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Cogmind => General Discussion => Topic started by: Joshua on November 27, 2017, 07:13:49 PM

Title: Storage units
Post by: Joshua on November 27, 2017, 07:13:49 PM
Right now, it seems like storage units are the essential utility that every build needs.

Is a no storage game viable? (Could this be a workable challenge mode? Would you get something else in exchange for never finding storage units?)

What utilities might have more marginal utility than that first storage unit you equip? That is, what would make you give up that storage slot and the extra items you can carry with it? Would focusing on weapons and processors (targeting, core analyzers) let you avoid attrition as easily as a storage unit lets you recover from it?

Just some thoughts brought to you by wandering around Materials looking for storage yet again. :)
Title: Re: Storage units
Post by: Shadowfury333 on November 27, 2017, 07:55:10 PM
I'd defer to whatever Kyzrati or zxc say, but in my experience, you can get to the Factory and do decently well without storages, if you go for a less aggressive build. It's tricky, but my current run is nearly past Factory (-5 and well set up), and I haven't had storage since IIRC -9.

The key thing is to avoid all combat. Get flight or hover as quickly as possible, and try to find sensor arrays or visual processing units. If you get in a fight, you might be able to find replacement parts from salvage, but that's unreliable (the above build has gotten lucky several times now in that regard), so try not to get in a fight.

The only thing I could think of that would reduce attrition enough to make a storage-less combat build viable would be armor and shielding. I see where you are going with targeting, but that would require that you both get the first shot off, and have it be fatal, and that you are rarely if ever ambushed by more than one enemy at a time.
Title: Re: Storage units
Post by: Kyzrati on November 27, 2017, 09:43:37 PM
You can win without using Storage Units, so while it's very helpful for most builds, it's not absolutely necessary for any of them. I mean, we even have the Pure Core challenge mode which some players can win with, or at least reach quite far.

As a combat bot, early-game storage doesn't have to be Large--Medium is fine and can be taken from Haulers, then later on Large can be taken from Haulers if necessary. I often play fast and loose enough that I'm not too strict on ensuring I have a lot of storage before advancing, and do just fine. Now if you want to have an amazing high scoring game that travels through many branches then you're definitely going to need to have better storage before getting too far into those travels, to help prevent attrition.

In a general sense, a second storage is probably going to be more valuable than whatever utility it would replace, but once you start going beyond 2-3 units, your overall utility effectiveness is going to start dropping such that the extra storage is not always worth it. At that point it depends a lot on your strategy.