I just finished looking over the RAWs, but I'm afraid I wasn't very thorough.
Lol, looks like we have homing explosive missiles now.
I'm not sure if that's the case, but it looks to me that a lot of items are created by haxy way of transforming a creature for a short time into something that has three parts, with the middle part evaporating quickly, then the main part turning back and the now detached part transforming into something else. This is for missiles, babies(
), memory orbs and salvage from expeditions.
Actually it may be worthwhile to send crippled soldiers on expeditions, maybe they'll miraculously get healed!
Pinkamena robot: SPEED:100, IMMOBILE, PREFSTRING:disturbing tools, STRENGTH:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
These stats don't makes sense to me, for example even a sprite-bot has strength 500. I take it, there was a problem with her interrogating prisoners inside cages, so the range was reduced and speed increased, so she acts as soon as enemy comes near. But that made her too fast, so she got immobilised. The low strength is probably an artefact of some problem with her fighting the prisoners and winning or aggroing them. Well, if it works, it works, but those stats are bizarre. At the very least she should be at least as good at fighting as basic Mr Hooves, with all her "disturbing tools" and all. Range 1 is a must, because otherwise I would obviously put her behind fortifications.
I wonder how can I interrogate the Rangers, though. They have Trapavoid and even EMPed are treated as enemies. Pinkamena can't move, so I'd have to somehow bring them to her. I just don't see how. The EMP interaction removes OPPOSED_TO_LIFE, but not TRAPAVOID, so I can't even EMP them on top of cage traps and they are still enemies, so civilians will run from them and soldiers attack.
Recuperation was removed from all robots in favour of a a repair workshop (with range 10 and it uses a lot of parts). This makes sense of course, but is far less convenient. For example it may be hard to find the damaged robots I want in a pasture list, to make them go to the maintenance workshop. Consider adding an interaction to Mr. Hooves that gives robots near it some recuperation boost. Or better yet, have a specialised Mr Hooves variety that repairs nearby robots.
Oh hey, we get Super Sentinels... Aw, just as enemies
Those are the ones that fire missiles. I don't see their minigun interaction, though.
It looks like expeditions can bring back various quality salvage and ministry crates, but also spawn
* Normal: Feral Dogs, Radnscorpions, Geckos
* Savage: Ghouls, Golden Geckos, Large Radscorpions, Paradors, Yao Guai, Balehounds
* Deathlands: Ghouls, Yellow Ghouls, Large Radscorpions, Balehounds, Hellhounds,
Disregard my previous advice. The staging area still should be a barracks full of less talented or useful ponies in active squads, but it should be separated from the main fortress (for example I'd put the expedition workshop behind fortifications), and there should be some means of disposing of those enemies, such as upgraded turrets behind fortifications. Or maybe just do this in a place that can be connected to outside and give sieges something to play with. Another possibility is to send veteran EPs in Power Armours with robot support and hope for the best. Either way, this is dangerous, there will be casualties and the bleeding is something of a deterrent from using the best troops for this.
Concrete can be found in clusters in the soil layer. Well done. All we need now is concrete furniture from 2 concrete blocks apiece.
Hey, we got Paralyse amulets that have exactly the same effect as Paralyze by Alteration Adepts. Nice. Someone needs to test this. It also makes the Alteration school for Unicorns less appealing.
Except there is no way to make or find this talisman in game Oh come on, you can change it later, but just for testing purposes have the talisman forge make these from Palalyze hologem (preserved), empty hologem and a silver bar or something.
As far as interaction equipment goes, we get:
Autoinjectors with healing potions, mex-x, pipbucks and stealthbucks for hooves.
Hazmat suits, minigun battle saddles, flamethrower battle saddles, Power Armour, Scorpion Power Armour
Head: Memory recollector (does nothing), Gas Mask, Paralyze amulet, Power Armour helmet, Scorpion Armour Helmet.
Hazmat suit gives RAD_2 (Same as Power Armour), NOBREATHE and +2000 disease resistance.
Gas Mask gives NOBREATHE.
Power Armour Helmet:
Works for Unicorns, surprisingly. I think this should be EP only. It grants NOBREATHE (same as Gas Mask, doesn't stack) and SATS (same as pipbuck, doesn't stack).
