New Tech: Creating Robots (Patreon)

It turns out that the last New Tech update I was building for Fun and Eventual Inclusion is actually being slipped into Beta 13 in some form, and that's not the only one!

Beta 13 needs a lot of content to fill in some cracks, so it's the perfect opportunity to check out my long-term list of isolated concepts to see what might be suitable for the required depths and relevant to the lore. Well this month I reviewed the entire list, which I've never done before.

For many years now, any time a neat idea for an item/mechanic pops up, it gets slipped into that list at some random location, a list originally dubbed "post-1.0 items" back when I started it some time during alpha. You never know when a good idea might come in handy, and good ones pop up all the time but maybe not right when you need it, so best to make note of them to save for later! This is why Cogmind's "todo" file tends to keep growing over time, rather than shrinking as tasks are accomplished ;)

Anyway, it took a while to filter through everything (on the way even removing a few pieces of tech which had since been implemented without even recalling they were listed there at some point :P), but I did pull out a number of ideas that will no doubt be fun to play with. While none of them are central to the Beta 13 expansion, any time new maps are added a lot of content is needed to fill them out! Peppering them with cool stuff that you won't see every run helps keep them from feeling too sparse or repetitive.

The... Botcube

Say hello to the Botcube, and the new friend it will create for you, or more specifically the new friend you will create with it.

Drop the Botcube on the ground and interact with it in the normal way ('>' or left-click) and it will start the creation process, turning itself into a brand new robot. Hopefully by that time you've prepared a collection of suitable parts for it to use, lying around on the ground within range (or maybe are just dropping Botcube in a pile of post-battle wreckage to see what happens?).

Every couple turns it will suck up a new part and slot it in, until either all potential slots are full or there are no more compatible parts nearby. Then beep boop your new friend will self-activate.

Your history log will conveniently record the feat.

Don't forget to inspect your formidable ally!

Kyz We Need [QoL]

As a player what do you need most to facilitate using this sort of tech? At least some way to tell which parts the Botcube is compatible with.

The answer is most, but there are a few exceptions, generally including things that AI-controlled bots can't really use, or aren't suitable for certain types of allies from an architectural standpoint.

In order to help out with that, while standing on the Botcube all nearby compatible parts will intermittently flash. Anything not flashing will be ignored.

This also coincidentally makes it obvious which items are within range to be utilized--double QoL!

Ancient History and Distant Future

In implementing this feature, I'm reminded of one of the times Cogmind was written about in Rock Paper Shotgun years ago, where the author assumed you would also be "building your own allies" in the game. As you all know now that's not the focus, or really much of a thing aside from fabricating bots based on existing designs, at least not in the sense implied by the original assumption (designing them as well), but I guess we can have some of that now...

I bet there will be new types of theorycrafting to go along with this mechanic as well :)

There are also more possibilities for this tech, which I had actually revisited in my notes a couple years back to specify that it would be appropriate as a piece of primary content within yet another new map that might happen further down the line. But since I do think this will be fun to play with, and there's no guarantee that other map will actually happen, I think this is a good opportunity to at least provide a taste of it!

:D