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Don't ask me why ...

Spoiler

... or where he found the glove ...

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Has it been considered what impact the base inventory size would have, generally?

i.e. what if Cogmind got more room as s/he evolves? Or just started off with a couple more spots?

I know this is effectively unrelated to maximum inventory sizes (which is the main issue presented here), is a straight-up buff (which is rarely good on its own) but it is easy to understand why Cogmind WOULD get more storage with each evolution, and perhaps could form part of the equation reducing pressure to ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO carry around as many storage units as possible.

Not sure whether it would be a good idea or not, but thought I would bring it up as it doesn't seem to have been discussed and might even be part of the mitigation to carrying out several nerfs to builds which rely on a huge quantity of utility-based storage.

 

@mendonca: Already multiple people have asked where this book can be purchased

He he ... apparently I could get a run of 1000 board books printed for only around $1500, plus shipping ...

I'm almost tempted, although I'd have to find somewhere to store the 995 that don't get sold ...

Wow, I just went to publish my new article and noticed this was the most popular post ever on Cogmind's Facebook page, beating out even the original launch and my postmortem data. (Of course the number of followers has grown since then, but still!) I'm going to give this more exposure elsewhere

That's cool, I'll have to join the page and add another like in there!

I'm always interested in how this goes down elsewhere, so let me know how you get on!

This game looks really interesting!  Just had a quick look a few videos and I'm pretty impressed.  Does anyone know of any good LPers that are playing it?

It's pretty much my favourite game ever ... even after playing and modding it for the past 4-5 years it's still pretty much my go-to game for maximum enjoyment (not so much recently, as the last major update release came out nearly a year ago - but when the next one drops - which should be pretty major in terms of gameplay content additions - I expect I'll be back to it for a while).

There were a few historic LPers who did some vanilla and modded runs; I can't remember all the names so it's probably as well searching YouTube for Starsector and hoping for the best (NemoNaemo, EverLazy spring to mind ... although they are likely all earlier versions). Current LPs are a bit light, as the release cycle is slowing down general community involvement.

(This isn't a slight on the development process, byt the way - The Dev is great, and really intent on creating a coherent and complete game - the stability and quality of all major releases is absurdly good - but game dev takes time)

Interestingly, the artist is David Baumgart of Dungeons of Dredmor (Roguelike) / Gaslamp fame - hence the superb visual aesthetic running throughout.

If you can catch Cycerin on Twitch, that's always good fun, and he has a few stored videos of him testing out the thoroughly beautiful and brilliant BlackRock DriveYards mod (as well as other stuff).

Vanilla really does stand out on its own as a great game, and for a bit of added longevity there really are some very high quality mods. It seems to have attracted a small community of likeminded artists and creative types who work together to put out some very high quality and complementary content.

Try Starsector+ for a majorly tweaked vanilla experience (but still maintaining the general feel), Nexerelin for a procedurally generated sector and system-conquer mechanic, and notable high-quality content mods (typically adding factions / systems and sometimes new mechanics);

Scy, Blackrock Driveyards, Shadowyards, Exigency are some of my favourites and all contain original artwork and interesting twists on Vanilla gameplay.

Knights Templar is frighteningly beautiful and polished, but adds a super-scary, ultra-high-tech faction (and I don't personally tend to play with them switched on). There are more, and they are all generally very good.

Oh, and ShaderLib, where modders have added support for normal mapping / pretty shader-driven lighting to the experience.

Starsector ... brilliant community-made mods ...

*cough*



(sorry to continue derail, but couldn't help myself ... ! )

Thanks, fonetikli!

I mentioned your book over on Twitter, Facebook, and Bay 12 (not sure if you're following the latter thread).

Cool

Also, in my excitement over this I showed my wife, to which her response on the cover was "What's a roguelike?" I tell her it's the genre Cogmind belongs to, and she says "when people ask me what you do, I just tell them I have no idea..."

That is pretty funny! I'm expecting a similarly bemused response when I try and show my wife / daughter later tonight!

Thanks for the kind words, chaps

No joke I'd buy that book in a heartbeat. 

Totally taking this to the publisher - Should be enough, right???

If I may ask, is art a hobby of yours or related to your profession?

Just a hobby, kind of a residual thing from doing lots of drawing as a youngster (I guess I've kept my hand in over the years by filling my work notebooks margins with (variously) monsters, robots and spaceships).

We took off just as the edge of the typhoon was hitting our location, into some pretty fierce wind and rain--that plane was racing up at a degree you wouldn't believe... my son thought it was hilarious he couldn't even lean forward to press the buttons on the entertainment set

Anyway, at least I didn't end up wasting an entire day traveling around and have to do it all over again. Lucky. Even before takeoff I took a shot of a schedule readout on which every flight but four (including ours), were canceled.

