Holy fuck, that was fast. Downloading right now. You're awesome, Kyzrati.
Of course I'm fast, how else could I have made this game in 7 days?
Also, how exactly do enemies get player's position? Do they know the whole level at all times? How do they track the player? Is their field of view the same as the player's? Can they not see the player if the player sees them? Do they use some non-visual spotting? Can enemies interact with each other apart from distress signal sending?
My, my, so full of questions!
I'd prefer to not give out too many specifics on how AI operates, since I don't want players gaming the system. Some of the more obvious things you'd figure out eventually though:
-Yes, they use the same sort of FOV as you, though ranges vary, so having a longer visual range than them gives you an advantage. As is, some enemies have a longer visual range than your default. I was considering adding some sort of visual cue indicating whether a given robot has noticed, but didn't get a chance to do that yet. I also think that might be going too far into the realm of knowing stuff you shouldn't necessarily know. Logically speaking it makes sense with creatures, but not always with robots.
-Most enemies know about you only when they see you, and only notify allies who are within their alert range, which varies by robot. Watchers should always be a top kill priority because they have a huge alert range and can call enemies from all over the place to come get you! You don't want a Watcher class robot running around spotting you every few turns and alerting all his friends... They always follow set patrol paths, though, so if you have sensors which can distinguish robots out of view you can avoid them pretty easily.
Okay, you already know too much!
And some miscellanous questions:
1) How does recoil work?
2) What is the base chance of hitting before all the bonuses in the manual are applied?
3) Something is wrong with the energy (and possibly also heat and matter) calculation. For example, in the screenshot below the total energy should be positive. However, every time I move, 6 energy for movement is substracted, but nothing is added and no upkeep is substracted. The last two changes are only applied every several turns (every 5, judging by my speed).
4) What do engine's rating and heat stability affect?
5) What does weapon's 'time' parameter affect?
6) What's the movement speed and penalty of the core? (i.e. if I'm moving without any propulsion)
Really, a detailed description of every parameter in the manual would be epic.
Thanks for all the questions. I do want to put all the stats and more explanations in the manual, because it really is a lot of them. I'll get around to it.
1) -X% to all *other* weapons' hit chance in the same volley
2) 60%
3) 500% movement, wow... About the energy, as Drakale says, it's not as much an error in the calculation as it is an inaccurate way to display the information. Power is only generated once per turn, and movement at a rate > 200% would mean 2+ moves each time you generate power. I hadn't really thought of that effect when I wrote the status screen (or even did the stats, for that matter). I should multiply the values shown, I guess, though that could be somewhat annoying since it will fluctuate a lot more based on your changing speed. Maybe put both pieces of information...
4) All items have a rating--it's just the game's name for their "level", a way to quickly compare which items are probably better than others. Heat stability is the %chance an engine will not shutdown when it overheats.
5) Time it takes to fire that weapon. 200 is the base time it takes to fire.
6) Core speed=50, penalty=50, support=3, energy cost=1, heat=0
EDIT: Ok, downloaded. First impressions: YAY LOG. Second: argh, not sufficiently detailed. Maybe add displaying which parts are hit? Also, display of specific hit bonuses would be awesome. And the salvage modifiers in the volley display. But the parts display is the top priority, along with the chance of hitting the hit part.
I guess I could add which parts are hit, and yeah, the weapon-specific bonuses would be a nice addition, but I wanted to try and avoid each line from getting too long though, since there are so many. Chance of hitting the hit part, too, hm... You want a lot of info. Almost sounds like you want to debug the game!
The log is way small for all this...
Salvage mod in volley display is a good idea, so long as it fits under all situations. I'll check.
EDIT2: What.
How did I destroy him after a miss?... BTW, different colors for the player's and enemies' misses would be awesome.
I'm sure there's a logical explanation for that. I'll have to find it. I haven't actually played with the new log info yet.
...(10 seconds later)...
Yeah, now that I think of it, you "missed" but still managed to hit him with the randomized miss trajectory. It's called luck! The text is determined by whether or not you failed your hit roll, not whether you actually hit your intended target or not.
EDIT3: Also, please add an option to remove the matrix-style text loading when viewing descriptions. Makes comparing different items' stats a pain.
I could do that. It'd be low on the priority list for now though.
EDIT4: Could you please add an option to scrap the unhelpful speed in percentages and instead use the time per tile? And add some way to get the speed of enemies.
I think the percentages are more helpful for the average player, since most aren't calculating out the details (nor do I). An option would be okay, but then the stats would also need to be renamed under each option so that they make sense.