Power Armour Barding: Grants this to EPs: SHIELD_APPRENTICE (resistance to spells), RAD_2 (radiation storm and yellow ghoul resistance), +2k Strength, +2k Endurance, injects healing potions and med-x on demand (doesn't stack with autoinjectors)
Power Armour Boots: Nothing.
Scorpion Power Armour Helmet: Grants NOBREATHE (doesn't stack with gas mask) and SATS (doesn't stack with pipbuck).
Scorpion Power Armour: Grants RAD_3. (Radiation resistance, weaker than RAD_2) Also +500 Strength, +1k Endurance and +500 Agility.
Scorpion Boots: Nothing. Oh and SPA works for all ponies.
There is apparently something that can kill a pony to make a baby of itself, alien-style, but I haven't quite nailed it down. Pretty nasty nonetheless.
I think there is a typo in the last line of interaction_earth.txt and 401 should be 301, but it will nerf Adrenaline Rush even more.
Healing potion autoinjector has a wait period of 1200 (one day) and works for half a day. It gives NO_FEVERS and NO_NAUSEA, slight NUMBNESS and maxes out Recuperation and Disease Resistance. This is the best hoof item, in my opinion.
Med-X autoinjector also has a wait period of one day, works for half a day and gives NOPAIN as well as +25% Toughness and +25% Willpower.
Missile and Mine explosions are red or yellow dust clouds, that activate at the range of 2 or 3. This must be quite deadly and !fun!.
In interaction_spawn.txt, if you want equal probabilities, you should remember that as the possibilities dwindle, the probabilities go up (100/6 = 17, 100/5 = 20, 100/4 = 25, 100/3 = 33, 100/2 = 50, 100/1 = 100, so for example for spawning ghouls there should instead be:
[CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:PROB:17:START:0]
[CE:CREATURE:PONY_GHOUL:EARTH_FEMALE]
[CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:PROB:20:START:0]
[CE:CREATURE:PONY_GHOUL:EARTH_MALE]
[CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:PROB:25:START:0]
[CE:CREATURE:PONY_GHOUL:PEGASUS_FEMALE]
[CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:PROB:33:START:0]
[CE:CREATURE:PONY_GHOUL:PEGASUS_MALE]
[CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:PROB:50:START:0]
[CE:CREATURE:PONY_GHOUL:UNICORN_FEMALE]
[CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:PROB:100:START:0]
[CE:CREATURE:PONY_GHOUL:UNICORN_MALE]
SATS grants 15% bonus to speed, skill rolls and some attributes for 100 TUs once per day (1200) TUs.
Parties still don't do much good and should probably be reworked, now that there is a MoM arc.
Pellets still have only 10 penetration on their attack. SHOOT_MAXVEL for air guns also remained the same, so based on this, my prediction is that nothing at all changed as far as effectiveness or air rifles goes. This needs to be tested of course.
Now for something interesting: Military Uniforms. I suppose, I'll also have to put this in my military guide, along with attacking wild spritebot advice.
Security Set (Meant as the first armour, to be worn over clothing, usually made out of bronze)
Security Barding, Security Helmet, Riot shields and weapons of choice.
Combat Set (Meant as an upgrade, made out of steel and replaces clothing.)
* Combat Armour + hazmat jumpsuit (can't be made, so substitute normal jumpsuits if there is a shortage) + minigun or flamer battle saddle or cloak if there is a shortage of battle saddles.
* Combat helmet + Gas Mask (if available) or Memory Recollector (if surplus) + Paralyze amulet (Unicorns)
* Combat Boots. + whatever combination of pipbucks, stealthbucks, autoinjectors and socks seems to work.
Power Armour set * Power armour + jumpsuit + Battle Saddle of choice.
* Power Armour Helmet + Leather Head Wrapping
* Power Armour Boots + whatever combination of stealthbucks and socks seems to work.
Scorpion Armour set * Scorpion Power Armour + (hazmat, if plenty) jumpsuit + battle saddle of choice or cloak.
* Scorpion Power Armour Helmet + Paralyse amulet and gas mask / memory recollector (Unicorn) or Leather Head Wrapping (EP).
