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Messages - kiedra

Pages: [1] 2
1
Ideas / Re: Make DM's utilities always available [spoilers]
« on: December 03, 2018, 09:20:35 AM »
I can totally understand both points of view here, but making DM drop something reliably would really kinda throw off the overall "design". There is so little RNG in Cogmind already, RNG that you truly rely on. I've actually had two consecutive runs, in the first DM dropped all his hackware, in the second he got away. Obviously this made one hell of a difference to my hacking potential, then again it did not make the second attempt harder or impossible, just different.

However, I can perfectly understand the frustration if he doesn't drop anything. But this experience is heavily influenced on your personal expectation, along with knowing what you could get on a "perfect roll". I think GJ put this best in one of the recent Armchair Robotics Discussion - DM has minor guaranteed benefits (if you let him live) or a high risk-reward scenario (if you go for a kill), which can make for a great hacking run if you get lucky, but does not change much if not.

2
Bugs / Re: Going through Waste reshuffles branches
« on: November 18, 2018, 08:42:50 AM »
Ok this seems to be a bit weird then, after all it's not a big deal anyway. I'll keep monitoring this however. If this happens again, I'll make sure to provide you with some saves.

3
Bugs / Re: Going through Waste reshuffles branches
« on: November 17, 2018, 10:27:22 PM »
I just remembered that where E is on -4, that was my very first run on beta7.1 after the last on beta5. I have not deinstalled the game, nor ever launched it in between. Could this maybe have caused the issue?

I was wondering, since you are always in the scrapyard, unless you quit right away. Meaning the seed might have generated the world on beta5, but I played it on 7.1

4
Bugs / Going through Waste reshuffles branches
« on: November 17, 2018, 12:36:52 PM »
Hey Kyzrati, I'm really hoping this is intended behaviour and I did not find another weird bug. May wanna have a quick look at the scoresheets, they will show the seed is identical, but when I used a chute on -6 (second run) it reshuffled E to -6, was supposed to be on -4. So basically only seed and route is of interest here.

UPDATE: It is not related to the Chutes. I just played it again, no Waste this time, E is still on -6. Still confused though, as far as I can tell both runs are played on the same game version.

5
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I cannot give you a definite answer to this, Kyz will have to do that, but I might as well tell you what I know
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

6
I had 4 different schematics in that other save? That's surprising, coulda sworn it really just was the exp. phase shifter. But who cares anyway, the bug is now gone (well, for us players, will be hehe) - really cool stuff!

I have another small story regarding this elusive bug:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


7
Strategies / Re: Armchair Robotics - Weekly Topical Strategy Discussions
« on: November 13, 2018, 11:35:09 AM »
Thanks alot for your answers, GJ. That link was very helpful, too.

About:
It's possible you've met him in a previous version when the Archives terminal lore hadn't yet been added to the game.
I met him on my first run on beta7, the one on the leaderboards. But like I mentioned in my prior post, going 190 on 0x1 treads, time "passes" so fast without you getting somewhere, so when the attack started, I tried to help. But I'm sure you know what happens soon after, meaning there was nothing left to decode anymore.

I put the following in spoiler tags, because it's not related to the current topic, just something I needed to get off my chest:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
   

8
Strategies / Re: Armchair Robotics - Weekly Topical Strategy Discussions
« on: November 12, 2018, 02:48:09 PM »
First time I stumbled upon this thread, I'll try to add some thoughts/questions

I love the Extension Branch on a slow combat build, it's a great place to restock on parts. The allies you get in the cells do all the fighting for you all the way through to the Hub, so even if you enter pretty beaten up, things should be fine. There's also a ton of low level terminals, which are quite useful for a non-hacking build to get rid of some alert. You can also find prototype storage units in the hidden rooms along the main hallway, pretty good to have a spare 400 Matter container if you're going all kinetic, which I usually did. At the end of extensions I like to wait for haulers to pass by, shoot em down and see what goodies they have. Also useful to get new Large Storage Units, if the ones you brought from Materials are quite damaged. I have no idea though what global effect the destruction of the transfer stations has, anyone know?

