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2551

Ideas / Re: Storage Unit Rebalancing

« on: August 23, 2016, 06:49:47 PM »

It's pretty easy to repair common parts at low-level repair stations now (they were completely overhauled in Alpha , nothing like it used to be that would've been mentioned in this thread. Still, it's not a panacea--you'll have to selectively repair only parts that are really important to you due to the limit on how much you can get out of it (especially without hackware).

And while you are unlikely to find storage units lying around in higher floors, it's very easy to find Haulers, and you can just take the largest storage unit in the game directly from them! Or before you find them, take medium-sized storage from Recyclers, which are everywhere, or small storage from the Workers. The idea of harvesting parts from hostiles known to carry them can be crucial for survival in tighter spots.

Also, it's not just -10. Currently the lowest three floors of the game each have a guaranteed dedicated area with tons of storage parts to choose from (the "storage cache"). It's only when you reach the mid/late-game where you'll be more likely to rely on stealing or building them.

Also, as a combat bot I always carry spare storage in my inventory itself.

2552

Support / Re: Running on Linux with Wine seems to work fine [SOLUTIONS INSIDE]

« on: August 21, 2016, 08:37:22 PM »

Whoa, whoops, I typed out a reply to this a couple days ago but don't see it here :/ (Must've been too busy switching around to different tasks and closed the window before hitting send . These past few days have been extremely crazy...)

This gist of it was I'll ask around for you because I don't have much personal experience with Wine or Linux. I wonder if other Windows programs run under your Wine setup have the same problem? (You aren't using it for anything else at the moment so I guess you might not know without trying some program.) To my knowledge there are multiple different "Wine engines," so maybe you just need another one which is more compatible? (As mentioned by some other Linux users in this thread, I believe. Yours is the first case I've seen in which it isn't running under Wine.)

And regarding your update, if you could attach the run.log file when that happens, I could tell you more about the cause. Since that doesn't happen normally, however, it too will be something related to your Wine setup, possibly that Cogmind is being blocked from doing something it wants to do in its local directory structure. Make sure that Cogmind is run with full admin permissions, without which it won't be able to operate normally.

Again, sorry for the late reply! I thought my post in this thread had already gone out...

2553

General Discussion / Re: Is This Game Right For Me?

« on: August 21, 2016, 08:19:58 PM »

It appears ukelele's mind is already made up, though to respond to this:

It sounds like it's more tactics driven in cogmind, use what happens when it happens most effectively (optimize within the randomness).

That is generally the easiest way to survive, though with experience players have been able to force other unique strategies purely for fun and/or the challenge.

And the challenge naturally scales depending on precisely this:

I like to win, but I like to see how greedy I can be also (winning all points or do outrageous things etc)! That's fun for me.

Due to the whole "world is alive and responsive" aspect, it presents a flexible system in which you'll learn to navigate and bend it to your will, but you'll frequently encounter other ways in which you can take on extra challenges that seem right at the edge of your capabilities, similar to other roguelikes in how it's possible to challenge yourself by optionally visiting a known dangerous area, or choosing to take on a particularly dangerous foe, though in this case acting across more layers of the game.

That's a convoluted way of saying that I think based on what you've said, you'll probably enjoy it

2554

Support / Re: Cogmind on a 4K monitor

« on: August 21, 2016, 12:48:16 AM »

Yeah it's a pretty messed up scenario. I presumably found the "easiest" way to do it was to activate an explicit setting in Visual Studio that takes care of ignoring that piece of the OS for you, but it obviously didn't work. And the other runtime methods I couldn't determine how it was possible to use them in combination with my engine.

In any case, regarding the cfg deletion method maybe the exe-specific setting doesn't kick in until some moment after the program has already started? No idea :/

Seeing as it works fine when you set values manually, I'll look for another way to try to detect and set values that rather than based on what the OS says during startup, although given the current situation it would still require manually changing the OS exe setting. I could also include a separate cfg file which 4K players can copy over if needed.

Thanks for the info!

(Note: If I can come up with a temporary semi-solution I may pass it along to see if it works for you.)

2555

Support / Re: Cogmind on a 4K monitor

« on: August 20, 2016, 10:25:01 PM »

Thank you very much. My question in this case would be: If you've already made the proper setting in windows via the .exe properties and delete your cfg file then try to restart, does it set the values properly and give you the size 36 font? (If not, you can just restore your manual cfg file after trying.)

I'm curious if that's even advice I should give (because it's easy), or if for now I should provide a separate manual cfg file for those with 4K monitors.

