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[Draxis]

Would it be possible to make scavengers avoid gunfire if it's not aimed at them?  Right now they'll run right through a battle picking up all the parts left behind.  This means that a lot of times, especially in larger fights, there'll be no useful salvage left at all, and just shooting them isn't really an option since that takes away from the time spent shooting immediate threats.  They're a huge pain, and unless that's an intended behaviour to reduce item access or something I don't see a point to it.

[brevous]

Yeah they are annoying. I just lost my longest run yet due to salvagers taking energy sources before I could get to them two or three times in a row. I ended up with nothing on my bot but a Power Sword, killing several guys before dying a glorious death. Anyhow, I do feel they are a bit too powerful.

[biomatter]

Scavengers are definitely pretty annoying, haha. I've killed a few before but I'm not sure they actually drop the parts they've collected - more research is necessary. Similarly, do they drop off collected parts somewhere? I'd follow them but the little buggers move goddamn fast. Like, they-are-offscreen-in-one-volley kind of fast. Is there a movement animation option somewhere? It can get visually disorienting and I wouldn't mind sacrificing a little time to keep track of how things are moving.

[fonetikli]

I agree - super annoying, but they definitely add a dimension to the game that is worth preserving   They would be less bothersome if they dropped the items they had picked up, when destroyed.  The ideal nerf might be to limit their item carrying capacity to 1 (if it isn't already?) and then tune down the frequency of them appearing in the game world slightly.

[Kyzrati]

Is there a movement animation option somewhere? It can get visually disorienting and I wouldn't mind sacrificing a little time to keep track of how things are moving.

I plan to attempt to add something like this for a near future version, though it will be implemented somewhat differently than you may be used to due to interface limitations. I have to test it and see (I was going to add it before launch, but it got pushed much further down--now probably back up again because a couple players have mentioned it).

I agree - super annoying, but they definitely add a dimension to the game that is worth preserving   They would be less bothersome if they dropped the items they had picked up, when destroyed.  The ideal nerf might be to limit their item carrying capacity to 1 (if it isn't already?) and then tune down the frequency of them appearing in the game world slightly.

They play well into the mechanics of combat, I think, and there will be some more options to deal with them in the future.

They do drop everything they pick up, unless they've taken it to a Recycling Unit. And they are limited in their carrying capacity by their storage unit's capacity. I could reduce it, but then when you take it it's not as useful to you...

I did already tone down their numbers and scope of activity (it was worse before!), but we'll look at this as a candidate for balancing. I want to add the other features first. You will be able to hack terminals to affect how recyclers operate

They're a huge pain, and unless that's an intended behaviour to reduce item access or something I don't see a point to it.

It is somewhat intended, yes. They're a "problem" you have to deal with, and I'll be adding more ways to do that. For now there are a few, one of which being taking a quick one-weapon pot shot at them if there's something lying around that you really want. Otherwise, if you can gauge how long a fight will take, the other possibility is to just track down and kill them. I like the dynamic, but we'll work on it!

There are additional strategies for dealing with Recyclers, and we'll be adding more and tweaking as necessary.

[Warmist]

What if some of them brought items to "staging" areas. I.e. a special room that is a backlog of items for recycler. And slowly feed them from there to recycler. That way it would also encourage finding those rooms because later in fight it would be like a treasure room of used parts.

[E.I.G.]

At least on the first few levels shooting them does not feel worth it. Even if you hit you are not guaranteed to kill them, and they can grab and run faster than you can chase them off.

So you can be left with nothing if there are any present during a fight.
... this has been the end of my last few games today.

[Arseface]

At least on the first few levels shooting them does not feel worth it. Even if you hit you are not guaranteed to kill them, and they can grab and run faster than you can chase them off.

So you can be left with nothing if there are any present during a fight.
... this has been the end of my last few games today.

Shoot at them before they pick up and they'll run away.

[Kyzrati]

As Arseface says, just shoot at them once as soon as you see them and they'll flee (and as jimmijamjams has suggested elsewhere, you only have to fire at them with one weapon to be effective, rather than wasting an entire volley's worth of time and resources!).

They get annoying when you're in a very tight down-to-the-wire situation, and that's intended behavior, but under normal circumstances I think they're pretty easy to deal with.

What if some of them brought items to "staging" areas. I.e. a special room that is a backlog of items for recycler. And slowly feed them from there to recycler. That way it would also encourage finding those rooms because later in fight it would be like a treasure room of used parts.

That's an interesting idea. You can find rooms like that already, but they're not super common. Right now Recyclers bring parts to Recycling Units and break them down into matter, which you can then take.

As mentioned there will be other ways to manipulate Recyclers that you guys are going to love. I didn't think of adding those features until shortly before release so they're still on hold, though. Just have to wait for it...

[nsg21]

Don't all robots have unique id? If it showed up on robot scan and was in the log when recycler picks up your stuff, you at least would be able to pursue a specific recylcer with the stuff you want.
Another use, ids on hauler manifests would allow you to pick and choose your transporters in a non-random way.

I just checked for this id thing, and it is not there anywhere. ID on a robot just says FRIEDNLY or HOSTILE. I cold have sworn that I saw some random alphanumerics somewhere there.

