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This is why I stopped playing and started playing DCSS and Cataclysm DDA. I hate the feeling this game gives me of being fragile and scared. It just takes too much work to get anything done. I want to put treads on and a ton of guns and be able to tank my way to floor 5 but thats not remotely possible it seems.

Totally off topic conversation I wanted to have with people that are playing more than one RL at the same time.
I was wondering how you guys were managing all the different controls, updates, enemies, and overall gameplay between different roguelikes.

I am currently obsessed with: TGGW, DCSS, Cogmind, and recently Caves of Qud.

The hard part for me is that CoQ, DCSS, and Cogmind are all getting frequent updates with long changelogs. Which is a good thing really, but I get the games mixed up frequently now haha.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else was jumping between multiple roguelikes, and if any two were similar enough to not be an issue switching between.

PS: This one is my favorite.
 

Soo, I may be missing something here, but is there NO way to compare items if I only use keyboard?

I've been trying for a while now, and if i select an item on the ground, then exit the window and select another item they are not compared...

A lot of ideas here are about mouse movement and clicking/ hovering. I personally Never touch the mouse whal playing. So I was wondering what you had in mind for keyboard only folks?

I was wondering what happened, figured your internet was still being quirky. Maybe when you get back do a run using the tiles with the ascii color scheme?

[H]

No problem, Cormac. I'll pitch in.
On your first image, starting from the top:

The 'H+79' indicates how much Heat your volley will generate - all three weapons combined.

I'm not a big fan of the condensed info on the right, I prefer to just expando the info boxes and leave those as health bars (with 'w' I think), but let's decrypt them for you anyways.

Lgt. Nuclear Core: '3' indicates rating, 'M5' is Mass of 5 (weight), and 'E9' is Energy produced per 100 units of time is 9.

For the legs and treads, it goes: Rating | Time it takes to Move | How much mass you can Support
So the legs can move you in 100u, the treads in 150, and the legs support 10 while the treads support 20.

Oof... Utilities are tricky. Ok, the first number is always the rating, so I'm going to ignore that. 'M#' is the Mass, or how much the item weighs.
For Sml Storage Unit: iCAP/2 means inventory capacity is increased by 2 - it should really be iCAP+2, huh?
Imp. Targeting Computer: TARG/8 means your targeting is increased by 8%.
Imp. Heat Sink's COOL/14 means it dissipates 14 thaums of heat per 100 jiffies.
Adv. Visual blah blah VIS/4 means vision range is increased by 4.

Ok, weapons. The * in front of rating indicates that it is a prototype. So it goes:
Rating | Mass | Damage | Damage Type
I see THermal, KInetic, and EM damage on your weapons.

On your second screenshot... you must have pressed F or something to start aiming at something. That information is related to accuracy. Your Imp. Assault Rifle has a natural +10% to accuracy. The other two weapons are losing 2% accuracy because of the Recoil produced by your Imp. Assault Rifle. I'm not sure about the -10?... I'd need to see the full situation of what you were doing. I hardly ever look at that info - I just look at the percentage that appears near the enemy on-screen.

Phew! I think that's everything. Please let us know if anything else comes up!

Oh man that was so helpful I cant even tell you. Thank you SOO much!!!   

Ill be able to play this game without feeling so lost now and enjoy it much more.

Really thank you for taking the time to explain, I love this game and now I can get the most out of it.

I know this is a LOT to ask. I have read the manual and also am aware that when you press escape on the right, the game shows you what is included in the description of the items. However I am having a hard time understanding the abbreviations. There's matter, but also mass, so its hard to know what the m stands for. Also the "H" in the volley section I cant figure out. etc...

I was wondering if someone could briefly explain, or point me in the direction of an already laid out explanation, maybe in video form, of what the things I've selected in red in the attached photo mean.

If there is a more detailed description in the manual that I missed let me know and Ill check that out.

Thank you in advance, Cmac.

ps: sorry about potato quality.

As far as I'm concerned, not many things are worth a utility slot. The game is an amalgam of not-good enough parts and a couple god-tier parts.
So the not being worth a slot thing doesn't convince me.

Aside from that, heat trails give a valuable piece of information that sensors don't, and that's the direction a robot is moving in. Sensors don't do a good job of showing what's moving where, and that can be insanely helpful in predicting swarmer/eye patrols. It would also pair well with longer distance opticals.

Would it be better than a sensor? Generally not. Would it be better than nothing, and could it be given energy/heat/mass that might make it more useful as a fill in for certain builds? Absolutely.

If you have it as an option whats the point of having it as a utility, when you can just turn it on whenever?

One is a convenient way of displaying movement in your line of sight. The other is a powerful tool for detecting movement outside your line of sight.

you already have sensors to detect movement outside your sight line though...

Any others want to provide input on which they prefer? A utility-based benefit with turn-based trail fading, or an option-based effect with real-time fade that only shows trails for robots in view?

If you have it as an option whats the point of having it as a utility, when you can just turn it on whenever?
I say just remove it personally. Either that or have it as an option and only mark up to 2 spaces behind what moves, and fade really fast.

Making a Utility that enables the trails sounds like the perfect solution, a heat tracking system or something.

Yea I only use keyboard as well, every move counts in this game so having the cog move multiple spaces rapidly ends up poorly for me most of the time.

You know about the setting in the options menu to increase log detail right? Maybe that will help you a little bit.

I'm not sure how I feel about it being easier to just speed your way through everything rather than use a heavy combat build. It's kind of a turn off for me since I love the action feel you can get from the game.

