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[zill]

This is a thread where simple questions can be asked if you feel the question doesn't require a thread of its own.

I have some questions of my own:

What is the relationship between me and my allies?  I have gathered a group of non-controllable allies and they don't block my movement, they seem to be able to fire their weapons without hitting one another or me, yet my own volleys will hit them. 

Sometimes when I am not flying and I am in a 1-wide corridor, non-flying worker bots seem to travel past me.  Sometimes they will turn back the way they came, however.  What is happening here?

I hacked the location of the exit, but the stairs weren't shown on the edge of the screen like other hacks, such as machine locations or worker bot locations.  Is there a particular device I need equipped to enable this, or do exits not show up like that?

[zxc]

Stairs should always be shown on the edge of the screen if they are outside your view, if you press 4. There are no relevant devices.

Not sure on your other questions.

[Kyzrati]

I hacked the location of the exit, but the stairs weren't shown on the edge of the screen like other hacks, such as machine locations or worker bot locations.  Is there a particular device I need equipped to enable this, or do exits not show up like that?

They should appear for a short time at the edge of the screen, or wherever they are, after you're done hacking, but as zxc says after that you'll have to press '4' to get them back, yes. (Or hover over the Scan window if you're using the mouse.)

What is the relationship between me and my allies?  I have gathered a group of non-controllable allies and they don't block my movement, they seem to be able to fire their weapons without hitting one another or me, yet my own volleys will hit them.

No they'll "gladly" accidentally hit you or each other . You just got lucky or didn't see it yet. Non-controllable allied bots are full allies in every sense except that you cannot give them orders. They'll even follow you into new areas via stairs if close enough to your point of exit (the auto-highlighted area). Depending on the circumstances under which you meet them they may or may not follow you across a map, though--that's handled on a case-by-case basis.

Sometimes when I am not flying and I am in a 1-wide corridor, non-flying worker bots seem to travel past me.  Sometimes they will turn back the way they came, however.  What is happening here?

There's a chance they were wandering in one direction and reached their destination (which may very well be in the middle of a corridor), then decide on a new destination that was back the other way. Non-combat bots are just wandering around looking for stuff to do, so if there's no task that fits their role they may appear to be doing nothing meaningful. Because they aren't . The change in their direction doesn't have anything to do with you, unless you were shooting at them. (And non-combat bots are allowed to pass you to avoid creating annoying bottlenecks.)

[zill]

No they'll "gladly" accidentally hit you or each other . You just got lucky or didn't see it yet.

Are they as trigger happy as me, or will they prefer line-of-sight?  With so many rockets flying around, I assumed they were firing through each other.

(And non-combat bots are allowed to pass you to avoid creating annoying bottlenecks.)

Thanks for the explanation.

Another question:  when using manual input at a terminal, I can scroll through every command I have ever input.  Is there a way to delete these commands?  Some commands are not so useful, and I have also some typos. 

[Kyzrati]

Are they as trigger happy as me, or will they prefer line-of-sight?  With so many rockets flying around, I assumed they were firing through each other.

Haha, they'll only ever take a shot when they have LOS, but just like you and everyone else they may not have the greatest chance to hit depending on the circumstances! So stray shots are equally blind in this case. In fact, in my opinion taking stray shots (from all sides) into account is a pretty important part of strategy regarding tactical positioning when its time to line up to attack, or defend.

However, you'll notice that projectiles do sometimes appear to pass through robots--that's possible with smaller chassis since they don't occupy the entire space at their position. The projectile just managed to squeeze past them.

Another question:  when using manual input at a terminal, I can scroll through every command I have ever input.  Is there a way to delete these commands?  Some commands are not so useful, and I have also some typos. 

Hm, not currently, no. It wouldn't be impossible to add a special command for that. I've already used up a lot of the special keys for that mode, actually. Like you'd think the Delete key would be appropriate and intuitive, but both that and Ctrl-Delete already do something while typing, as do Escape/Enter/Backspace/Ctrl-Backspace/Arrows/Ctrl-Arrows/Home/End... You can see I'm a fan of hotkey-based text editing

[zxc]

Really minor request: manual commands to ignore capitalisation (if it doesn't already work like this).

[Kyzrati]

I wanted hacking input to originally be case insensitive, but it was inconvenient for certain reasons I can't recall at the moment (both regarding usability and implementation). I'll look at it again, because I can imagine this eventually being an annoyance for some players. Right now it is case sensitive.

I have some other cool usability tweaks I want to make to manual hacking this time around, too.

[Draco18s]

If the data file with the manual command list was exposed on the drive in an easily editable fashion that would be nice.

[Kyzrati]

Oh wow that's a neat idea. You guys don't want me to finish this game, do you?

