Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AnotherZach]

Reasoning: Currently Fabrication is fine but very limited, and it is time consuming to obtain all the auth chips. Fabrication after research is also very difficult – auth chips are a must have, but it is difficult to get chips as there aren’t a lot of fabricators to recompile on. Additionally, high level fabricators require hackware to consistently pull off unauthorized fabrication. DSF has authchips but sometimes you don’t want to skip a floor and miss a branch. Previous fabrication required matter pods as a cost. This system does have potential, and should be used as the basis of derelict fabrication. Materials floors and outposts could also have some of these outdated fabricators.


New interact-able machine – Matter Fabricator – Label: E, Color: Orange. This fabricator is specifically designed to be portable and used in Ob10 outposts. Its design was leaked to derelicts, and they use it to fuel their own fabrication. This is an older model of fabricator is limited in what it can fabricate in both rating, efficiency, and time – but its strength is. It can manufacture at is 75% speed. It can only manufacture parts and bots up to rating 4. Its portability makes it useful to bolster fabrication when needed, especially for complex expansion, and holding outposts. But because it is portable it isn’t connected to the Ob10 network – it can be used without tracing. Consequently, all E fabricators are guarded by an operator and a pair of sentries. While it is very powerful to get trace free and auth chip free fabricator – players would still have to work for it. Operators that lock the fab use a static key, which can be retrieved on death. However, the operator won’t stick around after locking and will beeline to the nearest garrison – even if it is sealed.

Derelicts have their own matter-based fabricators with their own restrictions. In the caves, derelict and Ob10 outposts will both have fabricators and will send runners to deliver matter to power their fabricators to build units hold down their positions. Players would be in the middle of Derelict and Ob10 skirmishes to control territory. Derelict Fab rating limit is 6 or 7 depending on the floor.


******

Exiles – has an E fabricator. Usage is locked behind Farcom.
Zion – E fabricator always spawns and is guarded. Requires you to imprint to use it.
WR – has 3 E fabricators, Cogmind can only use them if he is not allied with Scraptown or Zion.
UFD – E fabricator in a room with overturned schematics and scrapoids, and a 100% efficient recycler unit. Locks if you become hostile to UFD. Requires you to be aligned. Always spawns.
ZR – E fabricator is usable if not hostile.
DM – E fabricator is limited to rating 3. Full use is locked behind secret. Full use removes rating restriction and speeds it up by 50%.
Cetus – No changes, make implementing easier.


Recycling – E fabricator can only make parts or bots up to rating level 2. Using it installs a Trojan on Cogmind that registers it with the Ob10 complex. (Effectively another alignment.) This makes it harder for all Ob10 bots to lose track of Cogmind. Lose sight radius increases by 2. And all other derelict factions will consider you a non-hostile Ob10 robot. But you can still get ECA, and ECA will overrule this an let you ally with WL.  Rif still available. DM will offer to remove the Trojan, and secret there also removes this Trojan. A system shield will always block receiving the Trojan’d alignment via feedback, but it will lose integrity equal to 13 – its rating. (You will be trojan'd with every fabrication operation)

MC: I want to know who is breaking into Recycling and what they are making. So I’m installing a Trojan to help me find them. I’ll even have a full HCP matter pod just to encourage them.

******


New item: Derelict Authchip loader device. 100% chance to load in any schematic onto a fabricator, and +30% chance for successful Force(Recompile) and unauthorized fabrication. Can find in Zion, upper caves, in Exiles, in inventory of wild hostile derelicts, and mines. It being a device means you can detach it as needed, and it is now easier to grab authchips. Moreover, speed is relevant as it lets you dodge the investigation. Unauthorized loading is often traceable, and failing to load a schematic on high level fabricators makes it difficult to extract chips. This solves the difficulty of using high level fabricators after research branches.


New special hack schematic – malformed. Hack differs from other hacks as you must acquire the schematic. This schematic is really a Trojan that causes deep changes to fabricator. Loading and fabricating  this hack schematic will cause an unauthorized fabrication, and loading chances are no different than loading any other schematic. However, it can be loaded 100% of the time with any authchip. And it executing the fabrication will occur 100% of the time with an authchip, but it does not consume the authchip. Upon successful execution, this hack will speed up any robot production by 5x, but all robots made by the fabricator will be broken, and every part on these robots will be broken.  Cogmind can load any robot for free on the malformed fabricator, but execution requires the authchip. The authchip will not be consumed for making broken bots.


Schematic is always available from the DM, WL, and some crazy tinkerer giving it to every derelict he finds. Crazy tinkerer can be found in one place per run but always spawns. Either Scraptown in Abandonware, Storage, Scraplab, Factory pretending to be an operator, in extension jail, or pretending to be a researcher in a Research branch. This tinkerer does spawn with an ID Mask, Mak. hacking suit, datajack, trap extractor, cld. Aerolev Unit, and a Signal Generator, and other CS-55 parts and a broken stasis beam. If you are hostile to UFD or attack him, he will activate a Signal Generator and flee.

[Kyzrati]

Reasoning: Currently Fabrication is fine but very limited

Your very first sentence here hits the nail on the head--that's exactly how it's supposed to be.

We had a practically unlimited fabrication system before, and you could literally put together an entire build with it, anything you wanted if you were skilled enough, but that was not the original intent of the system so it had to be dialed back in a controllable manner. The current limitations are just about where it's supposed to be.

