snatching up a Quantum Capacitor before leaving, which gave me some extra firepower while a single-cannon hoverbot.My backup crowd control weapons were the same pair of trusty Mni. Grenades I had throughout the entire mid-game; too bad I didn't find any better launchers for later!
Good run. Lots of explosions. Score wasn't so impressive, though, and I still haven't won an Alpha 11 run xD. Need to get serious about that!
Spoiler: Score: 16,358 (click to show/hide)
I will say that a "heavy combat" start would be safer going with legs, since treads are overkill that early (not enough heavy gear to matter), and are just slower. Also, in my case the first evolution should really have been two weapon slots, to be able to bring four weak weapons to bear on targets at once and obliterate them quickly.
It's fairly easy to acquire treads later on by simply farming Sentries anyway.
(Edit: And in retrospect, I now realize that I forgot to restart after entering the seed--distracted by too many things when starting the stream--so this is technically not the right seed run layout.... aaaahh!
)
2372
Ideas / Re: Slots in scorehistory.txt
« on: October 31, 2016, 05:43:53 AM »
Hehe, no problem, it would've helped if I'd fully tested the history before releasing it, but it was a quick job done in response to a feature request which I'd quickly edged into an already overflowing feature list for Alpha 11, so there wasn't enough time... Ended up having two bugs in that little thing xD
Glad it finally worked out, though!
Glad it finally worked out, though!
2373
General Discussion / Re: Alpha 11 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]
« on: October 30, 2016, 06:36:22 PM »Forgot to add, the big problem with that kind of build is that it's unbearable to play. Every time you shoot, you have to deactivate/reactivate 6 propulsions and 10 utilities.Propulsion is pretty easy with the toggle key. As for the utility side, there are significant changes you will appreciate in Alpha 12.
Also, I just buffed all Flak weapons yesterday--damage is going up, matter use is coming down a bit. (So that would've been even more effective, but yeah, still not going to be good against hardened targets.)
2374
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Part auto-sort UI bug
« on: October 30, 2016, 10:26:50 AM »
Okay, thanks. This was reported by zxc a few weeks ago, but this and about 15 other bugs that regular players have started simply reporting directly to me in chat never made it over here to the forums, sorry :/
I've been trying to cross-post any of the slightly more common ones everyone needs to know about, though.
Thanks for the confirmation!
I've been trying to cross-post any of the slightly more common ones everyone needs to know about, though.
Thanks for the confirmation!
2375
Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: 5/4 inventory
« on: October 29, 2016, 06:57:19 PM »
No problem, it's fairly spoilery anyway so it wasn't super obvious