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[kiedra]

[There's some heavy spoilers, so if you're concerned about that, best stay away.]



Hey everyone,

haven't played since beta5 and just recently got back to Cogmind. There's a couple of things I have questions for and I also wanna share some thoughts, title sorta summarizes it. I'm gonna put it all in here, probably gonna be long, but did not want to open 5 new posts - hope that's ok.

First of all, I love this game, but I also do hate it in a way. Now don't get me wrong, the latter is totally on me. My biggest gripe with the game is, after almost every run I end up with even more questions. I know this is by design and that's absolutely fine, my problem is I like to overthink things, my runs take forever, so investing many hours just to get back to a certain event (and potentially solving or advancing it) is not only discouraging, I honestly just don't have the time. Yet though, I would really really like to see the different endings (only have w0 and w3 so far). I'm mentioning this, because I know you guys don't like to spoil things, Kyz especially but he's excused because dev and all hehe, but for everyone else, SPOIL away - trust me, you'd be doing me a huuuge favor.

Here's two examples:

First run on beta5 I went classic combat, I like to take every branch (or actually have to because of Alert), especially Extensions though. Did that many times before, so I knew my way around. This time however I ended up at Zhirov's place first on -5, he wasn't there and I can't remember if he ever was. Whatever, I read up on the lore again, picked up the artifacts and on the way out I wanted to destroy the Cloak Generator, assuming there may be something hidden. As soon as I hit it, Enhanced Grunts warped in, at first I thought as some sort of defense, but they were friendly. Nobody said anything, I was already very confused, when suddenly the whole place blew up on me. Now here's where the questions start, I've been to this place many times and this never happened. Did the grunts spawn because I was about to leave (RIF was installed btw) or because I hit the Cloaking? Why did everything blow up? Well, I just kept going, Extensions, on -4. I can't seem to manage to keep A7 alive, that I do remember from my beta5 runs, but not the end of the world, because I mainly come here for the Cetus Sentries and Hub. Yea but I'm forgetting something, right? Archives, a place with four sentries, a bunch of Admins and Terminals I can't read. That's at least how I've seen it every single time I've been there before. So I was VERY suprised to actually meet Zhirov and two of his buddies there. He was mumbling something about resetting MAIN.C, which I can sorta understand from the lore, so I guess after this event you're supposed to go to Command and, well, reset it, somehow. Yet again, we got attacked, and I'm like (being full combat), I can help with that. But after a couple of turns he decided to bail and AGAIN, blow everyting up on me. Yes I know he actually warns you and I tried to reach the exit, but on 0x1 treads... well, let's just say I didn't make it in time. But again, I'm left with nothing but questions. Why has this event happened and never before? Kyz mentioned the story part is done since beta1, so I don't think it's anything new, which also means it can't be RIF related. Did I just happen to have a seed with Zhirov before Extensions? Or do you HAVE to destroy the cloaking? Kinda like, his hiding place got compromised and now he's trying desperate measures. Somehow I picked up that one can actually decode the stuff on the Archives terminals, probably another story line? I gotta be honest, I'm not getting it . But this explains well what my problems are, I have no clue on what to do now, I could only retrace/replay my steps, which means I'd have to play hours again just to get there, on the same seed, which is boring. It's just not my cup of tea - I like when things happen by accident, like with the Sigix Corpse win. And again, please don't take this as negative criticism, all I'm asking for is some insight, so I don't have to "waste" another 10 hours just to verify - ok that's why this happened.

