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Author Topic: Robot Hack ideas  (Read 4964 times)

DDarkray

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Robot Hack ideas
« on: August 16, 2018, 06:38:45 AM »

The latest and the greatest robot hacking blog made my mouth watered, so naturally, I thought to myself, "What other cool hacks can we think of?" Now is the time to share some of your ideas and hopefully the dev can implement them in the near future! :D
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DDarkray

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2018, 06:58:37 AM »

block_jamming for Watcher
This is inspired by Amphouse's suggestion on Discord. If you're super annoyed by that Watcher's sensor jamming ability, now you get to stop it! Not only that, the infected Watcher would also stop all other Watchers within 20 tiles from jamming your sensor as well.

recall_reinforcements for Engineer
Thought it's strange how Hauler has this but not Engineer.

damage_payload for ARC
I think ARC is considered NC. If so, here's an idea: When the ARC releases its payload, its power source is overloaded, dealing thermal damage to all those robots.

find_machine for Worker
Find the nearest machine which includes non-interactive one.

locate_traps for Minesweeper
You probably won't be running into too many of these things, but there should at least be some hacks for each bot.

drop_traps for Minesweeper
Drop all trap items as well as trap extractor.

map_route for Drone
Drones that are dispatched from hunters can be useful too!

unreport_threat for Drone
Drones can now tell the hunters, "Hey, there's no more enemy here". Additionally, drone's distress signal is blocked for a short period of time.

However, if you use this hack on the Drones found in Recycling, you get to purge your alert level, then block their scanner for a short period of time.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 12:46:51 PM by DDarkray »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2018, 04:32:35 PM »

So there's a thread on this and I HAVEN'T EVEN RELEASED BETA 7 YET with its 65 new hacks xD

Just kidding, always nice to see idea lists thrown around and this thread was inevitable ;)

Quote
Thought it's strange how Hauler has this but not Engineer.
One reason to leave it out for now is that it could be problematic in terms of UI/feedback, more easily exposing a missing element: the fact that you won't know which Engineer called reinforcements, and there are often many in a small area. We could assume that's just an area this hack won't apply very well, and is more for isolated cases so a hack like this is still possible, just low priority.

Haulers by comparison are often found one at a time.

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Minesweeper
I removed the Minesweeper-related hacks from the final set because they're too rare at the moment, not worth the work. But note they can't drop their Extractor--it's attached, not in inventory.

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for Drone
Yeah I had better hacks planned for that drone, but it's not really compatible with the hacking system's architecture so I left it out.

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damage_payload for ARC
I think ARC is considered NC. If so, here's an idea: When the ARC releases its payload, its power source is overloaded, dealing thermal damage to all those robots.
ARC is not NC, but in any case there will be changes coming to ARCs. This hack could possibly still be added, although it might end up being expensive, dunno.
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Sherlockkat

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2018, 06:02:58 PM »

Wow!! That robot hacking blog is hype-inducing. Especially the NC hacks and wipe_record hack. I could see alternative flight builds that rely on robot-hacking as a navigational tool rather than sensors. I guess from a balance perspective, all the non-combat hacks require RIF and probably have to sacrifice Zion forcing extended wins to rely on T and Q.

Question: Are the couplers fabricable? Are garrisons the only source of couplers?

Some hack suggestions (though K is already probably done with everything):

One cool idea would be to have a "virus" hack. Basically something like a hack that installs a virus that can spread to another robot that is within x tiles and confer a minor debuff (something like -5% to targeting or 10% corruption or even something like bot emits random distress signals. God that would be funny if there is a contagious hack that causes bots to emit distress signals randomly), you can install it in a watcher and let it wreck havoc.



Here are some simpler fun hacks:
dump_energy: Sets stored energy to 0. bye-bye force fields.
break_insulation: reduce TH resist by 10%. (This is a niche I think existing hacks don't address. Hacker builds could act like stat/resource manipulating wizards)
core_surge: Destroy all processors. (This has [REDACTED] viability and is a good tool for hacker-combat builds fighting prototypes)
reveal_origin: This one is weird. But a hack that dispatches combat progs on you can have some value if you have the right tools to obtain their loot/assimilate them without going through the whole DC/getting scanned insanity.
reveal_core: Doubles core disruption chance (basically sets the core disruption chance = weapon disruption chance. Currently, core disruption chance is half of that).
decouple_weapon: Drops the weapon with the highest rating (lul).