I've noted it down, though I can see how implementing it would take a chunk of time what with having to extract it from its current meta data location, set up a new system for storing it, parsing the contents to make sure there's no garbage, and so on... All easy, but easy stuff still adds up! Will look at it again when I do some updates to the manual hacking system.

[Happy Hedonist]

This is probably a silly question, but is there an in game way to discover the manual hacking commands?  I'd like to discover them on my own instead of using a wiki or cheat sheet.

[Kyzrati]

If by "manual" you mean any old hacking command, you'll notice each is shown in the results window when you choose an existing direct hack from the list, so you can learn them that way.

But this doesn't extend to the Trojans and brute Force hacks, which will be learnable in the game world later on, but not just yet. (Should be coming up over the next few versions.)

[mindreader]

I have some questions about item stats.

What does "delay" mean on some guns.  Does that add to total length of time a volley takes?

On power sources, what does cooldown period mean?  I see shorter is better, but why?

Probably related, why do light engines produce more power than not light engines?  Why would I ever not use light engines unless I was absolutely loaded down with lasers?

What is burnout on flight units?

[Happylisk]

I have some questions about item stats.

What does "delay" mean on some guns.  Does that add to total length of time a volley takes?

On power sources, what does cooldown period mean?  I see shorter is better, but why?

Probably related, why do light engines produce more power than not light engines?  Why would I ever not use light engines unless I was absolutely loaded down with lasers?

What is burnout on flight units?

Delay: Some guns take longer to get a single shot off than others.  The weapons swarmers use have low delays, so they tend to get lots of shots off at you and will sometimes fire twice when you take one action.

Cool down: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but overheating can make engines temporarily shut down.  I believe cooldown indicates how long it takes to get it back online.

light engines:  I've never looked closely, but do light engines have the same integrity as heavier ones?  I can imagine a combat robot priotizing integrity over energy output. 

Burnout: Like cooled weapons, you can overcharge flight units for a burst of speed.  You can't do this forever though and they eventually burn out. 

[mindreader]

I thought volley time was related to how many guns you were firing, not what type of gun.  Are you saying that the actual firing of the weapon is delayed until later in your turn?

[Shobalk]

Probably related, why do light engines produce more power than not light engines?  Why would I ever not use light engines unless I was absolutely loaded down with lasers?

This isn't entirely accurate.  Have a look at the power source table on the wiki:

http://gridsagegames.com/wiki/Power_Source

Outside of Lgt Ion Engines, the other Lgt versions are inferior in both integrity and storage.  Having a reserve of 200 power vs 50 power is a big deal for combat builds.  Speed runners are usually more concerned about the extra weight.  Supply is equivalent when comparing identical classes of engines.

Ex)

Light Angular Momentum Engine vs. Angular Momentum Engine
Light Deuterium Engine vs. Deuterium Engine

[Happylisk]

I thought volley time was related to how many guns you were firing, not what type of gun.  Are you saying that the actual firing of the weapon is delayed until later in your turn?

I believe two factors influence your firing time - volley size, the delay for each gun in the volley.  I'm just saying firing two guns with a high delay will take longer than firing two guns with a lower delay. 

[Decker]

I believe two factors influence your firing time - volley size, the delay for each gun in the volley.  I'm just saying firing two guns with a high delay will take longer than firing two guns with a lower delay. 

Correct. You have the base volley time as 200, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, depending on the number of weapons in the volley. The delay modifier of each weapon is added up to the base volley time. The volley time cannot be brought under 100 (if equipping weapons with negative delay modifiers).

[Kyzrati]

@mindreader: Note that you can click on any item stat for a description of what it means

[mindreader]

> @mindreader: Note that you can click on any item stat for a description of what it means

I always used keyboard mode, but I did eventually stumble into the item stats.  However that did not clear up everything for me.

I'm not sure what "light" is supposed to mean when used with a reactor, but in my mind a light reactor would just weigh less, provide less, store less, and that is not the case on the most common and first reactor type you meet (ion)?  And then is inconsistently applied on later ones.  Like a micro nuclear produces more energy than a light nuclear.  Both angular momentum and deuterium produce same, but one weighs less and stores less.  Fusion stores more, but produces less than mini fusion.  It is just that every time I run into a reactor I'm never sure if it is better for my current role than what I already have.

As for the fire delay, the tooltip is something like, 'delay on firing weapon' but that didn't tell me what it actually did.  I don't think there was anything about that in the manual.  I suppose I could've checked the volley description on the right,  had I thought to do so before I posted.

