Messages

Score:

Spoiler

Performance
-------------
Evolutions (5)             2500
Robots Destroyed (159)     795
Value Destroyed (4535)     4535
Prototype IDs (5)          100
Alien Tech Recovered (0)   0
Bonus (0)                  0
              TOTAL SCORE: 7930

Cogmind
---------
Core Integrity             0/1000
Matter                     108/300
Energy                     50/50
System Corruption          17%
Temperature                Cool (0)
Location                   -5/Factory

[close]

I recently restarted playing at cogmind, and while I'm still getting screwed over by some new additions (such as getting really lost in the caves!) I really had fun in this run.

Spoiler

I started with a classical build (legs) but it quickly turned into a combat build when I noticed I had reached alert level 2-u. Found a force field and took 2 power to become a more tanky build. Because of lack of utilities I was constantly at around 300 heat and used a part which converted heat to energy, to sustain my force field even more. Then, of course, my force field got destroyed and my build was a mess, so I went for maximum cooling and energy dependent weapons. At that point I got lost in some place and found 2 (or was it 3?) force fields hidden behind some derelict/weird door, rewent the tanky route from there on. I also found some derelict intel which gave me the garrisons' positions in higher floors. Really useful combined with tunnelling I avoided many fights. In the end I remember loosing both force fields, and little later all my weapons. It went downhill from there. I tried to do some final treqdedand then naked and finally flying escape, but my last 20-30% core integrity was shot down by pests keeping up and shooting from afar.

[close]

At some point I had both a force-field and a remote shield generator. Wondered if hey stack? Also I lost way to many parts do to random cave ins.

I think that currently hacking lacks a bit connection to the "real cogmind world" and relies a bit to much on meta-knowledge.
What follows here is a proposition for a very wild change of the hacking system.
I read the devblog about to be sure I wasn't proposing something that already exists, and some parts do overlap.
Take from this what you will.
The way I understand it, cogmind takes place in the future, and I would expect the future to be very interconnected.
Remove all indirect hacks. Remove all hacks giving locations.
Add a hacking utility to install trojans and a hacking utility for brute force hacks.
The hacks are listed if you have them activated while accessing a terminal.
Add a "connect" command, a "reconnect" command, and a "locate" command.
"Connect" allows to connect to a specific machine or robot in range of the terminal to access it. Range is greater for high security stuff.
Upon successful connection, a new list of available commands is displayed. Some of them have no risk associated (orders) others do (hacks).
If the entity you connect to is lower in the hierarchy, you can give it orders.
Hierarchy is as follows: Terminals can give orders to terminals of same or lower security level and robots / non-terminal machines.
Robots and non-terminal machines have no power.
If the entity cannot be given orders, you can try to hack it.
Upon doing something else than a "connect" command, the connection is terminated, and you're back to the original terminal.
You can then attempt the "reconnect" command to re-establish the same series of connections.
"Locate" allows to retrieve the position of something, it should be an easy hack.
Robots could have more commands like "view", "goto", "target" etc. (Most commands you can give to allied robots should be there too)
Each command you give through is a new hack of course, so those robots aren't allies.
Add some hacking weapons like "wifi connector" which before firing the volley allows you to attempt to "connect" to something in range and maybe just give orders from a nearby terminal to a programmer to flee, or quantum connector which can be generated at a terminal and will connect to that terminal whatever your position. These kinds of weapons would act just before your volley. Locate could give a +% hit chance on the robot you locate for that turn etc.

Why I think this system would be fun:
This would allow to get intel about what is on the floor, without knowing where. It should ideally be easier to move around from terminal to terminal than to locate one.
Access(Main) instead to be a small percentage of chance to pull off(how is that any fun?) would be more about going around in the network and locating stuff, downloading map data, etc.
If you want to purge(threat), you need to move around the network to find a terminal who can perform that command, not just remember what letters to type.
This would also make hacking more useful in combat. Reprogramming traps while not next to them and the enemies are coming at you, telling some serfs to come between you and your opponents to serve as meat erm scrap-shield, making some machine blow up at the right time etc.
For stealth you could tell a watcher at the other end of the map to send out a distress signal, see that some squad is nearby etc.