The ideal final solution would be to have the game detect and proactively ignore Windows DPI scaling, but everything I've tried so far seems to fail (I think, anyway--it would be much easier to test here...). The especially annoying thing is that Microsoft can't even get all of their own programs to scale properly, so how do they expect us to do it . It's been like this for years...

2556

Support / Re: Cogmind on a 4K monitor

« on: August 20, 2016, 09:27:19 PM »

Ah, number of rows I was referring to is entire window, not the map. The minimum map size is 50x50. The reason it decided to give you 80 on first startup was because before that point the DPI setting hadn't been manually changed, and that will cause it to be confused at the actual size of the window being created according to Windows. In this situation, I believe the best approach is to just delete the whole cfg file and restart after changing that setting, in which it should be detected and set correctly. But you've already manually set it yourself so it's the same effect.

And no you're not making it less playable at all! Cogmind was explicitly designed to work with a 50x50 map, so you're set up just fine now. I was just referring to what was an occasional call early on in development for a viewable map area even smaller than 50x50, so that even larger fonts could be used. Playing with a map larger than 50x50, on the other hand, works just fine.

2557

Support / Re: Cogmind on a 4K monitor

« on: August 20, 2016, 08:35:13 PM »

The issue there is it's impossible to have fewer rows than 60, which is how the engine arrives at your ideal / largest possible font size (2160 / 60 = 36). (Width is not an issue because Cogmind is designed for a minimum 4:3 aspect ratio, and almost everyone uses 16:9 these days, so width is derived from the limiting factor--height.)

I wrote a lot about this on the blog earlier this year.

I agree that flexibility is nice, which is why I'm big on adding optional features, but this particular one has too large of an impact on the game design and architecture as a whole, so it's unfortunately not going to happen

2558

Support / Re: Cogmind on a 4K monitor

« on: August 20, 2016, 08:06:07 PM »

Ahhh, I just typed out a bunch of stuff and didn't see you edited your post xD

Glad you figured it out!

As I figured it was the high DPI setting mentioned higher up in this thread.

(That's one of the few things I haven't been able to get Cogmind to do automatically since I have no way to test it here, so it has to be a manual settings change. If only I had access to a monitor setup like this I could see what's happening and figure out what to do about it... (So far I've taken several actions as advised by MS, but reportedly none of them have actually worked.))

2559

General Discussion / Re: Alpha 10 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]

« on: August 20, 2016, 04:34:12 AM »

Hehe, gotcha

I'll look into it for Alpha 11.

2560

General Discussion / Re: Alpha 10 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]

« on: August 19, 2016, 07:48:46 PM »

Datajacks already work that way, because they are melee weapons. You can just bump the target to hack, as you do in standard melee (no need to force-melee).

The problem with the handful of other semi-applicable special weapons (really just Mining Lasers, Welding Torches, etc.) is that, as a category, you can fire them at targets that aren't adjacent to you, so they still have to follow the projectile rules. What I could possibly do instead is change that one weapon to belong to the same "special melee" category that Datajacks do, basically making them like Mining Claws and they would then follow all melee rules, including 1) adjacent attacks only and 2) bump to attack (or in the case of walls--force attack to attack).

In fact, Mining Lasers would probably belong to this category if the special melee type existed when they were developed, but that came later

2561

General Discussion / Re: Alpha 10 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]

« on: August 19, 2016, 06:42:48 PM »

Hey Enno--glad you noticed the cave ambience. Added that several releases ago and no one really brought it up

Regarding special weapons, none of them require that you be adjacent to your target, plus they can be used in volleys rather than solo like the melee requirement, so they should follow the volley rules for consistency.

As you're playing pure keyboard, if targeting a robot a simply f+f will repeat attack, and if you're attacking environmental objects it's just f+cursor shift, so it shouldn't be too big a deal unless you are perhaps digging through a thick wall and being chased by a hostile in view at the same time and therefore have to move the targeting reticule away from a previous target? (I can only guess why you are making this request since you didn't specify!)

2562

Support / Re: Alpha version and steam release?

« on: August 19, 2016, 01:36:10 AM »

I'll always release the exact same thing to both places. All releases already go through extensive testing and are mostly bug free, and in the event that any serious problem is found, a hotfix/patch goes out immediately. So there's no reason for the two channels to be any different, unless for some reason Steam makes it difficult to update quickly (which I don't know because I've never used Steam before). Here on the site I can do updates in a flash

2563

Support / Re: Alpha version and steam release?

