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[lsend]

I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but it looks like diagonal movement takes the same time as orthogonal movement. It is inconsistent with what the circular shapes of all range visualizations show and suggest (weapon range, scanner range, etc).  If I have a sensor scanner with the range of 16 and I am moving with the 100% speed I will get to the range border in 16 turns (when moving up/down or left/right) or in 16/sqrt(2)=12 turns when moving diagonally.

[Kyzrati]

Yep, all intentional behavior.

[lsend]

Ok, so...
My movement range is in fact square-shaped. (which means diagonal movement is more cost-effective)
Weapon range is circular.
Vision is circular.
All sensors and scanners have circular range.
What about explosion range? Square?

[Kyzrati]

Everything uses circular ranges except movement. You can see the explosion effect when you're targeting with explosives (that's what the green color highlight represents--damage relative to the origin).

[lsend]

Thanks. I wasn't aware of color-coded damage highlight for explosions.

[Kyzrati]

I don't even see that feature mentioned in the manual or anywhere else (was just intended to be intuited ), so I'll add it to the AOE falloff stat context help.

(Ah, but it is apparently mentioned in the options menu, because you can toggle this feature off via the so-called "Explosion Predictions" option.)

[mindreader]

I never really thought about this.  Why intentional?  I could understand in other roguelikes where most characters move the same speed, but cogmind is already so variable in speed already it seems like it wouldn't be a big deal to make it consistent.

[Kyzrati]

You're quite right about the speeds being so variable that this wouldn't be so noticeable under normal circumstances, which is why at first thought even I would assume diagonal costs are x1.41--in fact, I did assume this until someone asked me a couple months ago and I was surprised when I looked into it (I had forgotten about this discrepancy as it was an early consideration years ago)

One of the main arguments for keeping movement square is that it allows for resource costs to be consistent regardless of direction. You move a lot in Cogmind, and are often switching directions to maneuver around obstacles or reposition for tactical purposes. On top of that some builds find themselves right on the edge of movement costs for a while, and might have sufficient resources to move cardinally but not diagonally... Being forced to move cardinally or wait until the next turn for a diagonal move is very fiddly and not very fun!

Longer diagonals would also mean that resource cost displays in the HUD are no longer always accurate, as they already show the cost of a "single move" (cardinal) compared to a stationary situation, and adding diagonals to that display would create an even larger and more confusing set of numbers. For planning purposes it's important to know how movement costs in terms of energy and heat are faring relative to per-turn generation and dissipation. Keeping the number of comparisons and numbers as low as possible is helpful.

[mindreader]

The only counter I can come up with is everything moving diagonally is essentially 40% faster.  That means that if you are a fast flyer, you can escape combat range 40% faster if you flee diagonally.  If there is a melee robot coming at you horizontally, you will have 40% more time to take pot shots at it.  If you flee diagonally from flyers, they will be able to shoot at you more often as they catch up.

Luckily the game is mostly a ranged game, so I don't think those are enough reasons to change it.

[Kyzrati]

Combat vs. movement interactions play an even tinier role here when you consider how slow firing is--it takes 2~4 times as long to fire as it does to move one space (depending on movement speed), so regardless of direction or who is approaching/fleeing who, the shooter is always at a disadvantage with respect to time.