These are all suggestions of course, do what you want with them 

Whoops, sorry for the location error!
I'm pretty sure I have visited all the map though and didn't find another exit. Going to double check that next time I play.

So I entered the factory, cleared everything out, and know where the exit is thanks to utilities I lost.
One problem: there was a terminal with a locked door in front of it and it didn't have the command 'open'. I tried to do some indirect hacking but failed.
Later I destroyed it.

There seems to be no way out any more.  I can't seem to break the walls around that exit whatever I do..
So yeah, this may be intended, but that would be pretty harsh :(

Attached screen-shot of the map.
I don't have the seed yet, because I'm still doing my best to find some other way.

[only]

Other items(like some hacking utilities) can even bring you too very low matter without you noticing.

Not true. There is no hackware that consumes any energy or matter, by design. (Which is why the game won't even let you turn them off if you wanted to--they and a number of other types of items, e.g. storage, passive armor, power amplifiers, recalibrators, and a ton of other passive stuff, don't have any resource costs and can stay on indefinitely. (Did you mean something else here? There are extremely few items that actually consume matter--were you referring to swapping costs? If so, and you like to swap a lot, that's a different issue and can be overcome with Integration Mediators.)

Sorry for my mistake, I do remember though having a utility you use for 1 turn eating matter, must be the Quarantine Testbed like Adraius said.
Going through Adraius' list I'd remove anything that shields(because you can't predict when being shot).
Basically all items that have use for a specific action only (like shooting or moving) are the problems.

When not moving, hovering units also waste your energy.

But they can give you a bonus to dodge if you have Maneuvering Thrusters or Reaction Control Systems, which a lot of hovering robots will tend to attach.

Well, disabling them all you're still hovering(core propulsion right?), so you get the +5% dodge bonus for Maneuvring Thrusters.(Unless I understood that part wrong :p)

I think Adraius' idea is better than mine, just make them only cost when doing the specific action which the part is made for.
Even when paying attention, going disable A,B,C enable D,E;move one square to be under cover; enable A,B,C, disable D,E; shoot; can quickly get annoying.
Another way to maybe solve this problem would be some UI way to make part groups to enable/disable them all at once.

There is one thing that killed me/complicated my run where I have the feeling it's not my fault:
Unused part costs!
Simple case: Targeting computer.
When you're not firing a volley and you keep it activated by mistake it quickly piles up to a lot of lost energy.
Other items(like some hacking utilities) can even bring you too very low matter without you noticing.
When not moving, hovering units also waste your energy.
I'm speaking of all these are parts where you have 0 benefits of keeping them on, contrary to say, flight units, because of the dodge bonus.(unless you have more than one)

So I'm requesting a feature because enabling/disabling them all the time is really annoying and can be easily forgotten,
Auto-disable:
Parts that bring no benefits at all will automatically disable themselves.

Sounds reasonable to me, did I miss something?

Sorry, when I post I end up rambling :p
I got a final score of 5559:

Performance
-------------
Evolutions (5)             2500
Robots Destroyed (65)      325
Value Destroyed (2714)     2714
Prototype IDs (1)          20
Alien Tech Identified (0)  0
Bonus (0)                  0
              TOTAL SCORE: 5559

Guess what kind of build I had :p
Also this:

Heaviest Build             68
  Greatest Overweight (x)  20

Here's the text file as proof(no idea how to do fancy screen-shots, sorry!)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/msvslkj4uq4k2rw/Anonymous681342192-150830-145831-5559.txt?dl=0