Second one, also heavily RIF related. I like this stuff, well actually only that you can see the alert level now, which gives some really valuable insight. For instance, I was very surprised how much the Alert rises when you get caught fabricating something. Before I was like, yea whatever... . I also found it very amusing how Kyz hacked all hostile robots in his stream and ignored the haulers, and I did the exact opposite of that. So I was wondering what the drawbacks of installing RIF are? Haven't really noticed much in my first run, but Kyz mentioned you cannot get imprinted anymore? Could you get imprinted before? Will Zion be hostile if you go there? I guess Warlord definetely is, which I just found out the hard way. But again, I don't get it. I can understand that Warlord has tech to notice this installment, but thematically, you are not on MAIN.C's side, you are actually using it against it, which brings you, willingly or not, on Warlords side, so getting attacked didn't make much sense to me. Also found it very confusing why the Quarantine entry still purged my corruption, just to shoot me in the face as soon as the doors open. But kinda the same problem here again, this run was purely intended to reach another win, in this case, Warlord's storyline. I know you get attacked there and can't waste to much time, why I went speedy, rather stealthy and along the way had to realize how much I suck at this now, because I've played so much combat. Now I'm sittin' there in front of the proxy caves exit, not knowing what to do with this run, because I can't talk to Warlord, which I assume is what you have to do (I did that before, but never saw him again, which is apparently supposed to happen in research). I hope the small frustration I'm suffering from is at least somewhat understandable by now

To sum up this part: I'd really like to hear how others feel or experienced stuff like that? Did you get another win by accident? Or actually following the lore? - which obvisiously I am absolutely uncabable of haha. I mean hard to come by events or rather, easy to miss stuff also has its advantages, it keeps the game interesting and fresh, even after hours of playing, there's still something to do. While I'm very interested in the lore, I just tend to miss things (or forget about it) because of the way it's presented. Reminds me so much of the souls series, games that I play for their difficulty and atmosphere, but also with great lore, however ingame it usually totally eludes me. I still remember the day when, after years, I read up on its lore and I was like, wow that's really good, I wish I woulda caught something of it when I was actually playing the game

Regarding RIF, I think it's pretty strong and also fun. But going stealth/hacking, which usually means you wanna be fast, meaning you have limited inventory space, not necessarily room for every kind of coupler and now not being able to hack robots the old way anymore, I felt I was kinda limited. Let's say there's a sentry in the way that you don't wanna fight, you can't disable it anymore, even with good hacking. So how about just one type of coupler, with highly different amount of points they can have. You'd still need to find them, very high point ones would be rather rare, you'd need to sacrifice a slot because they are processors, but to make up for not having to bring every kind, point usage for hacking is determined by robot type and rating. Let's say couplers could have up to 100 points, assimilating a scav would only be 10, but for a behemoth you'd have to invest 100. It's just an idea I had, you'd be getting back flexibility, but I can also see that it might be a little too good, cause in that scenario, I don't really see a reason NOT to install RIF anymore.

A couple of things I ran into and unsure about whether it's a bug or not (I'll attach screenshots with log):
- I've had haulers still call for reinforcements even tho I blocked the distress signal before [RIF]
- I had a shutdown sentry call for garrison reinforcements (not sure if that's intented, cause, yea, the robot is turned off [RIF]
- This random maching, couldn't go back for the exact name, dropped couplers after being destroyed. I'm not 100% on this, but iirc I only fought two sentries and two hackers there, one scav might have died in the process, but where would it have picked up those couplers before, I did not touch a single garrison on that floor. Destroying a garrison also drops couplers, I guess that's intended - sorta the poor man's garrison trip. [RIF]
- I've had Imps doing their attack sound but nothing happened, sometimes they even get destroyed without blowing anything off of you. Is that, well, normal? Can their attack fail/miss? [random]
- I've had reinforcements come from a testing branch exit once, I'm guessing that's intented, even though being a branch, it's a MAIN.C controlled area, so it kinda makes sense I guess. Still wanted to mention it, just in case [random]

[Kyzrati]

Hi Kiedra! Welcome back

Honestly I think if you "don't have the time," as you say, it's probably going to be quite difficult for you to get the other endings without lowering the difficulty level, if only because time is what it'll take to get the necessary skills (which is more about improving your tactics than necessarily knowing simply "what to do"). No to discourage you, but the extended game is very challenging. I'm a fairly decent player but I don't even do that stuff because it'll squash me flat xD

But anyway as you know I don't talk about spoiler stuff, though I'm sure others could help you out here with anything in that regard. There's a lot of lore behind your questions, and there are answers out there.

One thing in particular though, RE RIF:

thematically, you are not on MAIN.C's side

You've installed the framework that 0b10 bots use to link up with the complex, which is something that no non-0b10 bot has ever done, nor is supposed to be able to do. Sure the array can purge your corruption, but obviously if they've got an "0b10 bot" entering their complex they're going to attack! (Note there's no separate win condition set by Warlord anyway, although that route does have strategic benefits and can unlock a bit of lore elsewhere.)