That's it for now!!! Nice release Kyzrati.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #4 on: August 16, 2018, 07:06:33 PM »

Gee, the post is supposed to calm the hype by revealing all the details so there's not much else to speculate about xD

Question: Are the couplers fabricable? Are garrisons the only source of couplers?
How you get them is covered in the first blog post.

Quote
One cool idea would be to have a "virus" hack.
Yeah this type of thing was on my original list but got cut for now.

That's it for now!!! Nice release Kyzrati.
And it's not even out yet!!! Still hacking away at it... (Robot hacking is done, but it's time to work on some other features, and especially fixes from Beta 6--last release was a while ago so a fairly long list of those has piled up, too...)
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zxc

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2018, 11:18:59 AM »

Siphon Energy - Steals energy from bot

Recall Squad - Recalls squad. Works only on leader.

Butter Up - 60% more likely to crit target [joke]

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zxc

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2018, 12:42:04 AM »

A hack which makes a bot into some kind of decoy which confuses the routing mechanisms for exterm and assault squads.
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DDarkray

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2018, 10:39:55 PM »

A hack which makes a bot into some kind of decoy which confuses the routing mechanisms for exterm and assault squads.

That's actually pretty interesting! I can imagine it being a somewhat expensive hack, but it is less powerful than recall(extermination), thus less likely to be abused, because you still might encounter those incoming squads and they would switch to patrol mode if they don't encounter you.
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Joshua

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2018, 06:03:21 PM »

A Set_traps hack for Engineers to make them start trapping everything.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2018, 07:11:20 PM »

Engineers aren't technically responsible for traps. The idea was to give Minesweepers double duty, basically making them the trap bots, and also station some of those in 0b10 and also add them to the RIF system (there are several unimplemented hacks there), but that's kind of fringe material so I dunno if it'll ever happen. Would have to be a post-1.0 kind of thing.
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Hippasus

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #10 on: November 05, 2018, 03:24:40 AM »

While after 7.1 it hardly seems like RIF needs more buffs I was wondering why you can't really do any meaningful hacks on allies.

I'm not sure it makes sense from a law point of view given that your assimilated buddies are no longer a part of the 0b10 system. But WHATEVER, who hasn't had the fantasy of hijacking an assimilated watcher's visual and sensor feed to make a super drone? Or ordering a friendly serf army to grab a whole squad of grunts and dispose of them? Or getting a researcher to heroically sacrifice itself stasis beaming a choke point while you make a run for it. Assimilating NCs would certainly be way more fun!

OK sure, balancing all this stuff could be a nightmare, but there is something to be said for the fact you have to 'pay' for these extra benefits with lots of  couplers. A watcher drone for instance would cost 24 (what are they called? Units?) from an NC coupler (13 + 6 + 5) plus an extra 5 per 100 turns to replenish the visual feed. Add that they need to stay in a range of 20 and it isn't necessarily TOO OP.

I mostly like the idea of keeping a bunch of NC and support bots for various reasons. As long as you can keep you're ragtag army of support bots alive they can save you a bunch of utility slots for filling all your infowar needs or possibly doing other cool stuff.

I know this a long shot but pretty please?  :P
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Kyzrati

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #11 on: November 05, 2018, 03:53:58 AM »

Well thematically speaking couplers can't really have anything to do with hacking allies, but even if it might appear this way, it's not that the hacking is limited by theme, the theme was set specifically to apply this limitation on the gameplay :P

Future robot hacking additions will continue to be about new types of behavioral hacks (mainly NC), so not really buffs, per se, since they all come from the same coupler pool so it's all easily balanced against itself under the same system. But I wouldn't want to water down these effects just because you can also do them on allies.

Many of the hacks can be as cool and effective as they are specifically because you need to be in (or create) the specific situation required to use them, some of which may not be incredibly common. This is an important consideration when setting their effects and costs.

