Caves is also more tactically challenging. I am starting to feel that explosives are a must if you are going down there.
Caves difficulty : Caves does feel a bit like mines. So, not exactly easy mode all the time.
Other stuff:
Hunters are back to being scary. I think I am going to start running purely thermal/em builds from now on. Fighting against hunters with kinetics is just hopeless and I have lost a lot of good runs to them.
I assume, in the end, you get only one slot evolution instead of two when you ascend into access/-1. Ok. Back to alien artifacts. Are they all core expanders? Will we find any in the main complex?The Core Expander is only one type among many, but it's the only one in the game right now. Others will be found in other parts of the world, including mostly MAIN.C-controlled areas, but pretty much always in branches.
Derelict terminals: They seem to open doors. That's all I got. I did find a new item behind one of those doors. Tactical Co-ordination Suite.Ooh, you found one of those. Nice.
The terminal records were interesting. I suppose this is how we learn about recycling codes and such? I don't think those outposts are worth taking on if they don't give us any other advantage.Yeah there is a lot of lore in there, though what's accessible in Alpha 7 is just a bit of fluff, while much much more that is going into Alpha 8 as hints and tips, to be found not in outposts but in other areas you'll find. That will be one method of learning the Recycling code. The currently available method is actually in a special location--you'll see what I mean.
Caves difficulty : Caves does feel a bit like mines. So, not exactly easy mode all the time. The achilles heel for a combat cogmind seems to be propulsion. I don't usually carry a lot of backup propulsion. So, if you run out of those and if your salvage is going to self-destruct...that could be a problem. On other hand, the reason I got so much trouble was I just wouldn't leave until I had explored the entire place. I was always able to find the exit with ease. I am going to wait until alpha 8 before I form an opinion on this. It's really hard to judge as it is. I still love the self-destructing loot idea :).Part of the purpose behind the caves is that they lead further away to other areas, even though you can find an exit back to the main complex sooner, so eventually you'll want to travel further into the caves for the benefits. That will change the calculus. (Remember that one of these areas exists already!)
Hunters are back to being scary. I think I am going to start running purely thermal/em builds from now on. Fighting against hunters with kinetics is just hopeless and I have lost a lot of good runs to them.Those guys are hard to balance. They were far too easy in Alpha 6, and now I probably made them a bit too difficult again xD. It's tough because I really want them to be scary, but doing so means they can be downright game-stopping if you're unlucky! I'll have to see for myself how they're faring in Alpha 7.
There is a weird bug(?) in the score sheet. It adds a extra zero after the last entry in Turns passed section. Right above prototype ids.Huh, I'll look into it, thanks. Always something going wrong with the score sheet...
Extension: Is there a critical mass of allies to which the AI just responds by going nuts? My first alpha 7 run ended when I freed all the allies in the extension branch and the AI just sent demolishers and marksmen after me. My alert level wasn't that high and that kind of response was surprising. There is just no good way to protect your allies against demolishers and I just lost all of them. Poor 07.There is one good way to protect allies from Demolishers, but it involves using both shields and point defense, which is too big of an investment right now. I imagine it will become more viable later once you can more easily get (and maintain) allies. We'll see!
As it stands, I think there is little chance that an experienced player will actually die here. If you shed all of your equipment, it's pretty easy to use the cave layout to avoid your would be attackers. You'll just die when you get back to factory ;)Hehe, that's part of the design, yes :). By taking branches, you will be under somewhat less pressure than the main complex, but it's possible you'll end up in a worse situation by the time you return, and then you have to attempt a comeback.
Yeah, I hate these guys. I had a run where I was deck(er)ed out with 7-8 slots of high quality armor and kinetic weapons. An arc of these guys unloaded on me (-2) and just tore me to sheds. And that was before the buff!Hunters might be balanced just about right for their frequency in the mid-game, but I'm guessing end-game Terminators are probably really nasty again. I'll see how we all fare against them :P
edit: There is a serious bug in the upper caves. The exit tile wouldn't render even though I got a popup with ?? indicating that it is a exit. I wasn't able to use it as a exit. I also found a derelict log which indicated that that was the exit. I died due to that :(. Picture below.Wow, that is pretty serious. I hadn't seen that before. Uh oh. I guess we'll need a 7c because I don't want to be killing anyone. Sorry! That means you'll get all the new updates I made in the past few days :).
