[Sumo Tournament Structure]

I was thinking about Sumo, and how your bot often seems at the mercy of dodging bad matchups.  What do people think about having 1 or 2 losses allowed before being knocked out of the tournament?

[Development WIP]

I am really looking forward to this.  My current bots are at peak development, and I'd love something new to develop towards.

[Scripting in addition to Logic Blocks]

On 10/10/2018 at 7:40 AM, Lurkily said:

There have been a number of suggestions for a 'computer' or 'processor' block, which would contain a number of logic blocks in a second grid or table that you could open up.  It would work as it is currently, except that the logic blocks would all operate from within a single part on your drone. (Keep that part safe!)

I like this idea a lot!

You could have, for example, 3 inputs and 1 output.  Do whatever you want to inside the block with basic match and boolean logic.

[Magnet Change?]

I have full strength magnets on my sumo drones, but they don't seem to be sticking to opposing robots.  Did their functionality change?  Or am I misunderstanding them?

The drone is on steam as "Wrap 'em up".

EDIT: I increased the radius and they are doing better.  But the smaller radius should have reached the enemy blocks it touched.

[MULTIPLAYER]

On 9/22/2018 at 7:14 PM, STM said:

Autonomous drones can combat each other in the sumo arena. So asynchronous pvp-multiplayer is already possible with uploaded drones and sumo.

But yeah... That feels a bit like chess by mail. 😁

I meant with weapons.  Sumo is cool, but I want to fire rockets at people.

On 9/23/2018 at 4:34 AM, Micha said:

Yes this is something we promised during our kickstarter They will work similar to the sumo tournament but inside a larger arena and with weapons and traps

Exactly!  And I'm looking forward to it.

[MULTIPLAYER]

On 9/21/2018 at 3:58 PM, Micha said:

Adding Multiplayer would be cool, but requires a major rework of the game. Therefore it's not planned for the near future.

 

Is there a chance you'll have autonomous ship combat?  Having some pre-set arenas would be a lot of fun.

[New members]

Hey everyone!

I'm a long time gamer and programmer.  I grew up playing puzzle and RPG games, and writing dorky little Quick BASIC games.  I was very into Technic Legos, and played the heck out of a game called MindRover (released in 2000).  Nimbatus has a lot of similarities, so its no wonder I really got into it.

These days I write software for aircraft and play Magic, Nimbatus, board games, and enjoy reading.  I'm starting to get my daughter (3 years old) involved in my Nimbatus robots.  She really wants me to get the blue ore.

[Patchnotes 0.5.3 Closed Alpha]

6 hours ago, Micha said:

Fueltanks now explode and deal damage when destroyed

 

Mmmm Sumo fun.

[Factory Logic Bug]

@Micha did you guys change/fix something in the last patch?  I'm now seeing the bot works, and I think large solar panels make 20 energy instead of 25.

In any event, it is now uploaded as Volcano Freezer.

[Factory Logic Bug]

4 hours ago, Micha said:

I can't reproduce the issue, can you please upload your drone file? @OsoMoore

No problem, I'll grab it tonight after work.

[Aesthetics of Weapon Colors]

On 9/17/2018 at 3:22 AM, Markus said:

We could add the possibility to freely change the color of your weapons either by a upgrade or simply a color-wheel in the weapon workshop. The drawback is, that it's not as easy to see what each weapon does. But if you as a player deliberately choose so, maybe that's alright.

If red/blue and green weapons are not yet useful enough, then we have to balance accordingly. We will add more enemies which need strategy and specific weapons to be destroyed, not just damage (the hammerhead was the first try in that direction).

I have started using the Blue, partly because it is my favorite color, and partly because I have a lot of hammerheads to kill.

Maybe you could add some passive effects to the colors, like blue cools the ship when it shoots, red uses less energy, green gives fuel refill, or other related effects.

[Optimum Large Ships (Design)]

Thanks Star for the great story and pictures.  I think I saw one of yours in the steam workshop.  What is that weapon that is exploding everywhere in the 2nd to last gif?

[Optimum Large Ships (Design)]

I've been playing on and off since the Kickstarter Beta, and I haven't seen very many of the advanced ships I'm sure other players are building.  So here are a few of mine (coolest one at the end).

The basic ship goes forward and spins.  You add a few simple things like shields, ore, magnets, and a few weapons.  Maybe some logic to toggle those things on and off.  I assume most people end up building some ships like this when they first start playing.

 

Next I built more complex ships, but they were basically the same design.  More engines, more weapons, but still a single large structure that rotates, shoots, and carries stuff.

 

When I first started building a few releases back, I moved from there on to even larger ships with more weapons and energy. I made some small buddy drones that worked poorly. But the problem I had was that increased firepower and speed results in heavy and hard to maneuver monsters.  I couldn't dig through planets quickly because I was so massive and required such a wide path.

