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It's happened to me a couple of times with narrow walls. I'm zooming up a wall and there's a narrow hallway on the other side of it. I make my final move to turn left around the wall (moving  diagonally) and another bot on the other side of the wall does the same, but turns right. It's really a tiny niche of experience and I'm not even suggesting that be fixed. I think that's kind of awesome - two robuts rushing around a corner and ramming into each other; I'm just not sure how that would interact with the double button press of the ram effect. Maybe it wouldn't do anything because the two bots aren't right next to each other at the beginning of the movement.

Edit: And again, I don't use mouse movement. Purely a numpad guy.

I was referring to just the high scores list. It's not even updated til post-death, of course. I wouldn't really expect any kind of live update feed on the scores - it would be cool to just be able to see all the previous cogminds in-game with maybe a loadout of them at peak.

Heh, it'd be kind of cool if it only triggered when Cogmind got system corruption. Like his brain was going and all his past multiple personalities were showing through. Easter egg?!

I would love to pick your brain concerning any compiled list of manual hack commands you've accumulated. Any info?

Does failing a hack horribly bring robuts down upon you? Sometimes it seems like when I get traced at enough terminals death soon follows.

~Balt~

So I often plug myself into terminals when I come across them (as long as those fuckin' Operators don't get there first, of course) and I can see some benefits from the small amount of times I've been successful at hacking into the system. However, I don't quite grasp the major benefits of fitting a specialty hacking rig.

Is there anyone out there who has done a run-through devoted to being the Acid Burn of robuts? Care to share your experiences? I'd love to hear some pointers on what you can do, what to look out for, or what to focus on gear-wise.

I often see options of which I don't understand the import. Anyone have a breakdown on what repercussions all of the commands create? I imagine I'd get the picture pretty quick if I saw some text in the game log stating "Alert level has risen" or something, but I never can really tell if I need to reduce the alert level before I've spent five attempts checking the alert level (and what does it change anyway?).

~Balt~

I don't mind the death animation so far, but I would love love love an in-game scoresheet (a la DCSS). That might not work out with how you're plugged directly into COGMIND as soon as you boot up the program. Maybe it could be just another menu item (maybe under 5] Game?).

I only ever made the mistake of mouse-moving once and then I haven't done it since. Click... CLANK CLANK CLANK. Um, no thanks!

I probably tend to just rush my movement a little too much. I've been playing mostly ascii since the first couple of runs and I still sometimes find it difficult to find the lone Informer among a pile of wheels (though I admit I'm rapidly being trained since three weapons were Disabled from a mistaken ram).

I like the idea of needing two button presses to ram when non-melee-equipped. That would skip the chore of having confirm dialogues (which don't really fit the feel of the game as a whole) and still make some allowances for those who rush. The only problem I see with is when moving around corners or through doors. Sometimes I move into a door or around a corner and ram someone accidentally. If two button presses are forced for ever ram without a melee weapon, then that might give someone not equipped with enhanced sensors a freebie clue as to the whereabouts of robuts that are hidden from view. From the layman's perspective it seems like anything is going to be a fix with some questionable trade-offs. Maybe it would ultimately better to just force players to become trained to slow down and use their eyes?

~Balt~

That is a pretty sweet setup! I tried some sensor arrays for awhile, but I didn't really see much use in them when I could fly so dang fast. I think for my next bruiser setup I'll focus on some so I can pick my fights a bit better, but every time I found a group of robuts with my flier I could either just turn around lose them around some corners or fly over them and disappear.

I think the next time I will go stealth + hacking specialty. I haven't done much hacking at all.

~Balt~

I had a weapon in my inventory it just never needed to be equipped, honestly. I never dropped below 100 matter and my mods (until that last part of -1) weren't ever really destroyed. Any time I'd find an upgrade I'd just replace my old parts and keep moving. Kind of hard to stock up on much of anything with only four inventory slots. I would have brought a storage unit along for the ride, but for the most part I was riding the line of becoming overburdened pretty closely. In the end, all I really bothered with was keeping a spare reactor or two and some spare flight units in case I needed a quick replacement.