The original controls were the internal matter systems which you could influence, but it was pretty opaque and while it allowed some level of control over usage, ultimately not all that great since we want some flexibility in there as well. There is technically flexibility in the current system--fabrication is unlimited insofar as your ability to collect Authchips, which we've seen people do, but doing so generally requires route sacrifices so that's a good design tradeoff. In the end it comes down to fabrication being intended for the most part to simply provide you with the occasional important piece or two of a build concept, something you really want but can't find, not build a ton of stuff (although again, we have seen some crazy use by some players even under this system, so the potential is there if you really do want to lean into it, it just requires sacrifices!).

There will be other non-fabrication methods of obtaining parts in the future (Merchants expansion), but the current fabrication system is at its limits and will not be expanded.

[AnotherZach]

Thanks for the reply. If you want Fabrication to only be for 1 or 2 parts per run, then you mostly the nail on the head mechanic wise. However, Fabrication at levels -1,-2,-3,-4 is too difficult - especially because you get all the cool schematics in the second half of the game. It just feels bad - especially with TE - all the schematics that you can't use. If authchips had two uses instead of one, this would empower us to better use Fabrication to round out a build. Multiples of one item are okay - its two different devices or processors that would let us have fun.


Matter Fabrication that locks you out of other alignments while limited to rating 2 in Recycling is fair. Everything you make will always be worse than the next floors depth of parts. And Scraptown could just be hostile upon walking in if you now "Fabricator aligned" and react accordingly if you bring in a bunch of allies. It gives us a chance to explore things we otherwise would not be able to, and is consistent with the trade off philosophy.


Not sure how derelict fabrication - even if limited only to mak shift parts - could even fit in with your vision. Matter fab at WL would probably work only because you would have to fully stop the invasion to use the fabs at will...and everything on the ground is probably better than what you could fab. Exiles Fab is fair - you aren't going to have powerful schematics to fully use it.


Authchip free fabrication in a garrison that requires matter but gives additional alert could work. The alert cost is real - and using it could awaken a squad to go to that location. Good luck managing the alert, defending the fab against Ob10. This is really something you should consider - using the fab would have a high skill ceiling, punish greedy players hard. Yea we walk into high SEC with a near perfect build, but that 10k alert isn't going to be easy to clear even with waste diving, or branches.

[Kyzrati]

Well, "too difficult" is relative. I mean some people can manage it for their purposes, so one could say it's gated by a combination of skill, personal strategy, build type, and not something everyone or every build has easy access to. It's right where it needs to be at the moment.

Importantly, remember that Authchips aren't even required for Fabrication, either--many people will simply fab anyway and recall the squad, or of course there's rolling Authchips from one fab to the next, overall putting hard caps on the possibilities while still allowing access to a few extra parts for those capable of doing these things. OR of course simply building what you want and dealing with the squad, or leaving before they get there

Authchips should simply be considered a "free" way to get something without the other consequences, just the need for inventory and acquisition/carrying it/them around. So whether or not that trade off is worth it is up to you.

Again, you need to lean a bit more into it if it's really something you want to do ("free" fabs), but we can see in the aggregate player stats that it is in a good place. There are varying degrees of Authchip use across winning runs--some make heavy use of Authchips, some use none at all despite building dozens of things across a run, and yet others fall somewhere in between. There are still some folks building their entire build for the end game, but it's not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.

(The other option: Explorer mode could be the feel-good setting you're looking for without the same balance restrictions--even without an Authchip there is no automatic trace and investigation so you can get more provided you have sufficient hackware.)

[AnotherZach]

Yea too difficult is relative. The way I weigh it difficulty by prerequisites for a successful fab. Hackware is necessary at higher depths.


Successful fab - You get your item, fab intact, usable for another fabrication, no one immediately near you for combat.


Partially successful fab - you began the fab process, but can't stick around because of the investigation you can't recall - either hackfail or lack of hackware.


Very successful fab - you make your item. But also have enough hacking power to query the network, install liberate.


High Depth fabs often have behemoth nearby, and require hackware. Sometimes even decent hackware can be scare - and I like to keep hackware on as long as I can but sometimes it just isn't enough. And the fight is a non zero cost either.


Lower depth fabs don't require hackware for partial fabs, and much less likely to have moths.


Successful Fabrication in access is impossible - you are lucky to get one fab off if any. Too many patrols, and you can't kill bots fast enough. The alert gain from 1 grunt is pretty high, and its very easy to get into assault range.


While you consider auth chips to be a more of a soft requirement, I consider them a much more stringent requirement. This is due to the fact that I don't just want to fab one thing if I am in a position where I need to fabricate - particularly hacking suits and system shields. Only making one per fab isn't enough.


You have the stats in aggregate and can better decide how to balance fabrication. Though I would be curious as to see the breakdown per depth. Curious about how many players fab stuff after getting schematic from researchers.

[Kyzrati]

Most people will tend to get their fabrication done by the time they're in Research. Anything after that would be even more opportunistic and likely for hacker types.

It's true I haven't done specifically a breakdown by depth though, only run-wise, so that info is anecdotal, but then almost all the top players are on Discord talking about this stuff anyway, so it's fairly representative.

(I did share some runwise fab stats as part of the post-rework stat analysis back when that happened, though that was still when folks were getting used to the new system. Comparing more recently the data is little changed, though.)

[AnotherZach]

Yes. Is it intended that fabrication be limited only to hacker types in research and access? And is the reality of fabrication in research and in access fun?

[Kyzrati]

Not meant to be a source of "fun," meant to be balanced for the intent, yep! Technically others can fabricate in late maps, too, by the way, those are just the build types where it's a given, with fewer limitations (though it's always been like that, including back when Fabricators were matter-driven since the alpha days).

Certainly some people might find it more fun to be able to put together a whole bunch of parts in the late game, but that's not the intent of the game and those folks can do so in a lower difficulty where balance is far more in the player's favor rather than emphasizing the right challenge level and a certain play experience.