Requesting ideas: "bugs" for Bionic Dues robots.

[x4000]

Okay, so this is a fun one.

Basically, we are working on implementing quite a few robots that all have various "bugs" that cause them to do something wonky (and usually funny) periodically.  But also which have tactical value.  Aside from just the regular stats, weapons, and other characteristics of each bot, the bugs it has are what make it feel really unique.

To be honest we've mostly been focused elsewhere other than bugs (loot, procedural dungeon generation, mission variety, and on and on), so we're only now really getting heavily into the bugs.  Off the top of my head, the ones we have so far are:

- Periodic miss change: dumbots always miss their first shot, then every other shot after that.
- Low ammo: a few bots fire just a shot or two, then are out of commission for a while.
- Periodic random fire: the blunderbots fire their rockets in a random the first time, then every other time after that.  This often does massive teamkill, but can also just as well hit you.
- Slowness: the murderbot has a 50% chance of not acting every other turn (this is key for you to be able to keep ahead of it, as it's invincible and super deadly)
- Double-agent: the razorbot attacks everybody.
- Hilarious charge: the batbot runs either toward you or away, every other turn, and tries to low-range fire at you.
- Snuggler: bombbot can't really attack you, it just sidles right up to you... and is super explosive... and often gets in your way so you have to shoot it.
- Forgetful: every other turn, moves in a random direction.

Those are, of course, just the bugs.  There are also a lot of things that enemies do that are not negative to themselves:

- Various AOE patterns.
- Various ranges and other damage characteristics and all that.  Armor, what have you.
- Buffing nearby bots
- Double moves per turn, but uses one to shoot cover to open the room up.
- Stealth so invisible on sensors, and invisible in general until within low sight range.
- Etc.

I'm open to suggestions on both fronts.  There are several more brainstorming sessions in the future for Josh and Keith and I, and we tend to come up with this sort of thing pretty quickly.  But many heads are better than one, and so I wanted to toss this out to the community to get an even wider field of ideas; I'm sure the game will benefit from that.

Thanks!

[Coppermantis]

Does the AOE do friendly fire? If not, there could be a bug that makes it so that it does.

Static Field: Add a miss chance or other debuff to nearby bots

Feedback: Damage done to this bot is applied in a reduced form to its nearby allies

[x4000]

AOE does indeed do friendly fire (so do missed shots; those shots actually go somewhere and may hit something, friend or foe).  In general, full friendly fire is on (including you hitting yourself with rockets).

Nice on the static field and feedback!

[Breach]

Oil slick/leak: the oil cans on one of the bot leaks and creates an oil slick. This is a couple of tiles (maybe 2x2, something like that) and has the effect of disabling bots on it for a turn (slipping over) and propelling any bot that tries to move across it to the opposite end of the slick from where they entered the 'slick zone'.

Lights out: a bot sends out a pulse on a specific frequency that shorts out the lights. If your bot doesn't have nightvision (potential equipment choice if that's feasible?) then range is halved/reduced by a third for one turn. Could also apply to fellow enemy bots.

Hologram projector: one of the bots produces a hologram of another bot in the area. It might be another enemy one or it might be one of your bots! If it is the latter, enemy bots will attempt to attack the hologram instead of your real bot.

Barricade master: one of the bots obtains an uncanny ability to build a sturdy barricade composed purely of scrap metal in an extremely short amount of time. This barricade blocks shots but is destructable (to prevent any instances of levels getting permanently blocked - unless ammo is limited of course).

Not sure if those are on the right lines but just a few ideas

[x4000]

Some of those are fairly intensive to code, but I do like the creativity in them.  I'm looking mainly for a mix of behavioral and stat-related stuff, whereas those are more like "spells" in a non-robot roguelike sense.  The spell ideas are super interesting actually, and feel free to suggest them because you never know.  We are looking into various additional things of that scope between now and 1.0, and so it's good to have a list of ideas.  We aren't going to try and go crazy with that sort of thing, though, because we feel like the design is already really solid and tacking on too much stuff of that nature is just going to harm our ability to polish in the meantime.

