Arcen Games

General Category => Bionic Dues => : x4000 September 14, 2013, 06:59:53 AM

: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 06:59:53 AM
Release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Bionic_Dues_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_0.910

Restart steam to force a quick update if you want.

I think the release notes stand for themselves this time, although the motivations here are basically to just make the exo customization as streamlined as possible so that you don't have a bunch of secondary chaff to sort through, but you still have interesting choices to make.  Sometimes it's a fine line.  There are still more interface additions to come for the customization, like some changes to the part picker stats display and adding a filter for specific effects on parts in the inventory view and the part picker.  But those only go so far, so the mix of parts is what we're trying to sort out first.

Enjoy!
: Re: .910 now out.
: Aquohn September 14, 2013, 07:09:31 AM
Er...started new game, entered customisation, found a pretty major problem: EVERYTHING PRODUCES POWER.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Tridus September 14, 2013, 07:17:55 AM
Mark levels are now showing on item slots after you remove an item from them. Mantis (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12450).
: Re: .910 now out.
: Aquohn September 14, 2013, 07:33:08 AM
Oh, and, I'm still getting threatened by fuel tanks: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12302

Fuel tanks can still be EMP'd, too.
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 14, 2013, 07:47:37 AM
Seems that bugs are out on hunt for this version..  8)
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: Misery September 14, 2013, 08:24:19 AM
Hm, I've done 3 missions here, gotten about 4 of the scavenging-increase terminals, but I'm still getting level 0 items from the missions and store.

Is that supposed to happen?

Also, all of these changes sound pretty great.


EDIT:  Also, what exactly do the explosion boosters work on, other than the Siege Exo's stuff?  They dont seem to work on anything else, including the Grenade Launcher or the Brawler's weapons.
: Re: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 08:26:54 AM
What level of items were you getting at the end of the game before? I may need to adjust that. Also, scavenging level itself may just need to go away as an unneeded complication, and then key the parts quality off the day.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Misery September 14, 2013, 08:32:02 AM
What level items was I getting from the previous version of the game?   Er, I dont really recall.  I started a totally new game for this one because of the different progression...  deleted my older saves simply because they were cluttering up the load screen and were useless anyway.

And changing the scavenging thing might be a good idea.  It's kinda confusing as to how it works and what the number means exactly anyway. I assume the terminals then would just increase it by one level as if 2 days had passed?
: Re: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 08:36:01 AM
The terminals are just going away, as that really would be waaay too powerful now.  But a question for you: has anyone ever seen a level 50 item, or close?  What level of item is the highest you remember seeing?
: Re: .910 now out.
: Misery September 14, 2013, 08:40:50 AM
Hm, I dont THINK I've seen them.   My memory is notoriously bad though.

Dont the satellite-icon missions can keep it from advancing since you just outright skip a few days?  If the levels are lower than expected by the endgame, that might be the reason.
: Re: .910 now out.
: nas1m September 14, 2013, 08:41:40 AM
Er...started new game, entered customisation, found a pretty major problem: EVERYTHING PRODUCES POWER.
I guess you mean everything "consumes 0 power"?
At least that's what I am seeing...
: Re: .910 now out.
: Misery September 14, 2013, 08:44:52 AM
Er...started new game, entered customisation, found a pretty major problem: EVERYTHING PRODUCES POWER.
I guess you mean everything "consumes 0 power"?
At least that's what I am seeing...

That's in there too.  Some items say that, but most that I've seen are actually producing power instead.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Aquohn September 14, 2013, 08:49:44 AM
Er...started new game, entered customisation, found a pretty major problem: EVERYTHING PRODUCES POWER.
I guess you mean everything "consumes 0 power"?
At least that's what I am seeing...

Mantis'd: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12456

Save also attached here, if you're particularly lazy ;)
: Re: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 09:24:36 AM
.911 now out:

-------------------

     The concept of the scavenging level has been removed in favor of just having items get better with each passing day. Otherwise it was far too complicated to understand, and in general players were not getting the top-tier items anyhow.
        This probably also fixes the "no energy cost" or "negative energy cost" bug from the prior version, but let us know.