« on: August 17, 2016, 10:18:52 PM »

Yep, the latest and greatest Cogmind will always be available from this site and your regular download link! You don't have to use Steam, nor worry about DRM.

2564

Strategies / Re: Basic Question and Answer thread

« on: August 17, 2016, 08:07:22 PM »

Rule of thumb would be cannons can do it, guns can't. Also pretty much all melee weapons can smash/slice through walls, too.

Though remember that in terms of cannons, if you have a weak cannon on a floor closer to the surface, it won't necessarily be able to take it down since walls up higher are also tougher.

Also, EM is always an exception because it does little outright damage--so no EM cannons (or even AOE EM, really) are good at taking out walls.

2565

General Discussion / Re: Experience so far: Confusion about branches and exits

« on: August 17, 2016, 07:52:43 PM »

Quite recently through further out of game reading I learned (finally!) that branch and main path exist use a different glyph. I play in ASCII, and branch and regular exits don't generally appear on screen at the same time, so I had never noticed that they aren't the same symbol. So I can now cast aside my signal interpreter dependence in the early game. However, even knowing that they are different, I cant seem to reliably remember which is which. I have to toggle over to tile view to check what kind of exist I've found. In my most recent game I forgot to do this (thinking I had the glyphs figured out) and ended up in the Caves by mistake. I was well geared up and supplied, so this actually turned out pretty well, and I found some interesting new lore, but it

This may represent purely my own idiosyncratic experience, but I feel like a more explicit UI callout would be helpful here, perhaps for example the tool tip could read "Main: ?" or "Branch: ?".

You don't need to remember which is which, because they are only shown as a different glyph if you've already identified where the exit leads! In which case it will already have a popup (and shows the name of the destination in the scan window)

This part of the design is very intentional, because as Cogmind you don't know where these places lead, and unless you put effort into determining (or for whatever reason are unable to determine) where they might take you, you'll have to deal with the consequences. (Hacking branch access locations at a terminal is a relatively common and easy way, too.) But like mindreader says, all branches are valuable in their own way.

I'm sure the world map goes unnoticed by new players for a while, and while there is a tutorial message telling you to open it, most players seem to ignore those (but as stated elsewhere, I don't want to use modal messages that force players to pay attention to a tutorial...).

If Cogmind were "gamier" in its theme, I like the idea of making it part of the level transition, but as is I prefer to stick to going to the next area as quickly as possible without pause for anything else in between.

Showing the map automatically would be a nice reinforcement/teaching tool for newer players (something I'm sure would be absolutely required in a AAA game), though once someone has learned about the map, opening it whenever is pretty easy and allows them to control the flow of the game. And Cogmind is all about player control, in order to keep the sense of immersion intact.

As a much more minor suggestion, something like a game to game persistent version of the worldmap that would populate with discovered branches as you explore the complex would be helpful to me. It would fill a role as a spoiler-free crutch for meta-game knowledge of which branches connect where, how deep they go before they connect back to the main complex. As the community grows this kind of information will probably be available via Wikis and guides, but those sort of resources tend to hard to use as references without encountering accidental spoilers.

That's a neat idea, though such a feature would unfortunately be quite involved to develop because branches don't always appear at the same depth, or connect in the exact same ways. Plus there is lots of overlap in terms of their pathways (if compared over multiple runs), which would lead to a somewhat confusing interface if done visually (less so in terms of a text-based format, but that's not very cool ). It's not impossible, but I can see that feature taking several days by itself.

Thanks for the feedback.

2566

General Discussion / Re: Behemoth cannot shoot through door?

« on: August 16, 2016, 07:43:19 PM »

This is a known way to take advantage of Behemoths at the moment, in certain situations. I was going to do something about it in Alpha 10, but ran out of time, so it might be in the next release instead! Thanks for the specific screenshot.

They'll be even scarier when you can't get them in a situation like that

2567

Support / Re: Any luck with Wine on OSX? [SOLUTIONS INSIDE]

« on: August 16, 2016, 12:58:38 AM »

Ah, well, hehe, this being the OSX thread we had made that assumption xD. Wine may very well behave differently depending on the architecture.

There is a Linux thread here where others have been talking about their approaches--haven't heard of anyone with this issue before, though. So far it's mostly a bunch of players reporting in that their particular setup works.

I'd suggest checking out the posts in that thread (there are some details), and if you're still having trouble try asking over there. Having not used Wine before, it's possible you're encountering a settings issue on that end.

