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Author Topic: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]  (Read 3816 times)

zxc

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Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« on: May 12, 2016, 07:20:36 AM »
This week's seed: Hauler Hunter

Ripe for the taking

The Weekly Seed is open to anyone, and we encourage you to to share your experiences, stories, and tactics over the course of your run.

The rules are as follows:
  • The Weekly Seed begins from the date this thread is posted and lasts about seven days.
  • Make sure you are running the correct version of Cogmind (see thread subject).
  • Enter the seed and abort your current game to initiate the seed (more details are below).
  • Verify you are not running the tutorial and that the screenshots below match your game.
  • Play through the game once. This is a friendly event and we are all honest people.
  • When finished, post your scoresheet here (it should be the newest file in /scores) and any other screenshots/stories/strategies you wish to share with the community.
  • If you want to share details about the seed or your approach, make sure you use spoiler tags.
  • Due to the spoilerific nature of this thread, be sure to avoid reading details about the seed if you haven't completed your run.

Good luck and have fun!





HOW TO ENTER A SEED

Press F1 to go to the MENU, select OPTIONS, select Seed, and enter this week's seed:




Select GAME, select ABORT:




If you have followed the steps [Manual seed applied: Hauler Hunter] should display in the log window.

Congratulations on entering the seed, now get in there!
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rumpel

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2016, 10:52:08 AM »
This was my best attempt! :)

This was this really huge fight I didn't think I'd manage to win, but I did and got a lot of stuff out of it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shortly after there was another fight - smaller, but tougher and I can't recall what happened exactly but I ended up with critical overheat which destroyed a lot of my parts. I was trying to flee to cool down, but while doing so even more parts stopped working, so I ended up almost naked and found my last gun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This was my last stand... :<

Here's the score:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Kyzrati

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2016, 04:24:58 AM »
Nice job, rumpel. This felt like a really tough seed, and you certain outlived me! :P

I only got 1,041 :/
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Worst performance in a while (died in the early game o_O), but I'm pretty sure it's because I played this seed a lot less cautiously than I normally would... way overconfident there. (You can sorta tell I was playing on the edge with a 2-weapon evolution right off the bat.)

The seed has a pretty tough start with having to pass close to a garrison and also mostly concentrated thoroughfares without a lot of side paths in the first couple maps.

My standard philosophy has always been that the most important goal in the early game is to simply escape, and with that strategy I'd never die early. You can worry about gearing up (and earning points) later, while it's very easy to get caught up in combat and die from the deadly combination of low coverage and low integrity at the start. Going everywhere guns blazing in Materials is playing with fire :P

@rumpel: That's an interesting first shot you've got there--you're quite slowed by all the armor and weapons. A flying combat build? Not easy to do! You're so overweight that you don't really get much benefit from the flight capabilities except hopping robots. I think hover can work as a fast combat build, but flight is better for stealth or fleeing.
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Josh Ge, Developer - Dev Blog | @GridSageGames | Patreon

rumpel

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2016, 11:50:45 PM »
I don't have a lot of knowledge of the different movement types/overweight yet. I guess I have to look into it a bit sooner than I thought. But the sole reason I had all those flying parts is that there wasn't anything else at all - I startet out with legs, but I never found any new legs... only the flying parts. :D
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Kyzrati

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2016, 12:45:09 AM »
Hehe, yeah that happens--sometimes you run with whatever you can find, though before long you'll be experienced enough to also seek out victims for certain parts. Like if you want to run with legs, grunts and hunters can supply you with plenty (and always carry spares). Once you figure out the strategies, it's not too difficult to go through the whole game with any single form of propulsion.
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Josh Ge, Developer - Dev Blog | @GridSageGames | Patreon

Sylverone

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2016, 07:52:55 PM »
Here's my run: I died running away from the garrison in rumpel's first image.

Pictures in an Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/C0JCd

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Kyzrati

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2016, 10:49:44 PM »
Garrisons are freaking scary, especially the ones you don't notice until it's getting too late. And to think, the game didn't even have them until several alphas in (although back then there were more enemies in general, too).