    The progression of item levels is now a bit faster, so that you wind up with the max item level a few days before the last day, rather than exactly on the last day.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Misery September 14, 2013, 09:40:08 AM
So.... wait. 

Is this going to still be going with the 1 level per every couple of days method, or is this going back to the 1 per day thing?
: Re: .910 now out.
: Hyfrydle September 14, 2013, 10:12:34 AM
Is anyone else having problems selecting missions. I'm not getting tool-tips when I mouse over some missions and also can't select some missions.

I have added this issue to Mantis.
: Re: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 10:22:51 AM
In terms of one level per day, it's averaging one every two days, with occasionally doing one every day (every 15th day or some such). But the levels are more powerful than before. If anything, I'm worried the progression here may be too generous compared to what it was before, but we'll see.

The city map thing is news to me, that's very strange. You can't click the red locked ones of course, but I don't know why there would not be tooltips. I'm not at my computer right now, but make sure you post a savegame to mantis with things like that. And what your screen resolution is with that particular one.
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 14, 2013, 10:24:59 AM
Is anyone else having problems selecting missions. I'm not getting tool-tips when I mouse over some missions and also can't select some missions.

I have added this issue to Mantis.

I've  noticed something similar to. It happens on mission thats close to city borders. It's very hard to mouse over it for tool-tip and to go there. Only few rightmost pixels seem to be working from whole icon.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Hyfrydle September 14, 2013, 10:25:26 AM
Will do, I think it's related to screen scrolling in some way.
: Re: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 10:26:15 AM
I probably just need to expand the edges a bit, then. I bet that's what it is.
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 14, 2013, 10:35:23 AM
Is it by design that inherent bot stats are not counted in stats?
It's looks a bit strange for stealth parameters for example.
: Re: .910 now out.
: x4000 September 14, 2013, 11:07:46 AM
It should be in there, that's unintended.
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 14, 2013, 11:48:30 AM
Added stats one to mantis: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12459

And one more question:
SilentBot seems to redirect damage to fuel tanks. Thats a bit Fun effect - is it intended?
: Re: .910 now out.
: Aeson September 14, 2013, 11:56:58 AM
"But a question for you: has anyone ever seen a level 50 item, or close?  What level of item is the highest you remember seeing?"
As it happens, I have seen a level 50 item. The highest item level I've ever seen that I can remember is Mark LX, or level 60 (as a matter of fact, I have several items of that level in one of my games). This is from the first game I really played, with 12 days to go before the final battle, with difficulty set to easy and started in version 0.903 or something like that.
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 14, 2013, 12:09:57 PM
I probably just need to expand the edges a bit, then. I bet that's what it is.
It may be that the actual screen area of the sidebar/etc windows is bigger than the visual area by a significant margin, leading to the mouse clicks being "caught".
: Re: .910 now out.
: Winge September 14, 2013, 10:39:00 PM
*cough*  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12473

I'm just glad it let me out the second time.  Thought it was going to crash again!
: Re: .910 now out.
: Misery September 15, 2013, 01:12:19 AM
Ok, so, I just found a level 2 coolant tank item that gives 425 shielding if placed in that slot.... is this supposed to be possible even?
: Re: .910 now out.
: Histidine September 15, 2013, 04:31:11 AM
Ok, so, I just found a level 2 coolant tank item that gives 425 shielding if placed in that slot.... is this supposed to be possible even?
Hmm, might be related to 0012192: Coolant tank/power amplifier module bonuses stop increasing after a certain level (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12192). I'd assumed it was something from older versions, but apparently not.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Aquohn September 15, 2013, 05:21:51 AM
I probably just need to expand the edges a bit, then. I bet that's what it is.
It may be that the actual screen area of the sidebar/etc windows is bigger than the visual area by a significant margin, leading to the mouse clicks being "caught".

I'm attaching a save. There is a Bahamut mission right next to my base, but the game won't let me select it! >:( Talk about so close yet so far...
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 15, 2013, 08:21:58 AM
Trying to zoom in as far as possible helped for me with this issue.