In general Cogmind's lore is pretty fragmented (by design, of course). As you have, others have previously likened it to Souls lore, and that doesn't necessarily work for everyone but it works best with the style of game

RIF and couplers are pretty balanced right now, so I don't see any need to change them since 7.1. Now there will still be a few new features to come, but stuff like the inventory cost of using couplers is a core part of the balance. (And it's not just a question of balance, either--accessibility and convenience of the system is an important aspect, and if costs were variable in the way you describe, it would make the system a lot less intuitive to use overall. It'd be a mess, really, so costs were made absolutely static--nothing can change them.)

A couple of things I ran into and unsure about whether it's a bug or not (I'll attach screenshots with log):

That's all normal stuff except the shutdown Sentry calling for Garrison reinforcements. That was reported some weeks ago and is an issue I was going to look at in Beta 8.

Note that as per the description the "no_distress" hack only blocks distress signals, which is not the same thing as calling for reinforcements, backup, or anything else. (Distress signals are the ones where they're notifying nearby combat bots to your position.) This is also why the hack is free and can be done without RIF, because its usefulness is limited.

[zxc]

Did the grunts spawn because I was about to leave (RIF was installed btw) or because I hit the Cloaking? Why did everything blow up?

Enhanced grunts spawn when you destroy the cloaking. They're not main.c's or Zhirov's.

Everything blew up because the cloaking went down. It's rigged to explode (I guess). Normally Zhirov is around to detonate.

Why has this event happened and never before? Kyz mentioned the story part is done since beta1, so I don't think it's anything new, which also means it can't be RIF related. Did I just happen to have a seed with Zhirov before Extensions?

Zhirov appearing in Archives occurs in 10% of seeds I think. Just like he is not in his normal Zhirov base 10% (or thereabouts?) of the time. It was thought that every time he is not in his base, he is in Archives, but this might not be true.

But again, I don't get it. I can understand that Warlord has tech to notice this installment, but thematically, you are not on MAIN.C's side, you are actually using it against it, which brings you, willingly or not, on Warlords side, so getting attacked didn't make much sense to me.

Using the RIF makes you look like an Unaware bot, so derelicts in Zion and Warlord consider you one. The quarantine probably still works because it's automatic.

RIF's main downside is the lack of help from Zion and Warlord. However, you can delay using the RIF until after you've visited these places, so long as you avoid getting imprinted. This does mean you have less time to make use of RIF though.

[kiedra]

Thanks for the quick replies, guys. And how on earth do you manage do create a game like that and still be able to reply to almost every post - that's another thing I don't get haha

Your answers make sense and about the lore, I absolutely agree that it works best with the game. I hope you didn't get me wrong on that matter, cause I actually like it alot. The only problem for me is that I actually have to pay attention for once. Probably played to many jrpgs in my younger days with a lot of smalltalk stuff that doesn't add anything to the story and is mostly pointless chatter. Or comparing it to the souls series where the lore is not required for directions, those are easy in these games: Kill more bosses

I know saying "I don't have time" may seem like a blatant lie looking at my cumulative playtime, even though the game is running idle quite a bit, I still spent most of this time in front of the computer hehe. I have very few games total (only around 45), compared to a VERY high playtime. There's some personal issues to my "limited time", also the reason why I haven't played in months, but stuff like that doesn't really fit in here. I'm also not sure if skill is the problem, looking at other ppl's scoresheets that include different endings, I can see that I've been to these places myself, often I just stumpled upon them, not even prepared and we all know, preparation is half the battle. Still taking it as a personal challenge though hehe. When you're saying there's stuff that's apparently so tough to handle, really good incentive. The only thing I can say about a lack of skill is, I'm unable to control High Sec for long, meaning triggering it and still keep exploring. It must be doable though, GJ is on high sec 60% of the entire run.

