SITREP Saturday #41: Be the Tank
Art, mechanics, streams, IndieDB Top 100, long lost friends... the year ain't over yet!
Quite a few new items coming to Beta 8, still adding yet more:
Most of these were actually appended to the art preview selected for the "Year 5 of the Cogmind" annual review, though one of those is previously unseen.
While we're looking at art, check this out:
Anyone remember what that is? After its removal back in early 2016, it's finally making what is likely to be a much-anticipated comeback among players who've used it before ;)
I've been working on a whole bunch of stuff for Beta 8, though most of the new content is under wraps until the release. Instead I can show this mysterious animation as updated for compatibility in optional low-contrast modes:
But there are also some interesting new mechanical developments to get specific about. Let's dive right in...
I always wanted a simplified propulsion system in Cogmind, which is why from the very beginning (2012!) propulsion itself has had no mass, regardless of whether active or inactive. This makes it much less complicated to juggle even more propulsion considerations on top of all the other parts you have to think about.
Of course it also resulted in the interesting side effect of so-called "propulsion armor," or sometimes attaching useless deactivated propulsion simply for its coverage and integrity. As a pretty unique quirk to Cogmind's systems that you can learn to use to your advantage in some situations, I've never felt a strong need to do anything about it.
Then suddenly some weeks ago I wasn't even thinking about this topic (or even propulsion) at all and for some reason the idea of adding a "drag" mechanic popped into my head. I liked the principle of having inactive non-airborne propulsion slowing down flight and hover, and started to like it even more as I continued thinking about how this could indirectly help further differentiate treads and aid heavy combat builds. With a new mechanic to limit certain kinds of propulsion armor and the potential for temporarily cheesing tread-specific benefits, treads could be buffed such that it's easier to make extremely "tanky" builds with lots of treads, which almost become a build's armor, among other benefits.
So all treads, legs, and wheels will come with a new stat, "drag," which kicks in only when these parts are inactive while airborne. Note the addition of a new stat here doesn't lengthen the item info, just takes the place of the "mod/extra" stat where appropriate ("mod/extra" is only used for airborne propulsion, so that same stat slot for non-airborne propulsion is instead "drag," essentially how some weapons may have a Heat Transfer stat or a Spectrum, but not both). Also note that drag values are not all over the place--they're actually static by propulsion type.
Now, balance-wise, the idea behind drag is not to prevent propulsion armor completely (in which case it could just be blocked!), but instead simply have a speed cost associated with it, one that some players might be willing to pay under certain conditions.
Here's a demo of the mechanic in action:
As with any brand new mechanic, we'll have to see how everyone responds with their builds, but in short, treads will become that much more unique (especially compared to legs, which have always offered similar capabilities), and propulsion armor won't be so common anymore. (Drag will not impact core movement, by the way!)
Drag is liberating. It's introduced a lot of design freedom to make treads shine at what they should do best: Enable you to effectively crush hordes of bots. (Okay well literally crushing them under your treads is already possible, but you know what I mean :D)
To that end, treads will be better putting their generally massive integrity to work protecting your other parts, gaining about 40 coverage each. This pushes average tread coverage much closer to that of light armor, and armored treads will be about on part with light armor in terms of how well they shield other parts.
On the offensive side, each tread slot gives a 2% bonus to accuracy. So the average tread build will have something like 6-8% better accuracy for all weapons, or even 10%+ for those going with a truly tanky build using a greater number of treads defensively as well (or to carry a ton of stuff--we might be seeing more... really heavy stuff in the future ;)).
Treads will also have a reduced overweight penalty (though still not as good as wheels).
In the end there are a lot of strategic implications here. As a combat player I know I can't wait to take a Beta 8 tank out for a spin :P
Over the past couple weeks we've had several people stream their first runs of Cogmind, with the community around to help and enjoy that initial experience all over again.
Tone, a seasoned roguelike player generally found playing NetHack, streamed his very first Cogmind run while myself and a bunch of other Cogmind players were hanging out there for much of it. Here's the first day, and here's the second. (I hear the videos will probably be up on YouTube later, at which point I'll update with more links.)
Although it was his first run he, uh, won :P. Many (most?) viewers had already won before so there was certainly a fair amount of backseating, but it was a fun slow crawl spanning more than 13 hours (unusually long for a Cogmind run, but the whole thing was all streamed, after all, and he was learning on the way). It also got plenty hairy in a few places. First run and all :)
I also continued my ongoing stream run this week, Part 3 of Cogmind the Gunslinger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJqjn1qOW8E
WARNING: Unlike most of of my streams, the entirety of Part 3 is super spoilery--front to back special late-game events and branches.
