Beta 5 is mostly done! This was the last full week of prep work, focused on handling as many feature requests as I could fit in (including some of my own :P) while also fixing any new bugs discovered in Beta 4.
FR
One player requested that, as a memory aid, terrain discovered via scanners (or other means) could be displayed differently than that which had actually been visited and seen before. I went ahead and used monochrome "greenscale" to draw those areas rather than the usual darkened colors used everywhere outside FOV.
I like how it looks, plus it's a good excuse to use the old green style I originally used (it was the only/default style before Alpha 13 a year ago!).
Momentum damage modifiers are now precalculated directly next to the melee weapons they affect, so you don't have to do it :P. This is especially helpful when trying to smash, slash, or stab your way through a stubborn door.
Similarly, active Particle Accelerators now show exactly how they affect the damage of your energy weapons (including those stored in inventory in case you want to pull them out for maximum fearsomeness).
I removed the separate "Game" menu page, simply putting its three buttons on the Basic commands page so they're accessible immediately as soon as you press Escape, also making them easier for new players to find.
There are a number of other changes still coming to the Escape menu system, but this was a relatively easy adjustment that was worth making now.
Thermal/heat transfer weapons that hit overheating robots may now melt their parts as well.
The advanced quickStart option is going to be available at easier difficulty modes, too. I knew there might be minor issues regarding implementation and hadn't looked into them since I previously didn't have much interaction with players not using the default difficulty, so I didn't know whether anyone would actually use it. During Beta 4 I did hear one voice on the matter, though, so here it is! Adding quickStart to Easiest Mode did require swapping out the Sml. Storage unit for a Medium one, but I'm sure there won't be any complaints there :P. Here's a sample quickStart exit from the Scrapyard in Easiest:
While reworking some aspects of melee damage I went ahead and simplified the resistance and damage modifiers on the status page by only listing those which are non-zero values.
By request, active garrisons now display their dispatch timer countdown directly on the map as long as you have a Signal Interpreter. This information has been available for a while, but previously only by actually inspecting the Garrison Access terminal itself.
Launcher Guidance Computers now block launcher misfires caused by corruption. Being able to more safely keep a launcher equipped while corrupted could occasionally come in handy.
There's now a log message specifically for identifying unknown parts. This'll help both when you're reviewing a log later, and perhaps more importantly when that faulty prototype melts on you and you're left wondering what it actually was xD
Last but oh most definitely not least, robots sending distress signals now animate the range at which they are capable of alerting friendlies. This'll be important because in (only) the default Roguelike difficulty mode I'm removing the position-revealing feature added for Beta 4. I'll talk more about that in the release notes next week.
Fonts
Another player needed alternative map ASCII at size 16 to more easily distinguish characters on their smaller display, so I added several new options there.
The first is the great Terminus, which I think looks really nice but as a fully sans-serif font may not be that great for the state purpose in particular.
I'm not sure about the other two, but I'll have to get some feedback from those who actually need this feature :). In looking for some size-appropriate serif options I picked these old system fonts from the 80s:
Kaypro
Verite
Wiki Spoilers
The wiki now really is chock full of spoilers. Raine's been doing a great job with it and all the items are in there. I mentioned this last time but the data is even more complete now, including even comparison tables.
Robots, machines, walls, lore and whatnot still need to be added manually, so if anyone with the info and know-how is interested in helping out you can email me at [email protected] to get an account. Ideally you'll also be in our chat so we can coordinate things.
Raine also has the Beta 1~3 score sheets in a database you can use to make pretty graphs here, for anyone curious about stats. (It scrapes all the data, but the publicly available fields are limited unless there are requests for others.)
AND she's also working on a bot for the chat channels <3
Fan Art
In between stories of epic runs, players have been sharing some cool Cogmind-related art over on Discord.
We have a couple images by MojoPoop depicting a Cogmind-DF mashup:
He also created a "Proton Cannon but not" in the style of Cogmind item art:
"Vigilant" - A Hunter by Rylan:
All of these were drawn in my free editor, REXPaint.
FTW
Early this week I did a couple more streams, and won this run :D
It was another combat run (of course!), only this time focusing on legs and stronger offense. There's a summary with images on the forums here. The entire run is in two parts on YouTube, -10 to -3 and -3 to the end.
That'll probably be my last stream for a while, since I'll be away from home for most of the next month (but still mostly working on Beta 6) and in early March I'm planning to do a 7DRL I think you'll all enjoy :D. More on that stuff in future updates, though.
Some top players have been thinking of streaming their runs, though, so if you hang out in the Discord you might find out about that. Most of the Cogminds you see high up on the leaderboards are in our chat, and in some cases I'm sure that's how they got up there so fast--there's a lot of wisdom to be found within! Come hang out :D (I'm there every day, too)
Beta 5
The next big thing is around the corner. Beta 5 is another huge release that I'll have out for you by mid-week. It's not quite done as I'm still trying to pack in as many last-minute features as possible and there are a few requested features on the shortlist. Most recently I spent a while on an RTS-style panning option, but doing a good one takes a lot of time so I don't think that'll make the cut (already tons of stuff planned for Beta 6, too xD).
I appreciate if you could leave a review if you've been getting into the game for Early Access and know your way around!
See you with the full Beta 5 announcement before long :D