* Scorpion Power Armour Boots + whatever combination of stealthbucks, autoinjectors and socks seems to work.
The layers are: Under, Over, Armour, Cover.
Suggested changes: * Move Hazmat suit to Over layer (same as gas mask) and make it wearable with normal jumpsuit, except under Power Armour.
* Make hazmat suit unwearable with MWT Power Armour (possibly scorpion too) and maybe add the +2k Disease Resistance to MWT Power Armour barding.
* Make (at least) Security Helmets wearable with hats. This is just for the first uniform that doesn't replace clothes.
* Gas mask should have the protection of though leather, not [HARD][METAL].
* I'm wondering if Pipbucks and such shouldn't be in the Over layer. At least if you want them wearable with socks, I don't think the permits will allow it. Wait, what? The hosreshoes are all in the Over layer and not Armour Layer? Either way, there are going to be conflicts in the Under layer and soldiers will be prone to wearing multiple pipbucks and the like and still be prone to "cannot follow order". I see no workarounds here. Another problem is that multiples of the same item will be worn on other hooves.
item_food still has a lot of meaty items in it as well as baked bads, which were a joke when Applebloom(?) botched baking. Suggested names: salad, sandwitch, soup, cake, feast, noodles, porridge, oatmeal.
I would also prefer it, if lavish meals had only 1 or 2 names, because I like to trade them and this would make searching for them easier.
When you revamp crops, consider renaming aboveground plant that's cookable and produces flour to oats.
Lol, we got a bottle as Berry Punches artefact, but didn't get Masterwork Drunken Antics to Performance. Well, I guess it would also need "A glass of Apple Cider" CM and a small chance to get pregnant if female, but seriously what's with that bottle?
There is still no way to refubrish Little Macintoshes and Spitfire's Thunders to improve their quality. Spitfire's Thunder has the same SHOOT_MAXVEL as an AMR, so it should be increased to 3500 or something.
plant_upgrade.txt is gone. Good.
We have 60% chance to prepare a cut gem for arcane research at the arcane gemcraft station and 80% at the MAS gemcraft station. Works for me.
We can reverse engineer Spark Batteries, Kinetic Talismans, Basic and advanced processing matrices as well as Neural Interface talismans and matrices for both types of power armours. Getting the schematics should probably be prioritised over using them directly when we get them, as (most?) gems to make them are obtainable from caravans now.
We get aluminium bins from crates now. I guess I preferred chests, as non-wooden bins are heavy and slow ponies down, but I'll take them; I can use all the bins I can get anyway.
Hm, civilian crate gives a charged battery rather than depleted and has a higher chance for a battery than for coiled wiring. There is also a chance for a pipbuck, computer parts and even a gas mask.
Lol, we get Armour and Helmets from slaver crates, that aren't all that compatible with stable ponies gear. I guess I should include a uniform with those.
Talon crate can give Power Armour. I think it should be Scorpion Power Armour instead. They also give mines.
Ranger crates (from expeditions) can give hazmat jumpsuits, canisters of healing potions, minigun ammo, mines, MWT and Stable-Tec processing matrices, training hologems, memory recollectors, kinetic, stasis, neutral interface, water and power talismans and even schematics.
In other words, lots of goodies, but most of those are only 1-4% drop, so there is a good chance such a chest will be almost empty.
MoP crates have Gypsum boulders. I get it that I can make gypsum powder out of them, but why would a ministry crate have raw material and not ready to use product? I guess there is some difficulty in including a bag of gypsum as a reaction product, so OK, but in that case I'd rather just have more splints instead. 16% chance for a gas mask or hazmat suit. I think gas masks should be more frequent. Some computer parts, training hologems and all kinds of talismans. Surprisingly MoP crates have higher chance for Talismans than SR crates. 32% chance of healing potion and med-x canisters is likely to create a shortage. Well, I guess we can use the surplus of the kind that we have more for a few autoinjectors.
MoI crates are as uninteresting as ever.
MoM crates have some computer parts and things to make a Pinkamena.
MWT has all kinds of goodies, including the Robobrain and Cyberdog schemes, but surprisingly only 4% chance for a Power Armour.
