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[Sere]

Heyo, I've owned Cogmind for a while now and finally decided to get off my arse and register an acct here to give feedback and ask for advice.

Spoilers, obviously.

I'm about ~80% lore, 170 hours in, and have gotten... four? different endings. Escape, Nuke, Meet the Fleet, and Murder Main.C. My next big lore/exploration push is probably finding out more about the Conspirators. I've unencrypted the Lab, but still have no idea how to get to the extra hidden map at -1. I've walked around behind Main.C's room with a terrain scanner but no cigar, so if someone could be so kind as to give a gentle hint where I should focus my efforts.

I've also been accumulating a large .txt file full of questions that I prune as I discover more about the game, that I'll dump here as it brushes up on a lot of different topics in no order:

How to safely dig? Melee? Mining laser? Into Zion?

Does cloaking for enemies ALSO let them get closer before detection? Optical arrays affected? I've had theifbots appear at midrage when I had a 30 range sensor, not sure if I'm just inattentive.

Those disruptiors are evil. Are fliers expected to keep treads in backup for them?

Extension:
How to decode the archives? Possible at all? Where should I be exploring beforehand?

Do friendly bots with NEW chat have a different '?' than repeated chats?

How do security levels affect hack difficulties? Actually, what the heck is the generic hack formula?

You should probably mention that the latent energy streamer gives corruption. maybe. /s

Stealbots will show when taking the only 2 items from an ABANDONED exile map. Rude.

Really would be nice to be able to swap 2-slot parts. Surely there's some 'I can try my best' way of it being done?
Likewise I need a way to swap arbitrary parts with stuff on the ground.

I utterly loathe this new robot hacking. Seems needlessly obtuse, especially as I keep having to alt-tab to find out what all these hacks do.

Watching/hearing 3rd party fights can take FOREVER. needs an option to speed up/remove animations.
Speaking thereof, I hate that sometimes I choose my weapons based on how fast they fire.

Rev17 died on -3. Do I care?

A7 didn't give me the main.c code. Maybe because I was RIF'd?

What determines the exits of Garrisons? Sometimes it goes back to the same level, sometimes to the next?

I'd really love some way of browsing items ingame instead of searching the wiki.

Haulers and distress signals - I can see that they pierce transmission jammers, but they also seem to ignore a datajack's hack of "no distress". Sometimes they won't call for help at all. I really have can't make heads or tails of the system.

Sorry if that's terse, it's just stuff I scribble down as I play. It's really cool to see the store page absolutely killing it (Overwhelmingly Positive!) and I hope Kyzrati's making mad bank.

Cheers!

[Joshua]

Heyo, I've owned Cogmind for a while now and finally decided to get off my arse and register an acct here to give feedback and ask for advice.

Spoilers, obviously.

I'm about ~80% lore, 170 hours in, and have gotten... four? different endings. Escape, Nuke, Meet the Fleet, and Murder Main.C. My next big lore/exploration push is probably finding out more about the Conspirators. I've unencrypted the Lab, but still have no idea how to get to the extra hidden map at -1. I've walked around behind Main.C's room with a terrain scanner but no cigar, so if someone could be so kind as to give a gentle hint where I should focus my efforts.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hint: How did you get to Lab?

Are you looking for hints on all these questions? I will just address a few that might save frustration.

Extension:
How to decode the archives? Possible at all? Where should I be exploring beforehand?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's determined per seed whether they're decoded. You can't change it within a run.

A7 didn't give me the main.c code. Maybe because I was RIF'd?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's a couple steps involved in getting the code. I believe you can still get it with RIF.

I'd really love some way of browsing items ingame instead of searching the wiki.

You know about the gallery, of course? It's in the menu and you can also export data to txt, html, csv for easier searching.

Haulers and distress signals - I can see that they pierce transmission jammers, but they also seem to ignore a datajack's hack of "no distress". Sometimes they won't call for help at all. I really have can't make heads or tails of the system.

You can see descriptions of RIF hacks by right-clicking on them or pressing shift-letter for the menu entry. no_distress is about local distress calls to other combat robots within range, not the remote call for reinforcements. They are also more likely to call for help when escorted and when you are higher up in the complex (carrying more valuable cargo).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is a non-RIF way to block their calls for reinforcements.

[Valguris]

I will answer what Joshua did not.

How to safely dig? Melee? Mining laser? Into Zion?

We do not know the exact rules, but we know some things:
Earth has a chance to collapse randomly each round and every time you move or fire ranged weapons from within unstable ground.
Catching unstable ground in AOE blasts will make it more likely to collapse faster.
Digging with melee does NOT trigger per round chance of collapse on the dug out tile. Also, melee attacks do not destabilize the tile you're standing on (as opposed to ranged attacks).
First 3 moves on unstable terrain are safe from causing collapse due to movement. Stepping temporarily into safe terrain resets the count.