I really liked this run, some serious epic moments! Fabricating 4 pests, running through the mines and surviving, having 2 left at the end of the stage, one of em dies... I lower the alert level to low security, and then my last companion died and dropped his weapon.
I picked it up and unloaded it on the one that had slain him, plus all his friends, cause you know'
Then I ran out of cores, ended up wondering around and got utterly destroyed and ran off with xenon bombardment thrusters to hide my nakedness.
Then great comeback, so tanky thanks to all those armor plates in the utilities, huge firepower, and treads that couldn't even manage to carry it all!
I could take on many foes without even flinching, I really felt like a war machine.
But the came the inevitable decline: near the end I got swarmed by hackers, and this time ran out of matter! All my tankiness for naught, as with no firepower, I got picked apart and smashed into little pieces.
Fleeing naked I came upon a stack of layered light armor and equipped as much of it as possible. I didn't care about my very low speed and I managed to survive some more, by tricking my enemies to shoot at each-other(penetrating weapons DO have a drawback :p).
I eventually died uneventfully later.

Piercing weapons are seriously interesting though, with proper sensors to see through walls you can shoot through walls without being exposed, which is pretty cool. I at one point blew up reactors next to a programmer without being in the same room! Terrain scanners do have an edge too apparently.

I saw a huge field (3x6?)of reactors, did anyone else see it too?

I hadn't thought about the immersion factor...
It may take away from immersion, but I've played several games displaying your score, and it didn't affect me until I was trying to get a high-score having finished the game.
High-scores are pretty much a way to make a game repayable IMO.
I was requesting it because I had a really hard time knowing what contributes the most/least to the score.

Ex: I just got 6000-ish points in a very combat oriented run.
The run before that I got 2000-ish with about the same tactic.
Both times I died at around the time those programmers show up.(Death on both runs: something blows up, no cover left , attempt to flee a huge swarm of bots while losing everything!)
When did the score increase that much? I know the reason of my deaths, but I have no idea what made the difference- was it the additional machines exploded, just plain more destruction, or are programmers worth many points? Does overkill damage contribute to score? Etc.

In any case, I think knowing your exact score at any given time could change the experience for the worse. As I see it, score is currently somewhat overemphasized because your route through the world is more linear, whereas in the future stories will (optionally) play a much greater role in the experience.

Once the game is done, and the player knows all the possibilities, I bet he'll try maxing his score.(Like most games with a score actually)

You could make it a toggle option which is only available if you finish the game once. (I haven't managed that yet, need to play more :p)

The main problem I have right now is the "BAM YOU DIED, HERE IS A SCORE WHICH YOU SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME!" feeling you get.

The way I understand it score is purely cumulative.(Get points for going to the next level, destroying bots and machines, etc)
Wouldn't it be cool to see the score grow under your eyes?
Is there any reason it isn't done?
The only problem I see is that it may be possible to know your alert level by seeing your score, although since I don't know the specific mechanics I can't tell for sure.

I just noticed that Katana and Scythe have the same stats, I even checked the wiki and it seems to really be like that:
http://gridsagegames.com/wiki/Katana
http://gridsagegames.com/wiki/Scythe
Is this on purpose? Because it does look like a duplicate component to me.

Sorry for the confusion,
with "carrier" I didn't mean the bot in the game but the robot "carrying" the bomb!

Funny how since Pests are hard to hit I get the feeling they are tanky...

Now I'm hyped for traps in Alpha 3, but that may be far away 

In case you need more, my game just had the same bug, want the save file?

[may]

Time too defend my ideas!

I knew that the ideas of traps was already out there(read the devlog ), the problem with traps is that they only help for fleeing, which is why I was proposing stuff that would also be useful to stand your ground or make it harder to flee. Corridors usually are usually pretty empty for me, so tracks in corridors shouldn't be that bad... the other 2 though are indeed probably not a good idea(or should be pretty rare and scattered, which defeats the point of ventilators).

These were suggested during the prototype phase, though never added because they would likely be overpowered (intentionally destroy a combat robot's weapons OR core to take it out of the fight), or pointless since as a player I'd rather just intentionally take out a core, and this already exists:

What if a specialised targeting computers weren't all equal?
I would imagine something like:
utility>power>propulsion>weapons>core
(> means "more effective than")
That way you get to choose between going for the vital parts or having a more predictable outcome.(if you hit at all)
If hitting utilities was guaranteed, it could be a great way to cause mischief: some robots have heat sinks, without them they are far less effective(and easier to hit because of heat), removing the storage units off of those annoying scavengers wouldn't be to bad either...
Hitting power or propulsion also clearly annoys most flying/hovering robots (pests come to mind), don't know how effective it would be against other robots, although it's clear without a power source you can't fire as much weapons.