[madcow]

Shield bot - has no attack and moves towards clumps of bots where it deploys a shield. Any damage done to any bot in the shield's area applies to the shield bot.

The obvious resulting bug - reverse polarity shields. Under X conditions or with Y % chance, the shield has reverse polarity and will cause any damage from bots under the area to hit the shieldbot instead of you. (Or alternatively causes bots under the shield to deal no damage with their attacks, that might be easier to code)

Edit: additionally the trojan(or worm)-bots. These bots have another type of virus on them as well. Killing them causes the virus to spread to all other bots within X distance.

Double edit: Coward-bot. Runs away if another bot dies. If possible will seek out other bots to follow rather than trying to attack you alone.

Triple edit: Hound bots. Will move towards the starting location, then tracks to you from there in an attempt to flank.

(said in the standard multiplayer announcer voice) MULTIEDIT: Recommissioned bot. (or sleepbot maybe?) It is only activated when it "sees you", after it sees you, will take a turn or two to activate. Then behaves normally.

Okay last edit! (MONSTER EDIT): Red-ring bot (or blue-screen bot maybe). Has a random chance of shutting down completely, rendering it inoperable. May or may not start back up after X turns.

For realz done editing now! Bark-bots. Not sure how detection/etc works in this game, so might not be appropriate. These guys, their bark is worse than their bite. Do not have guns, but will alert other bots to your location (or maybe just spawns them in after X turns that it sees you). Will follow you "barking" once it sees you.

[Cyborg]

Self-destruct bug: x many turns before self-destructing

Zui quan bug: too many ones and zeros; bot feints a bug, changes to another bug

Turtle bug: Each incoming attack increases the armor by x%

[mrhanman]

deflector: causes incoming shots to miss wildly. bug could cause shots to hit that would otherwise miss.

reflector: shots angle away in opposite direction. could be used against other bots.  bug could cause a random reflection.

[Tridus]

Scavenger Bot - Bot that gets sent out to scavenge battlefields for materials. Low power guns/armor (it's not a high end combat bot).
Bug: Scrap - If another bot dies near it, it's primary mission to scavenge takes over. On it's next turn, it moves towards the dead bot and takes no offensive action.

Juggernaut - Incredibly tough bot that deals high damage at close range.
Bug: Momentum - Can only increase or decease it's movement by 1 per turn. That is, if it's stationary on turn 1, it can only move 1 on turn 2, 2 on turn 3, etc. The same is true when trying to stop, if it went 2 last turn than it must move at least 1 this turn if it's capable of moving at all (and can stop fully next turn).

Spotter Bot - Long range bot that does low damage, but also "marks" its target. The mark increases the range at which all other AI bots can attack the marked bot.
Bug: If the marked bot moves, there's a 25% chance that the mark stays in the now empty location, confusing the bot targetting systems and decreasing all AI attack ranges.

[Coppermantis]

Obsessive: Once a target is acquired, this bot will ignore others until a new target is selected. Only really applies in multiplayer, though.

Minelayer: Lays mines in a line behind it as it moves, sort of like the lightcycles in Tron. Mines expire harmlessly after X amount of time.

Attrition: All bots within X distance slowly lose health over time.

[khadgar]

Oblivious- Every turn, this bot attempts to move as if the field was completely empty of other bots / obstacles. If the target move is invalid, the bot moves to the nearest valid tile and takes damage from the 'collision'. If it collided with another bot, that bot takes damage too.

Agoraphobia- If this bot is adjacent to any other bot, it refuses to make any action other than trying to move away from the bot. (Alternate- bot is less effective the more bots are nearby within a X tiles, i.e. -1 movement / sight / damage / ? per bot)

Lonesome- If this bot is NOT adjacent to another allied bot, it will refuse to make any action other than trying to move next to a friend. Reverse of the above.

Shoddy- Whenever this bot is damaged by any source, it will shut down for a few turns. This chance increases if the bot is more heavily damaged.

Vengeful- If this bot is damaged by an ally, it will fire a bonus (free) shot at the ally who damaged it, unless it is another revengebot.

