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[R-26 Lightspeed]

There's an option to automatically switch to threads when firing ranged weapons then switch back automatically to previously used propulsion when moving.
My suggestion is something similar for melee weaponry :
If you have any momentum and are attacking with a melee volley, automatically overload all possible propulsion units when attacking, then stop overloading the propulsion units that overloaded because of this immediately at the start of the player's next "turn".

-Melee damage gets a boost from momentum and also speed when you do have momentum, and overloading makes you go faster (in the vast majority of cases, at least), meaning you deal more damage.
-There's no drawback from attacking with overloaded propulsion units, since all negatives come from movement.
-It is quite tedious to overload all propulsion units one by one every time you want to attack, then stop overloading them to move, then overload them again.

[Kyzrati]

This doesn't actually help you, because overloading propulsion only increases your speed while moving not attacking, in other words, during the run through cells towards an enemy, for example, not while you're already adjacent to the enemy you want to attack. When you attack you just make an attack with whatever speed and momentum you already have at that point. An automatic toggle isn't really feasible, since it's not known when your intent is to attack. Also remember to use the CYCLE button (or hotkey) to quickly overload all your propulsion at once if and when you are going to approach a target. But don't expect that staying in an "overloaded" state means anything after you've already engaged and aren't actually moving anymore (this is also why your momentum drops as soon as you do anything over than move).

[R-26 Lightspeed]

This doesn't actually help you, because overloading propulsion only increases your speed while moving not attacking, in other words, during the run through cells towards an enemy, for example, not while you're already adjacent to the enemy you want to attack. When you attack you just make an attack with whatever speed and momentum you already have at that point.

If i have 1 momentum and 20 speed, and i overload flight units to reach a faster speed of 8, then my melee bonus goes higher, even without moving, as shown by both Cogmind's stats and my weapons'.

An automatic toggle isn't really feasible, since it's not known when your intent is to attack.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't the auto-threads feature already detect attack intent?

Also remember to use the CYCLE button (or hotkey) to quickly overload all your propulsion at once if and when you are going to approach a target.

Clicking the CYCLE button doesn't overload propulsion, only swaps it between active/inactive.
At least i don't think so? I'm certain i tried several times in my last run to toggle overloading like this, and it didn't do anything?
The reason i checked was because i thought it did overload, so either i missed it during that run, or it was accidentally removed.
Edit: I double-checked a recording, and clicking CYCLE turned my flight units from all active to all inactive. They briefly go yellow, but that's it.

But don't expect that staying in an "overloaded" state means anything after you've already engaged and aren't actually moving anymore (this is also why your momentum drops as soon as you do anything over than move).

Given what you're saying, it sort of feels like i'm going to cause a nerf to flight/hover melee, but Reaction Control Systems give 1 momentum even if you aren't moving. And those are the best way to dodge stuff while flying/hovering.
I don't know about other players, but they're usually my first option for additional evasion, meaning i'll usually have one while fighting on flight melee.

Cog-Minder also agrees with me about the benefits of overloading propulsion. The attached screenshot is for fighting one of the most powerful bots with melee weapons while stationary with a Reaction Control System, and the only difference between the two is speed.

[Kyzrati]

Okay, now I see what you mean. It would've been really helpful if you mentioned the Reaction Control System in your original post, since that changes everything and I wasn't thinking about that at all, was just looking at overloaded propulsion in isolation. (You mentioned momentum, but I considered that as a part of movement, but here we're talking specifically about in combination with another utility.)

Clicking the CYCLE button doesn't overload propulsion, only swaps it between active/inactive.
At least i don't think so? I'm certain i tried several times in my last run to toggle overloading like this, and it didn't do anything?
The reason i checked was because i thought it did overload, so either i missed it during that run, or it was accidentally removed.
Edit: I double-checked a recording, and clicking CYCLE turned my flight units from all active to all inactive. They briefly go yellow, but that's it.

Oh right, I'd forgotten that it doesn't behave like siege mode with treads, which does get cycled to (non-flight player here ). In the case of overloadable prop it instead cycles past that state automatically, probably a decision made because you're more likely to want to siege anything you can when you can, the entire reason to be toggling treads at all, whereas there are multiple different scenarios in which you want to toggle propulsion, and it's not always to overload.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't the auto-threads feature already detect attack intent?

Right, but I was making that statement under the working assumption that you get no benefit from toggling while adjacent to an enemy to make an immediate melee attack with suddenly overloaded prop, in which case there would be no way to know your intent is to an attack simply be moving into a cell with no enemy.

So back to the original point... considering this discovery, attacking while overloaded should also burn out your propulsion (perhaps even at a higher chance?), and under such circumstances, having a permanent option to enable that would not be desirable, since then it could damage your prop due to attacks, and you may not always want that in every encounter.

[R-26 Lightspeed]

Okay, now I see what you mean. It would've been really helpful if you mentioned the Reaction Control System in your original post, since that changes everything and I wasn't thinking about that at all, was just looking at overloaded propulsion in isolation. (You mentioned momentum, but I considered that as a part of movement, but here we're talking specifically about in combination with another utility.)

Sorry about that, i wanted to mention it but completely forgot to do so when writing the post.