So I just noticed something that may be a reason to use tiles. When you see objects, and then walk around a corner so they are out of your line of sight, in ASCII mode the objects are all green, and the same symbol. However if you switch to tiles mode, you can see the different shapes and tell what parts are there.

edit: run on sentences.

There is a large segment of roguelike players like Arseface who believe that single player games don't need perfect balance. That said, I do want there to always be multiple effective ways to approach the game and succeed, and I believe that to be the case, though some may be still harder than others.

Like Arseface says, having allies generally makes the game much more difficult, so you should be right at home with the desire to solo it; that's the safer strategy. Don't think that having friends would make things easier--unless you really know what you're doing, they cause more trouble than they're worth in the long term. (In the short term it's easy to feel like your little army is unstoppable, but that's before they start sending in assault squads to put you in your place. Try it and see =p)

Even more strategies will open up later as more maps are added! Some for those who prefer allies, and some for those who prefer solo runs.

You're the man, thanks for letting me know.

I enjoy the ability to use allies like in other roguelikes, but I'm not really a fan of depending upon them in later levels in order to have an easier time progressing, the lone wolf approach is more fun for me personally, which is why I love roguelikes. You can play how you want. I,m just saying I think it would be good if this didn't become a, "Well your not gunna get past level "x" unless you have "this or that" on your side." The ability to play how you want really appeals to me.

I know you dont HAVE to use allies now, I just dont want them to make the game so easy that "your doing it wrong" if you're not using them.

Having said all that, its your game and I'll love it either way I'm sure.
Just my thoughts. 

Army(buckets o allies) is hard mode. You'll hit Alert 5 within a floor or two and the game becomes hell. I'm not complaining, wading through hell makes you feel like a badass. But still, it's certainly not easy mode.

Allies(4 or less) are useful, but like any other part you pick up they're disposable. Rely on them too much without the availability of spares or backup and it will kill you.

If you want an easy mode to gripe about look at flight units. Or nudity.

Yea I made a similar comment about flight in another thread, saying that you should be able to beat the game with treads, wheels, or legs. If flight is the best way to go, than whats the point of the other options.

I enjoy the ability to use allies like in other roguelikes, but I'm not really a fan of depending upon them in later levels in order to have an easier time progressing, the lone wolf approach is more fun for me personally, which is why I love roguelikes. You can play how you want. I,m just saying I think it would be good if this didn't become a, "Well your not gunna get past level "x" unless you have "this or that" on your side." The ability to play how you want really appeals to me.

I know you dont HAVE to use allies now, I just dont want them to make the game so easy that "your doing it wrong" if you're not using them.

Having said all that, its your game and I'll love it either way I'm sure.
Just my thoughts. 

After reading these it seems that hovering or wings is completely necessary for the late game, im wondering if there needs to be some balancing done if thats the case? or is that intentional? I just feel like you should be able to complete the game using whatever method you prefer, otherwise the other items will just seem useless.

Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2 soundtracks are great, the half life 2 soundtrack is surprisingly good, but BY FAR the Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon soundtrack was MADE for this game, its slow for the most part and the synth is so amazing. ugh its wonderful.

Recently a movie came out on youtube for free called Kung Fury, that soundtrack is perfect as well.

Absolutely! I very much hate typos myself, and would like to stomp them out of existence anywhere they exist. I ran an untrained spellchecker over the text entries, but apparently didn't quite catch everything since there are also plenty of non-dictionary words in there which I had to filter manually.

Hm, but about that particular sentence, "expiry" as a noun is technically valid grammar. Either "expires" or "expiry" could be used, the latter referring to the point in time itself at which the key is dead. I'll switch it anyway since it's probably more common to expect "expires" in that situation and there's no good reason to avoid it.

Found a cannnon with 3 n, see screenshot

Whoops!

Thanks for pointing these out!

You know I had a feeling that I'd be wrong about that and would end up looking foolish. I learned something today at least haha.

I think the sprites in the first shot look great and are very recognizable, and to me there's much less noise to the scene than in the last shot--it takes me longer to read the last one.

This exactly, having the tracks, wheels and legs the same color but different shapes is perfect, allows you to differentiate between pickups and enemies much more easily.

In the manual, in the hacking machines chapter, on the second page, under the terminals section, second paragraph, the last word of the last sentence should be "expires", but it says "expiry".  I know this is seriously minor, but the game is so well put together and professional, I assumed you would want nothing to take away from its overall amazingness.

If I find any more little things like that ill post them in here.

Love the game

Hi Cormac and welcome!

All the hacking stuff is here:

http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=68.0

Be warned, it's not necessarily important to know this stuff to play the game and you'll learn the main ones as you go (so it's a little spoiler-y). However, biomatter has put a tonne of effort into it and it's pretty useful when you're sitting there thinking 'now what was that command I used last time?'

Thanks so much for that link, your videos actually got me into this game.

-How did you learn about Cogmind?
Roguelikes section of Reddit.

-What other roguelikes do you enjoy?
Dwarf Fortress, Brogue, Nethack. Mostly Dwarf Fortress.

-What are your other favorite games?
Mostly FPS games like DooM 2, Killing floor, also Dark Souls and games like Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.

-What do you do for fun when you're not playing games?
I work as an A&P tech in Aviation. Fixing helicopters and airplanes. Doesn't leave a lot of time for anything else.

Quick question though, I read somewhere on here, (cant find it now), that there is some knowledge of hacking/ code writing required in this game, I was wondering if a lack of experience in that department would hinder my progress?

Thanks and Hello