And I'm happy to hear you're getting into the story. There's a lot of stuff going on, and much of it will raise questions throughout a lot of the game until you can reach all these new areas (and meet new NPCs) coming to future versions. There is one major NPC added back in Alpha 5 that still no one has reported meeting, but the chance of meeting them is rather low right now, anyway. They're more likely to be met in another location that hasn't been added yet.
I haven't read the weekly seed thread yet since I want to play it myself, but I presumed Enno destroyed the conduit because I saw his death location on the leaderboards ;). However, that's not how you make the latter half of the game harder--it just triggers the local guards (who some of you might recognize). Hint: The way you "make the game harder" is in the Data Miner's cave, though...
I haven't read the weekly seed thread yet since I want to play it myself, but I presumed Enno destroyed the conduit because I saw his death location on the leaderboards ;).
Speaking of spoilery story stuff...
Does the mainframe in Cetus do anything? It seems too central a prop piece to be inconsequential. I blew it up and it didn't seem to do anything perceptible outside of sending a lot of guys at me.
There is a terminal near the mainframe that doesn't seem to do anything besides allowing a manual hack. That might be a key to something. Is that active, or the key to something interesting? ;) [See here (https://youtu.be/lF9XA7_iGaY?list=PLu00ongqy2n_QTWf_WsJKiDwg8D3X0qcz&t=429)]
Do the spotters in Recycling do anything? Cool animation, but I did seem to realize anything beyond that.
Can you use the Data Miner's hack yet? Ie., is it defiantly "irrelevant if God Mode is not in the game yet".Right, it's not usable. It's in there now just so you know that's how you can get it, one of the issues with putting content in the world that isn't yet linked to its other content :/. There is another instance of this, here:
Does the mainframe in Cetus do anything? It seems too central a prop piece to be inconsequential. I blew it up and it didn't seem to do anything perceptible outside of sending a lot of guys at me.So yeah there is a way to get something out of it, but it won't help you at this point. Those are currently the two main links to non-existing content. I'll mention in the changelog when they start to matter.
Btw, I saw your playthrough thro extension. You can blow through those prison doors if the hacks fail. Be careful though. They send demolishers after you if your army gets too big. I have had 15+ allies and they weren't too happy with me. You also don't have to engage the behemoths along that narrow 1-tile corridor. It might be worth it go back to the start of the level and take the long corridor heading east. That takes you to the behemoths and you can engage in a wider space along with your allies instead of having to shoot through them in that tight corridor. I also think that it is better to take those behemoths out before free you any of the allies. This is because I like to keep 07 alive in Cetus and you need a considerable force of allies in order to protect 07 from the Cetus guards. Better not to lose them to those behemoths and sentries.
edit: There is a serious bug in the upper caves. The exit tile wouldn't render even though I got a popup with ?? indicating that it is a exit. I wasn't able to use it as a exit. I also found a derelict log which indicated that that was the exit. I died due to that :(. Picture below.Fixed as per the latest update (http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=441.0). Protect yourself today! Get the patch! :P
I love the idea of removing the machine capability check. That would be a huge step I think. This has stuffed me on many occasions.Definitely my number one priority here. It's an opaque system (as with the similar restrictions at other machines, which also need to be modified).
Maybe auto-advance the clock instead of making the player wait.This has been on the backburner for a very long time, but yeah if time is going to be a factor I will implement the (long-waitlisted :P) auto-wait feature.
Ensuring that each fab has a limited number of uses would prevent abuses.
The time constraint is also good, but it should be implemented properly. Waiting around doing nothing is boring. Instead, modify the food clock directly.
I love matter containers once I actually start carrying them around.Heh, I was wondering if anyone was doing that.
In matter critical situations, I call it Ghost Busting™. Throw it on the floor and step on it to unleash the whoopass.
I wonder how they'll compare to the new Programmer model which I don't believe anyone has encountered yet--no drones or cloaking, but they're faster and pack a punch.
