Responses to alpha player questions.

[mrhanman]

A question, though - if I have a Fuel Depot mission next to a Lion's Den, a Manufacturing Plant, a Command Center, or an Assassination mission, will completing the Fuel Depot mission count as a success or failure of those missions?

I just completed a Fuel Depot mission, and it looks like the surrounding missions were marked a draw, as if they never existed.  The consequences of success/failure don't seem to have happened.

Edit: One more question - I currently have a 13-range Plasma Cannon with 9 AOE radius on an Epic Siege Exo. However, I'm not capable of safely using the Plasma Cannon because I can only target tiles up to 8 range away because that's where my sight range ends, and I can't blind-fire beyond that with the Plasma Cannon. Is this supposed to be possible, and are there components that can increase the sight range (not sensor range) of my Exos?

There's a Mantis suggestion for this very thing here.

[x4000]

Fuel depots never appear next to robot command missions, and I believe not next to lions dens either. If you see one next to something like that, pleased do let me know.

Fuel depots "crater" the adjacent missions, knocking them empty without giving you any benefits. Besides not having to do those missions, and obviously the direct rewards of the fuel depot mission. That probably needs to go in the fuel depot tooltip.

Regarding the sight range thing, I saw that was also mentioned in another thread by you in greater depth, and I have some neat ideas there that I think you will like.

[keith.lamothe]

"All things in the shield slots.  There are other things that affect shielding (generally Auxiliary) stuff that go in other systems, but those would not get the bonus from things that are affecting the shield system specifically.  An auxiliary system is like putting a power cell in your gun in a place where you might have put ammo.  Actually we have that."
Just to make certain I'm understanding this correctly - the bonus applies to anything at all which is located in the appropriate section? So if I put an Auxiliary Reactor with 100 power generation in the Shield section and had a total of +15% to shield systems, the Auxiliary Reactor would effectively output 115 power? Or would the bonus only apply to shield-specific statistics on components in the Shield section? Sorry that I'm kind of beating this into the ground, I just want to make certain I understand how it works properly.

Actually the "+% to shield stats" effect just increases your overall values for the following stats:
- health
- regen
- regen window
- damage resistance

It pays no attention to what slots those effects are coming from, and doesn't do anything for any other stats even if they come from a shield slot.

[Misery]

Actually the "+% to shield stats" effect just increases your overall values for the following stats:
- health
- regen
- regen window
- damage resistance

It pays no attention to what slots those effects are coming from, and doesn't do anything for any other stats even if they come from a shield slot.

This bit, I found this bit very confusing.   Might warrant more explanation or different representation in-game?   

What I assumed it meant was that it'd take everything from that section that was coming out of it and increase it, regardless of what actual stat was coming out of the items in that bit.  That explains why some things werent increasing in the way I thought they would.

[keith.lamothe]

Actually the "+% to shield stats" effect just increases your overall values for the following stats:
- health
- regen
- regen window
- damage resistance

It pays no attention to what slots those effects are coming from, and doesn't do anything for any other stats even if they come from a shield slot.

This bit, I found this bit very confusing.   Might warrant more explanation or different representation in-game?   

What I assumed it meant was that it'd take everything from that section that was coming out of it and increase it, regardless of what actual stat was coming out of the items in that bit.  That explains why some things werent increasing in the way I thought they would.

Yea, and it's not that it can't work the way you were thinking, I just thought it was more interesting this way.  Conceptually, your shields still all come out of your shield generator, wherever it's being piped from, and the idea is that this just magnifies what your shield generator itself is doing.   But concept and intuitive UI oft do not correspond

In a lot of ways, it's much more "+% to shield-related stats", etc.

[x4000]

In a lot of ways, it's much more "+% to shield-related stats", etc.

In fact, in the new version, I renamed it to that.

[keith.lamothe]

Cool


Y'all player-type folks: would you find "+% to everything in a shield slot" more interesting than "+% to shield-related stats"?

One question is whether it would continue to apply the +% to your base health (which is a shield-related stat).  Though I'm guessing that's a mild balance issue right now due to health being so variable by difficulty level.