The stream actually included a first for me as well, as it headed into one of the few areas of the world I've personally never explored before!
During Part 3 I achieved the bounty set by MTF, who challenged me to confront a certain rare late-game enemy. True to his word, MTF immediately purchased 4 copies of Cogmind to hand out on stream :D (MTF says this might happen again in some future run, I'll just have to keep my game in top shape, unlike my earlier RIF stream which got crushed late in Factory before I could reach the bounty location xD)
While watching the stream, Zyalin drew my combat build, with a twist :P
Zyalin says:
Last week Gold-Plated Games also checked out Cogmind for the first time, with both myself and the community in tow (unexpectedly :P). Fun times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagixNfrTi4
Thanks to all of you who voted, Cogmind is in IndieDB's Top 100 :D (for the fifth year in a row)
Voting for the Top 10 started this week (and votes have been reset), but I don't think it's really worth bothering to compete against the really big mainstream games for those slots. Anyway, you can vote again and/or check out all the other indie games.
Steam's Winter Sale is coming up next week, and as usual Cogmind will be 10% off. (Not 25% like last year--Valve doesn't plan to feature Cogmind on their front page like they did last time, so as per my promise I'm sticking to only 10% discounts during EA.) Of course the discount is mirrored on both Steam and my own site.
The sale isn't the only thing coming up next week though. Stay tuned for something special for everyone ;)
A note about SITREPs: These are regular progress updates where I often share features coming to the next release, but aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 6 and Beta 7.
There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums or r/Cogmind.
Quite a few new items coming to Beta 8, still adding yet more:
Most of these were actually appended to the art preview selected for the "Year 5 of the Cogmind" annual review, though one of those is previously unseen.
While we're looking at art, check this out:
Anyone remember what that is? After its removal back in early 2016, it's finally making what is likely to be a much-anticipated comeback among players who've used it before ;)
I've been working on a whole bunch of stuff for Beta 8, though most of the new content is under wraps until the release. Instead I can show this mysterious animation as updated for compatibility in optional low-contrast modes:
But there are also some interesting new mechanical developments to get specific about. Let's dive right in...
Is that a Leg in Your Pocket?
I always wanted a simplified propulsion system in Cogmind, which is why from the very beginning (2012!) propulsion itself has had no mass, regardless of whether active or inactive. This makes it much less complicated to juggle even more propulsion considerations on top of all the other parts you have to think about.
Of course it also resulted in the interesting side effect of so-called "propulsion armor," or sometimes attaching useless deactivated propulsion simply for its coverage and integrity. As a pretty unique quirk to Cogmind's systems that you can learn to use to your advantage in some situations, I've never felt a strong need to do anything about it.
Then suddenly some weeks ago I wasn't even thinking about this topic (or even propulsion) at all and for some reason the idea of adding a "drag" mechanic popped into my head. I liked the principle of having inactive non-airborne propulsion slowing down flight and hover, and started to like it even more as I continued thinking about how this could indirectly help further differentiate treads and aid heavy combat builds. With a new mechanic to limit certain kinds of propulsion armor and the potential for temporarily cheesing tread-specific benefits, treads could be buffed such that it's easier to make extremely "tanky" builds with lots of treads, which almost become a build's armor, among other benefits.
So all treads, legs, and wheels will come with a new stat, "drag," which kicks in only when these parts are inactive while airborne. Note the addition of a new stat here doesn't lengthen the item info, just takes the place of the "mod/extra" stat where appropriate ("mod/extra" is only used for airborne propulsion, so that same stat slot for non-airborne propulsion is instead "drag," essentially how some weapons may have a Heat Transfer stat or a Spectrum, but not both). Also note that drag values are not all over the place--they're actually static by propulsion type.
Now, balance-wise, the idea behind drag is not to prevent propulsion armor completely (in which case it could just be blocked!), but instead simply have a speed cost associated with it, one that some players might be willing to pay under certain conditions.
Here's a demo of the mechanic in action:
As with any brand new mechanic, we'll have to see how everyone responds with their builds, but in short, treads will become that much more unique (especially compared to legs, which have always offered similar capabilities), and propulsion armor won't be so common anymore. (Drag will not impact core movement, by the way!)
Freeeeeedommmmmm!
