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[EuchreJack]

Sorry I haven't been around much the past couple days, guys. No progress on fixes, either. My son was just born today so I've spent most of the past 48 hours hanging around at the hospital with the wife.

Congratulations!

[Kyzrati]

The enemy was near the edge. Got a screenshot:



The enemy was at the %, and there were already items on the ground.

Thanks!

Sorry I haven't been around much the past couple days, guys. No progress on fixes, either. My son was just born today so I've spent most of the past 48 hours hanging around at the hospital with the wife.

Congratulations!

Also thanks

Ah. I stuck around for three waves, headed up and suicided. So they do give points... they just don't spawn infinitely. =P

Yeah, they give points, but seeing how differences between adjacent high-score earners are currently several hundred to a thousand points, it's probably not worth it since it doesn't do much for your score to kill a few extra Tunnelers

[AlStar]

A quick suggestion:

I think it'd really help if Cogmind regenerated matter.

It doesn't have to be fast.

It doesn't even have to be very much.

But I think that there's a real gameplay benfit to making sure that you always have enough matter to attach a part.

I just had a really good game (score ended up a mere couple hundred points off my high score) that was killed when I ran out of matter and was unable to even attach a weapon so that I could kill an unarmed enemy somewhere to get some scrap. I ran around for the better part of a level and a half looking for a pile of scrap.

I eventually found some, but by that point all of my improved and experimental items had been blown off and I didn't stand much of a chance.


An alternate would be to give Cogmind the abilites of a basic recycler (10 matter if part lost), which would assure that you'd pretty much always have at least enough matter to put yourself back together.

[Toaster]

I agree- I've died far more to losing matter than to losing energy.  Given the nature of the game, you could consider matter something akin to a food clock, but in other roguelikes you don't need to be above a certain satiation level to wield a sword.

That or a default terrible popgun that is barely enough to kill a serf before it yells enough to summon an army, but I think the former is better.


Alternately, a process to turn a part in inventory into matter- perhaps at a 1:1 mass:matter ratio so it'd be useless most of the time.

[Kyzrati]

I agree, too!

Just today I received an email referring to the same problem. I'll do something about it soon, but not before the first tournament ends, because that would definitely not be fair to previous high score earners. I'll probably go with giving Cogmind basic recycling abilities for lost parts. The next fix will also have extra alerts for low resources, so it'll be easier to avoid problems like that. When I play I always make sure to switch to energy weapons if I'm afraid my matter will drop too low.

A reminder to anyone participating, or planning to participate and still haven't e-mailed me a record: The last day to send in your record for the current tournament is April 8th (Sunday)! I'll definitely keep accepting high scores after that and add them to the chart, but I'm going to do a post about winners and their achievements based on the records I've received by then.

[micha]

how about "with insufficient matter available, attaching an item results in 2 points of core-damage per unit of missing matter"

/my exp is that i overextended to get into that situation and that i get away 3 out of 4 times when that happens.  the times i've died then were cause I had no energy or speed left.. which then 'cost' me say 100 core damage for rushing.  If I could buy a chance to record another retreat by attaching an engine for 20 core-damage, i'd take that and think it 'in-character' for the game.  thoughts??

while we're suggesting things...

* since there is no way to go elsewhere from the Shift-X detailed info screen, I suggest that pressing Shift-X twice(an even number of times) will FILTER the inventory to show me only items of the same type as X.  (if it would work the same way for the # details, that would just be great!)

[Aoi]

how about "with insufficient matter available, attaching an item results in 2 points of core-damage per unit of missing matter"

I like that. The Cogmind is cannibalizing chunks of itself to jack it on. Makes more sense than spontaneously generating matter out of nowhere. On the other hand, if we're talking about theme and realism, it'd make even more sense if we could just disassemble working components into raw parts, though that'd probably be bad for balance.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah, I considered a utility to allow you to proactively break down parts for matter, but it would probably be a bit imbalanced (not to mention require usable items, which I cut from the game).

About having an extra way to ensure you have matter to attach something, which do you guys want more, the core damage or a free bit of recycled matter on part destruction? I would say the core damage might fit in a little better, since there are already utilities for recycling. But I think free recycling might cause fewer problems for players, being a bit less complicated and having no negative effects.

* since there is no way to go elsewhere from the Shift-X detailed info screen, I suggest that pressing Shift-X twice(an even number of times) will FILTER the inventory to show me only items of the same type as X.  (if it would work the same way for the # details, that would just be great!)

Shift-x twice would still open the info window, though (engine does not support separate commands for repeated keys). I'm going to go with gimlet's suggestion to enable inventory sorting, which should satisfy most needs. What are you referring to by "# details"?

[micha]

>What are you referring to by "# details"

i didnt like the sorting because it would make its own 'work' because of the inevitable scrolling. but if the inventory was always sorted and *you* would have the engine scroll the inventory for us when in a detail screen (Shift-Letter or # (#details)) then if would just 'work' and be obvious without pressing keys twice.

speaking of keys, right now I find myself scrolling to the bottom of the inventory a fair bit because I like to pick up before i attach. if you 'filter' the inventory on (currently displaying kind of thing) then the need for a [jump to the inventory top/bottom]-key wouldn't be so great.    (perhaps.. Alt-[] pgup/down and Ctrl-[] home/end in inventory)

[micha]

>the core damage or a free bit of recycled matter on part destruction?

 I've probably noticed that i had no matter 1 in 5 times of it happening because I was probably reaaaaaalllly slow and overheating at the same time too. I just left levl 6 with 26 points in core remaining.  Had I been able to mount 2 wheels for even 40 damage, I would probably have gotten away with 100..200 points left in core; the 'free' matter would have been used up on yet another 'last' shot

 Died on lvl 7 with just over 20,000 points. Proof by sunday if I can't do better until then <GGGG>

[AlStar]

Died on lvl 7 with just over 20,000 points.

That's pretty damn impressive - what'd you do? Tank up then completely clear every single level of all enemy robots as you worked your way up?


As a side note, tesla bombs kick ass. Big AoE, low mass requirements, can (and will) blow holes in walls, and is +salvage, unlike pretty much every other AoE that I've found. Great for blowing away groups of enemies when you'd actually like to take their stuff. The launcher itself is, sadly, big and fragile. I found a container robot full of the things, and went through all 4 that I'd picked up in just two floors.

[micha]

thanks! -- what didnt i do?   i might be cheating cause i learned to make noise  making crevices. this has the effect that more often than not the bots wind up somewhat stuck  trying to shoot at me while they kill or weaken themselves.

and yeah, the launchers are awsome but whatever my plan for the game might have been at any one time, the very fact that I wound up having a plan would make me overconfident for say.. the first dozen or so runs.  now I just equip what i find to get coverage and try for very long range where i blast near the enemy.. or the crevice thing where i'm right next to them.  after lvl 5 my only valued posession was the thingie that takes corruption away.

i kinda wish the bots would forget about you or be less astute in cutting you off, but then again if they were more forgiving then soon i'd be off to another stupid rambo death. crossing your fingers, blasting walls and staying back seems to work. oh, and not killing friendlies that you can hide behind, not until they try to wall you in anyway.

"COGMIND, you never know what youre gonna be" ; fun!

[Aoi]

20k? *blanch*

I think I'll aim to escape Command instead of aiming for the high score then. =P

[Urist Imiknorris]

And now I have another time sink on my hands. At this rate I'll never finish my homework.

[ChairmanPoo]

Sounds really really interesting, will try it soon.