So back to the original point... considering this discovery, attacking while overloaded should also burn out your propulsion (perhaps even at a higher chance?), and under such circumstances, having a permanent option to enable that would not be desirable, since then it could damage your prop due to attacks, and you may not always want that in every encounter.

Gah.

Given what you're saying, it sort of feels like i'm going to cause a nerf to flight/hover melee

That change sounds like it would make managing overloading even more annoying and tedious than it already is, (which is the opposite of why i created this topic,) since you'd then have to be more careful as to which propulsion you'd want to overload when attacking, and you might also still want to stop overloading to approach enemies that just moved away.
May i suggest changing it in a different, less annoying-to-use way?
For instance, requiring the player to have moved with x speed as their last action for that speed to apply with momentum to non-ramming attacks? That would remove the benefit from constantly switching propulsion from overloading to not overloading, at least when attacking a single enemy, because even if they move away, you'd want to keep propulsion overloaded when following to get the maximum bonus from momentum.
I know there's probably quite a few issues with that alternative, but it's just an example.

[Kyzrati]

May i suggest changing it in a different, less annoying-to-use way?
For instance, requiring the player to have moved with x speed as their last action for that speed to apply with momentum to non-ramming attacks? That would remove the benefit from constantly switching propulsion from overloading to not overloading, at least when attacking a single enemy, because even if they move away, you'd want to keep propulsion overloaded when following to get the maximum bonus from momentum.
I know there's probably quite a few issues with that alternative, but it's just an example.

Yeah I hadn't really given it much thought yet, was just the first approach off the top of my head, but overall the general intent is usually to avoid adding complexity to the rules, however that can be achieved while maintaining the desirable balance and removal of any tedium. I've actually never heard or seen anyone doing this overloading thing, not even all the veteran players who top the leaderboards and like to minmax, though I do wonder if anyone else actually does it.

But anyway, yeah I do think the idea of requiring movement on the previous turn to get the speed bonus makes sense. I mean to be honest originally at the beginning of this thread that's how I assumed it works

[R-26 Lightspeed]

I actually only thought of the overloading thing in my latest run (which currently places me in 7th and 1st place in the leaderboards, respectively. Am i a veteran player yet?) because i noticed that the melee modifier of 40% wasn't perfectly accurate.
It's either when trying to make sure the imperfection existed or when making the calculations that i noticed that overloading to reach a speed of 8 gave me the maximum bonus with only 1 momentum.

[Kyzrati]

Heh, not saying you're not a veteran, you clearly are, just wondering about all the others up there (almost everyone else in the top 50 hangs out on the Discord, so it's easy to ask if I do need the info... but anyway I'll come back to this when I get to it on my list)

[R-26 Lightspeed]

I was trying to make a joke, in the sense that i didn't think of myself as a veteran player. That run was my very first W++, and i have no idea how i would ever complete a ++ run without speedy propulsion.
It does occur to me that i don't actually know what the "floor" for a veteran player is.

[Kyzrati]

Interesting you mention saying you have no idea how you'd complete ++ without speedy prop, when the more common opinion among extended-area players right now is that fast prop is a harder way to achieve ++ compared to slow prop these days. (Of course not everyone agrees and some do it with fast prop just to prove the point, but the trend in opinions has been obvious.)

[R-26 Lightspeed]

That's a surprise to me! That run, my first W++, had just about the worst seed (FluxMiningMachine) i ever encountered in terms of prototype/AA stashes and other random run-changing stuff from branches. I also made several pretty big mistakes that affected the extended game portion of my run, and bad luck with the layout of the second-to-last area.
And i still won, with exactly 400 core integrity left and 3% core exposure. The only time my build started falling apart was right after getting the second +, and even if it had started to fall apart sooner i'd have managed to get said +.

Here's every part where i had bad luck from the seed FluxMiningMachine and the few parts where i had good luck (Spoilers for extended game and a lot of branches) :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mines : Bomb Drone Bay, was pretty useful.
Exiles : Deserted, the remaining Prototype was Army-in-a-Box, which was going to be largely useless for a flight run and not worth the six slots.

Lower Caves and their respective branches : No A8 code, Megawrench and some derelict allies (both pretty useless on flight), Core Expander (weapon, which even if it still ended up being useful, was the worst slot type to get).

Warlord : Experimental Cloaking Device, which was nice, but no hackware or Spectral Analyzer.
Zhirov : Dissipator, no propulsion (none useful, at least), no hackware.

Quarantine : The place where all the good luck went. Seriously, aside from Cryocooling Ducts not being there, every single possible AA was there.
Testing : Disintegrator and Shell Armor, no other special prototypes.

Section 7 : 2 Integrated Mediators, 2 Microwarp Drives, 2 LRC Insulators, 1 Integrated Reactor and 4 Integrity Redistributors. No S7 Guards or AAs. Used the Subatomic Replicator on the Integrated Reactor.
Command : Weapons were Graviton Cannons and Enh. Nova Cannons (really?), useful non-guaranteed stuff were Exp. EM Disruption Field, Exp. Phase Shifter that i couldn't support with the rest of my build, and Gamma Refractor.

A0 : Dissipator, Mediator (oh come on!). One stash of Ionic Axes that were very useful.

[Kyzrati]

Added for Beta 14:

* NEW: Melee attacks made with any momentum benefiting from speed bonus while using overloaded propulsion can cause burnout as moving normally