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[Arseface]

Hacking is for the most part pretty cool. Issues come into play when manual commands are introduced.

Right now, for an ideal chance to win* your best bet is to camp a terminal on the first floor, download every schematic, analyze every unit, and manufacture the perfect starting loadout. How you continue after that doesn't matter, every option in the game is now open to you.

You've got a +5% hit chance on every enemy in the game. You can manufacture whatever you want at given fabricators. And most of all, it'll take you around 100,000 turns to do so.

I don't think you should be able to do that. Not because it's overpowered, but because it's really boring and relies a boatload on meta-knowledge.

My issue is less manual commands and more being able to download schematics and analyze robots freely. I suggest schematic and analysis commands be streamlined and limited like the Inventory() commands are. Either limit what's there on a per-terminal basis or give things within a bound of usefulness and give multiple things per hack.

And higher level terminals should also have better schematics. You can get anything off a level 1 terminal.

*Not necessary, but in order to get the highest win chance

[Kyzrati]

I don't think you should be able to do that. Not because it's overpowered, but because it's really boring and relies a boatload on meta-knowledge.

Completely agree, since I try to get rid of all that stuff in the design. I actually wasn't aware you could theoretically get everything from a Terminal on level 1. For all the other terminals there are level restrictions, and I thought I'd implemented that on Terminals, too, but apparently not! So technically this counts as a bug.

The streamlining approaches are nice, and I like the idea of giving multiple things per hack, though it would seem that in doing so I might have to remove indirect hacking of specific schematics entirely...

What does everyone else think about this? Continue to allow hacking of specific schematics but put a relative level cap on what's allowed? Or maybe make a single hack give you a bunch of random schematics, but you can't hack for specific ones? (Or even both solutions combined!)

My original intent with the hackability of specific target parts is so that you could build a certain component that you really, really wanted in case you weren't lucky enough to find it yet. I didn't imagine anyone would sit around hacking terminals forever, and this is actually much more difficult on later levels, but in Materials you are a lot safer and can stay there for nearly indefinitely if you know what you're doing. So I can see how this is a bit of a problem. Rating restrictions on hackable schematics will pretty much solve it, though.

[E.I.G.]

Honestly I had assumed that there would be that kind of rating restriction, and just thought that I wasn't hitting it. Although I am not sure I have made a part/bot in anything more than a rating 1 fabricator.

Having a random set actually sounds to me like it could get me things I never knew about before and like better than what I manually search for. It would also more quickly get me to what I usually go for, which is just having something fabricate-able for every kind of slot.

[Arseface]

I'm less against downloading specific parts and more against downloading every part easily.

If you segregated the parts into categories and had commands for each you'd still be able to choose what you get. Power, Propulsion, Utility, Weapon, and Robot are the obvious choices, but you could go further with things like Schematic(Hover). It depends on how much you want people to be able to choose their parts and how heavily you want to restrict them. A full on hacker will probably be getting almost everything, but that should fine as long as they're investing exploration instead of tedium.


I think just the main slot types + robots would work. One of each per terminal within rating bounds with a "master" command similar to Index(Machines) that's harder that gets them all would be great. Cuts down on time, encourages exploration, and still gives some choice to people who need a propulsion unit pronto.


Another option is to limit the number of schematics you can pull from any terminal. That way people till get to choose their builds, but they can't just sit there for a million turns. They'd have to explore to get a full loadout.


Or you could mix them. Less direct commands might give more parts, which would matter if you were limited in your hacks. Schematic(Any) might return 3, Schematic(Propulsion) might return 2, and Schematic(Nuclear Pulse Thruster) might just give you the one.


I like my first one most, but it's all up to preference. There are also certainly other options I haven't come up with which could totally be better.

[endlessblaze]

or you could make I so the higher level a sematic is the harder it is to hack indirectly.

it makes sense that high level scamitcs only come from high level terminals.

when you indirect hack, your pretty much accessing other terminals and mainframes.

if you make assign various scamitcs to higher level terminals/ security levels. you should be able to hack them out even from a level one terminal it should NOT be EASY.


just my too cents

[jpka]

This is a tough one. I have been seduced by the amount of control you get by spending a ridiculous amount of time on -10 and building yourself a really awesome starting loadout. But that's exciting only the first time around, the second you just want to shoot yourself. It was still difficult for me to stop doing it, because of the gamer complex, or the NEED for power. It's like Arseface says, once you know you can do it, not do it it's really just a way to handicap yourself, specially in a game this hard. That being said, from a design perspective, it's hard to change it without making it less cool and versatile. I really like Arseface's notion of changing the investment necessary from tedium to exploration, I think having a limit on the number of schematics per-terminal is the way to go. Like it shuts itself after the third, or something.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah, Arseface has a lot of good ideas in this thread, and the final solution will be a combination of all these, once I list them all out, look at the bigger picture and see how they integrate in to the game flow as a whole.

I knew there would be things that needed adjusting in the hacking mechanics, since they didn't go through nearly as much testing as the rest of the game did. Everything except the hacking already went through rigorous testing during the 7DRL phase, and was then rebalanced from scratch for this version, so it came out pretty nicely. Hacking got no such treatment so it's definitely rough around the edges.

It will start looking really nice over the next few versions.

But that's exciting only the first time around, the second you just want to shoot yourself. It was still difficult for me to stop doing it, because of the gamer complex, or the NEED for power. It's like Arseface says, once you know you can do it, not do it it's really just a way to handicap yourself, specially in a game this hard.

About this, while you can of course feel free to continue playing around with the systems, you know where it's heading so don't feel obligated to do so

I should say that once you get good you don't need schematics anyway, or at least they don't provide you with a necessary advantage. In my own "pure play, not testing" runs I never used schematics and could easily get just as far. It's just a matter of experience. So practice those other skills! Cogmind is just brutal for beginners, as with most decent roguelikes.