Drag is liberating. It's introduced a lot of design freedom to make treads shine at what they should do best: Enable you to effectively crush hordes of bots. (Okay well literally crushing them under your treads is already possible, but you know what I mean :D)
To that end, treads will be better putting their generally massive integrity to work protecting your other parts, gaining about 40 coverage each. This pushes average tread coverage much closer to that of light armor, and armored treads will be about on part with light armor in terms of how well they shield other parts.
On the offensive side, each tread slot gives a 2% bonus to accuracy. So the average tread build will have something like 6-8% better accuracy for all weapons, or even 10%+ for those going with a truly tanky build using a greater number of treads defensively as well (or to carry a ton of stuff--we might be seeing more... really heavy stuff in the future ;)).
Treads will also have a reduced overweight penalty (though still not as good as wheels).
In the end there are a lot of strategic implications here. As a combat player I know I can't wait to take a Beta 8 tank out for a spin :P
First Time's a Charm
Over the past couple weeks we've had several people stream their first runs of Cogmind, with the community around to help and enjoy that initial experience all over again.
Tone, a seasoned roguelike player generally found playing NetHack, streamed his very first Cogmind run while myself and a bunch of other Cogmind players were hanging out there for much of it. Here's the first day, and here's the second. (I hear the videos will probably be up on YouTube later, at which point I'll update with more links.)
Although it was his first run he, uh, won :P. Many (most?) viewers had already won before so there was certainly a fair amount of backseating, but it was a fun slow crawl spanning more than 13 hours (unusually long for a Cogmind run, but the whole thing was all streamed, after all, and he was learning on the way). It also got plenty hairy in a few places. First run and all :)
I also continued my ongoing stream run this week, Part 3 of Cogmind the Gunslinger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJqjn1qOW8E
WARNING: Unlike most of of my streams, the entirety of Part 3 is super spoilery--front to back special late-game events and branches.
The stream actually included a first for me as well, as it headed into one of the few areas of the world I've personally never explored before!
During Part 3 I achieved the bounty set by MTF, who challenged me to confront a certain rare late-game enemy. True to his word, MTF immediately purchased 4 copies of Cogmind to hand out on stream :D (MTF says this might happen again in some future run, I'll just have to keep my game in top shape, unlike my earlier RIF stream which got crushed late in Factory before I could reach the bounty location xD)
While watching the stream, Zyalin drew my combat build, with a twist :P
Zyalin says:
This is Bounty-Bot-7
made up from a recycled sentry core
Upgraded by the powerful KYZ-Guidance-Unit for real-time insider knowledge
and comes with a Backseat-Mounted MTF-Combat suite for maximum bounty potential
Last week Gold-Plated Games also checked out Cogmind for the first time, with both myself and the community in tow (unexpectedly :P). Fun times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagixNfrTi4
Top 100
Thanks to all of you who voted, Cogmind is in IndieDB's Top 100 :D (for the fifth year in a row)
Voting for the Top 10 started this week (and votes have been reset), but I don't think it's really worth bothering to compete against the really big mainstream games for those slots. Anyway, you can vote again and/or check out all the other indie games.
Steam's Winter Sale is coming up next week, and as usual Cogmind will be 10% off. (Not 25% like last year--Valve doesn't plan to feature Cogmind on their front page like they did last time, so as per my promise I'm sticking to only 10% discounts during EA.) Of course the discount is mirrored on both Steam and my own site.
The sale isn't the only thing coming up next week though. Stay tuned for something special for everyone ;)
A note about SITREPs: These are regular progress updates where I often share features coming to the next release, but aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example with Beta 6 and Beta 7.
There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums or r/Cogmind.
Selection of images from the past year of Cogmind-related development as posted on the dev blog, forums, and Twitter (full mega size 
Cogmind Monthly Development Hours, 2013.7-2018.11. (The color coding is for different aspects of development tackled each month, the subject of a future in-depth article to come at a later time.)
Don't worry, that's not all. We've got more where that came from ;)
An assortment of 2018 progress gifs!
POLYBOT-7 box art.
A whole bunch of SITREPs...
Cogmind sales history on Steam, Oct 2017~Nov 2018. Note: Sales off Steam are excluded here, but I mirror all discounts on my website, and the relative amount of revenue from direct sales pretty consistently hovers between 10-15% of all revenue, because yeah a lot of people buy games through Steam but Valve takes a huge nearly one-third cut of revenue from games sold on their site!
Lots of fun toys coming in 2019!