Superfluous- As this bot sustains more damage, it becomes more effective. +move/damage/speed, etc.

Amnesia- If this bot loses sight of you at any point, it will not act.

Hologram- This bot does not shoot. Instead, it will project 1 or 2 'fake' holograpms of other bots nearby to it. If no other bots are nearby, this bot does nothing. (alternatively; always a certain type of common bot will be hologrammed). These bots can sustain only a single hit. (and any shots attempting to target them will just pass through / hit a nearby tile instead? not sure if this makes sense in the game engine)

Lethargic- This bot refuses to move more than a single tile any turn (unless bots already do this?). This bot will not move and shoot on the same turn.

Efficiency- This bot refuses to move in any direction by DIRECTLY towards the player's bot. This means it will make a beeline straight to the player, ignoring walls, other bots, obstacles, or otherwise. If this is an invalid move, the efficiency bot will not move. Now that's efficient!

Luddite- This bot REALLLLY hates science exos, and will fire a technologically inferior missile at any science exo it sees. It is passive against all other exo types.

Toss- This bot has no weapon, and will instead attempt to throw nearby allied bots in the direction of the player's exo. (alternatively, this bot will throw only allied bots that are in it's way)

[Histidine]

Peacekeeper: Just sits there if no combat is going on, but will shoot anyone in range who attacked anyone else the previous turn.

Cowardly (alternate version): Attempts to place cover or another bot between itself and the player exo with each move.

Volatile: Goes boom spectacularly when it dies.

Attractor: Attracts shots aimed at nearby objects to itself.

[Toranth]

Efficiency- This bot refuses to move in any direction by DIRECTLY towards the player's bot. This means it will make a beeline straight to the player, ignoring walls, other bots, obstacles, or otherwise. If this is an invalid move, the efficiency bot will not move. Now that's efficient!

This demands the obvious opposite:  The Drunkard - This bot is incapable of travelling in a straight line, randomly lurching to one side then the other whenever it attempts to move.  If this causes it to run into something, it halts its move.

[KDR_11k]

Stuck trigger: This bot attacks every turn, whether it has a valid target or not (aiming straight ahead if no target).

Janus: The bot's guns are mirrored on its back and linked to the same firing control, it always shoots another volley in the opposite direction of what it was aiming at.

Bugblatter: The bot cannot see you if you are not looking at it.

Kleptomaniac: The bot rips weapons off nearby bots and uses them itself.

Missing glue: When the bot attacks its weapon (or armor plates) has a chance to fall off.

AIP: The bot does not get aggressive until you have killed a number of other nearby bots.

Emphatic: The bot is stunned for a round when it sees another bot die.

Compulsive bastard: When the bot sees something die its compulsion kicks in, it absolutely HAS to run up to the corpse and kick it.

OCD: If there are two bots of the same type among its allies this bot will use a tractor beam to move them around so they are always placed symmetrically around this bot.

Magnetic: Any bot that gets too close to this bot gets stuck on it, forced to move and shoot exactly like the magnetic bot does.

Commissar: Attacks any bot that dares to move away from the player.

Drill sergeant: Punches bots that miss their target.

[Winge]

Stolen Credentials:  A bot with this bug gives you a few credits whenever it fires at you; more if it hits.  If beating a mission is needed in order to obtain rewards, this applies to these credits as well.

Bully/Assassin:  Always targets the weakest/strongest (in terms of % health) bot in the room--includes allies and enemies.  Totally not stolen from anywhere.  Nope.

Overcharged:  Puts too much power into its shielding systems.  Deflects direct-fired weapons (AoE works, though), but burns out its circuits after only a few turns.

Network-dependent:  A bot with this bug takes damage whenever an allied bot takes damage or dies.

Overkiller:  Uses its weakest weapon with ammunition against enemies with low damage.  Enter the red zone, and it unleashes its strongest...

Damaged Strings:  Instead of "normal" speech, this bot constantly spews out quotes from other video games.  May or may not infringe on copyright laws.