Those images--haha, you got three Sentries on you? Definitely more common in Storage due to its high security density.
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Josh Ge, Developer - Dev Blog | @GridSageGames | Patreon

Decker

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2016, 07:54:10 PM »
My goal this time around was to explore the new content. I did not manage to find the lower caves, but I did find the upper caves. Interestingly, it's not Zhirov who gives you the best artifact.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I died in Access due to core attrition. I had a terrain scanner and sensors, but the exit eluded me. I found the locked branch and crashed the front door (the hunter guards are actually tougher than the behemoths) in the hope that one the 3 level 1 terminals would pip out the exit. Nope.

I had one telsa launcher that saved my skin for a long time. Funnily, it had one bar left of health but it just wouldn't get destroyed. It survived about 10x the amount of abuse that a normal item would take.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Kyzrati

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2016, 09:15:27 PM »
Decker and his consistently ridiculously high scores :P

Hunters really are tougher than Behemoths. I think once again Behemoths need a buff to make them scarier. They aren't too common anyway, are always stationary guards, are too big to follow through narrow doors and corridors... and they're freaking four times as large as a regular bot. They need to be deadlier. What thinks everyone?

(Note there are scarier robots you haven't met yet, but still, as far as the main line robots go, Behemoths should probably feel more at the top than they do?)
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Sherlockkat

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2016, 12:47:34 AM »
Re Behemoths : Make them resistant to kinetics and and watch us cry :). Honestly, I like them the way they are. They probably feel weak as they usually occur in isolation. Isolated behemoths won't be much of a challenge even if you buff them. They do work well with other robots and provide good cannon support. Especially hunters. The command guards will shred any ill-prepared cogmind to bits. So will the extension junction squad. I really do think they work well when they are fighting with teams of robots. If you want to buff them, how about equipping them with a combat drone bay? Or is that a derelict item? Or you can litter the area around behemoths with ambush traps. I also don't think it is fair to compare anything to hunters. They are the alpha and the omega when it comes to end cogmind runs.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2016, 12:58:25 AM by Sherlockkat »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2016, 01:07:51 AM »
True that they might feel weaker because they're often alone. And then there's the issue zxc's brought up that getting caught in a stasis trap with a Behemoth staring down your zippy stealth build is no laughing matter.

My first thought was to just boost their core integrity, since they're so easy to hit that even though they have the toughest core, it still falls apart pretty quickly, which makes them seem a lot less threatening. Or we could lower their core exposure (which I already did a bit once before), which might be an overall better approach that has the same effect. (Doing that would also make Armor Integrity Analyzers even more valuable against them.)

Note: The combat drone bay is a prototype only available through special means (schematic), not a regular part.
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Decker

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2016, 07:12:27 AM »
Behemoths could use a buff, especially the ones in Access. I think one of the best buff you could give them is to make the targetting LOS symmetrical. Currently, it's too easy to shoot at a behemoth that can't shoot back at you.

Conversely, it's frustrating when a robot shoots at you and you can't shoot back. From the player's perspective, it looks like a UI quirk. There's no way to tell in advance whether you'll be able to shoot at a robot that's coming around the corner.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Weekly Seed #40 [Alpha 8] [Seed: Hauler Hunter]
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2016, 07:26:36 AM »
Quote from: Decker on May 24, 2016, 07:12:27 AM
Conversely, it's frustrating when a robot shoots at you and you can't shoot back. From the player's perspective, it looks like a UI quirk. There's no way to tell in advance whether you'll be able to shoot at a robot that's coming around the corner.
Yeah, part of the reason would be that not all robots occupy the same amount of space within their cell. It's also due to the way valid line-of-fire origins and targets are positioned. The world is more detailed than what you're shown, so it's not possible to perfectly reconcile what the player sees and what's actually there, since the grid is coarser than reality.

Quote from: Decker on May 24, 2016, 07:12:27 AM
Behemoths could use a buff, especially the ones in Access. I think one of the best buff you could give them is to make the targetting LOS symmetrical. Currently, it's too easy to shoot at a behemoth that can't shoot back at you.
I might be able to deal with this, though. I'll have to explore it more, but my guess is they're defaulting to firing from the closest part of themselves to you, which might be blocked while another part of themselves is not. In the end, though, given the right terrain it will probably still be possible to get shots in without much worry, part of the problem with a giant robot in confined spaces :/
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