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During the initial implementation I did consider trap stackability, but there is no such UI mechanic and it would open the door to people questioning why other (even smaller!) items cannot be stacked

Minecraft potions don't stack due to technical limitations, 1 meter cubes of stone do. No body really questions it. I don't think it's that big of a concern in order to enable a particular strategy.

I'm deep into the second half of Dark Echo. Game's fantastic. I swear I've only done three sessions though. Very strong "just one more level" vibe.

Look up the game Dark Echo. It isn't a roguelike, but it features some of the same mechanics that you're talking about.

Good to know!

Awesome. I'd definitely have to remember to make better use of this.

2-slot bays as a rare/high tier/advanced design would be cool though. Just give them either more, or better, drones.

Because if I had to spend 2 slots in order to have two beefy combat drones I could reliably recall and repair, you better believe that I'd spend the 2 slots.

I actually like wheels <..<
Yeah, they have their downsides, but the fact that I can find them really easily (and are faster than treads) make them reliable.  Not that I won't go legs if I find legs, just that I like wheels.  Giving them a momentum bonus*/acceleration effect would be pretty neat, though.

*Not necessarily associated with the melee effect; I don't use melee and probably never will except as a last resort.

Well, that run ended poorly. Stupid interminable cave systems.

Yeah just did a run that I think went through caves.  Man, that is a nasty place to fight things.  When I finally made it out I think I was down to:
- 1 power
- 0 propulsion
- medium storage unit
- mini grenade launcher

* Draco18s checks the score file

Yeah, Lower Caves (-7)
My "peak sate" I'm pretty sure is from just before I entered the caves....ah, no, was after. I can tell because of the Improved Titanium Leg floating in my inventory space.  I died (with no power cores and almost no remaining weapons; damn melee bastard) carrying that leg.

1) The drones can never be recovered

Sure they can, just issue a return order and they fly back and back into your drone bay, repairing them to full health if damaged and allowing you to store them in your inventory for later.

Whoops, I was misremembering.

Keeping the bay attached in order to continue to receive telemetry is not really a big downside.  The main reason people attach, launch, detach is two fold:
1) The drones can never be recovered
2) Once launched, the bay never creates new drones

Telemetry is a really really weak reason.  Once the drones are dead (takes maybe two minutes real-time), you're still going to toss the part (even if it still has full durability!) and re-eqiup whatever you had on before.

Oh god, the source code is genius.

I've heard a number of AI War references since last year . Haven't played it myself

You should try it. There's a demo that lets you play for 2 hours (which, coincidentally, is a great duration for a Defender game).
If you do purchase it (which you can get it and every expansion for $17) I highly recommend the Zenith and Light of the Spire expansions.  I wasn't really a fan of Neinzul generally, Ancient Shadow's core mechanic, or the two alternate win conditions from Destroyer of Worlds and Vengeance of the Machine.

They're not bad expansions, just that I tend to not-use most of what comes in them.  Ancient Shadows did add the "Cluster" map type, which is by far one of my favorites.  Plus the $5 expansions tended to add new music, which is always worth it; Pablo is amazing.

but I think it's almost always a good thing when games move away from that player-centric mentality which runs through most games of pretty much any genre.

The game is very much "doing this will piss off the AI by Y amount" and you have to decide how pissed off you're comfortable letting the AI get.  Mind, some people are really comfortable pissing the AI off.

(since Alpha 3c, I've played through Invisible Inc, Life is Strange, and Alan Wake, and I'm playing and enjoying Helldivers, SUPERHOT, and Stellaris)

I've...um....played SUPERHOT.

I spend most of my time developing, doing QA (for Dungeon Defenders 2), and procrastinating.  So I haven't really had the time to pick up many new games.

I get some board game time in, too, of course.  Sentinels of the Multiverse, Tokaido, Thunderbirds, couple others...

Flyers: sure, no arguments.  It's the "that's a walker, I'm a walker, I can't jump them why can they jump me?" problem.

passed through the Recycler and your current position

That's where I'd go "uh, no."  Hostil bots shouldn't be allowed to "step over" you like that.  Step over allies? Sure, fine, not a problem, totally get it.  Step through your space? Absolutely not.

D&D has a thing called "attacks of opportunity" when enemies try to maneuver around you too much, for precisely the reason that if that rule didn't exist, you could easily flank someone (and get the associated bonuses).

The "doors aren't bottlenecks" solution you say would make things deadlier is true, but that's also what's actually happening here.  If Cogmind had been in the doorway and the recycler one step out, then that grunt flowed around Cogmind, just as in your alternate scenario.

IMO that grunt should have stopped on the pile of matter just inside the door.

Heh, 3c is veritably ancient now. So much has been added since then, and a few major system tweaks means it plays much better overall

Oh I know. I've been following the development. I just haven't gotten around to getting and playing a newer version.

Just remember: the biggest risk factor for getting an injury while running is having a prior running injury!

...I should probably download one of these versions and give it a go again.  Last version I have is...

Oh my

Alpha 3c

Sounding awesome!

And about the lack of terminal feedback for some situations, that's best avoided since it becomes difficult for players to learn effective strategies. Even when you know how it works, the optimal way to play would be to assume that any failure might have led to a dispatch.

I was rambling a bit and was on my tablet.  I was more trying to say "there's a possible pitfall here that the players don't know bad stuff happened" and that either (a) there needs to be some visual feedback or (b) handle it a different way.  The idea was just referring to a middle-ground between the current failure (you get traced) and current success (the part gets fabricated): instead, the part gets fabricated and bad stuff happens.

I do feel that the player should know that this third option occurred, just that I didn't know how to handle it.

I figured it wouldn't be a simple or small thing, but it was the impression I had from fabricators when I first encountered them.

But yeah, I was thinking having the matter delivered by the neutral bots, just to stay in keeping with the container mechanic. Introduces a way for the player to stock it to avoid being noticed (they'd have to have the material on hand first) or a player can be "lazy" about it and have a chance of a patrol being dispatched to investigate the strange order (might work it into the hacking mechanic: eg "fail by 5, get the fab going, but dispatch troops," but there wouldn't be much in the way of terminal feedback).

Thoughts on containers:
I don't like them much, especially as sometimes finding enough matter just to keep shooting and replacing parts is hard, followed be arcane interactive to actually get the matter into the container, then the container into the machine.

The complex is supposed to be Doing is Own Thing and supplying material to fabricators for its own needs already: just merge the two. If a fab had no material, it should request some from the base AI and have it dispatched.
* Pros: no need to move matter around yourself (but you can)
* Cons: by not adding material yourself the fabrication might get noticed as not being legitimate

This also means that you could stumble into a fab producing items already and just have to wait for them to pop out. Or a fab already loaded with matter. Maybe be able to hack the fab to extract is working schematic. Or the fab is busy and it adds extra time to your job (back of the queue). Added possibility of another hack/trojan to bump your thing to the front and/or abort the current item.

Get hover movement thingies.

Hcp. Storage Unit, ha! I never thought to bring it back as a unique item. That's a pretty good idea . I should give it a special name and even improve its stats, then bring it back with alternative art!

Dwarven Quantum Stockpiler

Looks good to me too, but I haven't had time to take a stab at a6 yet.