I'm basically concerned that I might be missing something obvious or smaller, not talking to somebody, not picking up an item (like the sigix corpse, which I almost left behind, but someone somewhere mentioned something about bringing it to the surface - I think a terminal by its side, not sure anymore). I would like to figure this out all by myself, the main reason I'm asking is that I honestly don't know where to start first, even though the list of potential leads is actually quite long. I was hoping I would get some endings accidentally, because I visit a lot of places in almost every run, but usually get side tracked or bail because of High Sec threat, knowing I can't handle it for long, especially without an exit yet.

I have an idea though, a way to squeeze some information out of you without having to spoil anything. I'll list what I know of and think is related to different endings and all I would like as an answer is yes or no. This way I can try to make a beeline for these places, which will cut down the time required for that run and hopefully bring me closer of figuring stuff out myself. I will still do that btw even if nobody answers those, but I'd appreciate it if you did :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- Does installing RIF prevent you from getting any of the different endings?
- The locked off Caves at Zion, never entered them yet
- Section 7, I've been there by accident, but never explored the place really
- Zhirov at Archives Event, which I mentioned in prior post
- Hidden Lab beyond Armory, I think Data Miner tells you about it
- Warlord, which according to Kyz does not lead to a different ending, very surprising. I've expected something like teaming up with him and taking over 0b10 or similar
- "God Mode", some big robot, maybe you have to use the code that Data Miner gives you to "use" it, I wouldn't know where to look for the thing though. I stumbled upon a thing called "Fortress" before, I think in Testing, wanted to kill it but already hit High Sec and well you know the story by now, I bailed haha
- Command and the heavily protected corridor (probably leading to MAIN.C), not the somewhat weaker protected one leading out - that was actually my first win.
- Command and the "seals" you can break for Assembled to flood the place, I also did that on my first win, but maybe there's more to it

@Kyz: One last thing to satisfy my OCD on the need to explain myself. I bought Cogmind because it looked interesting, it's a roguelike and I like difficulty. Never ever would I have expected the lore to be a significant part of it. Since I'm mostly interested in a game's mechanics, I expect lore to be more of a filler, which it often is. Not for this game though, which I think is a great achievement. I'm sure many have told you before, but kudos for creating this piece of art.

@zxc: you don't happen to have a recorded stealth run of yours? Couldn't find anything on youTube/twitch, I'd be interested though

[Kyzrati]

even though the game is running idle quite a bit

Note that although Steam will include idling in your play time, Cogmind itself does not, so the cumulative hours on your scoresheet would be correct

It must be doable though, GJ is on high sec 60% of the entire run.

Heh, GJ is a hard metric to measure ourselves by! In general once you hit high sec you're going to want to leave ASAP, and most people will do this. It's best to avoid hitting it in the first place, which is not too hard even as a combat build.

kudos for creating this piece of art.

Thanks . It's probably unfortunate that most people don't expect there to be nearly as much lore stuff as there is, but then tend to really get into it once discovered, since there are probably people out there who would really enjoy the story but don't know this about it. In any case, Beta 8 will be adding a bit more story hook stuff to the early game, which will help some people find it more quickly... That and a potential change of the default difficulty.

Hopefully someone else here can get to your quick spoiler-tagged questions.

[Joshua]

I have an idea though, a way to squeeze some information out of you without having to spoil anything. I'll list what I know of and think is related to different endings and all I would like as an answer is yes or no. This way I can try to make a beeline for these places, which will cut down the time required for that run and hopefully bring me closer of figuring stuff out myself. I will still do that btw even if nobody answers those, but I'd appreciate it if you did :

I'll try for the Yes/No thing, though I'm not certain on the answers. To be clear this is whether a specific thing affects the ending you get or not, almost all the things have lore and some major lore.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- RIF: Yes, it prevents one (pretty sure)
- Caves: No
- Section 7: No*
- Zhirov at Archives: Not exactly (he can affect the win you get when he's not at Archives)
- Hidden Lab: No*
- Warlord: No
- God Mode: I don't think so
- Command: Yes
- Command seals: I think yes
* There is an ending you can get by visiting either of these places that you can also get another way.

[kiedra]

Thank you for replying, Joshua. Your answers are, again, surprising. I've looked at some scoresheets that achieved different endings, they went to the same places I have been before, so I must be missing something. Currently trying to get back into stealth, which makes it easier to explore more, maybe that's gonna unravel something.