[Kyzrati]

The name modifiers are only relative to others of the same type, in which case Light/Micro/Etc. mean less storage, less mass, and significantly inferior integrity, which are all guaranteed differences from the base part. (Basically, light versions minimize the built-in battery space to lighten the power source--batteries are heavy!--without changing the energy generation functionality. Actually, now that I think of it there's a piece of lore you can find which explains this and more )

But part-to-part comparisons are different: Rating is the most important at-a-glance value there (and prototypes are better than common parts). If you want to do a quick comparison between the most important attributes of a given set of parts, you don't usually need to open the stats window, just press 'q' (info mode) and compare the numbers in the parts list (on the right). For power sources, energy storage isn't so important unless you're running shields.

I don't remember all (any of... ) the values myself (way too many items!)--when playing I just use whatever power is rated highest and/or gives the most energy for its mass. Although since the introduction of Reinforced power sources, I do like to prefer those when running a super heavy combat build, since they are guaranteed to have massive integrity.

As for the fire delay, the tooltip is something like, 'delay on firing weapon' but that didn't tell me what it actually did.

Hm, the popup text I see is "This is a direct modifier to the time it takes to fire the weapon. Some weapons are inherently faster or slower to fire." And it's shown as a positive or negative number, so I thought it would be pretty understandable as is, but maybe not if you're coming at it from a position of not yet knowing about volley/firing times? You think the description should be somehow more explicit? I'd like to leave the long explanations to the manual.

I don't think there was anything about that in the manual.

It's described in the "Combat" section of the manual, under "Volley" (the first subsection), and also gets a mention in the previous section on "Time."

[mindreader]

I have a question about thermal generators.  It says generates energy from surplus heat at a ratio of 30:1 every turn.

a) Is it 30 energy for every 1 heat?  Or 30 heat for one energy?
b) does the heat go down as a result of the gain in energy?  Is it basically a heat sink with benefits?
c) or is it like, I have 300 heat, it will generate 15 energy that turn (per 100?).

I guess I'd like to know if it is something worth using and what type of build it is useful for.

[Kyzrati]

a) 1:20, yes. I keep the terms in respective order where ratios are concerned. So when you have 200 heat, you're producing an extra 10 energy per turn, which is like having an extra average power source.

b) While not entirely realistic from a thermodynamics perspective, no it does not actually "use up" any heat itself

c) All utilities with a time-based effect operate on a per-turn basis (so yes, 100 time), unless the description states otherwise.

Also, Thermal Converters and Generators are two separate things, the latter generating based on your total residual heat (the value shown in the HUD), while a converter acts on thermal-based damage as you're struck.

Neither is especially useful, in my opinion. There might be some unique build that could do something cool with it, but they're a bit overspecialized compared to many other parts. There are a number of parts like this in the game, things that other robots might use which aren't always equally valuable to you. However, once we get really close to 1.0, one of the things I want to do is go back and see about adjusting a few of said items to perhaps make them more useful to even you. (But there will always be parts that are simply inferior, things you might only attach because you don't have a lot of options at a given point.)

An example of a similarly situational would be the Field Recycling Units, but I've had one save me before, and another player was recently telling me about how they were using them effectively with a specific build...

[mindreader]

Sorry I updated my post to correct my descriptions without reloading the page, only to see you'd answered already.

Sounds to me like operating as a heat sink that removes x heat where x is your current heat divided by 30 would be an interesting modification.  Does barely anything at low heat, but at 500 heat it would be a 16 heat reduction.  The description would be: converts 1/30 of your current heat into energy per turn.

[Kyzrati]

Hm, that's interesting. Sounds like maybe that could be a different (better) part as well. I'll note it down for the future Mediocre Utilities Update!

[Decker]

Mediocre Utilities Update

My wish list.

Thermal converter/generator => needs massive boost in usefulness.

Power from matter (matter filter?) => impractical, boost or remove entirely...

Quarantine tested => make that work faster/instant. It needs to be practical to analyze the stockpile you just found. Otherwise it's better to take a chance and equip. Inventory space is precious no matter how many storage units you have.

Particle charger => the coverage is way too high, the item is typically gone after 3 fights.

Cloaking generator / manoeuvering thrusters => decent for a stealth build, but almost useless for a combat build due to the bad integrity/coverage ratio. Doesn't need fixing if it's intended only for use by stealth builds or to boost hunters.

Shield => needs more integrity to be worthwhile.

Armor => it'd be nice to have some with higher integrity and lower coverage.

Force field => that one has serious balance issues. I plan on writing an analysis on combat sometimes in the future. I'll address the shortcomings in details there. In a nutshell, there is usually no reason to equip 3 reactors unless you plan on using force fields, and force fields are rare enough that on average you lose in evolving a third power slot.

Melee analysis suite => melee is underpowered (intentionally, from what you've said). This thing doesn't quite close the gap. Useful in enemy hands, but not to the player.