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Wow, we reached this goal faster than I expected we might, thank you all! The support so far has been amazing with over 60 patrons so far :D

So it's time to talk about how this goal will be handled...

First of all, notice that I changed it from it's original wording, which simply mentioned "item" creation, to be a little more inclusive. Now I've summarized it in general as "an item with a new mechanic, or a new machine hack, robot hack, or some other type of mechanic/content." This makes more sense to me, as interesting items are usually about more than just stats and are generally based on some unique mechanic, anyway, yet there are other areas of Cogmind where unique mechanics can manifest as well. Players have, after all, also been calling for more machine/robot hacks over time, or a number of other various mechanics.

Guidelines

As for specifics, an item or hack could be a common one, or some special prototype/unique ability only found in special areas or conditions. If appropriate, technically an item-related mechanic could result in multiple items if having tiers is feasible or even necessary.

Balance will be maintained, though! Where this new content appears will depend a lot on what it is. E.g.  a very powerful item will be hard to obtain, whereas something very balanced will be easily available every run.

Try not to be too meme-ish or weird, since it does need to fit into Cogmind lore, although as you've seen, there is a lot of leeway in terms of what we can fit into Derelict territory :). As such, the name and location (and stats, of course, for balance) of this new content will be finalized by myself, although good suggestions that take into account all the existing mechanics and lore are gladly accepted and could be used in their entirety if appropriate.

Note there is no guarantee this new content will not be modified in some way in the future, if necessary for balance or some other game-defined reason down the line. It's not too likely there would be major changes, but I should say this up front just in case, since the future is pretty unpredictable as far as long-term game development goes :P

Bring on the ideas!

So everyone can throw ideas out there as comment on this post, and I'll reply as to their feasibility and get some discussion going. (Obviously not everything can be done, or is too far beyond the scope of this goal's intention.)

Discussion is also fine on Discord as well, but to be fair to everyone not on Discord (and to make it easier for my own organizational purposes) only proposals posted as top-level comments here will be considered.

If you later change your mind, edit your comment to add either the new idea to replace the old one, or withdraw your idea entirely because you're thinking you might like to support an idea suggested by someone else. 

After a certain period (maybe 2-3 weeks) I'll do a separate post where we can vote for which to add. When that time comes, you'll be able to vote for as many ideas as you like, so hopefully the overlap in votes will result in a clearer outcome than would everyone just voting for their own ;)

Future Patreon Goals: Note I'm not 100% sure about the next goal yet, which as currently written will continue this trend of collaboration, since whether/how to manage that will really depend on the outcome of this first time. So it may yet change or be adjusted in some way(s), we'll have to wait and see.

By the way, there's a little thing coming to everyone soon ;)

Also there's a new blog post coming this week...

Comments

Michael Powers

I've often wished there were deployable items that could serve as "obstacles" to help with getaways. Think of smoke bombs to block visibility in a particular spot, chaff canisters to redirect attention, oil slicks to reduce mobility, flares or flashbangs to temporarily overload sensors. Cogmind does have upgrades like ECM suites, but I'm thinking of items with temporary effects that stick to a particular map location for a while rather than following Cogmind around. If I had to pick just one of the above, I'd say smoke grenates. Launch them into a particular corridor and sneak past or run away while visual detection is limited (in both directions!) and line-of-sight targeting is degraded.

Kyzrati

Yeah I've thought of mechanics along these lines before, although most are avoided intentionally because blocking stuff is problematic for the AI. I *have* been considering eventually allowing an exception by making the otherwise useless Welding Torches able to fuse doors shut, though even that is probably just more problematic than fun in the end. Specifically smoke and other AOE gases/fluids will not be added, though, since that's a whole new area that occupies too much UI space, among other issues. Visibility is only *partially* blocked by machines, and while technically we could set up something to do at least that much, it might be too oddly inconsistent with the rest of the game because nothing else does that. Right now I think the closest mechanic we have to what you're thinking is deployable turrets, which are new and so far only have a limited appearance (but are extremely effective...). They are deployed, immobile, and both block and attack enemies. So in that case perhaps more of those could be added to satisfy your goal here? Not sure if/how that would occur just yet, since they're not something that really fits into 0b10 itself.

Qingyao Sun

I guess I'm a little too late for this round of voting, but I suppose there will be another round in several months (?), so here is my two cents. You know, I'm also a fan of Nethack, so I'm going to steal some ideas from it. For example, a scroll of magic mapping, a wand of wishing, and an amulet of life saving are neat prototypes for a powerful one-time alien artifact. In addition, you can also draw inspirations from monster abilities, such as ghosts-like swarms that are extremely hard to hit and can fly through the walls, jelly-like Behemoths that split into two weaker ones when being hit, or mimic-like sentries that disguise themselves are out-of-depth items and shot you in the face when stepped on :D Since we are only allowed to post a single item, what about the Armor of Reflection that have a change (probably just its coverage%) to reflect all thermal/electromagnetic beams back? This would be fun but not really powerful, because kinetic/melee weapons can still reduce its integrity, and the beam won't hit the firing party as long as it's position isn't perpendicular to you. Yeah, we already have Reflective Platings, so it will need a better name.. If you don't mind yet another (Un)Nethack reference, what about the "Tin foil hat"?

Kyzrati

No not too late here since I'm just now restarting the voting with expanded options, since I'd forgotten some, so lucky you there's enough time to throw yours into the pool :) I can add the concept of deflective armor.