[kiedra]

Quick question: quite some time ago I read somewhere that every seed allows for achieving any given ending (win type). Could someone please confirm this?

[Kyzrati]

Yup. Every seed is winnable, and every seed includes all possible endings, just up to you to see one through

[kiedra]

Thanks for the quick reply as always. I did not get to play all week up until now and yet, another quick question:
The same seed is supposed to generate the same, well, everything, right? Or are there exceptions allowed?

Reason I'm asking is - I've been playing the same seed I think for the third run now. So far absolutely everything has been identical, but I just transitioned from Research into Quarantine and besides the room layout, everything is different (Rooms have different stuff in it etc., patrols/enemies are different). I'm just wondering whether there is a base chance for this to happen or something with my game got messed up.

[Kyzrati]

Seeds should be the same everything, yes, although at some point around Beta 1 something happened to the system and apparently there are one or more special things you can do in a given run that might affect how the seed produces later floors, but I have no idea what it is...

It doesn't come into play very often, and in general seeds will repeat all the same content correctly, but occasionally you may find that the map content is different from what you'd expect, especially by the late game once you've done... something I dunno xD

Several times over the past 18 months I've asked for player help in isolating this before, but no one stepped up and it would be incredibly time-consuming for me to find it on my own, so I've had to give up on it for now

I take it you're playing the same seed again and have made it that far? Nice! In that case, it would be great if I could have your save, really any saves you have around that area, before and after if possible, but I guess at minimum a save in Quarantine. Then I could try to reconstruct a fresh game from that seed and compare it to what you got, and see where it might be diverging. Even with the data it could be hard to solve, but better than not having it at all!

[kiedra]

Aha a mystery bug! I'd be glad to help out for once instead of constantly asking questions hehe. Problem is, I kept playing and just self-destructed, because MAIN.C's core one-shotted my 200 int. broadsword, not sure what exactly happened there, but it was gone, I was left without a weapon and too many robots blocking my way out (on hovers unfortunately ). If there's still a way to get access to a save, tell me how and I'll see what I can do. I will also keep playing this seed, it's cheesy and somewhat boring, but speeds up the runs tremendously in search for different endings or lore hints I don't have yet. I'll also turn on the autosave function something, the one mentioned in the manual, which hopefully makes for more useful saves that potentially help you track down the issue. If there is anything else that I could do, just gimme instructions, I'd be happy to help out if I keep playing the same thing anyway.

[EDIT: autosave actually was turned on, unfortunately the latest I have already is on -1, they are backed up now though in case you still want them. For future testing I think I'll set the interval to 0, so it only saves when entering a map. I guess that's better for tracking down the problem, in case you have a better idea, lemme know.]

...there are one or more special things you can do in a given run...
...especially by the late game once you've done... something I dunno xD

What are we talking about here? Meeting special NPCs, triggering events, taking specific routes (like taking a branch or stay on main) or just minor things? I assume you're not trying to not spoil anything here, because I really would not mind. Just trying to get an idea what I should be looking out for. I could also record the runs, so I'd be able to check later whether something specific has been done or not.

I have a lot of map screenshots, the prove more or less that something really was different to before. If those help, you can have them, same for scoresheets. I've had 3 runs so far on this seed that went into late game, the first one I have almost no data on besides the scoresheet, I only remembered the Sigix Broadsword to be there and had to realize after (on random seeds), it's not a guaranteed spawn, hence the reason I chose this specific seed. On the second I explored as much as I could and took screenshots of every map, only thing different to before (just out of memory though), I had a lockdown something in Quarantine because of cooling systems breaking, like when you destroy the cryocooling ducts, but they were all intact and it happened right when I entered Quarantine. On the third, AFTER going from -3/Research to -3/Quarantine, the rooms started to have different stuff in them, but the overall layout seemed to be mostly the same. I'll add two screenshots making this more clear. The only thing different comparing those runs is the routes I took, even though really small differences.