Does cloaking for enemies ALSO let them get closer before detection? Optical arrays affected? I've had theifbots appear at midrage when I had a 30 range sensor, not sure if I'm just inattentive.

Cloaking does not affect your visuals. Master Thieves SPAWN at the edge of your vision, hence your sensors can't pick them up in advance. They also disappear into thin air the moment they leave your vision with your item stolen.

Those disruptiors are evil. Are fliers expected to keep treads in backup for them?

This is pretty much a challenge more. Some fliers can outrun Trackers. Others should leave the level before Trackers spawn. Maybe some flight builds are able to fight them? I generally don't enable Trackers in the first place if I don't have the combat capabilities to fight them off (I never enabled them on flight).

Do friendly bots with NEW chat have a different '?' than repeated chats?

Green '?' means a new lore piece or a run-relevant intel. Some '?' are darker, because the unarmed robots are darker.

How do security levels affect hack difficulties? Actually, what the heck is the generic hack formula?

Direct hacks at SL2 (security level 2) have half the base chance of the same hack on SL1 (rounded down). SL3 has half the chance of SL2. Then, the manual hacks have 15% further penalty to success chance per SL. For example, Access(branch) has 30% chance as a direct hack on SL1, 15% on SL2 and 7% on SL3. Manual Access(branch) will have (30-15)% chance on SL1, (15-30)% on SL2 and (7-45)% on SL3. Unathorized hacks (trojans and force hacks) do not suffer penalty from manual hacking (they are like direct hacks).

You should probably mention that the latent energy streamer gives corruption. maybe. /s

Exiles items are not properly tested (or designed...) and may have a number of different, unknown side effects.
Side effects may or may not include system corruption, part breakdown, leaking fluids, explosions, being crushed, seeing ASCII and spontaneous disassembly. Before use, consult your engineer.

Stealbots will show when taking the only 2 items from an ABANDONED exile map. Rude.

Wait, abandoned Exiles map is supposed to have only 1 item?

Really would be nice to be able to swap 2-slot parts. Surely there's some 'I can try my best' way of it being done?
Likewise I need a way to swap arbitrary parts with stuff on the ground.

I agree, it would be nice.

I utterly loathe this new robot hacking. Seems needlessly obtuse, especially as I keep having to alt-tab to find out what all these hacks do.

But you can right-click (or use some keyboard shortcut, which I don't know, since I'm a filthy mouse user) each hack to know what it does.

Watching/hearing 3rd party fights can take FOREVER. needs an option to speed up/remove animations.
Speaking thereof, I hate that sometimes I choose my weapons based on how fast they fire.

I agree to both. I especially dislike Core Cannon's animation for that reason.

Rev17 died on -3. Do I care?

Maybe.

A7 didn't give me the main.c code. Maybe because I was RIF'd?

Nothing to do with RIF, but with something else you did/didn't do.

What determines the exits of Garrisons? Sometimes it goes back to the same level, sometimes to the next?

It's random. Except that if you already got RIF on this floor, then the next Garrison on this floor will lead to the next depth. ALso, you can't be looped back if you entered a branch on this floor (but you can be spewed out to the next area of this branch line).

[Kyzrati]

Welcome, Sere

You've been at it for a while, nice to see your progress! It's not often we see someone with such an understanding suddenly pop in--usually people show up in the community before having already gotten as deep into is as you have now.

It's really cool to see the store page absolutely killing it (Overwhelmingly Positive!) and I hope Kyzrati's making mad bank.

Well, I wouldn't say mad bank, but indeed just bank enough to keep going! I did start a Patreon to help cushion the slower months, so that's been another level of reassurance in the meantime. Good to be able to keep working on it though, since there's still plenty of interesting and fun stuff I want to add

It does really help to have the top rating, but to be honest we are literally riding the very edge of that rating, so I wouldn't expect to keep it forever

We'll see how things go after that...

Thanks everyone for helping greet Sere

Master Thieves SPAWN at the edge of your vision, hence your sensors can't pick them up in advance. They also disappear into thin air the moment they leave your vision with your item stolen.

They actually don't spawn at the edge of your vision, but if you check their traits they have a very high Scan Cloak value, so it's unlikely you're going to have what it takes to be able to see them coming on sensors regardless--in that sense they may as well be spawning at the edge of the your vision

Likewise I need a way to swap arbitrary parts with stuff on the ground.

This has been planned for a while, just hasn't happened yet.

[Sere]

Cheers for that everyone, I guess I'll keep plugging away at it and see what pops up after Oracle. I tend to come and go on Cogmind as the runs are very *dense* and sometimes I just need a break before committing another 5 hours to a failed run.

Thanks again for all the info, and Kyzrati feel free to drop by the Something Awful Roguelike Thread and plug your game more