I had fortification affix that gives 39 damage reduction - not sure if thats by design but my assault exo is quite.. resilient now.
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 09:31:31 AM
Ok, so, I just found a level 2 coolant tank item that gives 425 shielding if placed in that slot.... is this supposed to be possible even?
Do you have a save?  Not that it lets me reproduce the generation of the part, but there's these questions:

1) What rarity is the module?  I.e. what color is the name.
2) Are you using Meg?
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 15, 2013, 10:38:51 AM
I found something muuch better.
It's called DiamondBot. It has a pea shooter and gives credits when shooting at you.
I'm contemplating how long I need to sit holding space to have enough credits to buy anything I need from shop.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Misery September 15, 2013, 10:49:01 AM
Ok, so, I just found a level 2 coolant tank item that gives 425 shielding if placed in that slot.... is this supposed to be possible even?
Do you have a save?  Not that it lets me reproduce the generation of the part, but there's these questions:

1) What rarity is the module?  I.e. what color is the name.
2) Are you using Meg?


I'm using Tuck.

And here is the item:

(http://i.imgur.com/hGnod0I.jpg)

Other purples that I've gotten dont even compare to this one even though their level was higher.

EDIT:  And this should be the save that has it.
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 15, 2013, 10:59:36 AM
It might have something to do with green-blue-purple gradation.
For quite long time I was using purple II because nothing found up to tier XI level had comparable stats.
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 12:40:07 PM
Thanks for the screenshot, I think I know what it is.  Basically some of the stupid math tricks I used to get it to have different stats for different systems.  The idea is that it gets 5x the budget in that case because it has 5 separate effects... it looks like it was getting 5x the budget for each effect, or something like.  Will take a look.
: Re: .910 now out.
: khadgar September 15, 2013, 01:04:53 PM
That might explain why I had a robot using nothing but coolant tanks...
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: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 01:05:17 PM
That might explain why I had a robot using nothing but coolant tanks...
Chill out!


;)
: Re: .910 now out.
: chemical_art September 15, 2013, 01:24:11 PM
Is it a bug or intended that at the start i can't just any mission but specific. even as a noon i felt bad that my first mission had to be propulsion junk
: Re: .910 now out.
: madcow September 15, 2013, 02:17:05 PM
Isn't multiplayer out of the game now? When I started a new game I still had the option to enable multiplayer.
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: Tridus September 15, 2013, 04:31:56 PM
Is the Epic Siege Exo's plasma cannon supposed to be able to blow things up through walls? Here I am aiming it, note that it can go through the wall to hit stuff on the other side. I fired it, and it did take those out.

(Since I have it's ammo boosted to 2 shots, I could have taken out both bosses on this assassination mission without anything shooting back at me. That's how goofy this is.)
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 15, 2013, 04:38:46 PM
Explosions going through walls work on all weapons. It's quite useful on missiles.
Not sure if thats intended behavior.
: Re: .910 now out.
: Tridus September 15, 2013, 04:53:15 PM
Explosions going through walls work on all weapons. It's quite useful on missiles.
Not sure if thats intended behavior.

Yeah I found a WONTFIX bug for it. But I think that needs to be changed.

Why? Because I just won a Lions Den mission by literally changing to the siege bot, and shooting. 125 enemies, one shot. Also it appears that the actual range was wider than the targeting UI told me.

Here's a video: http://www.hiredgoons.ca/bionicDues/OneShot125Kills.mp4

Note the lag caused by this too, and that's on an i7 with 8GB of RAM. :D
: Re: .910 now out.
: madcow September 15, 2013, 04:55:48 PM
I had a massive lag spike today during one of those missions where all cover is rigged to blow. It was a case of nothing happened, nothing happened, then the entire section of the screen is suddenly cleared. Heh.
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 05:05:17 PM
Here's a video: http://www.hiredgoons.ca/bionicDues/OneShot125Kills.mp4
That is incredibly hilarious.

"Don't you ever want your plasma cannon to have more than one shot?"