I know I'm trying to be all systematically here for an issue that's, well, not that big of a deal haha. But if it helps you out, that's actually more rewarding to me than letting Zhirov kill MAIN.C and realizing, that does not get me a different ending

[Kyzrati]

in case you have a better idea, lemme know.

In addition to autosaves (which won't be old enough in this case since you kept playing), the game also saves a complete emergency recovery copy of your /user/ directory every day, in /bak/. So if you just happened to stop for the day in Quarantine (or very shortly thereafter) then the saves kept in yesterday's backup will still be the right ones. Otherwise too late then

What are we talking about here?

I really have no idea, which is why it hasn't been solved yet . There's some kind of trigger out there, gotta at least be something global, some former action/event on a previous floor.

Just screenshots won't help here since that can't point out what the trigger might've been, instead it'd need to be a save from a run where the results are different, preferably a file from shortly before entering the first floor in which the differences were noted (so it'd be one of the consecutive autosaves--what most people do is just package up all their /user/ directory or saves and share that with me so I can check which one's relevant). Even with a save I dunno if I'd be able to find it, but that'd be the closest piece of evidence I could get!

[kiedra]

I will try to retrace my steps and reproduce the issue, which should provide you with the neccessary saves at least. In addition I'll note down every event happening along the way. I'll keep you updated as soon as I have something.

Just one last question: So far the differences started to happen after the transition into Quarantine. Let's say you'd reproduce steps including the trigger to change/mess stuff up, would you expect the outcome to always be the same?

[Kyzrati]

If there's only one trigger which has no more than one dimension to it then yeah, that's logical, but it's hard to say for sure since there's no data. The only knowable aspect is that having one/any trigger is different from a zero-trigger straight shot to that same map.

[kiedra]

I have good news: First of all I was able to reproduce the issue with saves at the end of every floor, starting from -7 (I had issues setting the autosave to save at the beginning of floors, it just would not make any saves anymore, hence I made them "manually"). The result was the identical changed Quarantine floor (and probably the ones after, did not continue yet), meaning same layout, but different rooms.

Furthermore, I also think I found the culprit. There's this Derelict Researcher that you can meet in the caves, who gives you a manual code to hack a behemoth (here on -3/Proxy). I specifically made saves before encountering him, because after you mentioned "global events", that was the only one really where outcomes were different, so I suspected he's involved. I reloaded that save, did encounter him (impossible to go around due to cave layout), but outran the guy so he could not talk to me anymore. The result here was the "correct" Quarantine layout of which I have very detailed maps of, its absolutely identical, BUT this time, no quarantine lockdown right from the start. Here's a question, can this lockdown event even happen right from the beginning of the floor without actively doing something like destroying the cooling ducts? Maybe an indicator for unintended seed behaviour, just a thought.

Anyway, if you start looking into this guy's event, I'm sure you will find at least one of the triggers. Due to reaching the size limit of files here, I'll start giving you:
- Save before meeting the guy [-3/Proxy]
- Save at the end of Research following this, which includes meeting the guy in Proxy, fully exhausting all his dialogue until he disappears [-3/Research]
- Save in Quarantine with changed rooms [-3/Quarantine]
- Save at the End of Research, including JUST triggering the guy for his first line, followed by outrunning him and getting off the level [-3/Research]
- Save in Quarantine with the "correct" layout [-3/Quarantine]
Obviously you can have saves from earlier floors if you think they are relevant. One more thing I'm sure you aware of, but I'll mention it anyway. I do not know if the layout I have detailed maps of, meaning the first time using this seed, actually is the "correct" outcome. I always went through -3/Proxy, meaning I have always met the guy one way or the other, which could have changed the seed outcome on the very first run. Either way, I hope this helps.

[Kyzrati]

Huh, well that was fast

Very interesting info, I'll have to take a look at it all before commenting more. Thanks!

can this lockdown event even happen right from the beginning of the floor without actively doing something like destroying the cooling ducts?

No.

Edit: Yes . I forgot that I added that as a possibility, yeah, but it's only detected locally, so whether or not it happens in this case is simply because the map contents and/or RNG after you arrived were different. Should be unrelated here other than being yet another side effect of the issue.

[Kyzrati]

I checked your seed and the "correct" map is definitely the one you indicate is without having met dude, so that's a start.