The Cetus branch is probably the main reason I like to come here though. There are Cetus Guard Sentries that drop great treads, armor and probably my favorite gun in the game - Imp. KE Penetrators. I really like crit gun builds and this is the weapon for it. The thermal gun they have is nice to bring along if you don't have anything very damaging in the thermal department. They can be overloaded to reach a maximum damage of 80, which is enough to destroy Sealed Barriers, like the one in Access. It's advisable to bring like an EM Launcher or something that increases salvage, using crit guns on those sentries has led to vital parts, like the guns, being destroyed on a single hit. If A7 survives, he gives you a code to, again, make more allies, which again, do all the fighting for you. This way the whole restocking tour can continue. If A7 falls he drops his datacore, which I don't know what it does exactly. I always peek towards the top exit, for the Guards and also to meet Revision17. I don't know though if the encounter with him actually leads to something else, so some insight on both matters would be welcome.

The Archives is the big question mark to me on this branch. I have met Zhirov here once and I do not know if this event leads to something more. Usually there's just 4x normal sentries and a ton of non-hostile Administrators. Somewhere I did read that there is actually a way to gain access to the terminals content, which apparently provide a significant amount of lore. This would probably be my most important question - what do you have to bring to make that work? Or did I keep missing something that you can do in there, as far as I remember I tried quite a few things, but never got anything out of them :)
Since I don't really know what to do here I usually just passed through, bringing an interpreter to identify the right exit into the Hub, because I'm uncertain if it's actually always the same one.

The restocking definitely ends in the Hub. Due to its cramped layout I usually also lose all allies fairly quickly, the process is even faster with a nearby garisson. The first time I destroyed a network hub, I was lucky enough to be right by an exit. Even though killing a single Lightning is not a big deal, many of them are a huge problem, starting with them being immune to crits. I still come here, since destroying just a single hub lowers the chance of being detected on machines by 20% (correct me if I'm wrong here). I still find that useful even for a non-hacking slow combat build, since it increases the chance to lower some alert on terminals. I honestly do not know whether there is anything else you can do or find here, only ever been there on slow builds which made exploring the place more difficult. Especially if one of your guns penetrates through half the level, destroying a hub accidentally, it's time to leave. Overall, still a dangerous place being slow, I have gotten overwhelmed once by Lightnings, even though the exit was really close by.

9
Strategies / Re: Spoiler: Cprog strategies?
« on: November 12, 2018, 01:24:37 PM »
As for flight builds (and maybe hover too?): I hear that people just fly away.

Hovering works fine to outrun them. Theoretically 3x basic hover units should be enough (Speed 52), with adding more or prototype versions obviously being better. Can't say much about losing them though, out of my experience I'd say they track you harder than normal programmers. Thinking about it now, I'm not even sure if you can lose them at all.

10
General Discussion / Re: Oddities of time system.
« on: November 12, 2018, 12:58:46 PM »
Perhaps adding one's current TU to the tactical hub would be a way to make things more clear
This is definitely something I would love seeing to be added.

I just read through all of this and kept thinking, why in the world do you guys not just skip a turn to know for sure that once you skipped it, you are now at timeframe 0 - to do things like moving through LOS of enemies or whatever. Don't ask me why but I just assumed it worked like that, but it actually does not. Skipping is waiting and waiting takes 100TU, good job kiedra for realizing this after 300hrs...

However, this could still be an alternative or another addition to showing one's current TU in between turns. Sort of a "wait until turn ends" along with the normal 100TU waiting, just a thought here. I guess one might argue this could be considered cheesy, since you get to wait for less than the usual required amount of time, so as a compromise I'd be fine with "waiting until the turn after", so you're technically wasting time waiting, but know for sure you are now at the beginning of a new turn. This would go well with Kyzrati's agenda of removing "tedious optimal play" and yes, I do see it does not necessarily help speedrunners.

At the moment I'm just utterly surprised this has not caused any major problems or very unpredictable outcomes of scenarios, because I use the waiting ALOT and kept thinking it would put me at the beginning of the next turn.

11
Stories / Re: Funniest moments
« on: November 12, 2018, 11:42:45 AM »
Recently in Testing (quite spoilery):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

12
Well I just got home from work and I'm happy to be welcomed by these good news. That's tricky stuff, I can't get Tygan's line from XCom2 out of my head here, because it's so fitting: "I could not have predicted this outcome, but it is intriguing" :)

Just to sum it up for me and prevent a misunderstanding: A difference in the schematics you own BEFORE entering Quarantine, leads to the seed generating different rooms, correct? Because Terminals try to get you schematics you don't have and this influences further generation of room content? Any ideas why this only happens late game, meaning in this scenario from Quarantine on? Because I definitely had different schematics along the way comparing all of the runs. And why does a certain set of schematics, like the one in the second save, not produce unwanted generation? I mean these questions don't really matter, since the bug is going to be gone soonish, I'm just curious hehe.