As for Specialised targeting enhancer even without the above they could be interesting, again by following the same ranking:
utility>power>propulsion>weapons>core
Suppose you fire a volley against a robot possessing armour plating, and the boost given by this utility was good enough too guarantee that the armour plating would only stop one shot before being destroyed? I'd take that deal... If I don't hit it, whatever! It means it hasn't absorbed a shot, and I hit more important stuff.
Another situation: the robot is treading... the treads are likely going to get hit, if they don't, better for me!

Also if I remember right, some weapons shoot many projectiles at once, so it my be possible to have many hits of little damage making the above an interesting "which parts will suffer most damage" utility, or a slight boost just enough to take out important weak parts(flying units).

All slashing weapons do this already.

Interesting, I didn't know that...

Hm, the timed version might be doable (though then players will want for manually detonated remote explosives, which I'd definitely not do in light of UI complexity concerns). What uses might it have? Without manual control I don't see this as an incredibly useful ability. Stick a passive robot shortly before it's going to walk by its friends... but in that case just use normal explosives directly, or fire around a corner using guided weapons. Better control.

Make that something more powerful than normal exploding shots, if it is a real threat, it could be used to force enemies to separate.

Could also be maybe implemented as a timed bomb when shot on a wall?(That may be easier to implement than traps, and doesn't take a till on the floor)
Making it explode when touched by an explosion could make some cool chain reactions.
You could also do that if an someone has 2 of them, they detonate right away, that way you could plant some on every enemy and then trigger it on one enemy for a huge chain reaction.
It could also maybe be triggered be upon death(of the carrier)?

A long(infinite might be fun) delay version could be set on an ally as you send him to sure death, KAMIKAZE!

I can also imagine versions with different triggering events, like when the carrier fires, or moves?

Their could also be disappearing versions. They may be the most tactical(for the carrier) like should I move and take huge damage and remove all shelter from around me do to the explosion, or just wait a turn and fire instead. letting the enemies get closer?

Also this is essentially predictable damage, so maybe if you know that an explosion will be on you in 2 turns, you should rush to your opponent(s), or equip proper shielding, or put some essential parts into your inventory so as to not loose then?


In summary I propose these weapons have:
-higher accuracy,damage or area of effect than normal weapons to make them worth the effort.

I'll list the 5 I find are interesting, they would all explode when hit by an explosion:
-indefinitely attached, explodes on damage.(least interesting I think.)
-explodes on movement, removed after some time.
-explodes upon firing, removed after some time.
-explodes upon firing or moving, removed after some time.
-explodes after a delay, or upon death.

Annnnnd sorry for the huge rant.

So I love making games, and Cogmind gave me a lot of ideas that could be added.
I'm going to dump them all here!
The numbers proposed are really bad guesses... they could all be tweaked of course.

First up: placeables:
Placeables would be non-equipable parts, which would have an effect when dropped on the ground, to differentiate them from normal parts, they could have a background glow or a distinct colour.

1) tracks:
They are heavy to carry.
If you rolling or treading, you would go 2 times faster when moving from track to track.
However, going from track to normal ground and the opposite would be 2 times slower.


What would this add? More tactical fighting/fleeing.
Crossing tracks could be a great way to flee from treading/rolling enemies(if you aren't rolling or treading), at the same time, they could also give your opponents a great advantage when going down corridors: wheeled robots could go pretty fast! (37?) you can use that to your advantage too: treading around would not be that slow anymore, except when you leave the tracks to get an item access a terminal etc. because getting off and on would cost a lot of time.
Crossing robots on the tracks would also be time costly+if a track were to be removed, it would cost time to cross the gap, making it easy to sabotage the routes.