Sounds pretty frightening, but glad everything went okay.

And the rest:





Have a safe journey!

He he he!

I hope your son does like it;

The first half of the book:

Hey guys, look what I found at the second hand bookshop. Must say my daughter is really enjoying getting to grips with the overarching themes of plunder, wanton destruction and ultimate helplessness.



More to come, just need to wait for my daughter to finish her nap so I can take a photo of the rest of the pages

Bahahaha! It's overweight on those little treads and everything. I love it! You're a fantastic artist!

Whoa, best Cogmind fan art I've seen so far!

Thanks guys!

Requesting permission to pass it along

Of course, pass it wherever you must!

I'll also be reloading all the old graphs with new data from the Challenge as a whole.

Oh goodie, I did suspect you might do this, but I'm glad it's been confirmed.

The morgue file:

Spoiler

Cogmind - Alpha 3c

Name: zzxc

---[ ESCAPED! ]---

Peak State
------------
Power
  Light Quantum Reactor
  Light Quantum Reactor
  Particle Reactor
Propulsion
  Improved Heavy Treads
Utility
  Advanced Powered Armor
  Advanced Target Analyzer
  Advanced Heat Sink
  High-capacity Storage Unit
  Large Storage Unit
  High-capacity Storage Unit
  High-capacity Storage Unit
  Experimental Energy Well
  Advanced Force Field
  Large Storage Unit
  EM Shield
  Advanced Cooling System
  Layered Heavy Armor Plating
  Long-range Tractor Beam
Weapon
  Multirail
  Multirail
  Multirail
  Multirail
  Multirail
[Rating: 169]

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I mean, what does that even look like?

I don't know, but I had a go:

Spoiler

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First of all congratulation, zxc, that is an incredible run. Considering you spent ~40% of the run in Access, I bow to your powers of concentration. By -3 I think I'm psychically damaged by the attrition more than physically, and wonder if a little more positivity (or negativity) in taking my 58th tactical escape (57 is my limit, man) - I would have at least lasted a bit longer.

Looking at the top scores, -3 clearly is a big wall for lots of players. Wonder how much is mental ...

I had a thought regarding the 1-tread build (and also perhaps in general regarding tactical escapes) - and getting these unexpectedly shot off. A utility that allows you to 'emergency detach' all items in a standard turn, to make a run for it (you don't want to stand in a firefight carefully removing items one at a time to get your speed up to something reasonable) would certainly make sense lore-wise (viewing the Cogmind as the 'core') - but might not be well balanced.  Perhaps could be done so by applying an energy / matter cost (you need to plan the emergency detach procedure at least a little bit).

Cool, I can see my name up there!

I've got a sneaking suspicion as to what achievement I'm leading in, as I found a large collection of some specific thing in a branch (which was really cool, by the way, and totally saved my bacon).

Would be more specific, but then I'd have NO chance of staying leader for the achievement

Hello folks, I'm mendonca (named after ex-grimsby and charlton footballing superstar Clive, not the musician).

Haven't got long, I'm hiding behind a wall from a load of angry robots - trying to regenerate my energy prior to making an overloaded nuclear pulse array rush for the exit.

-How did you learn about Cogmind?
Via following XComRL, into the 7DRL. Whilst I liked the 7DRL, this is just something else (and it's not even finished yet ...). I'm really excited to see where it goes from here!

-What other roguelikes do you enjoy?
I've had fun with ToME, Nethack, DCSS - been variously obsessed with DF and (Spelunky) for periods of time. Cataclysm / caves of qud are also fun in a sprawling / overwhelming kind of way. Love complexity for the sake of it - or just something elegant and simple. This seems to be hitting a sweet spot where it captures both sides. Elegant and complex.

-What are your other favorite games?
Currently, just Starsector really - historically Sensible World of Soccer for gameplay, Speedball 2 for the graphical design, also played a huge amount of Jagged Aliiance 2. Don't get too much time these days for playing a wide variety of games, it's nice to see some come along like this that can scratch all my itches at once

-What do you do for fun when you're not playing games?
Ooh, hang about with my young family mostly. Maybe the daughter will have the good grace to grow up a little bit some time soon and I can teach her about roguelikes. Have done some writing, like to draw and paint digitally (can't paint in the real world ... Paints are squidgy and hard ... Pencils and pens are fun though).

Nice to meet you all

POW - thump

*bzzt*

Did that damn bot just shoot me through a wall?