"... actually, that wouldn't help at all."
: Re: .910 now out.
: Tridus September 15, 2013, 05:08:49 PM
Amusingly I'd originally equipped it so it had two shots, using ammo boosters. Then I used it on an assassination mission and saw that it ignores walls. Now it's set up so that it only needs one shot, particularly on assassination and lions den missions with a lot of stuff clumped up.

I need to get to the last day to see if the maps are small enough for it to work there too. <_<
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 05:13:52 PM
Now it's set up so that it only needs one shot
I saw what happened to your siege exo.  You only get one shot, whatever the ammo count says ;)
: Re: .910 now out.
: Tridus September 15, 2013, 05:18:46 PM
Now it's set up so that it only needs one shot
I saw what happened to your siege exo.  You only get one shot, whatever the ammo count says ;)

It just wiped out an entire assassination mission, including 3 TethysBots (video available on demand). It only needs one shot! :D

(The original version didn't have that kind of AoE range on it, so it actually could be fired twice. This new version is so much more effective that it's essentially broken the two hardest mission types.)
: Re: .910 now out.
: orzelek September 15, 2013, 05:36:53 PM
Now it's set up so that it only needs one shot
I saw what happened to your siege exo.  You only get one shot, whatever the ammo count says ;)

It just wiped out an entire assassination mission, including 3 TethysBots (video available on demand). It only needs one shot! :D

(The original version didn't have that kind of AoE range on it, so it actually could be fired twice. This new version is so much more effective that it's essentially broken the two hardest mission types.)

It seems that you found nice new way to break the game  8)

Only drawback that you can get only 3 item rewards since shooter is guaranteed to die.
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 06:17:12 PM
It seems that you found nice new way to break the game  8)
Yea, there were reasons behind the original splash radius of the plasma cannon, as well as the "damage attenuates over splash range" rule.  But we managed to iterate ourselves into this position :)

It's good for the humor, though!
: Re: .910 now out.
: Tridus September 15, 2013, 07:19:17 PM
Okay, so I did the last level. Unfortunately the recording didn't work, though I could always try again.

Aside from the general hilarity of "killing almost the entire enemy force with a single shot in the last level" stuff, the other problem was TethysBot. Specifically they were unkillable if not one shot. At one point I hit a switchplate that disabled it and pumped 5 machine gun shots into it, then 15 laser shots. Then I stealthed, changed to my ninja, and hit it with 20 kinetic bursts.

By the end of that, it had 500,000 shields. Shooting it again made it go up more. I've got a video of emptying the chain gun into it and watching its health go up. (That one was already in mantis as it turned out (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12214))

Virusing them did the same thing, they'd shoot other ones and go up in health infinitely.

So to beat that, I had to remove one of my range extenders on my plasma cannon and put a damage booster on it instead. Now it couldn't hit the entire map, but it'd just one shot most of it instead. Any I didn't hit that time, I just died against (they're unkillable without a gun doing many thousands per shot). Go to the next level and hit the plasma cannon, that got the rest of them.

So there's a couple of issues there, one of which is a bug. The other one is the plasma cannon being totally absurdly overpowered, to the point that I did three missions in two minutes and a combined total of three shots.

edit - Here's a mantis for the plasma cannon (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12491).
: Re: .910 now out.
: Winge September 15, 2013, 11:53:22 PM
Here's a video: http://www.hiredgoons.ca/bionicDues/OneShot125Kills.mp4

Note the lag caused by this too, and that's on an i7 with 8GB of RAM. :D

Part of the reason for the insta-clear and lag is explosive runes--every rune you hit with the Plasma Cannon replicates the effects.  Those things are wonderful  :D
: Re: .910 now out.
: keith.lamothe September 15, 2013, 11:59:01 PM
Here's a video: http://www.hiredgoons.ca/bionicDues/OneShot125Kills.mp4

Note the lag caused by this too, and that's on an i7 with 8GB of RAM. :D

Part of the reason for the insta-clear and lag is explosive runes--every rune you hit with the Plasma Cannon replicates the effects.  Those things are wonderful  :D
Oh, look, the Epic Siege left a note on the refrigerator

"I prepared Explosive Runes this mo-"


(Boom.  Problem Solved.)