2568

Strategies / Re: How do I find the exit in Factory?

« on: August 15, 2016, 09:57:47 PM »

Some of the info is out of date (Programmers no longer only spawn from stairs since Garrisons were added), but Happylisk wrote a lengthy guide on this very topic

Others could perhaps offer additional/more recent advice since strategies have evolved since then. That guide doesn't quite cover all the possibilities, either.

2569

Strategies / Re: Basic Question and Answer thread

« on: August 13, 2016, 08:27:02 PM »

With armor, balance-wise one has to consider that you can also carry spares in your inventory and swap them in easily to continue absorbing damage. And later in the game you can easily have a larger inventory if desired (just need to have enough armor to spare ).

Mid-game medium armor integrity is 220, and late-game (medium) armor comes with 400 integrity. Per-slot integrity is even higher if using heavy armors. The problem is you might be using older/outdated armor with a lower rating (increasingly likely once you reach -4 unless you seek out some of the sources for better armors), in which case it will be less effective.

Specialized armors which protect all of your slots from certain damage types (even if the damage is actually taken by another part), have a lower integrity for that reason. If pure damage absorption is preferred, stick to non-special armors. I like combining the two, which is quite effective.

2570

Competitions / Re: Weekly Seed #52 [Alpha 10] [Seed: Hidden Secrets]

« on: August 13, 2016, 08:12:46 PM »

Nice almost-win! Warlord does make it easier.

(one issue here is that the game lags for several seconds with the big battle going on)

If you're anywhere near the battle(s) and can hear it, the game will pause for sound effects so you can make out their respective distance/type, since that information holds some tactical value. It wont lag if you're completely out of audible range (barely audible still counts )--combat actually takes far less processing than just units moving around.

2571

Strategies / Re: Basic Question and Answer thread

« on: August 13, 2016, 09:27:41 AM »

Haha, yeah, my first instinct on coming up with the volley problem was "I probably don't want to do this." Then I felt relieved when I realized it might not matter too much due to the way it's already applied. The one situation that makes it less than ideal is if you have a large storage and drain it all during combat, and some matter will be used to refill it along with other power sources, but that might not usually be a big deal either since post-combat there is usually matter lying around anyway...

Regarding the linked issues, yes one of those happens to be the oldest email still in my inbox which is marked "important," which I do for things that need to be addressed/considered/whatever, and normally take care of then remove the marker, but that's one of the few that still lives on :/. As with all things with potentially far-reaching consequences, it would've been easier if I'd considered that like... three years ago, but no suck luck

2572

Strategies / Re: Basic Question and Answer thread

« on: August 13, 2016, 01:28:09 AM »

That's a great idea in theory, but I'd have to look into how complicate that is for the code--essentially a certain portion of the many energy checks throughout the game may also be required to convert energy when required and possible.

Explaining it out makes it not seem too hard, though . I'll look into it. It would definitely require a lot more code, and new types of checks, compared to what exist already, though.

There are likely also some problematic special cases I haven't though of yet...

Hm, like when you want to fire a volley but don't have enough energy. Sure the game could then deduct your matter (and of course have to check whether that deduction means you no longer have enough matter to fire said volley), but it would also require additional separate checks before firing that allow you to do that in the first place, and ideally a new way to display that in the Volley UI, which would also have to be aware of this condition... Oh man, just that bit is a lot of work xD

That said, note that the utility already doesn't work to produce energy if you're already at full storage, and that effect is checked after all of your other power generation kicks in.

2573

Strategies / Re: Basic Question and Answer thread

« on: August 12, 2016, 11:03:23 PM »

While I've have saved my life with melee weapons in desperate situations, there's no way to direct their damage to the core, so most hits appear to do nothing while I'm busy being shot up.

Piercing weapons treat target cores as having 33% higher coverage than usual. Other than that, it's true that you have to get to the target's core for the nice damage to really have an impact, which is why you want as high of an initial hit chance as possible.

As for armor, I'm not the most advanced player, so maybe this is off base, but plating doesn't seem to be as good as just getting extra movement slots.  Plating has more coverage generally, but it also generates heat, weighs a ton, and often takes multiple slots.  Whereas, like an armored leg or some treads turned off take no energy, produce no heat, have no weight, even if you are flying around, have surprisingly high integrity, are extremely common, and will often save your life if your other means of travel get shot off.  I feel like either movement parts need to have a weight value assigned when they are turned off or armour needs more integrity then it has.