Another fun fact: Since I suspected the derelict to be involved, I obviously tried to do the exact same thing going through research the second time. But I got greedy and did not wanna lose the Exp. Phase Shifter again, so I did not scan it, which in the end is the only difference in schematics I owned, but this was apparently necessary to produce two different saves - well, talk about luck, or greed rather haha.

It seems to make sense now though, thinking about the still ongoing run on the "correct" generation for Quarantine. I did not get new schematics in there, so -2/Research was the same. There, Warlord wrecks the machines, meaning no new schematics, followed by -2/Testing being the same. Here I DID get new ones though, probably why -2/Sector 7 was different. I'm not a 100% percent if I got new ones down there or once the seed generation diverges, it keeps doing that for the rest of the maps. But -1/Access was not identical, only partially. Like half of the rooms would be the same, the rest different. Sometimes the room would be identical, but a Sentry was missing etc.

Either way, I'm glad you found it finally and I assume you also know how to fix it. In any case, if you need more playtesting, lemme know :)

13
Speaking about fast hehe and don't mention it, like I said - I'm glad I can help for once. But in this case, I'm kinda frustrated I wasn't able to record the whole thing (fraps would not wanna recognize Cogmind as a game, could not get it to run quickly, so I just started).

I also have a small update: I kept playing a little on the supposedely "correct" seed generation in -3/Quarantine. While -2/Research and -2/Testing were the same (compared it to maps), -2/Section 7 was different, so was -1/Access. I'm getting the feeling that all of the maps I've seen past -3/Research are "wrong" or rather, not the way they are supposed to be generated.

As for -3/Research, there's nothing globally effecting things that happened, as far as I can tell anyway. For both scenarios, meeting the guy and running away, I did almost the same in Research tho. Lemme try to remember:

I started by assimilating a Director through its terminal, then hacked this terminal and the one nearby for schematics, which I built in a nearby fabricator, I did not get caught. Other than that I pretty much just rushed through the level, no fighting besides getting rid of a watcher if possible. One time Programmers got sent after me, that's the only difference between the two Research runs. Picked up a few items here and there - it's really just basic stuff. I remember that the first time my Director didn't make it with me to Quarantine, not sure about the second attempt. Oh and one time my Exp. Phase Shifter got scanned but damaged, did not wanna try my luck on the second attempt. I mean I really don't think these things change anything, but might as well mention whatever I remember of it.

I tried a direct -3/Quarantine generation both before and after that meeting (along with some variations) and there was no difference.
I'm guessing the variations are when you interupt him (e.g. by leaving, him getting killed) while he's still busy getting his dialogue done, since he has to be near you and time has to pass between each line. That would have been my bet if it really were related to this encounter, because this has happened before in my previous runs (we got ambushed by an ARC once and I bailed, leaving him behind)

By the way, I really did not wanna hold you up on potentially more pressing matters :). It's quite early here now, past 4am, so I kinda gotta call it quits for today. But if you're saying it's related to the first Research level, I can try to use the save at the end of Proxy and just keep replaying it. If I just knew what to look out for, maybe I can get the recording going, which would definitely help here.

If you have any ideas how else I could help you, just gimme instructions and I'll get to it tomorrow.

14
I have good news: First of all I was able to reproduce the issue with saves at the end of every floor, starting from -7 (I had issues setting the autosave to save at the beginning of floors, it just would not make any saves anymore, hence I made them "manually"). The result was the identical changed Quarantine floor (and probably the ones after, did not continue yet), meaning same layout, but different rooms.

Furthermore, I also think I found the culprit. There's this Derelict Researcher that you can meet in the caves, who gives you a manual code to hack a behemoth (here on -3/Proxy). I specifically made saves before encountering him, because after you mentioned "global events", that was the only one really where outcomes were different, so I suspected he's involved. I reloaded that save, did encounter him (impossible to go around due to cave layout), but outran the guy so he could not talk to me anymore. The result here was the "correct" Quarantine layout of which I have very detailed maps of, its absolutely identical, BUT this time, no quarantine lockdown right from the start. Here's a question, can this lockdown event even happen right from the beginning of the floor without actively doing something like destroying the cooling ducts? Maybe an indicator for unintended seed behaviour, just a thought.