2) Ventilators.
If you are flying or hovering, ventilators give a 2x speed boost. But when moving from a ventilators , you would have a 60%(?) chance to be misdirected, minus n%(?) with n the time you've been on ventilators(not counting the time it took to get on it) ventilator you cross, with a minimum of 0% of course.
That way waiting a turn makes going over a series of ventilators without danger.
Ventilators would also cool down units above them. They would very effective on crawling robots (-30 heat?) and  otherwise less(-10 heat?).
They would be generated close to machines.
This would make them a great place to stand when fighting with weapons and utilities generating a lot of heat, unless the machine is explosive...
Flying/hovering units could take a risk trying to cross them in exchange for speed and cooling, but because of the misdirection, they may be slowed down at first by going in the wrong direction(or waiting a turn), which would make them great to increase you dodging chances, but not necessary great for fleeing.
You could also place some while fleeing to annoy those annoying pests... because crossing a single ventilator is:
50% chance of being misdirected, being misdirected means going the wrong way 50% of the time, unless you lined, in that case it's 75% chance and  more if you're next to a wall(if you hit the wall, you will stay on the same square)
50% chance to go 2 times faster.
i.e 0.4*0.5+0.6*(0.5*2+0.5*0.5) = 0.95 so a slight boost.
however if you are lined up:
i.e 0.5*0.5+0.5*(0.75*2+0.25*0.5) = 1.175 so a slight loss. Plus eventual damage when next to a wall or ally, in which case it's all worse.

3) Power-plates
Any robot above them receives energy, but also some heat. They are most effective on crawling units(+30 energy?,+5 heat), pretty good on walking treading units(+30 energy,+10 heat?), and don't heat flying units(+5 energy, no heat).
They would probably generated in little 3x3 squares, in corridors or in rooms.
These would usually be occupied by enemy robot troops to fill up their energy before patrolling again.
Could be very interesting to have enemy bots who aren't self sustainable when it comes to energy, which would return to power-plates.(I'm thinking especially of those defenders hanging out in a room corner...)
So getting to them wouldn't be easy, but they would be very useful to load up batteries... and also would diversify builds I think.

All these would be taken care of by a certain bot, who would remove tracks/ventilators/Power-plates someone placed outside of the planned routes and places  and place tracks/ventilators/Power-plates where they are missing. There could be a "tracks/ventilators/Power-plates machine" which would create/store/destroy tracks/ventilators/Power-plates depending on the needs. Maybe newly build rooms could also sometime be "decorated" by them.

These placeables would reinforce stand and fight builds and make fleeing far more interesting.(Or fleeing to the right place to fight!)
I also think they would increase tactical depth, and planning.

I got a few part ideas too, but I haven't finished the game yet, so they may exist already.

1) Specialised targeting computers:
Core-targeting computer, Engine-targeting computer, Utility-targeting computer etc.
They increase the chance that shots that hit hit the specific parts.
They would have to be balanced carefully so as to not enable anything over-powered(Instant Core Kills!) but could potentially create interesting tactics.

2)Specialised targeting enchancer:
Increases damage against specific part-types or core.
Would be interesting with the above.

3)Knock-off bat:
Melee weapon with no damage, instead tries to detach a part with a 50% chance.
Combined with Specialised targeting computers it may make some interesting stuff.
I think for ranged weapons it would be to OP.

4)Explosion attaching weapons.
Would attach explosives on target that detonate after some time... or when caught in an explosion!
Could be melee or ranged, although melee would be hard to use...

5)Disguise utility.
Prepare for jump-scares!
Upon activation, makes robot look like wall, visual range reduced to 3.
Deactivates all other parts which have upkeep costs when activated, excluding storage parts.
Reactivating any other part deactivates it. Receiving damage disables it for 300 time, allowing opponents to see you.
Only way to detect disguised robots would be structural scanners.
Just imagine enemies surprising you, or you remaining unseen by a patrol, until an excavator tries to excavate you.
Would have to be used in conjunction with mining stuff to be really effective.

I have some more ideas, may post them later.
What do you think?

I have the exact same problem. Upon dying and quitting and returning (the same process) everything works fine.