We make bad suggestions and come up with horrible ideas

[lsend]

Unique sensor array with an inverted range, that is FROM instead of UP TO.

[zxc]

Invisible robots - can only be detected by sensors.

This actually sounds cool. Hunters who are invisible until they fire, but can be spotted with sensors if you have good enough signal interpreters.

[Kyzrati]

This actually sounds cool. Hunters who are invisible until they fire, but can be spotted with sensors if you have good enough signal interpreters.

I actually considered this early on, but the idea didn't seem too interesting because enemies will generally fire on you as soon as they have LOS anyway. So an enemy with this mechanic would need to have some other kinds of abilities.

[DDarkray]

I actually considered this early on, but the idea didn't seem too interesting because enemies will generally fire on you as soon as they have LOS anyway. So an enemy with this mechanic would need to have some other kinds of abilities.

Just give this ability to melee attackers like.....Combat Imps.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah that's certainly a line of thinking I had as well, but it's not very fun like that. I mean ambushes are bad enough. Mobile ambushes?

Haha COMBAT IMPS.

Yes we're in the right thread!

[zxc]

This actually sounds cool. Hunters who are invisible until they fire, but can be spotted with sensors if you have good enough signal interpreters.

I actually considered this early on, but the idea didn't seem too interesting because enemies will generally fire on you as soon as they have LOS anyway. So an enemy with this mechanic would need to have some other kinds of abilities.

Maybe they can re-cloak when they're repositioning or flanking or something.

[Joshua]

Combo propulsion: flying wheels, hover treads.

You should be able to tractor beam other robots and have them tow/slingshot/jetski you around the level.

[Kyzrati]

Haha "jetskiing." They're pulling you along and turn a corner and you go swinging around the corner, too, firing at bots along the way until you smash into the far wall

[zxc]

Would be rather cool if the Cogmind world were filled with ghost robots who you can't see unless you equip the right sensors. They don't interact with anything and you just pass right through them, but it would be eerie AF.

Bad enough idea?

[Kyzrati]

Getting worse! Cogmind-horror mashup.

[zxc]

When you die, you get to write a note and leave it where you died, which gets uploaded to the server.

Future games sometimes reuse old seeds from the server and the player might stumble across the note.

[Kyzrati]

Yeah I've thought of roguelikes based around interactivity between players before, that just being one form of it. In Cogmind this would be highly inappropriate given the lore (bad idea success!), but there are so many cool things that could be done with these ideas which I am totally incapable of doing, and have no time for anyway xD

[Joshua]

This is more of a meta bad idea: Kyzrati could write the Ultimate Strategy Guide and sell it for more than the game.

[Kyzrati]

With cheat codes at the end which you can only get if you successfully pass a test.

[Happylisk]

Turn based games promote overthinking things, indecision, and degenerate strategies.  Make cogmind realtime instead of turn based, changing nothing else.  Hope you're a fast typer if you like to hack a lot. 

[zxc]

Make Cogmind simultaneous turn-based. It is then possible to dodge attacks because the enemy may fire where you were standing previously, but you dodged on the same turn. Luring a train of enemies through chokepoints causes a massive traffic jam, increasing realism.

[lsend]

Item launcher: damage depends on the mass and type of item used as ammo.

Because, why not throw wheels at enemies?

[bugsniper]

From discord: A final boss 2x2 combat recycler that excavates walls in the way, eats terminals and staircases, and takes players to the chutes.

Also, a transdimensonal portal machine that takes you to a level in the another seed.

[Joshua]

Realistic ambient sounds for the propulsion you have active:

* Squeaky wheels.
* Heavy diesel engines for treads.
* 130 dB jet turbines for flight units.
* etc.

[Laida]

One really BIG idea:
a) With every evolution not only slots count is increasing, but also size of the Cogmind. So, it will become 2x2 like behemoth at -9, than 3x3 like borebot... and something like 10x10 at the end of the game. Player should quickly find a good launcher or swords or something else to force their way to stairs, becaue Cogmind quickly will become too large to go through most of the corridors. Also every time when Cogmind increases it's size, it more effectively crashes enemies (and from some point - items on the ground on which he passed). So if, for example, 5x5 Cogmind steps on the chute trap, he doesn't need to worry about anything because he can compact all compactors in the wastes. Also big enough Cogmind can take on board allies and carry them like a bus or something like that. Allies are safe in the big Cogmind and enemies can't reach them. 
b) Additional ending: if Cogmind reach surface with enough allies on board, they decide to go away from Complex and create a home inside of the Cogmind to live in peace in it. So, Cogmind continues increasing it's size to make life of his inhabitants more comfortable. And then new robots somehow hear about great new home and come to live in it, and it increasing even more to accommodate everyone... At the end it becomes a new Complex - Complex 0b11. So Cogmind surprisingly recognizes that Complex 0b10 and 0b1 are also just the overgrown Cogminds themselfs...

P.S. Amazing thread! 

[Kyzrati]

Now that is an epic idea! It could lead into the one we were talking about not too long ago, where Cogmind is basically a DF game depicted in MojoPoop's mashups:

Spoiler

[close]

(And welcome to what has become the most popular thread of late )

[bugsniper]

Zionites spas where you can relax and turn tan while the attendants shoot em guns at you.

[Laida]

New item: a bucket with yellow dye. It will be using just like a trap: drop item from inventory and put to the ground. Than stay on it and press ">". After that, your Cogmind will be painted in yellow, so all main.c's bots will think that you are one of them and will not attack you anymore.
There is the animated illustration in attachment, about how it supposed to work:

[Kyzrati]

I can't stop laughing.

[b_sen]

2) Endless Mode: After reaching the surface, go back to -11 Scrapyard instead of winning. Reset all events triggered via branches as if you've never visited any branches. All your stats and items are kept.

Variant I thought up on the Discord: While you ascend through the Complex, the Complex has continued to expand and send its technology downwards, so the Scrapyard is no longer in -11.  Instead, for every time you've reached the surface the Complex has built a new floor (so on your first loop back to the bottom you start in -12, on the next loop you start in -13, and so forth).  Naturally, technology trickles down alongside the building process, so each floor becomes harder on every loop.  And to support the expansion and make good use of all the floors, the overall areas gradually move down too - so eventually -8 will be fully mined out and converted over to a Factory floor for more building, then -4 will be converted to provide more Research space,  then -2 gets converted to put more depth between Research and the surface...

It would be a bit odd to make new branches for the new depths, but the inhabitants of branches might continue responding to the expansion process.

New item: a bucket with yellow dye. It will be using just like a trap: drop item from inventory and put to the ground. Than stay on it and press ">". After that, your Cogmind will be painted in yellow, so all main.c's bots will think that you are one of them and will not attack you anymore.
There is the animated illustration in attachment, about how it supposed to work:

What an IFF bypass! XD