I know what you're thinking: "this dude will do ANYTHING before actually finishing the firing range" -and you'd be right!
Introducing the Coop mode, conveniently in time for Steam's Couch Coop Fest.
COOP MODE
Sometimes you don't want your friends to smash your head in. Or maybe you find the Mandrillian bots too scary to face alone. With coop, your friends will take the role of helpful Drones, in a mission to help the Robot escape.
You can enable this mode at any time by switching VERSUS To COOP on the Main Menu.
Coop is a feature I started thinking about after the second round of improvements for the Mandrillian Bots. At a point, I considered adding it as post-release content, or even as DLC, but in the end I thought having it be part of the base game would be the best way to do it.
I liked the idea of taking advantage of the fun interactivity you can get with VR and bringing it to the asymmetric field. I did experiment with a "coop" mode back at the Murderbot Halloween Event, where PC players took the role of helpful Mandrillians. In the end, the Mandrillians were never meant to be something you interacted with for too long, and the only thing you could do for them was giving them a Repair Kit to heal them. That's why for this mode I wanted to ramp up the PC-VR player interactions.
THE COOP DRONES
These funky little dudes are not as sophisticated as the Robot, but they pack a punch and are pretty tanky.
And they come equipped with quite the versatile arsenal! (switch weapons by using the d-pad/number keys) Drones can't rearm themselves, so the communication is vital between the VR and PC side; the Robot player will need to find extra ammo and reload the Drones when they're running on empty.
You can also use RB/E key to stomp nearby insectoids.
MACHINE GUN
A portable version of the Turret Sentry gun, using a higher capacity version of the Sentry's magazines (which are cross compatible). A Drone can equip 2 separate magazines at the same time, switching between them with the O button / R key.
To improve accuracy and rate of fire, crouch (LB/Right Mouse Click), which will put the Drone into Sentry Mode.
FLAMETHROWER
A similar device to the Robot's own portable flamethrower (with its tank also being a cross-compatible, higher capacity version). Excellent to fend off angry Mandrillians and/or swarms of insectoids, but careful not to step on the flames! O button / R key will switch the pilot off, for situations where you want to be extra sneaky.
ROCKET POD
A two-tube rocket launcher that takes different kinds of ammunition. Use O button / R key to switch between the upper and lower tube. When active, a laser reticle will activate for rocket guidance.
Microrockets come in packs of 9, and they offer great stopping power against armored targets, with a very small and weak blast radius.
Poison rockets come in packs of 3, and offer you the functionality of poison grenades. Remember that, as always, poison gas clouds are flammable, so use that to your advantage with your flamethrower or even with the exhaust of your microrockets!
You might find other rocket munition around the facility. Use at your own risk!
DRONE REPAIRS
Drones can be quickly fixed with a good ol Repair Kit, just like the Robot -a Repair Kit will fully heal a damaged Drone, and even overheal it up to 130% if it's not too banged up. However, you might want to save those for yourself (or for an emergency fix).
Drones are built for war, so they can be quickly repaired in the field. Open the Maintenance Hatch and you will be given instructions in how to get your Drones back to working order.
CALIBRATION
If your Drone's Hull is below 90%, it will be unable to self-repair. Re-calibrate it to fix it. Be aware that calibrating a Drone won't fix whatever accumulated stress it might have been subjected to; at some point the Drone will start breaking apart even after small hits.
STRUCTURAL DAMAGE
If your drone has taken a beating, it will start suffering structural damage after being hit. Structural damage prevents you from calibrating, so you will need to fix this first. You'll know if a Drone has structural damage when the red warning light starts blinking.
The Drone Diagnostics System will point you to the areas that need to be reinforced. Pick the Drone's Portable Welder and get to work! After fixing all the weakened points, you'll be able to run calibrations to repair the Drone's hull.
FIRE
Extinguishing a fire should be your main priority. Pick the Drone's fire extinguisher and aim at the base of the fire (or fires!). You will need to do this before being able to proceed with further repairs. A drone will take steady damage while it's on fire.
COOP CHALLENGES
With the addition of Coop Mode, there's now also Coop Challenges, accessible through the same screen you'd access the Solo Challenges. While all Solo Challenges tried to emulate regular matches against humans, Coop Challenges are more action-oriented. So far there's 2 of these challenges: Coop Challenge 1 is limited to 1 Drone, and unlocks the Light Machine Gun. Coop Challenge 2 is an intense fight that is recommended to be played with 2 Drones, and rewards you with the Soldier Helmet.