The big change for me happened when I began building snake ships.  These are segmented and carry energy and engines on every section.  I use fixed-direction digging lasers, so on most planets I can blast through terrain at full speed.  It steers quickly as well.  And I can unload a huge amount of damage, thanks to weapons on every body segment.  I use this ship for every mission except bio barrels and harvesting.

Are there some other designs for agile bots with high damage capabilities? I'd love to see more of what other people dream up (besides their devastating sumo bots).

[Factory Logic Bug]

I have a factory which prints a unit with energy, a button, and a cooler (signaled by the button). Before I detach it, it is active. But after I separate it, it turns off.

The build:

In action, before and after separation:

And if I add another cooler on the same logic signal, on the main ship, it stays on after the separation despite not being connected to the button.

[Blue Light Bug]

When creating LEDs, if I select the Blue light I get a pink one.

[Aesthetics of Weapon Colors]

I love putting colorful weapons on my ships, and the particle effects are glorious.  I recently started outfitting a new snake ship design, and spent some extra time in the weapon design interface.

I really want to put in weapons of different colors, but I've been unable to find a reason to use anything but yellow.

• Digging lasers need to be yellow for maximum dig power
• Enemy destruction weapons need to be yellow for max damage
• Blue could freeze super-powerful enemies faster than you can kill, but in general more damage is better
• Red can spread on enemy ships, but you risk overheating your own components and damage is better
• Green seems likely to kill yourself by spawning terrain in your own ship positions

I'd love to have lots of colors of lasers and flamethrowers going every which way, but I can't choose anything but Yellow without making a sub-par loadout.  I would love to see another way to get colors into weapons.  Some possible ideas:

• Unlockable free assignment of colors from missions
• Colors based on weapon upgrade power
• Colors unlocked by capturing enemies with the specified weapon color
• Ammo that changes color in flight: ie. fades from yellow to blue

Please let me put on blue lasers without making my ships weak!

[Can't Find Blue Ore]

5 hours ago, Markus said:

You should be able to find blue ore only on the lava planets - and there only in the inner parts of the planet. The placement and amount (needed for upgrades) must still be balanced and tweaked  

Thanks, I found some!  I had to bring some coolers and fight a giant hammer-head, but now I have multi-beam lasers.

[Can't Find Blue Ore]

I have been searching for blue ore for advancing my weapons, and so far after ~6 planets and two star systems, I haven't seen any.  Where does this show up?

[Tags - for planets]

I would love this feature.  Right now I have a folder with a text file of planet names and relevant features, and screenshots so I can find the darn things in the universe.

Any time someone is taking notes outside the game, I think a game feature is a good idea.

[Resources]

On 4/27/2018 at 7:54 PM, coolm5224 said:

I think it's currently a bit too hard to get resources. I found a huge vein of the red resource, and mined all of it. It ended up giving me a little less than 100 of the resource.

Similarly, I found a vein of the yellow resource about the same size, and it only gave me about 100.

I even made multiple trips to make sure I wasn't missing any, and I wasn't.

Why, when many upgrades cost so much, is it so hard to get a decent amount?

You might not be adding large enough storage tanks to your ship. I was able to get 500+ per haul with a purpose-built ship.

Here's a vid of my big haul ship.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/254815736?t=00h18m49s

[Snake Egg mission feels too easy]

16 hours ago, NairbHaon said:

I noticed while playing one of the "destroy snake eggs" missions that there isn't really much of a challenge. It is fairly easy to avoid the giant snake. I think it would be more interesting and difficult if the giant snake got more aggressive and targeted the player more the more snake eggs you destroyed.

Some of my larger harvester drones have a hard time avoiding the snake.  Usually this occurs while I'm mining and I'm trying to run away by burning away w/ my lasers and not destroying ore.

[Large-scale Tech Advancements]

I've nearly got full laser powers researched, and eventually I'll have the whole tech tree explored.  What if there were some way to advance your entire tech level slowly but nearly indefinitely.

For example, spend x-thousand resources to reduce power consumption of all pieces by 1%, or damage output, or thrust, etc.  Then a player could have a progression that would eventually allow them to create fundamentally different ships.  Someone who focused entirely on one or another of these trees would have something unique to show off.

[Single-Item Artifacts]

I love the tech tree and capability to improve my weapons and keep them organized. However at at this point, my only way to further my ship/game is to keep hitting the two major red/yellow mining planets over and over.

What if there were special artifacts that could only be discovered through exploration (possible multi-planet quests?)  They would be items of which you only have one (so each ship can only have one copy). They could be things like a weapon with 4 slots, an shield generator with extra radius, or a solar panel with double regen.

[Minimap Improvements]

I love the new minimap! But there are some areas it could be improved.

1) Greater contrast between your ship and the planet/rings. Right now if you are over an already-colored area, your ship can't be seen.

2) Show ore and/or other resources on the minimap. Maybe only show ones you've already seen (to aid when you return for more gathering).

[Ore Receiver Ship Killing Me]

Doors on the ore dropoff carrier can destroy your ship when they open. I've come back with a big load a couple times and gotten smacked in the face and killed/disabled.  Is there some way to make this safer?