That said, although I also checked your two main saves and see the difference (which is as I've seen before where the layout is the same but the contents differ), the issue doesn't seem related to that particular encounter, because I tried a direct -3/Quarantine generation both before and after that meeting (along with some variations) and there was no difference. It's more likely something that happened after that, between the meeting and arrival in Quarantine...

I wonder what else happened there?

(I wish there was an easy way to do a stepwise comparison of the generation after each of your pre-Quarantine Research saves, as that might hold more clues. I'll try to explore that a bit, in any case. Many thanks for the help so far, though! This is the closest we've ever been to possibly solving this, which would be great and it's also why I've dropped everything I was working on today to immediately address this while it's fresh )

[kiedra]

Speaking about fast hehe and don't mention it, like I said - I'm glad I can help for once. But in this case, I'm kinda frustrated I wasn't able to record the whole thing (fraps would not wanna recognize Cogmind as a game, could not get it to run quickly, so I just started).

I also have a small update: I kept playing a little on the supposedely "correct" seed generation in -3/Quarantine. While -2/Research and -2/Testing were the same (compared it to maps), -2/Section 7 was different, so was -1/Access. I'm getting the feeling that all of the maps I've seen past -3/Research are "wrong" or rather, not the way they are supposed to be generated.

As for -3/Research, there's nothing globally effecting things that happened, as far as I can tell anyway. For both scenarios, meeting the guy and running away, I did almost the same in Research tho. Lemme try to remember:

I started by assimilating a Director through its terminal, then hacked this terminal and the one nearby for schematics, which I built in a nearby fabricator, I did not get caught. Other than that I pretty much just rushed through the level, no fighting besides getting rid of a watcher if possible. One time Programmers got sent after me, that's the only difference between the two Research runs. Picked up a few items here and there - it's really just basic stuff. I remember that the first time my Director didn't make it with me to Quarantine, not sure about the second attempt. Oh and one time my Exp. Phase Shifter got scanned but damaged, did not wanna try my luck on the second attempt. I mean I really don't think these things change anything, but might as well mention whatever I remember of it.

I tried a direct -3/Quarantine generation both before and after that meeting (along with some variations) and there was no difference.

I'm guessing the variations are when you interupt him (e.g. by leaving, him getting killed) while he's still busy getting his dialogue done, since he has to be near you and time has to pass between each line. That would have been my bet if it really were related to this encounter, because this has happened before in my previous runs (we got ambushed by an ARC once and I bailed, leaving him behind)

By the way, I really did not wanna hold you up on potentially more pressing matters . It's quite early here now, past 4am, so I kinda gotta call it quits for today. But if you're saying it's related to the first Research level, I can try to use the save at the end of Proxy and just keep replaying it. If I just knew what to look out for, maybe I can get the recording going, which would definitely help here.

If you have any ideas how else I could help you, just gimme instructions and I'll get to it tomorrow.

[Kyzrati]

YES! FOUND IT!

Well, there went literally the entire day, but it was still worth it

And don't worry about it--while most bugs I leave to dedicated bug-fixing periods for greater efficiency, this one was particularly important to address immediately while it was still fresh in your mind, in case I ended up needing more info. (Not to mention this bug has been around for ages, and unlike the majority of bugs which die a swift death, I had no idea how to find this one without spending many days on it, and it's pretty annoying overall, sometimes even preventing me from quickly debugging other issues in the past because I couldn't always recreate player maps from their seed!)

Really what I've needed this whole time was what you provided, basically two saves immediately before the map in question where the seeds are clearly diverging, so I could compare them and see what was going on. With this in hand, it was basically a matter of time

[Edit: Deleted the original wall of text here to turn it into a blog post.]

If you're interested in the details, I've written a blog post on this issue and its solution here. Crazy that this slipped in there, and was so hard to find!

I'm so glad to have a player who's playing seeds repeatedly and both able to notice this sort of thing and willing to try it out a few more times and share the data

As a reward for your trouble and assistance in tracking down this incredibly challenging bug, I'm giving you two random item attributions come Beta 8!