Ironshed and Ironclad are identical. Maybe give Ironshed more weapons / ammo and Ironclad some armour?
MoA has lots of batteries, plasma casters, relatively high chance for a recollector, plasteel bars, high chance of AMR, as well as good chance of computer parts, training hologems and general good stuff.
MaS crates have lots of batteries, high chance of a hazmat suit, plasteel, high quality gems and a lot of computer parts.
Robronco has robot parts, of course.
Stable-Tec has robot and computer parts as well as talismans.
Not only was the effectiveness and price of barbed wire reduced, it's frequency as well.
Hm, I suppose I should test the bakery sometime. All I need for basic dough is flour from the caravans, alcohol that I have anyway and tallow, oil or butter, which I'm going to make anyway.
Repair frayed wiring reaction should be AUTOMATIC.
It takes two spark batteries to build a terminal now. Looks like we get more, but also need more in this version. The terminals proliferated and now include: Regular (Stable-Tec), Arcane, Robronco, MoP, MoM, MWT, MAW and MASC.
Expeditions require some materials; 1 toolbox and 1 drill as well as 1 food and 1 drink per expedition member. That's not a concern, compared to having enough active soldiers willing to die and some defences ready.
General expeditions to the Wasteland, Irradiated regions or Deathlands don't require maps. Now I get why I saw some low quality salvage in the expedition loot tables somewhere.
Attacking bases has up to 75% chance of triggering a siege from that faction. Fun in-fluff, but as long as I have a wall, and no caravans or migrants on the map, those are just another potential source of annoyance or stuff.
Plasteel Reactions are now at he MAW prismatic forge, including Scorpion Power Armour and reverse engineering SPA. Prismatic reactions using steel and other metals are at the MWT forge. Robronco prismatic forge make robot parts: motors, sensor modules and chassises. I think the steel and aluminium plating reactions should also be moved there.
Concrete uses 1 Flux, 4 stones and 1 clay to make 20 stone blocks, so it is actually easier and more efficient to use Mason shops for blocks. This doesn't really help me to build constructions any faster.
IRL I've seen concrete made from cement (made from rocks rich in calcium carbonate), sand and water, so what's with clay anyway?
Philosopher's garden has skill names added to reactions. Thanks. This helps.
We can now convert 5 vermin corpses into Bonemeal (Flux) instead of ash. Bonemeal is still also made out of 10 bone pellets.
Hydrophonisc farm is nice in-fluff, but in-crunch I don't really see much point in it. It converts seeds to 1 or 2 stacks of 1 plant and if potash is used, 3-6 stacks of 1 plant. When used for brewing, milling or whatever, those plants will produce small stacks, taking up space. Traditional farming is much more efficient, but I suppose this is something that could be done in an emergency. Make reactions with potash produce 1-2 stacks of 3 plants.
MoM facility turns memory orbs into maps and locations to send expeditions.
First we need to run a bunch of "...regional intel" reactions, to get notes about Ponyville, Appleloosa, Fillydelphia and so on. When there are enough of each kind (4 for Ponyville, 8 for other locations), they can be combined into maps. There is only 8, 16 or 32% chance of there being useful regional information in each orb, so we have to burn through quite a few of them to get even one complete map.
After we have maps, the rest of the orbs (that we only get one of per captured prisoner) can be processed for regional intel that gives us notes, which can be used to pinpoint some locations to send expeditions. Again, we need quite a few of those.
Some expeditions can use any map, while some need a specific one.
All in all, this will take a while, burn through dozens of prisoners (that could be used for skill training instead) and produce lots of blanks. The reactions mostly use the cheap cloth paper, but keep some silk paper in stock too. Also, process some of the silk and normal paper into scrolls.
Feature comment: I think you got the memory orbs backwards. They shouldn't be spent in dozens of ways and we shouldn't have to decide if an orb is best used for training or treasure hunting. Instead the spawned orbs should be processed with a long list and low chance for specialised memory orbs, with one possible use each, but a chance for more than one being created.
For example an interrogated slaver knew a location of some weapons cache, was a good knife fighter and kicker (in-fluff explanation for getting four memories out of a prisoner) and had some info useful in making a map of Appleloosa, so there were four useful memories. Another's slaver's memories could produce nothing useful at all.
