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[tompliss]

If I can put it in as a suggestion, I think the extra commands could be handled by extra items.
Either you need to use soem items on the friendly bot (to upgrade its IA so it understand your order) or as an item for you (that let you communicate more complex orders to them).
That would limit the OP-potential of the terraforming thing, but would randomly let the player to do it a bit. It wuold be as finding a really good "artefact" weapon that initially doesn't fit your build but force you to make a decision, except it's not a weapon per se.

If you have played DC:SS, it would be as finding the +13, +13 sword of the Doom Knight {pain, -CAST MR} when playing a caster.

[Kyzrati]

I was considering how many, if any, new utility parts to involve in the control of allies, though I was thinking of it in a more general sense rather than enabling specific actions. Perhaps I was thinking too closely along the lines of realism, but maybe it could be rationalized in some way (in any case, this isn't a simulation, so good gameplay should always trump absolute realism --if the two end up at odds, that is, which I'd prefer they didn't).

Another terraforming related issue I failed to mention in enough detail is the enemy response, since enemy engineers build walls that have been removed/destroyed from the intended layout of the level, and tunnelers excavate new corridors and rooms that are part of that "intended layout." So if you block a tunnel, for example, an excavator should come along and clear it, but then you could do this in the middle of combat and pretty stop an enemy advance until they get an engineer. Then of course they could also try to just shoot their way through the walls, which could be difficult unless your "temporary walls" aren't very strong, in which case they're not really very useful in the first place... (There's also the issue of letting the AI know what walls it can/wants to shoot, which is somewhat non-trivial for a simple/fast AI.)

Requiring some parts for control could help, but doesn't yet resolve the fact that this terraforming metagame can get a little out of hand (the fact that it could *exist* is good, since that leads to more options, and fun ones, too, but their inclusion may). Perhaps part of the solution could be the enemy response system I've planned to add, whereby the more allies you have and bigger "influence" you start to have in an area, the more resources the enemy will devote to dealing with you. Terraforming could significantly increase your influence since doing things like intentionally blocking off tunnels *is* quite annoying for the general operation of the complex. This is both 1) realistic and 2) balances the game depending on whether you have allies or not.


Edit: Another thought is that building/tunneling could take time, since time is always against you, but then the process shouldn't really be slower than what the same units can do normally, which is fairly quick right now. Slowing that down could help.

[tompliss]

Perhaps part of the solution could be the enemy response system I've planned to add, whereby the more allies you have and bigger "influence" you start to have in an area, the more resources the enemy will devote to dealing with you. Terraforming could significantly increase your influence since doing things like intentionally blocking off tunnels *is* quite annoying for the general operation of the complex. This is both 1) realistic and 2) balances the game depending on whether you have allies or not.

I like that.
You wrote before that the player would be able to hack through computers to get some information. I know I don't know the story, but if the player isn't the only "rebel", this "influence" system could be mentionned (both directly by reading about how terraforming actions disturb the complex and need bigger response and indirectly by reading messages sent from and to response or scout robots). That way, the player would be (more or less) warned about his actions will change the future of his game.
A side-effect of this may be that it would support the stealthy builds, as not being noticed means having lesser influence, meaning there aren't as many enemies, meaning less enemies can spot you, etc...

[Kyzrati]

Yeah, that's exactly how I was intending to balance it so that playing alone will still have its benefits in most cases, for anyone who doesn't want to bother micromanaging allies (or not micromanaging them and having them just tag along and cause you more trouble).

Unlike the 7DRL, it's true that you're not the only "rebel" type of robot running around. There can be quite a few others depending on where you are, and it might even get downright chaotic at some points. I was thinking that the hacking could reveal enemy knowledge of certain of your previous actions, mostly for immersion purposes, but other than accessing enemy patrol logs I hadn't thought of other indirect methods hinting at the future. Things like intercepting enemy communications in the field will be interesting (this one probably requiring a utility for more accurate information).

[tompliss]

I would love the irony of a utility that would decode the enemies' communications taking 10 seconds to do so.
It would happily tell you "an enemy patrol in coming from the east" after you get hit by a rocket from said patrol, as if it could save your life
(but then I see it as a doctor Who's usual robots kind of way, which does not fit your setting that much ...)

[Kyzrati]

Hehe, doesn't really fit the setting, yeah, but that's pretty funny.

After more thinking on the negative impacts of terraforming on the AI and gameplay it looks like it'll probably work out since the benefits for you will be somewhat temporary anyway. The enemy tunnelers will show up to remove your walls, and if you shoot them they'll start to arrive with armed escorts, so you escalate the situation at your own peril. I'll also slow down the speed at which tunnelers and builders can work to reduce their effectiveness.

[Kyzrati]

Another GUI upgrade: Part Info Visualization

In other news, I'm finally putting a stop to the most annoying side-effect of allowing the player to tunnel anywhere they want and possibly circumvent dangerous areas too easily or even go straight for the stairs in relative safety: Cave-ins can occur while traveling through non-reinforced/newly-excavated underground areas. These won't kill you outright, but the damage will be significant enough to keep you from hanging out there for too long. Explosions in non-reinforced areas can also cause cave-ins, so you can also use this as part of your strategy.

[tompliss]

When you say explosions, you mean any explosion, not exclusively "support" destructive ones ?
I mean, if I launch a (explosive) grenade in the open in a non-reinforced area, I could block enemies to get around them a flee to the next level ?

[Kyzrati]

No, the only areas in which an explosion will cause a cave-in are those which were not originally part of the open areas (the latter having naturally been reinforced during construction). So you can't block regular paths using explosives, only newly opened areas, meaning a potential strategy would be to blow open a new area, lure enemies into it, *then* collapse it on them.

[Kyzrati]

New post: A look at the ambient sound mechanics in Cogmind.

[Werdna]

Pretty damn cool.  What about, I don't know what to call it, dynamic sound; would you be able to hear enemies moving about behind a closed door?  Would be neat to have a utility part that would allow you to 'hear' and vaguely identify enemies from a distance, or even visualize the neat aural maps you posted.

[Kyzrati]

Funny you should mention that, since at the beginning of the design process I was thinking of ways to make "neat maps" like these a bigger part of the gameplay. Heat maps would be one example, though I later decided they don't add enough value other than a "cool factor" since they'd either be enabled by an extremely helpful must-have utility, or not very useful at all.

For audio, I can imagine a utility like you describe that allows you to visualize sounds and determine what they are as a way to "see" what's around a corner or behind a door by inspecting sound waves from a distance. Unfortunately I don't think we can do that: Due to how sound propagation is calculated by the game, it's actually a slow process to create those audio visualization maps for debugging (can take half a second or more).

As a side note, X@COM is much more likely to make use of some kind of sound visualization since it keeps these maps constantly updated so there is zero cost to using them for other purposes like analyzing the sound for actual gameplay-related purposes.

[Kyzrati]

Because there isn't enough bossing around your allies in roguelikes: Ally Orders.

[tompliss]

No displays of the current orders ?

I know it would mess with the atmosphere, but playing with the backgrounds of the bots could show the orders that were given.
I also heard that there are advanced terminal capabilities meant to underline or even put a border around charaters...


[EDIT] oh god, i'm too blind to see a link

[Kyzrati]

Have you read the entire post yet? There's a section specifically about how to view all orders directly on the map.