But would +computer-stats play off your base sensor range, etc?  Currently it does.

[Aeson]

To me, having either or both of those bonuses available is equally interesting, as long as something makes it clear how the bonus works, for example by having the bonus being "+X% to the Shield Section" for the section-specific bonus and "+X% to shield-related stats" for the Exo-wide bonus.

"One question is whether it would continue to apply the +% to your base health (which is a shield-related stat)."
I would say that, for a section-specific bonus, I would only apply the bonus to components in that section, primarily because I can't think of a base stat that could come from the Propulsion section. I can see Power from the Reactor section, Health from the Shield section, sensors from the Computer section, damage or ammunition or range or splash from the Weapon sections, but I can't think of anything from the Propulsion section, which would make that bonus inherently weaker if section-specific bonuses were applied to base vehicle statistics. For Exo-wide bonuses like +X% to shield-related stats, I'd be fine with it applying to base vehicle values.


Speaking of these bonuses, though:  is the following more or less correct and complete?
 * Shield-related stats: regen, regen window, shields, system protection, damage reduction
 * Weapon-related stats: damage, range, splash radius, ammunition
 * Computer-related stats: hacking points, virus points, sensors
 * Propulsion-related stats: stealth actions, consecutive stealth actions, trap avoidance

If not, what's missing and where does it go, or what should get moved?

[Winge]

To me, having either or both of those bonuses available is equally interesting, as long as something makes it clear how the bonus works, for example by having the bonus being "+X% to the Shield Section" for the section-specific bonus and "+X% to shield-related stats" for the Exo-wide bonus.

Beat me to it.

[x4000]

Mines also go in the computer.

Otherwise I think you are correct in terms of base functions, yes.

[keith.lamothe]

System protection doesn't get boosted by any of them, it's system specific

[Aeson]

Is it supposed to be possible for 0 bosses to spawn for an Assassination mission? Just wondering, because I can see that being a 'failure of intelligence' sort of thing, but I wasn't sure because none of the other missions that I'm familiar with have instances of non-spawning objectives, and with the way missions used to work an Assassination mission with 0 bosses to kill would have been an instant-win.

Related question: in Assassination missions, if I use a virus to defeat a boss, is that boss supposed to remain enlisted in the robot army after the mission completes? Because I just used the virus option to 'defeat' two ScorpionBots, but as far as I can tell they were not removed from the end-game army (unless BossBot production isn't reported in the bot construction summary).

[x4000]

Is it supposed to be possible for 0 bosses to spawn for an Assassination mission? Just wondering, because I can see that being a 'failure of intelligence' sort of thing, but I wasn't sure because none of the other missions that I'm familiar with have instances of non-spawning objectives, and with the way missions used to work an Assassination mission with 0 bosses to kill would have been an instant-win.

It is possible, if no bosses are currently in the final army battle roster.

Related question: in Assassination missions, if I use a virus to defeat a boss, is that boss supposed to remain enlisted in the robot army after the mission completes? Because I just used the virus option to 'defeat' two ScorpionBots, but as far as I can tell they were not removed from the end-game army (unless BossBot production isn't reported in the bot construction summary).

Virusing bots does indeed not last forever (beyond the mission anyway), so it does not remove them from the endgame battle, as you noted.

[Aeson]

"It is possible, if no bosses are currently in the final army battle roster."
So I take it that with 4 bosses in the final army order of battle, it's a bug that 0 bosses showed up for the mission. If I can get it to reproduce in the current version, I'll put up a Mantis post about it.

"Virusing bots does indeed not last forever (beyond the mission anyway), so it does not remove them from the endgame battle, as you noted."
Alright, thanks.

[x4000]

"It is possible, if no bosses are currently in the final army battle roster."
So I take it that with 4 bosses in the final army order of battle, it's a bug that 0 bosses showed up for the mission. If I can get it to reproduce in the current version, I'll put up a Mantis post about it.

Yes, that very much sounds like a bug -- super odd!