For example deconstruct_bot is pretty cheap for what you get, but it's cost would absolutely have to be higher if you could do it to allies, because it has to be balanced for the easiest approach, making other approaches like encountering random assault squad Mechanics less valid... See what I mean? xD

From an pure balance perspective, I don't think you'd really want hackable allies because I can tell you now the result would almost certainly mean nerfs across the board.

Note that without any hacking allied bots (including NC bots) do do a bunch of stuff for you. Some players love having Operators for friends, for example, because they have special behaviors (including some which you cannot hack them to do), and other allies are useful in their own ways.
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Hippasus

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #12 on: November 05, 2018, 04:11:37 AM »

Apologies if I'm duplicating what has been said before....

jam_door: An engineer jams the nearest door shut and it will stay that way for some set amount of time. Perhaps if it totally blocks access to a room complex combatants will get annoyed a blow their way in after a certain amount of time.

mass_assimilate: Only works on swarmer squad leader. Will assimilate the whole swarmer squad for a pretty hefty price tag. I'm guessing this would burn a pretty much a whole coupler. OK sure swarmer couplers already got buffed. But this is way cooler. Right now getting a bunch of swarmers is difficult since the unassimlated swarmers will just blow your new friends apart. For large squads of swarmers the need to find the squad leader balances out the benefits of it's extra size because the bigger the swarm the harder it is to find the leader to hack. I want a swarmer army!

scramble_coordination: (in other words, confuse) the effected bot will move and fire randomly for the next x turns ramming any bots it walks into. I'm mostly imagining doing this to a demolisher amongst it's friends and watching the resultant mayhem.  8)

disable_utilities: we already have this for propulsion and weapons why not disabling utils (minus armour etc.)? OK perhaps the use cases are less obvious but disabling an enemy's cooling before pulling out your flame thrower could be fun. ;)
« Last Edit: November 05, 2018, 04:19:23 AM by Hippasus »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #13 on: November 05, 2018, 04:17:06 AM »

Yeah don't worry about duplication, everyone might have their own slightly different take on things anyway, just throw it all out there :)
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Hippasus

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #14 on: November 05, 2018, 04:57:52 AM »

Quote
the theme was set specifically to apply this limitation on the gameplay :P

Yeah, I guessed as much. :(

Quote
For example deconstruct_bot is pretty cheap for what you get, but it's cost would absolutely have to be higher if you could do it to allies, because it has to be balanced for the easiest approach, making other approaches like encountering random assault squad Mechanics less valid... See what I mean? xD

I see exactly what you mean. It's still hard to give up the dream of my mechanic horde deconstructing everything I lay my eyes on though.  :P

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Some players love having Operators for friends, for example

Assimilated Operators are amazing, if I can manage to keep them alive for more than 10 turns that is :P I guess the feeling that drove me to write the original post was my disappointment when I found out that assimilating almost any NC apart from Operators seemed pretty pointless. Operators set up a certain expectation of coolness which was then cruelly disappointed. Right now I'm a bit demoralised about figuring out whether certain NCs have any use while assimilated due to the steep cost to try it out. It would perhaps be a nice touch if there was some way to know in advance what benefits assimilating certain robots would give you. While experimenting is fun, it becomes less so when the result is mostly just meh...
 
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Kyzrati

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Re: Robot Hack ideas
« Reply #15 on: November 05, 2018, 11:52:20 PM »

There aren't really a lot which are super interesting in that regard. The most useful are already listed in the manual with their specific effects.*

Note that the thing about having a bunch of allies is that Cogmind's common allies are pretty squishy anyway, so you can't generally maintain a decent army of them for that long, and it's therefore not something you really want to spend your NC couplers doing. The main exception is Operators, which certain builds might want to have along as a friend and just keep them out of trouble most of the time (micromanaging a larger group is not so easy, by comparison).

*Edit: I say that, but then I'm reminded that having a Protector ally is pretty awesome because then you get free shields... so there may be more like that I forgot about :P
« Last Edit: November 06, 2018, 05:07:19 PM by Kyzrati »
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