Anyway, if you start looking into this guy's event, I'm sure you will find at least one of the triggers. Due to reaching the size limit of files here, I'll start giving you:
- Save before meeting the guy [-3/Proxy]
- Save at the end of Research following this, which includes meeting the guy in Proxy, fully exhausting all his dialogue until he disappears [-3/Research]
- Save in Quarantine with changed rooms [-3/Quarantine]
- Save at the End of Research, including JUST triggering the guy for his first line, followed by outrunning him and getting off the level [-3/Research]
- Save in Quarantine with the "correct" layout [-3/Quarantine]
Obviously you can have saves from earlier floors if you think they are relevant. One more thing I'm sure you aware of, but I'll mention it anyway. I do not know if the layout I have detailed maps of, meaning the first time using this seed, actually is the "correct" outcome. I always went through -3/Proxy, meaning I have always met the guy one way or the other, which could have changed the seed outcome on the very first run. Either way, I hope this helps.

15
I will try to retrace my steps and reproduce the issue, which should provide you with the neccessary saves at least. In addition I'll note down every event happening along the way. I'll keep you updated as soon as I have something.

Just one last question: So far the differences started to happen after the transition into Quarantine. Let's say you'd reproduce steps including the trigger to change/mess stuff up, would you expect the outcome to always be the same?

16
Aha a mystery bug! I'd be glad to help out for once instead of constantly asking questions hehe. Problem is, I kept playing and just self-destructed, because MAIN.C's core one-shotted my 200 int. broadsword, not sure what exactly happened there, but it was gone, I was left without a weapon and too many robots blocking my way out (on hovers unfortunately :(). If there's still a way to get access to a save, tell me how and I'll see what I can do. I will also keep playing this seed, it's cheesy and somewhat boring, but speeds up the runs tremendously in search for different endings or lore hints I don't have yet. I'll also turn on the autosave function something, the one mentioned in the manual, which hopefully makes for more useful saves that potentially help you track down the issue. If there is anything else that I could do, just gimme instructions, I'd be happy to help out if I keep playing the same thing anyway.

[EDIT: autosave actually was turned on, unfortunately the latest I have already is on -1, they are backed up now though in case you still want them. For future testing I think I'll set the interval to 0, so it only saves when entering a map. I guess that's better for tracking down the problem, in case you have a better idea, lemme know.]

...there are one or more special things you can do in a given run...
...especially by the late game once you've done... something I dunno xD
What are we talking about here? Meeting special NPCs, triggering events, taking specific routes (like taking a branch or stay on main) or just minor things? I assume you're not trying to not spoil anything here, because I really would not mind. Just trying to get an idea what I should be looking out for. I could also record the runs, so I'd be able to check later whether something specific has been done or not.

I have a lot of map screenshots, the prove more or less that something really was different to before. If those help, you can have them, same for scoresheets. I've had 3 runs so far on this seed that went into late game, the first one I have almost no data on besides the scoresheet, I only remembered the Sigix Broadsword to be there and had to realize after (on random seeds), it's not a guaranteed spawn, hence the reason I chose this specific seed. On the second I explored as much as I could and took screenshots of every map, only thing different to before (just out of memory though), I had a lockdown something in Quarantine because of cooling systems breaking, like when you destroy the cryocooling ducts, but they were all intact and it happened right when I entered Quarantine. On the third, AFTER going from -3/Research to -3/Quarantine, the rooms started to have different stuff in them, but the overall layout seemed to be mostly the same. I'll add two screenshots making this more clear. The only thing different comparing those runs is the routes I took, even though really small differences.

I know I'm trying to be all systematically here for an issue that's, well, not that big of a deal haha. But if it helps you out, that's actually more rewarding to me than letting Zhirov kill MAIN.C and realizing, that does not get me a different ending :D

17
Thanks for the quick reply as always. I did not get to play all week up until now and yet, another quick question:
The same seed is supposed to generate the same, well, everything, right? Or are there exceptions allowed?

Reason I'm asking is - I've been playing the same seed I think for the third run now. So far absolutely everything has been identical, but I just transitioned from Research into Quarantine and besides the room layout, everything is different (Rooms have different stuff in it etc., patrols/enemies are different). I'm just wondering whether there is a base chance for this to happen or something with my game got messed up.

18
Quick question: quite some time ago I read somewhere that every seed allows for achieving any given ending (win type). Could someone please confirm this?

19
General Discussion / Re: Cave-Ins
« on: November 02, 2018, 01:05:18 AM »
That's it. Basically if you move right through wall-earth-wall, you're 100% safe

That's what I thought and what started my confusion, because I actually did have a cave-in like that. Should have screenshotted it, but it doesn't matter, not the game's fault. Even though I can reach highscores, I just realized that I've been playing the game the wrong way all along :)

As always, thanks for the quick reply!