To go with the trigger happy theme of Coop Mode, I've added a weapon I've always wanted to have in Mandrillia that would be too annoying to have in the regular weapon pool: the Light Machine Gun! It's on the spotlight for both the Challenges, and you can unlock it as a selectable Starter Longarm if you complete the Coop Challenge 1.
Besides being a good introduction to the Coop Mode, I've used them as a testbed for some Mandrillian Bot settings...
MANDRILLIAN BOT ADDITIONS
The Mandrillian Bot behaviors keep improving! This update includes some neat addiitons for them, and the groundwork for some tasty mechanics for the near future.
EXTRA MANDRILLIAN
Coop mode allows for up to 2 friends to help you. This means that for the first time you can outnumber the Mandrillians... unless they call for backup, that is.
I've added the option to increase the maximum concurrent Mandrillian Bots to 3 instead of 2. And yes, this means you can combine this with human Mandrillians to get a whooping 5 total Mandrillians roaming around. If you're into that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure it will feel like a traffic jam though.
The third Mandrillian Bot is mostly meant to balance Coop mode, especially when playing with 2 friends.
WAVE MODE
By default, Mandrillian Bots use the same rules as human-controlled Mandrillians in order to spawn. That is, they will spawn as soon as their respawn timer allows them.
This is great for more stealth-oriented gameplay, but for coop it proved to be a bit difficult to balance. If the respawn timers were too high, it ended up with a drip-feed of Mandrillians quickly dispatched by the Robot and Drone combined firepower. Too low, and it became extremely opressive, with no time to repair the Drones.
With the new Wave Mode setting, I took a more "videogamey" approach to Mandrillian spawn. Their respawn times will be quite long, but certains actions (or sometimes randomly) will trigger "waves" that will put some pressure. I'm pretty proud of this one!
COMING SOON: MANDRILLIAN BOT UPGRADES
Right now, the only upgrade Mandrillian Bots have had access to is the Armor -after all, the Armor started as a crutch to make the OG Mandrillian Bots challenging. Still, until now it has been a simple on/off switch. You either played against armored Mandrillian Bots, or unarmored Mandrillian Bots.
In preparation for me making more upgrades avaliable to the Mandrillian Bots, I've added a couple new settings to their upgrade style. RANDOM will be a weighted roll (which means right now roughly 1 in 10 mandrillians will appear with armor). DYNAMIC is where the juice is at -it simulates earning (and spending) points on upgrades, just like against human players. I included "fake" spending to offset the bots not having anything else to spend their points on other than the armor, and the result is quite similar to the frequency you'd see real Mandrillians with armor. DYNAMIC mode will also play along with the new wave mode, so you might get some surprises!
FULL CHANGELOG
- Added COOP MODE
- New (unlockable) weapon: Light Machine Gun (win Coop Challenge 1)
- Added two coop mode challenges
- Soldier Helmet now unlockable by playing Coop Challenge 2
- Increased maximum concurrent Mandrillian Bots from 2 to 3 (not recommended outside of coop)
- New Mandrillian Bot setting: spawn style. By default, they will use the same respawn timer as their human counterparts. The new "wave" settings will have them spawn more slowly, with increasing "waves", both random and triggered by critical events.
- New Mandrillian Bot settings for Upgrade Type: instead of being just OFF and ARMOR ONLY, it can now be set to RANDOM and DYNAMIC, with the latter emulating the Mandrillian Bots gaining points -yes, this means Mandrillian Bots will have access to upgrades other than the Armor in the near future
- Fixed long-standing bug regarding Mandrillian Bots not getting poisoned by gas
- Improved Mandrillian Bot behavior and added failsafes to avoid them getting stuck when running into each other in narrow spaces.
- Fixed a series of hilarious bugs related to the Mandrillian Bot number / max number
- If Mandrillian Bot's max number is higher than the Mandrillian Bot total number, the Mandrillian Bot total number will be automatically set to the selected max number
- Increased Sentry Turret magazine capacity
- Flashlight starter item now also counts as a "weapon", so you can use it to toggle sprint (lowering/aiming it)