Looks like the only advantage of Legs over Wheels is that you can overload them a little bit more without suffering as insane of a penalty. I typically go Treads if I'm not flying and Legs if I can't find treads. The choice of legs is purely aesthetic though as I just love the concept of a six-legged robut wandering around firing lasers at everything.

~Balt~

After reading biomatter's post I thought I'd give it a try too!

I made it to -1 but couldn't find a way out of there (I was terrible at hacking if that was the solution I was supposed to be looking for). Only weapon I ever equipped (I think) was a Lgt. Assault Rifle right at the beginning of the game - I only fired 5 shots the entire game, apparently. I think most of the robuts that died were from friendly fire as I was dodging behind them and maybe a couple that I ran into trying to flee before I managed to acquire my flight units.

Included are a couple pics. Me near the beginning of -1 sporting what was pretty much the mods I ran with for most of the run (as I could find them, anyway). And then there's a couple of me right near the end of my run... the difference is drastic ^^.

Top speed was 13 when I could spare the energy/heat to turn on my fourth flight unit. No one could keep up with me!

Interesting playstyle, biomatter. Thanks for the idea!

~Balt~

Yeah, I agree it is on me. It's never a problem (and the Confirm dialogue would end up being a pain when I'm simply moving about) unless there's a large amount of items on the ground. There's probably a keybinding already to highlight enemies. I can check for that and begin using it more often if it's available. Though it does seem kind of silly to bash into other robuts physically with no melee weapon attached.

Looks like there IS a button to highlight enemies, but it doesn't do anything for non-hostiles at all. Maybe add a button to label the non-hostiles as well just to simply aid in picking them out visually from among piles of detritus?

Oftentimes I find myself running about with a lot of loot on the ground and the colors are so bright and I'm focusing on fighting/dodging hostiles and whatnot and I manage to *clank* into a digger or a technician or some other non-hostile robut. I don't mind this so much when I've got a katana equipped, but it's really a bitch when I'm trying to go all ranged or something and I bump into this non-hostile because it's blending in with a pile of items and I get core corruption or some of my mods get damaged/destroyed in the thick of battle.

I was wondering if it was possible to make some setting that can be toggled on/off that would trigger a "Confirm Move? y/n" dialogue upon bumping into npcs - for those of us who just don't want to actually be bashing into them (especially without a melee weapon attached). I could see it as a hotkey so that you can quick-toggle it when you're trying to flee through a narrow hallway filled with greenies.

I understand that I could easily solve this problem by being just a little bit more aware and taking my time, so feel free to shoot this down if it sounds "meh." I guess another idea would just be to do a subtle recolor of some things to make some of the baddies stand out against piles of items?

Thanks for your time,
~Balt~

I'm quickly finding the benefits in a couple of rapid evolutions.

I've been going Utility + Weapons x2, but now that I've evolved a few more times I think I will definitely start hitting up Power and Propulsion a little earlier. Nice to be able to move quickly and reliably even if I tend to be the stand and fight type - not to mention that I'm finally getting the fact that more propulsion = lighter propulsion mods carrying all my heavy weaponry.

Hey all, been struggling so far getting out of the first 1-4 levels. I've tried a couple of different ways, but somehow I always seem to be forced into "find big gun // stand ground" mode.

Here's what I was wondering from you all:

Once you get out of the scrap heap and begin level one, do you a) Run up the stairs as soon as you can so as to evolve and get two more expansion slots on Cogmind, or do you b) Take your time and explore the first level to find those perfect modules to fit to Cogmind before moving on?

I've been trying to do a lot more exploring before moving on, but I'm not sure it's working out so well for me. Obviously, Cogmind's power increases quite rapidly with more expansion bays, and it seems like the longer I spend on any given level the likelier it is that reinforcements are called and I get mobbed horribly.

So how about it? Do you always aim for faster evolutions?

~Balt~