"Polymind," a little something special for Beta 11.2 (Patreon)

Oh my, we're going backwards now :P

In early December I decided we really needed a new release, and since Beta 12 expanded significantly so that wouldn't have been anytime soon, naturally what we need, and haven't gotten for a long while... is an event!

So welcome to the special new Winter 2022 mode: Polymind. Not to be confused with POLYBOT-7, mind you--completely different things, but I couldn't resist, the name is just too appropriate...

Now normally what I do when coming up with events is focus more on concepts that have interesting or even significant impact on gameplay despite requiring relatively little work to implement. This leaves more time for playtesting and refinement if necessary, not to mention avoids taking too much time away from development of the regular game. (Exceptions might happen, of course, like RPGLIKE took a bit longer than usual because I wanted it to be a permanent way some people might enjoy the game, so it had to go deeper.)

In this case I took a different approach, willing to put much more time into one of the harder concepts from my list of candidates. I actually spent two days planning a really involved one, then realized it was likely going to take more than a month of work to so put that idea aside and picked another which I figured could be done in two weeks or so, about the amount of time left before the holidays kicked off.

Possible? Yes. Very tight? Also yes xD

This has been a crazy couple of weeks, well over a hundred high-paced hours of mostly coding work, and unlike most special events/modes that are pretty concentrated in just a few areas of the code, this one is all over the place. It modifies AI, input, alert, part interaction, all sorts of stuff, while also adding many new mechanics, too.

Aside: Nearly 10% of the coding involved allowing the player to control multitile robots ;)

Time has been so tight that I still don't have release notes or proper demo images to share with you.

My original plan was to release it to you all with a few days to spare so we could playtest it more thoroughly , but the holiday period is already upon us (not to mention the Steam sale), and I've decided to rush it out now, this morning, and will spend the day preparing for the wider release and keeping an eye on those trying it out over on Discord to see if there are any serious issues that need to be fixed today as well.

Following release I imagine there will also be one or more updates to this mode in the near future, considering I have yet to thoroughly playtest it myself. The features are tested, but not really playtested. (There are already a couple adjustments still to make later today, minor ones.)

So what is Polymind?

You can take control of almost any other robot in the game. In more typical roguelike/game terms it's basically "possession" mechanics.

Our old friend Protomatter is back, which you can collect from destroyed combat bots and will need to take over a host.

As another robot you can do... other robot things! I know some of you have joked many times about roleplaying as a Serf. You can now do that, and doing so will even help you stay alive ;)

You can't attach or remove any parts from yourself, or even evolve slots, so you're entirely dependent on your hosts. While undetected, you can just walk around Complex 0b10 as a regular bot, trying to keep your suspicion down, or figuring out a way out of trouble when things start going downhill. Fighting is always an option, too, of course!

Overall I'm not sure how the mode balances out in the long run, but I had fun with it so far in the early maps the few times I was actually sorta playing instead of purely testing features.

I imagine it's on the easy side (?), not to hard to win, but you can get creative and do fun new stuff in this mode, and/or set your own goals and challenges. (The non-Rogue difficulty modes also got tweaks so those will be even easier.)

There is a significant new bonus score component for Polymind, and as usual I'll be setting up event leaderboards soon. It'll be interesting to look at the stats for this one!

Changelog

There are a few other things included with this release, mostly notably the brand new toggleable force melee mode! (which as you'll see will also be incredibly important for some Polymind interactions as well)