[Warmist]

Don't all robots have unique id? If it showed up on robot scan and was in the log when recycler picks up your stuff, you at least would be able to pursue a specific recylcer with the stuff you want.
Another use, ids on hauler manifests would allow you to pick and choose your transporters in a non-random way.

I just checked for this id thing, and it is not there anywhere. ID on a robot just says FRIEDNLY or HOSTILE. I cold have sworn that I saw some random alphanumerics somewhere there.

Yeah that was also a problem for me. One of them picked it up and there was at least 3... each running into different direction (and few tiles each time i moved) so maybe tagging or selecting target would be nice (also for "f" fire too?)

[Kyzrati]

Don't all robots have unique id? If it showed up on robot scan and was in the log when recycler picks up your stuff, you at least would be able to pursue a specific recylcer with the stuff you want.
Another use, ids on hauler manifests would allow you to pick and choose your transporters in a non-random way.

I just checked for this id thing, and it is not there anywhere. ID on a robot just says FRIEDNLY or HOSTILE. I cold have sworn that I saw some random alphanumerics somewhere there.

You've seen them when you activate sensors--any robots in view are labeled with an alphanumeric string, but it's randomly generated just for visual effect and has no meaning . (More specifically, the color of the string has meaning, but not the glyphs themselves.)

When you hack hauler manifests they do also show an associated random string (which is generated in the same manner, I believe), and it would be neat to combine that with sensor activation string reveal and make the latter static, though that would affect the visual design...

I can see that going in the robot info, a kind of unique identifier, though that page is really full right now. Putting the associated ID in the log could work, but it might make the gameplay more tedious since then you may feel obligated to check them all when you want something.

@Warmist: There are already player-chosen rulesets for auto-targeting, so I'd rather follow those rules to keep them consistent rather than insert some factor that not everyone would want. (The game itself can't always guess what you're after in that case, anyway.)

[nsg21]

You've seen them when you activate sensors--any robots in view are labeled with an alphanumeric string

Yeah, that might be it. BTW, I would never guess I like animations in a turn based ascii game so much. I sometimes flip sensors/scanners on and off just to see the effects. And I almost always watch the initial screen to play through instead of skipping it.

I can see that going in the robot info, a kind of unique identifier, though that page is really full right now. Putting the associated ID in the log could work, but it might make the gameplay more tedious since then you may feel obligated to check them all when you want something.

If you decide to put the ID, then would the line with ID: HOSTILE be the natural choice? There is still room in that line.
ID: HOI81JL6 (HOSTILE)

I am not sure I understand your comment about feeling obligated. If anything, knowing exactly who you are after makes you feel less obligated to attack all haulers indiscriminately.
If you decide to go with this system, there will definitely be a need to put a terminal output/commands to a log window, so player can scroll it back and refresh his memory after he encounters haulers. This way an opportunistic tactics would be to get hauler manifests routinely, and if any of them has some shiny stuff, then check haulers you meet for ID and if matches, hunt him down.

Maybe you do not even need special terminal window. Just open log file to full size when connecting to the machine and direct all output there. Restore it to its original size when disconnect from terminal/machine. This way all the UI for scrolling etc. need not to be relearned.

[Kyzrati]

I sometimes flip sensors/scanners on and off just to see the effects. And I almost always watch the initial screen to play through instead of skipping it.

That's why they're there . I'd continue adding even more of that stuff if I had time, but for a while it will only be the essentials. We do at least need a longer ending sequence, and multiple animated endings, which I plan to spend a couple weeks on after all the branches are finished.

I can see that going in the robot info, a kind of unique identifier, though that page is really full right now. Putting the associated ID in the log could work, but it might make the gameplay more tedious since then you may feel obligated to check them all when you want something.

If you decide to put the ID, then would the line with ID: HOSTILE be the natural choice? There is still room in that line.
ID: HOI81JL6 (HOSTILE)

That's an interesting, way to present it, though in that particular configuration it won't look quite as good as it does now given the style (it would draw too much attention to that one line and unbalance the info UI aesthetics). I can figure out something suitable via my REXPaint mockups.

"Obligated" may have been the wrong word. I meant it would become somewhat tedious to start checking the IDs of multiple Recyclers in the vicinity to find the one you want, even more so if different Recyclers are picking up different parts and you then have to weigh your decision and the situation keeps evolving, causing you have to check again as their paths crisscross etc. I'd prefer the player just guess to keep things simple. Especially since there are alternative ways to deal with them, and will be even more in the future.

With Haulers I also somewhat like the idea of not knowing precisely which one holds good parts--only whether or not any of them happen to have parts you might want. Knowing exactly which one has what you want might be a little to much information.

[Sylverone]

It sort of makes sense for the player to have to guess, and avoiding tedium and time waste in ideal play is a very good thing (I'd go as far as to call it good ethics in design). In terms of real-world reasoning, I suppose one could almost get away with the idea that "all haulers look alike" (Is that machine-ist?) except that one would think The Cogmind could remember any wear-related details of the robot at least. But that's fine in terms of gameplay. However, tracking an enemy while it is within your sight is another thing: Should the user have help tracking bots within FOV?

In my view maybe being able to tag one target within view with a red glow (or whatever effect does not conflict with other in-game indicators and effects) for as long as it remains in FOV would be good enough.