20
General Discussion / Cave-Ins
« on: November 01, 2018, 04:45:21 PM »
Again I'm here on the forums, seeking information about something that should follow certain rules, but somehow isn't. Maybe I'm just the unluckiest person in the world when it comes to the games RNGs or I'm again missing something in plain sight. Sorry if I sound frustrated, truth is, I am.

I'm desperately trying to reach different endings, so I went back to a mostly stealth build. Fully sensored you can control, or rather, prevent almost any encounter. But quite often maps have very tricky chokepoints that make it impossible to get through without being spotted. So a decent strategy is to carve you a new route (Launchers, Melee or Strong Weapons). Note I'm not referring to breaking down a single wall, I'm talking about 10+ tile long new routes. This obviously brings the danger of stuff caving-in on you, which is impact damage, a high one at that, meaning it's almost always going to break vital parts (sensors, interpreters etc.), not even to mention the corruption it causes.

I've had single walls (part of room), cave in on me the moment I step on it. Large areas blown up by a launcher do not have a single cave in, the first red flashing tile I step on, bam. I just rage quitted my run after carving out a ~15 long, one wide hallway with a melee weapon, to my surprise I got through and for science I waited ~200 turns if anything would cave in - nothing happened, not one tile. Guess what happened when I went back through it, no cave in, only the one tile I'm hovering over... Don't get me wrong here, I'm not sitting here blaming the game since I know, there is structural scanners. So I started a new game, grabbed one of them scanners, picked up a launcher and went away. Some of the usual light red glowing tiles in danger of caving in are now dark red, indicating they will cave in soon. Waited a bit to verify that, seemed legit. So I went into the carved out area trying if I could control this situation via the scanner. Of about 50 tiles destroyed total, 20ish we're flashing dark red, but still possible to find a "safe route" through it. Worked for about 5 moves, then I stepped on a light flashing tile which should be safe at least for this turn - yea, cave in on me. Oh and btw, all of the dark flashing ones, no cave-in. Then I tried a one-wide hallway like in the run before. According to the scanner everything seemed stable, worked fine for about 15 tiles, destroyed another one, stepped on it, cave-in - no dark red flashing indicating that. Went back the way I came, again no dark red tiles, about 5 moves later, cave-in on the one tile I'm stepping on, not a single other tile though...

Despite my frustration, I'm just trying to understand the mechanics, so I can minimize the danger in future runs. Is there maybe a base chance for something to cave-in if you step on it, even though it should be stable? Does the game maybe take a percentage of available tiles for a cave-in and randomly chooses some that will cave-in? This way it be better to always use a launcher, more tiles available lowers the chance for the one that you walk on to cave-in. I'm pretty sure there is no secure way to tunnel, unless you assimilate an excavator and have him do it. Otherwise it would be way to easy to avoid enemies. But still, if there is, pls tell me. Do wall parts of rooms have a much lower chance of caving-in? It's very rare to actually spectate one of those caving-in, well unless I walk on it... Maybe I am just super unlucky and tend to get hit more than average - I mean even on low chances, it's still possible.

I've also tried using a mining laser on -11 and to my surprise there were areas not flashing at all, and if you dig for 10 tiles, a line of red flashing ones appears again, behind them however no potential cave-in. In the end it looked like an overlay of future rooms, meaning the flashing ones were wall parts. That experience didn't really help to understand how cave-ins actually work.


21
Thank you for replying, Joshua. Your answers are, again, surprising. I've looked at some scoresheets that achieved different endings, they went to the same places I have been before, so I must be missing something. Currently trying to get back into stealth, which makes it easier to explore more, maybe that's gonna unravel something.

22
Thanks for the quick replies, guys. And how on earth do you manage do create a game like that and still be able to reply to almost every post - that's another thing I don't get haha

Your answers make sense and about the lore, I absolutely agree that it works best with the game. I hope you didn't get me wrong on that matter, cause I actually like it alot. The only problem for me is that I actually have to pay attention for once. Probably played to many jrpgs in my younger days with a lot of smalltalk stuff that doesn't add anything to the story and is mostly pointless chatter. Or comparing it to the souls series where the lore is not required for directions, those are easy in these games: Kill more bosses :)

I know saying "I don't have time" may seem like a blatant lie looking at my cumulative playtime, even though the game is running idle quite a bit, I still spent most of this time in front of the computer hehe. I have very few games total (only around 45), compared to a VERY high playtime. There's some personal issues to my "limited time", also the reason why I haven't played in months, but stuff like that doesn't really fit in here. I'm also not sure if skill is the problem, looking at other ppl's scoresheets that include different endings, I can see that I've been to these places myself, often I just stumpled upon them, not even prepared and we all know, preparation is half the battle. Still taking it as a personal challenge though hehe. When you're saying there's stuff that's apparently so tough to handle, really good incentive. The only thing I can say about a lack of skill is, I'm unable to control High Sec for long, meaning triggering it and still keep exploring. It must be doable though, GJ is on high sec 60% of the entire run.

