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I just self destructed on the first mat floor but it reports I have a score of 22,406!

This just so happens to be the score of my previous run...

So yeah, bug.

I finally decided to unveil the mysteries of [REDACTED] by using those special codes in Z. I've done it before but pitifully unprepared, so this time I built my cogmind with this in mind getting lots of [REDACTED] to deal with all those damn [REDACTED].

The thing is the dude with the required codes was totally missing from Z! I wasted a few thousand turns wandering around in vain trying to find him but eventually gave up on the whole idea and left. It's been a while since I've done a Z run (I've been trying out hacking builds lately and felt the attrition in the caves wasn't worth it knowing that I wouldn't get [REDACTED] there) but as far as I recall the codes were always available in every run I've visited Z.

So the question... Is it possible that the codes in this run where just simply unavailable in Z due to RNG? Or did I miss something? Or is this a possible bug? It was a little disappointing spending my run carefully preparing to face all those damn [REDACTED] but having no way to access it.

I'm still not finished with my run but can supply the map seed when I do if that helps.

I'm asking because I'm not sure I'd bother trying specifically for that goal again if the codes aren't a sure thing...

Reflective shield which reflects all projectiles back at enemies so you can walk through the complex while hostiles murder themselves.

This idea is actually awesome. :p

Perhaps ALL projectiles is a little far fetched (which on this thread is a good thing). I'd imagine it as deflecting with an x% chance depending on it's tier with an associated energy cost per reflection.  Possibly it could be limited to certain kinds of weapons as well, for instance only energy weapons or only kinetics. (deflecting missiles would be OP awesome!) I imagine it would also have only a small chance of deflecting directly back at the shooter (20% or something) and otherwise would act like a missed shot with them as target. So bullets would be ricocheting all over the place banging into machines and NCs and generally causing chaos (not a good idea with allies!).

So yeah, you failed, this idea is just too awesome for this forum thread. 

OK, I guess I should think of a bad idea?

How about a portable fabricator? It takes 4 util slots and runs off matter in your inventory plus a f-ton of power and heat. You can wander the facility sucking up matter and giving birth to your very own swarmer army.  If the going get's tough you can always overload it and vomit lightning for a few glorious turns before the whole thing fries itself. Pretty cool eh? 

It might be annoying if it asks for ramming confirmation every time you misstep into a wall. Perhaps it would make sense to only allow you to ram through walls at maximum momentum after which your momentum would be reset to 0. You'll need a bit of a run up Actually I'm not 100% sure, does momentum increase ramming damage? How is ramming damage calculated at all actually?

Also doing this for extended tunnelling would be weird... I guess if you needed max momentum for it to work there is something stupid and gratifying about taking multiple run ups to smash a tunnel into existence.

Me Cogmind. ME IS UNSTOPPABLE!!!

the theme was set specifically to apply this limitation on the gameplay

Yeah, I guessed as much.

For example deconstruct_bot is pretty cheap for what you get, but it's cost would absolutely have to be higher if you could do it to allies, because it has to be balanced for the easiest approach, making other approaches like encountering random assault squad Mechanics less valid... See what I mean? xD

I see exactly what you mean. It's still hard to give up the dream of my mechanic horde deconstructing everything I lay my eyes on though. 

Some players love having Operators for friends, for example

Assimilated Operators are amazing, if I can manage to keep them alive for more than 10 turns that is I guess the feeling that drove me to write the original post was my disappointment when I found out that assimilating almost any NC apart from Operators seemed pretty pointless. Operators set up a certain expectation of coolness which was then cruelly disappointed. Right now I'm a bit demoralised about figuring out whether certain NCs have any use while assimilated due to the steep cost to try it out. It would perhaps be a nice touch if there was some way to know in advance what benefits assimilating certain robots would give you. While experimenting is fun, it becomes less so when the result is mostly just meh...

[jam_door:]

Apologies if I'm duplicating what has been said before....

jam_door: An engineer jams the nearest door shut and it will stay that way for some set amount of time. Perhaps if it totally blocks access to a room complex combatants will get annoyed a blow their way in after a certain amount of time.

mass_assimilate: Only works on swarmer squad leader. Will assimilate the whole swarmer squad for a pretty hefty price tag. I'm guessing this would burn a pretty much a whole coupler. OK sure swarmer couplers already got buffed. But this is way cooler. Right now getting a bunch of swarmers is difficult since the unassimlated swarmers will just blow your new friends apart. For large squads of swarmers the need to find the squad leader balances out the benefits of it's extra size because the bigger the swarm the harder it is to find the leader to hack. I want a swarmer army!

scramble_coordination: (in other words, confuse) the effected bot will move and fire randomly for the next x turns ramming any bots it walks into. I'm mostly imagining doing this to a demolisher amongst it's friends and watching the resultant mayhem. 

disable_utilities: we already have this for propulsion and weapons why not disabling utils (minus armour etc.)? OK perhaps the use cases are less obvious but disabling an enemy's cooling before pulling out your flame thrower could be fun.

While after 7.1 it hardly seems like RIF needs more buffs I was wondering why you can't really do any meaningful hacks on allies.

I'm not sure it makes sense from a law point of view given that your assimilated buddies are no longer a part of the 0b10 system. But WHATEVER, who hasn't had the fantasy of hijacking an assimilated watcher's visual and sensor feed to make a super drone? Or ordering a friendly serf army to grab a whole squad of grunts and dispose of them? Or getting a researcher to heroically sacrifice itself stasis beaming a choke point while you make a run for it. Assimilating NCs would certainly be way more fun!

OK sure, balancing all this stuff could be a nightmare, but there is something to be said for the fact you have to 'pay' for these extra benefits with lots of  couplers. A watcher drone for instance would cost 24 (what are they called? Units?) from an NC coupler (13 + 6 + 5) plus an extra 5 per 100 turns to replenish the visual feed. Add that they need to stay in a range of 20 and it isn't necessarily TOO OP.

I mostly like the idea of keeping a bunch of NC and support bots for various reasons. As long as you can keep you're ragtag army of support bots alive they can save you a bunch of utility slots for filling all your infowar needs or possibly doing other cool stuff.

I know this a long shot but pretty please? 

Recently I did a big ol' face palm after equipping a cannon that had been disabled from overheating only a few turns earlier. I was using the item swap dialogue and it turns out it doesn't indicate item status at all. (Well not temporarily disabled items anyway, I'm not sure about permanently disabled items) I thought it's worth mentioning given that all that's required is a change in text colour to make your already awesome UI a bit awesomer. What do you reckon? 

I'm wondering if it's ever planned to have a system for searching for particular items that you've already come across on a level. Something like the super convenient text search in DCSS. Sometimes remembering exactly where I saw that huge armoured wheel on a sprawling factory level can be a real drag. Also if, for instance, I come across something neat like a nice scanner it would be handy to tell whether I've come across any signal interpreters in the vicinity. I understand it's probably not the simplest QOL enhancement to make but for lazy inattentive people like me it would be a god send!