Yep, this has changed significantly since the early game, when armor had much more integrity compared to propulsion. The heavier forms of propulsion got a massive integrity boost, but that was without concern for how players might stack them as an alternative form of protection. Part of the reason they are somewhat less effective in that role, at least in terms of protecting parts, is that armor still has higher coverage. Some further tweaking is probably important here to keep this from being abused (yes, I do it a bit, too ), but forcing propulsion mass to kick in when inactive, while perfectly logical, removes a lot of potential strategies and will also end up wasting a lot more slots for part of the game.

And I'll add one item to the list.  The remote datajack seems to take a stupendous amount of matter to function.  I'm sure this must be from some previous balance change, but every time I seek to use it I run out of matter within a couple fights, having maybe hacked a robot or two.

It's been that way from the beginning, because a really good hacker could (theoretically) practically own a floor via remote robot hacks. That number could still very well be tweaked, though, and likely will be. The reason it hasn't yet is because robot hacking is still only gradually becoming a viable strategy, due to other changes that have been occurring over previous versions.

I'll actually look at changing this one in particular for Alpha 11!

That matter -> energy converter might be sweet toggled on with force fields perhaps...

Nope...still got drained with that fusion compressor turned on against a single sentry. 20 energy/turn isn't enough.

Yep, It won't be enough to run a shield for very long on its own, just a more efficient power source. But I'll definitely be examining those numbers and how they relate to shields. It would be nice if you could willingly use a huge matter stash to produce a ton of power in short order to support a shield very well.

I'll be looking at this one for Alpha 11, too. (As you say, though, having to actively toggle it all the time to avoid matter waste could be fairly annoying. Matter-draining parts are somewhat dangerous to use )

2574

General Discussion / Re: Alpha 10 Discussions [SPOILER VERSION]

« on: August 12, 2016, 08:11:16 AM »

That's a good approach, but for two issues:

It's not only about passwords--you can type anything you want in the manual entry.

That drops our maximum code limit to 10 (we're much more likely to hit that) rather than 26, which would require scrolling. And scrolling sucks (plus we'd need an elegant and good-looking way to ensure it's apparent how to scroll purely via keyboard)

2575

Strategies / Re: Basic Question and Answer thread

« on: August 12, 2016, 08:06:35 AM »

Thermal converter/generator => needs massive boost in usefulness.

Yep, this and others, like Quarantine tested.

Power from matter (matter filter?) => impractical, boost or remove entirely...

Situational. It's saved me before, and just recently another player shared a similar story. That's a hell of a lot of power for a small mass.

Particle charger => the coverage is way too high, the item is typically gone after 3 fights.

These are way too effective to allow them to also have low coverage, at least when combined with a large array of energy weapons.

Cloaking generator / manoeuvering thrusters => decent for a stealth build, but almost useless for a combat build due to the bad integrity/coverage ratio. Doesn't need fixing if it's intended only for use by stealth builds or to boost hunters.

Right, intended that way.

Shield => needs more integrity to be worthwhile.

Not sure which item you're referring to. There are many types of shields.

Armor => it'd be nice to have some with higher integrity and lower coverage.

That's an interesting idea... though I can see stacking them with certain builds being extremely effective. Could be tough to balance in.

Force field => that one has serious balance issues. I plan on writing an analysis on combat sometimes in the future. I'll address the shortcomings in details there. In a nutshell, there is usually no reason to equip 3 reactors unless you plan on using force fields, and force fields are rare enough that on average you lose in evolving a third power slot.

I think they're okay because shields are massively effective parts. They protect everything extremely well, and some even protect your allies as well as allow your allies to protect you. The alternative which may be more effective from a numbers standpoint is your go-to strategy of stacking inventory filled with parts and/or huge-integrity items. But sometimes it's a case of finding X and using X to survive (even if it's not as effective as Y), not "I'm going to build this perfect death machine every time I play." A good number of winning combat builds use better force fields combined with extremely large batteries.

Melee analysis suite => melee is underpowered (intentionally, from what you've said). This thing doesn't quite close the gap. Useful in enemy hands, but not to the player.

Disagree. Melee is going to generally be underpowered for heavy combat builds compared to what you can do with a sizeable array of good weapons (intentionally, to differentiate the combat style), but it serves its own niche, and having a better chance of hitting with your one really powerful weapon (which can generally core robots of the same rating in a single hit) is quite effective.

Thanks for the wish list. I'll certainly be coming back to these posts in the future.

Also, some of these effects you find less attractive could perhaps be made worthy if we add some rarer super-advanced versions of them