I'm basically concerned that I might be missing something obvious or smaller, not talking to somebody, not picking up an item (like the sigix corpse, which I almost left behind, but someone somewhere mentioned something about bringing it to the surface - I think a terminal by its side, not sure anymore). I would like to figure this out all by myself, the main reason I'm asking is that I honestly don't know where to start first, even though the list of potential leads is actually quite long. I was hoping I would get some endings accidentally, because I visit a lot of places in almost every run, but usually get side tracked or bail because of High Sec threat, knowing I can't handle it for long, especially without an exit yet.

I have an idea though, a way to squeeze some information out of you without having to spoil anything. I'll list what I know of and think is related to different endings and all I would like as an answer is yes or no. This way I can try to make a beeline for these places, which will cut down the time required for that run and hopefully bring me closer of figuring stuff out myself. I will still do that btw even if nobody answers those, but I'd appreciate it if you did :):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

@Kyz: One last thing to satisfy my OCD on the need to explain myself. I bought Cogmind because it looked interesting, it's a roguelike and I like difficulty. Never ever would I have expected the lore to be a significant part of it. Since I'm mostly interested in a game's mechanics, I expect lore to be more of a filler, which it often is. Not for this game though, which I think is a great achievement. I'm sure many have told you before, but kudos for creating this piece of art.

@zxc: you don't happen to have a recorded stealth run of yours? Couldn't find anything on youTube/twitch, I'd be interested though :)

23
[There's some heavy spoilers, so if you're concerned about that, best stay away.]



Hey everyone,

haven't played since beta5 and just recently got back to Cogmind. There's a couple of things I have questions for and I also wanna share some thoughts, title sorta summarizes it. I'm gonna put it all in here, probably gonna be long, but did not want to open 5 new posts - hope that's ok.

First of all, I love this game, but I also do hate it in a way. Now don't get me wrong, the latter is totally on me. My biggest gripe with the game is, after almost every run I end up with even more questions. I know this is by design and that's absolutely fine, my problem is I like to overthink things, my runs take forever, so investing many hours just to get back to a certain event (and potentially solving or advancing it) is not only discouraging, I honestly just don't have the time. Yet though, I would really really like to see the different endings (only have w0 and w3 so far). I'm mentioning this, because I know you guys don't like to spoil things, Kyz especially but he's excused because dev and all hehe, but for everyone else, SPOIL away - trust me, you'd be doing me a huuuge favor.

Here's two examples:

First run on beta5 I went classic combat, I like to take every branch (or actually have to because of Alert), especially Extensions though. Did that many times before, so I knew my way around. This time however I ended up at Zhirov's place first on -5, he wasn't there and I can't remember if he ever was. Whatever, I read up on the lore again, picked up the artifacts and on the way out I wanted to destroy the Cloak Generator, assuming there may be something hidden. As soon as I hit it, Enhanced Grunts warped in, at first I thought as some sort of defense, but they were friendly. Nobody said anything, I was already very confused, when suddenly the whole place blew up on me. Now here's where the questions start, I've been to this place many times and this never happened. Did the grunts spawn because I was about to leave (RIF was installed btw) or because I hit the Cloaking? Why did everything blow up? Well, I just kept going, Extensions, on -4. I can't seem to manage to keep A7 alive, that I do remember from my beta5 runs, but not the end of the world, because I mainly come here for the Cetus Sentries and Hub. Yea but I'm forgetting something, right? Archives, a place with four sentries, a bunch of Admins and Terminals I can't read. That's at least how I've seen it every single time I've been there before. So I was VERY suprised to actually meet Zhirov and two of his buddies there. He was mumbling something about resetting MAIN.C, which I can sorta understand from the lore, so I guess after this event you're supposed to go to Command and, well, reset it, somehow. Yet again, we got attacked, and I'm like (being full combat), I can help with that. But after a couple of turns he decided to bail and AGAIN, blow everyting up on me. Yes I know he actually warns you and I tried to reach the exit, but on 0x1 treads... well, let's just say I didn't make it in time. But again, I'm left with nothing but questions. Why has this event happened and never before? Kyz mentioned the story part is done since beta1, so I don't think it's anything new, which also means it can't be RIF related. Did I just happen to have a seed with Zhirov before Extensions? Or do you HAVE to destroy the cloaking? Kinda like, his hiding place got compromised and now he's trying desperate measures. Somehow I picked up that one can actually decode the stuff on the Archives terminals, probably another story line? I gotta be honest, I'm not getting it :). But this explains well what my problems are, I have no clue on what to do now, I could only retrace/replay my steps, which means I'd have to play hours again just to get there, on the same seed, which is boring. It's just not my cup of tea - I like when things happen by accident, like with the Sigix Corpse win. And again, please don't take this as negative criticism, all I'm asking for is some insight, so I don't have to "waste" another 10 hours just to verify - ok that's why this happened.