Ooh, you found them! Good thing they're completely optional since they won't show up unless you did that thing ;)
I think we'll start with 5%, but I'm sure you'll take that, too :P
Ooh, you found them! Good thing they're completely optional since they won't show up unless you did that thing ;)
Someone wants you dead!
That sounds interesting, I hadn't thought of adding Trojans that enhance a machine's regular functionality like that. By this you mean even Repair Stations that aren't a high enough rating?
i would like when we could use all other machines than the terminalsThat would be a little OP :P. There are already plenty of terminals out there, and there are diminishing returns on botnets, anyway. More importantly, from a design perspective the idea is that by choosing to add a terminal to your botnet, you might fail and have to forgo other hacking opportunities there, so it's a trade off. I did think of a couple new non-terminal Trojans yesterday that I'll see about adding soon, though.
for a botnet too.
and i dont like the name for the section..top 10 hacks...Haha, you can take up the obviously sensational approach with the author. I didn't write it :P
"hacks they don't want you to know about!" seems to be entirely sufficient.
because now there are more than 10, i have 15 now...and the future will also brings more.
Spent some time looking for a weapon to blow through the shell and found a micro-nuke. By the way, the micro-nuke launcher does zero damage to the reinforced walls guarded by those behemoths. I would have won a previous run if I that would have worked.That's right, those are blast doors. If you have a Structural Scanner you can get the full analysis on them and see that they are incredibly reinforced against EX damage. The easiest way to get through is either with a powerful TH cannon, or simply crit your way through it with any regular guns/cannons. Most melee weapons can also bring it down.
The only trouble comes from swarmers. I avoid them like the plague.The S-43 variant has a fitting name, don't you think? ;)
iv) A mid-game thermal cannon: lets me burrow through walls with no matter cost. This has saved my ass more than once. You can get a sense of the local level layout by watching civilian traffic and figure out which walls to blow through. I have avoided some major thoroughfares in research via this method. Lot less messier than launchers.Good tactic. I should do that more often. I do it occasionally, but don't usually have sensors, and end up in those thoroughfares, pull out the launcher, and oh man it gets tough from there as more patrols show up :P
It's sometimes hard to find the nova cannon you need to punch through the walls in Research, though, so having launchers handy is still useful.That's the kind of thing a friendlier fabrication system will be able to fix. It might make things too easy for experts who always know exactly what they want, but we'll see...
Congrats for your win, Sherlockkat!Thank you :). I have got the hang of speed runs, I think. Gonna switch it up to combat builds and try to win those now. Speed is so much fun and faster to play though. It took me 55 mins to escape. I can barely make it to research in that time if I am playing combat. And about 15 mins to die after that.
Yup. It sucked. :).Spent some time looking for a weapon to blow through the shell and found a micro-nuke. By the way, the micro-nuke launcher does zero damage to the reinforced walls guarded by those behemoths. I would have won a previous run if I that would have worked.That's right, those are blast doors. If you have a Structural Scanner you can get the full analysis on them and see that they are incredibly reinforced against EX damage. The easiest way to get through is either with a powerful TH cannon, or simply crit your way through it with any regular guns/cannons. Most melee weapons can also bring it down.
Do you need a nova cannon? I have punched my way through research walls with hvy plasma cannons, hvy neutron cannons and neutron cannons, all of which you can find in factory.It's sometimes hard to find the nova cannon you need to punch through the walls in Research, though, so having launchers handy is still useful.That's the kind of thing a friendlier fabrication system will be able to fix. It might make things too easy for experts who always know exactly what they want, but we'll see...
Nope. You can easily get through Research walls even with mid-tier cannons. Maybe Decker is obsessed with heavy firepower guaranteed to melt anything instantly? :PQuoteDo you need a nova cannon? I have punched my way through research walls with hvy plasma cannons, hvy neutron cannons and neutron cannons, all of which you can find in factory.It's sometimes hard to find the nova cannon you need to punch through the walls in Research, though, so having launchers handy is still useful.That's the kind of thing a friendlier fabrication system will be able to fix. It might make things too easy for experts who always know exactly what they want, but we'll see...