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[Jazzer]

I'd love having the ability to use modal part swapping for multi-slot parts.

For me, handling the larger parts while my inventory is full is one of the more tedious processes I encounter when I'm playing, particularly during combat. Maybe I'm missing something, so please let me know if I'm doing things wrong.

How I imagine it could work:

If you start a swap from a larger part in your inventory, it would require selecting enough equipped parts to make room for it.

If you start a swap from a larger part that's already equipped, as long as the part being swapped in is equal or less to the number of slots of the part being swapped out, it simply swaps the two. There also would have to be a check for enough inventory space.

If you start a swap from a smaller part in your inventory, just allow it to replace the larger item if there's enough inventory space.

If you start a swap from a smaller part that's equipped and select a larger part from the menu, just treat it the same as starting a part swap on a larger item from the inventory.


There's obviously a lot of cases to consider and I don't have a solid idea for swapping multiple smaller parts in for a larger one which would be a really nice thing to have. But even if that case was ignored, having the functionality I laid out would cover the majority of cases.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah it's been discussed from early on in development and if it was ever going to happen it would've been years ago. Multislot part swapping will not be a thing. Not ideal in some situations, to be sure, but it does also have mechanical/gameplay side effects which are kinda baked into design now as well (like the ground being littered and not being able to properly use it for temporary space). Some of the veterans actually leave one or two extra empty inventory slots in order to circumvent such drawbacks, for certain strategies.

Multislot swapping actually gets far too complicated given many of the implications of swapping certain types of parts, so blocking multislot specifically is the perfect "clean break" from the massive number of special cases that would emerge and need to be dealt with (some of which would also end up not being possible to deal with, leading to UI inconsistency and headaches for players, too).

(Swapping parts is not just about inventory space, it also involves lots of mechanical implications when you get into special/unique part mechanics, of which there are already quite a few which are applicable, and many more coming. Having to deal with the nightmare of making it feasible to do multipart swaps, including, importantly, the ability to predict the results of many of these kinds of swaps, would be an absolute mess. Predicting results is important both for players and the game, in order to give all the proper warnings and require confirmations where necessary. Over 100 new parts coming soon, many of the unique variety--expect yet more confirmation types to come )

[Jazzer]

I was kind of wondering about the complexity especially since there are temp slots and all manner of other corner cases with many of the updates recently. I certainly would rather have fun an exciting new items and just deal with multislot parts as is for sure. I hadn't played in over 5 years and have to say I'm really impressed with all the improvements that have been made. I even have my 11 year old starting to play as of yesterday and he's really getting into it!

Thanks for the response and for making such an engaging game.

[Kyzrati]

Oh nice! And welcome back

Would be nice if I could get my son into it (about same age as yours!), but he doesn't really play video games much at all to begin with.

Yeah temp slots were of course a bit of a headache on their own (with some QoL/behavior improvements coming to those in Beta 14), much less the complexity that arises once you throw potentially more than one or two items into swapping. Heck, start thinking about the attachable items that require like 5+ slots

What roguelikes/games often do for this sort of thing is allow you to "carry" an effectively unlimited amount of stuff in your inventory, but then you're encumbered and at the extreme end (or even just past the first threshold), can't perform other actions until you've resolved the encumbrance situation by removing enough items. This seems sorta okay, but in a game like Cogmind adds its own sort of complexity, and no doubt could be gamed for various advantages as well, then you have to start introducing other drawbacks and it becomes a mess