Second one, also heavily RIF related. I like this stuff, well actually only that you can see the alert level now, which gives some really valuable insight. For instance, I was very surprised how much the Alert rises when you get caught fabricating something. Before I was like, yea whatever... :). I also found it very amusing how Kyz hacked all hostile robots in his stream and ignored the haulers, and I did the exact opposite of that. So I was wondering what the drawbacks of installing RIF are? Haven't really noticed much in my first run, but Kyz mentioned you cannot get imprinted anymore? Could you get imprinted before? Will Zion be hostile if you go there? I guess Warlord definetely is, which I just found out the hard way. But again, I don't get it. I can understand that Warlord has tech to notice this installment, but thematically, you are not on MAIN.C's side, you are actually using it against it, which brings you, willingly or not, on Warlords side, so getting attacked didn't make much sense to me. Also found it very confusing why the Quarantine entry still purged my corruption, just to shoot me in the face as soon as the doors open. But kinda the same problem here again, this run was purely intended to reach another win, in this case, Warlord's storyline. I know you get attacked there and can't waste to much time, why I went speedy, rather stealthy and along the way had to realize how much I suck at this now, because I've played so much combat. Now I'm sittin' there in front of the proxy caves exit, not knowing what to do with this run, because I can't talk to Warlord, which I assume is what you have to do (I did that before, but never saw him again, which is apparently supposed to happen in research). I hope the small frustration I'm suffering from is at least somewhat understandable by now :)

To sum up this part: I'd really like to hear how others feel or experienced stuff like that? Did you get another win by accident? Or actually following the lore? - which obvisiously I am absolutely uncabable of haha. I mean hard to come by events or rather, easy to miss stuff also has its advantages, it keeps the game interesting and fresh, even after hours of playing, there's still something to do. While I'm very interested in the lore, I just tend to miss things (or forget about it) because of the way it's presented. Reminds me so much of the souls series, games that I play for their difficulty and atmosphere, but also with great lore, however ingame it usually totally eludes me. I still remember the day when, after years, I read up on its lore and I was like, wow that's really good, I wish I woulda caught something of it when I was actually playing the game :D

Regarding RIF, I think it's pretty strong and also fun. But going stealth/hacking, which usually means you wanna be fast, meaning you have limited inventory space, not necessarily room for every kind of coupler and now not being able to hack robots the old way anymore, I felt I was kinda limited. Let's say there's a sentry in the way that you don't wanna fight, you can't disable it anymore, even with good hacking. So how about just one type of coupler, with highly different amount of points they can have. You'd still need to find them, very high point ones would be rather rare, you'd need to sacrifice a slot because they are processors, but to make up for not having to bring every kind, point usage for hacking is determined by robot type and rating. Let's say couplers could have up to 100 points, assimilating a scav would only be 10, but for a behemoth you'd have to invest 100. It's just an idea I had, you'd be getting back flexibility, but I can also see that it might be a little too good, cause in that scenario, I don't really see a reason NOT to install RIF anymore.

