The Cogmind Arcade Mode I considered releasing (Patreon)

As April 1st approached, I really wanted to do something like last year, a special one-day event that automatically activates a unique mode for anyone playing on internet fun day.

Well sometimes I like to just play as fast as possible, so I wondered what it'd be like if I redesigned the mechanics a bit to make Cogmind more arcade-ish with a bit of real-time factors thrown in. The core idea was to make it so that your parts would automatically degrade with (real!) time, forcing you to act fast, but also your parts are repaired by destroying other robots. It sounded intriguing, so I actually implemented it to see :)

First, though, I worked out the fundamental numbers that would underpin the balance, identifying and prioritizing relevant factors...

A bot's point value would determine how much it could repair, and from that we have to consider about how many total points are in the average squad, and how long it takes to take out that squad. Of course there's also the need to find enemies to begin with--there is definitely some down time in between fights as well, so the last factor needs to take into account how quickly parts degrade even outside combat.

From all this I came up with a couple basic formulas for degradation and repair, and test it real quick.

The original formulas were definitely way too hectic, so I halved the natural degradation rate and quadrupled the restore rate, which turned out to work pretty well. Here's a bit of a test run in Materials:

I then made a lot of notes covering more details on how to improve the experience, but in the end decided that Idon't think many Cogmind players would really be able to enjoy it because it requires a pretty high level of play, especially once out of the early game, and being real-time at all makes it too hectic for anyone who doesn't already have a really good grasp of both the content and tactics.

Maybe Arcade Mode could make its debut some day, but I decided there were better options that more people could enjoy, and therefore more worthwhile than finishing up this mode.