While only one successful expedition to somewhere makes sense, learning memory orbs could be reusable, just not by the same pony, so there's a lot of potential perks for you. Example: let's say I luck out and get 3 chainsaw memory orbs from slavers and one from griffin. The redundant 2 slaver orbs wouldn't be useful (other than for bin issues or training in parallel), but I could use them to give all my chainsaw soldiers two perks (one from slaver memories, one from griffin) and make them quite proficient at chainsaws. Of course this couldn't be done with the current "produce 50-200 evaporating boulders" method, but IMO is worth considering. Some other perks, aside from skill training, should also be possible with memories. I guess a way to to this would be to have an expiring one-off interactions that give the pony a syndrome raising a skill or something that lasts forever and doesn't stack with itself.
So, in short: Pinkamena + prisoner -> unprocessed memories (creatures) -> +MoM analysis -> Various notes and specialised memory orbs with skill upgrades and perks. That way we don't have to decide if we prefer a chance of loot or a skill upgrade now. I'm in favour of specialised skill upgrade memories/tokens, but generic ones, like we have now would be fine too (Memories of a slave fighting with a chainsaw that can be used for one reaction vs Memories of a slave fighting, that can be used to train some skill chosen by the player.)
In other words, I'm fine with decisions "should I train this or that pony in this skill" or "whom should I send on an expedition", but don't find "should I sacrifice memory orbs for skill training, or is it better to burn through them to look for things to steal?" to be funny.
Memory orb Proposals: * Make the map reactions automatic? I don't think those notes are good for anything else anyway.
*
Combine regional and operations intel into one reaction and add tokens ("memories of chainsaw massacre" and so on) for training particular skills. This would make more sense in-fluff, as each memory would be thoroughly scanned once and there wouldn't be anything useful there left afterwards. It would also make memories more like those ministry crates. I'm in favour of each skill having it's own set of "orb tokens", each used for exactly one reaction, but having "memories of fights", that can be used to learn one of a few selected skills would also be fine, as would be getting perk tokens from memories.
Make soap from alcohol is very efficient; only 2 alcohol for 1 "disinfectant" soap. It makes the other soap reactions obsolete.
Most robots require 1 or 2 spark batteries, but for some reason sprite-bots need 3. Is this a mistake? The power needed to move around a heavy chassis is surely bigger than what's needed for a flying ball?
Heh, what do you know. Scrap ore and scrap parts for repairs can be converted into each other without losses.
Ah, broken glass, frayed wiring and depleted batteries come from salvage, not crates. OK.
Scrap metal ore, why is there so little of it in salvage? I think the amount gets decreased with each patch.
It is not rare for low quality salvage to produce nothing at all.
All kinds of spark batteries and talismans are made from low-end hologems (from grade 2 gems). Alteration is especially popular, so it may pay off to have "indigo tourmalines", "blue garnets", "blue zircons", "tanzanites", "blue topazs" or "aquamarines" on the map.
Huh, "light yellow diamond" is only R1? I expected all kinds of diamonds to be high-end gems.
Recollectres are easy to build once we have neural interfaces. I still don't think these delicate pieces of complex arcanotech should make such decent helmets.
Oh joy, once we have crates of explosives, we can mass produce HE dust mines from sensor modules.
The plywood workshops now requires up to 5 plywood per item max, when a log produces 10, so it got very efficient and is a must for any fort. Plywood is probably qualified as stone toy. I think.
Bottlenecks:
* Healing potions and Med-X (Used for Power Armours, Nurse Redhearts and Autoinjectors)
* Memories from prisoners (used either for expeditions or for training.).
* Metal from scrap - it is actually advisable to embark in an area with iron ore now.
Idea: when prisoners are hauled, they generally don't escape, so haul them to a pasture inside barracks, passing a narrow corridor with Pinkamenas on the way for added ?fun?
Idea: Chemical factory could make "tarp", "rubber" or some other kind of "leather", in addition to nylon "silk" and plastics / bakelite "wax".
Leather + glass + charcoal -> several gas masks.
Gas mask + more leather / rubber -> hazmat suit.