A couple of things I ran into and unsure about whether it's a bug or not (I'll attach screenshots with log):
- I've had haulers still call for reinforcements even tho I blocked the distress signal before [RIF]
- I had a shutdown sentry call for garrison reinforcements (not sure if that's intented, cause, yea, the robot is turned off :)) [RIF]
- This random maching, couldn't go back for the exact name, dropped couplers after being destroyed. I'm not 100% on this, but iirc I only fought two sentries and two hackers there, one scav might have died in the process, but where would it have picked up those couplers before, I did not touch a single garrison on that floor. Destroying a garrison also drops couplers, I guess that's intended - sorta the poor man's garrison trip. [RIF]
- I've had Imps doing their attack sound but nothing happened, sometimes they even get destroyed without blowing anything off of you. Is that, well, normal? Can their attack fail/miss? [random]
- I've had reinforcements come from a testing branch exit once, I'm guessing that's intented, even though being a branch, it's a MAIN.C controlled area, so it kinda makes sense I guess. Still wanted to mention it, just in case [random]

24
Strategies / Re: Maxing Score
« on: November 04, 2017, 09:41:40 PM »
By the time I reached -2, I knew it's gonna be a good run, so I really did wanna get out, but that stupid move of mine at the garrison made it significantly harder. On the other hand, this is where Cogmind really shines and is quite unique I guess, even though the situation is absolutely hopeless, there is no reason to give up, so I kept shooting. I even did crit kill ARCs before they opened, but that barely made a difference, because they just kept coming. My Cog was insanely tanky too, 50% shield (plus 2x backup), phase shifters, a full transporter load of medium cesium armor and lots of guns. It was the first time that I actually missed the hunters too, because they drop KE's, but all I got in those ARCs were grunts, melees and those imps, so rebuilding was kinda rough. My core was still fine (around 1000/1600) when I finally ran out of guns, but once you lose your crit (and penetration) potential, which those lasers just don't have, things go south quickly. I really shoulda made some screenshots, but I didn't, because I'm an idiot and even though the score was fairly high, it just feels sorta not right, because the main goal after all, is to get the heck out. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun in that run :D

25
Strategies / Re: Maxing Score
« on: November 04, 2017, 09:23:46 AM »
Sorry I didn't read all of what you've posted, because of some potential spoilers I wanted to avoid, but I've been thinking a bit about maxing out the score lately, so my thoughts on it hopefully help out. I can't say much about speedrunning, but your formula for the bonus points seems about right - to reach 100k you'd have to get it done in 500 turns, which is hard, but doable I guess. You'd have to get really lucky on the floor layout though, and finding the right things along the way (like flight units, scanners, other prop for armor etc). While there is still some other bonus points to be found, they are relatively small. In one of my recent runs (105k), most of the score was earned through killing robots (value points) and the bonus for high alert combat kills.
 
What basically happened in that run - I kept the alert level under control most of the time (ranging between 1-4 I'd guess), I did however make a huge mistake in -2/testing when taking out a garrison. It got pretty messy really quickly, big fight with several groups joining, me getting scanned by a researcher, in the end that was probably too much for MAIN.C and it triggered high security. I managed to get out hoping I could find a quick terminal in Access and hopefully let things calm down, but when spawning next to a behemoth AND a garrison nearby, getting back conrol of the alert level was near impossible. At this point all hell broke loose, I have never seen so many enemies before. My build allowed for one-shotting (if lucky on crits) a full ARC-squad, but with the sheer amount of enemies coming in, there was nearly not enough time to pick up some matter. I even started killing scavs for tractor beams instead of the usual matter, but with entire rooms full of items I'd have to move 20 tiles just to pick it up. I still tried exploring, although moving 3 tiles and fighting another 10 enemies does not really count for that - the main issue was, this put me out of position most of the time, which led to way more attrition than neccessary. What I'm trying to say is, in a 1-wide hallway, preferably as long as possible, I could have survived much much longer, which is basically my suggestion as of now if you just wanna go for score.
 
Theoretically you can do this on any floor, but -1 is probably the best, because you have the highest amount of slots, which allows for more guns and more importantly lots of useful utilities (armor, shields, cyclers, crit), not to mention that enemies will be of the highest level, which grants a higher score getting rid of them. I'd say try to get to Access with maximum possible Alert level control to minimize attrition and allow for lots of spare parts found along the way, accumulate a large inventory of important spare parts like shields and crit guns, explore the map to find a good place to do the fighting and then piss off MAIN.C and trigger high alert. I would guess I've killed around 200 bots in -1, being prepared and not having to leave a favorable position, you can easily add another zero to that number. What I don't know is whether things may even get worse from here, meaning more difficult enemies (immune to crit like those prototypes) or launcher dudes blowing up the hallway. We could ask Kyzrati, but I'm sure he'd say we should find out on our own :D. Feel free to look at the scoresheet either way, maybe you find some numbers that help you out.

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