Cogmind > General Discussion

Frustrations with Player 2's tendency to actively sabotage us

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Storm Mk9:
So I had an idea yesterday to do a Player 2 build, and focus on playing a support role, letting Player 2 deal with all the combat while helping from the sidelines with RIF hacks, Remote shields, and of course punching the occasional wall. The part that really made the build something special (at least in theory) is the group of allies i'd hacked to work for us, but Player 2's rampant friendly fire problem, along with the inability to give specific orders to even controllable allies, made it more of a curse than a blessing.
Player 2 was seemingly determined to kill everything i hacked (including the Mechanics helping to keep us both alive), with me being powerless to get them out of the line of fire. Sure, Follow and Stay are usually good enough, but they don't help if they're already in Player 2's line of fire, and apparently giving an order to move to a specific location is just impossible for whatever reason, despite apparently having direct control.
Unfortunately, without Player 2, the entire build i was going for would be nigh-impossible, since it was almost completely useless in 1-1 combat, the entire point being to get others to fight for you while reinforcing them from behind, much like Protectors (much of the reason Assault squads are often as dangerous as they are). The only other way i could see that build working other than having a reliable ally or giving specific move orders, is perhaps being able to use a certain part to act as a Mechanic/Surgeon yourself (former 0b10 bots aren't reliable, so make them reliable), in that you can repair other bots' cores, and to a lesser extent their parts, while presumably remaining unable to heal your own integrity, and likely at a significant matter + energy cost. Even if your ability to attach backup parts is limited/nonexistent, it's the only thing i can think of that would make a commander run like that particularly viable, aside from a more specific orders system
But then again i'm the person who tries to play support in almost every game, so i may be just a little biased, but i feel like fully committing to a support build should at least let you have some consistent allies, rather than the usual bots being absolute dumbasses, managing to get themselves killed faster than you can replace them anyway, or Player 2, apparently absolutely determined to be the only other bot on your team, and still without enough firepower to properly support their reckless playstyle. I'd say potentially ECA might support something like this a bit better, if it didn't need a competent combat build to start anyway, rather than just getting lucky with a RIF installer position and a coupler as trying to do the same with proper RIF would
Anyway... yeah. What was i rambling about again?

Kyzrati:
Ha yeah Player 2 is not there for to ensure a win, and although you can certainly try to play support for them, which can be pretty fun at times, they're just not going to be reliable enough since their build can fall apart and you need to ensure you have enough agency to recover for them.

*Technically* it's possible to play extreme support for them and even manage their build, for example carrying spare parts specifically for them and even severing stuff from them that you don't want them to keep (or destroying/hiding it in advance), which people have done in order to even face off and win against the extended game with Player 2, but that's not really recommended or necessarily a fun style for everyone :P (it being a special mode, after all, although one that I do keep expanding dialogue for, and making sure it works with new mechanics, since I really like P2 myself!)

As for allies in general, Cogmind allies are exactly as they're intended to be: helpful in a lot of cases (especially if well managed), but also definitely not smart or permanent. They're basically expendable resources, not unlike items themselves. Think of them simply as items that can move and shoot or perform other tasks on their own ;)

The goto order was removed a long while ago now, and there were explanations about that at the time. You can check those announcements for more (finding this sort of thing can be done via the changelog to see when something was changed).

Overall in Cogmind you can play general ally support builds (especially with RIF which allows you to maintain, protect, and continue building an army on the fly), but like trying supporting P2 you'll likely run into situations where your army gets crushed by something and your overall power level drops dramatically, making the next stretch that much harder. Being someone who enjoys the full RIF support style myself (doing as little direct confrontation as possible throughout), even when I have my strongest army it's not unlikely that they'll carry hard for several maps without me firing a shot, but then comes a time when we end up in just the wrong situation (or I screw up :P) and they get mostly or entirely wiped out. Gotta be ready for that eventuality!

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