[kiedra]

Well I just got home from work and I'm happy to be welcomed by these good news. That's tricky stuff, I can't get Tygan's line from XCom2 out of my head here, because it's so fitting: "I could not have predicted this outcome, but it is intriguing"

Just to sum it up for me and prevent a misunderstanding: A difference in the schematics you own BEFORE entering Quarantine, leads to the seed generating different rooms, correct? Because Terminals try to get you schematics you don't have and this influences further generation of room content? Any ideas why this only happens late game, meaning in this scenario from Quarantine on? Because I definitely had different schematics along the way comparing all of the runs. And why does a certain set of schematics, like the one in the second save, not produce unwanted generation? I mean these questions don't really matter, since the bug is going to be gone soonish, I'm just curious hehe.

Another fun fact: Since I suspected the derelict to be involved, I obviously tried to do the exact same thing going through research the second time. But I got greedy and did not wanna lose the Exp. Phase Shifter again, so I did not scan it, which in the end is the only difference in schematics I owned, but this was apparently necessary to produce two different saves - well, talk about luck, or greed rather haha.

It seems to make sense now though, thinking about the still ongoing run on the "correct" generation for Quarantine. I did not get new schematics in there, so -2/Research was the same. There, Warlord wrecks the machines, meaning no new schematics, followed by -2/Testing being the same. Here I DID get new ones though, probably why -2/Sector 7 was different. I'm not a 100% percent if I got new ones down there or once the seed generation diverges, it keeps doing that for the rest of the maps. But -1/Access was not identical, only partially. Like half of the rooms would be the same, the rest different. Sometimes the room would be identical, but a Sentry was missing etc.

Either way, I'm glad you found it finally and I assume you also know how to fix it. In any case, if you need more playtesting, lemme know

[Kyzrati]

Nah, no playtesting required, thanks. I mean as soon as the source is discovered, fixing it requires setting up a test case to be able to confirm that it was actually fixed, and this part is quite easy with debug tools compared to actual play. The main issue before was that I needed the initial state data, which did require actual play, and that's where you came in

Any ideas why this only happens late game, meaning in this scenario from Quarantine on? Because I definitely had different schematics along the way comparing all of the runs.

It's entirely dependent on what's generated for the floor to begin with, so if there are no clashes with what you already have, then nothing will change.

And it's simply more likely in the late game because that's where you're more likely to have more schematics and therefore collisions are more likely to occur; also only for a subset of players--those who both play repeat seeds and who use schematics as part of their play style.

[Kyzrati]

You can now read about this in even more detail on the blog ("Debugging Mapgen Seed Divergence"). I took the notes from earlier and added some images, more background info, extra details...

[kiedra]

I had 4 different schematics in that other save? That's surprising, coulda sworn it really just was the exp. phase shifter. But who cares anyway, the bug is now gone (well, for us players, will be hehe) - really cool stuff!

I have another small story regarding this elusive bug:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As a reminder, I'm still on the hunt for lore and especially all endings (two to go wohoo). So for the next run I really wanted the branches to have a specific layout and before I kept playing random seeds over and over, I just looked at some scoresheets to get what I was looking for - I admit this is kinda cheaty, but saves so much time. Checking the Alien Tech used, I was like - wow this gotta be a great seed and jumped in. So when I reached those interesting floors, it hit me like a truck. Aren't you forgetting something here? You idiot just hacked a dozen of terminals again for schematics, how can you be sure to get the correct mapgen!? Just to clarify, this was not mandatory for what I actually wanted to try, but good tech makes your life easier and again, I got greedy. "So what to do?" I wondered while I kept exploring, when I stumbled into the Core Reset room: "Ah yea, I totally forgot! Thanks game, this is EXACTLY what I need right now!"

[Joshua]

You can now read about this in even more detail on the blog ("Debugging Mapgen Seed Divergence"). I took the notes from earlier and added some images, more background info, extra details...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Would this also fix the problem I had a while ago being unable to find 5H-AD0 in ZDC using a seed where someone had found him? Or is that a completely random encounter not related to the map seed? Reading the blog post it sounds like it's related to interactive machine generation and I don't think there are any of those in ZDC (but I could be wrong!)

Or is it affected by divergence on other maps in the same floor, even if not the same map?