• NEW: Special event for Winter 2022, automatically activates between 12/24 and 1/7 (inclusive) for anyone who has played at least 10 runs
• NEW: Command line argument "-forceMode:Winter2022" (or "-forceMode:Polymind") to enable the Winter mode from 2022, regardless of system date
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Blend into Complex 0b10 as one of their own!
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Cogmind does not evolve slots, and cannot attach or remove any parts
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Collect Protomatter from destroyed combat bots and use it to take control of almost any other robot
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Gain the form and functions of the controlled robot, and consider taking advantage of their capabilities to remain unnoticed
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Performing class-related actions keeps suspicion low, but be wary of especially suspicious enemies
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Once detected, either fight it out or try to lose your tail and blend in again by getting back to work as a local
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Robots from other factions will always recognize you for what you really are, regardless of your current form
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Extra "Polymind" section in scoresheet containing mode-specific stats
• NEW: [Polymind mode] Significant bonus points awarded for various Polymind-related performance factors
• NEW: Force melee mode, a new way to repeatedly force a melee/ramming attack (toggle via Spacebar+e or Shift-Alt-e), also compatible with vi-keys
• NEW: 0b10 Mechanics assigned to Repair Stations eventually resupply with backup parts from a station if available
• NEW: HUD Core/Energy/Matter readout uses higher contrast colors with Colorblind Adjustments option active
• NEW: Accessibility section of manual detailing ASCII map fonts, closed caption audio, colorblind mode, color customization features, and more
• MOD: Non-Cogmind-controlled Mechanics capable of carrying out full range of repairs, including allied robot cores and part integrity
• MOD: Non-Cogmind-controlled Mechanics can no longer engage in repairs if self or target in combat, as with Cogmind-controlled Mechanics
• MOD: Robot Size context help includes reference to that value's effect on lines of fire
• MOD: Toggle Sound default hotkey (F11) changed to Ctrl-F11
• FIX: Mechanics were capable of fixing even broken parts normally outside valid rating limits [MTF]
• FIX: Stat values referenced in manual's Coverage/Exposure example calculations reflected data from earlier versions [aoemica]
• FIX: Slow startup time on some M1 systems allowed muteAudioOnFocusLoss=1 to crash the game while alt-tabbing during loading [needausername]
• FIX: noAudio=1 advanced.cfg setting no longer always worked, might crash program on startup [Luigi]
• FIX: Using global audio toggle (Ctrl-F11) combined with muteAudioOnFocusLoss=1 still allowed audio to restart on returning to program from another
• FIX: No longer incompatible with most versions of Steam Deck software

Shortly before publishing this I discovered the muteAudioOnFocusLoss setting doesn't work in fullscreen mode under certain circumstances, so for now I've disabled it regardless of your settings and will reactivate that once fixed for the official release.

Get Beta 11.2 "Polymind"

IMPORTANT WARNING FOR ALL PATRONS WHO PLAYED BETA 12: Because this is a Beta 11 build, if you have been playing Beta 12 and transfer your data from 12 to 11 (or do so on Steam automatically), you will lose any Beta 12 metadata progress. That means gallery/lore collected during your time with Beta 12. If you want to preserve those records instead of whatever you end up creating via 11.2, you'd want to save your /user/meta.bin file to restore later. (If you only discover this later, backups from previous days can be found in /bak/.)

I will be merging this mode with Beta 12 later, in fact I would've preferred to do it before the release so that patrons could continue playing normally on your own branch, but sadly there wasn't nearly enough time, especially given what a big production this mode became xD

On Steam, Beta 11.2 is located on the new beta branch "beta_11.2" accessible with the code "404findmeahost", or if you don't have Steam and bought through FastSpring and would like to try the DRM-free version, send me an email at gridsagegames@gmail.com to be added to the Beta 12 cycle notification list (yeah it's 11.2 but this is the 12 cycle :P). Anyone already signed up will receive a separate email with link.

Again it's highly likely the full release will actually happen (much?) later today anyway, and you would obtain that through normal means, so this is for anyone who wants to try it out immediately. Too bad the completion of Polymind development was delayed a bit to begin with, squeezing the timeline like this, but it was likely worth it considering the cool things added as a result :D

Activating Polymind

Winter 2022/Polymind mode will automatically activate for you on new runs from 12/24 through 1/7 if you've played at least 10 runs before.

On days outside that range, or even if you haven't played that many runs before, you can still force it by adding a command line parameter when running COGMIND.EXE: "-forceMode:Polymind". (Within Steam this is handled by going to Cogmind > Properties > Set Launch Options.) If you want to play a regular run during the event, you can suppress event date triggering by adding the "-noSpecialMode" command line parameter.

(As a special mode that modifies game data on startup, it will only trigger if the game starts up without a save from another version or from outside this event, so be sure to finish any other run before starting this up.)

Wizard Note

For those with Wizard mode, I have updated the reference post with the latest key, which applies to not only Beta 11.1 but also Beta 12 X2~4 as well. Thanks for your support and patience!