[1.0](WIP) What The Hack?! - Mechanoid hacking

[Roolo]

Feedback on the new release is much appreciated by the way

[Madman666]

Good. I am so glad your mod adapted successfully to 1.0. I was a bit worried when Tynan disabled mechanoids being downed. I want some centipede tanks to watch my deep drills for me with all the insects they tend to spawn now.

[1m.f1ckl3]

If you still need an artist I'd be happy to help 

[Roolo]

If you still need an artist I'd be happy to help 

Yes, I could definitely use one. I'm not a disaster in drawing but I'm quite slow, due to a lack of experience. I still need a nice banner for the mod. Would you be interested in creating one? Could you show me some of your work in a PM? Doesn't have to be Rimworld related.

[Lucky_D20]

Feedback on the new release is much appreciated by the way

I'm using the 1.0 and so far it is working on vanilla Mechanoids. But the ones from the Rimsenal Federation mod do not work. I even tried changing the body def from Brain to ArtificialBrain, still no luck. https://gist.github.com/HugsLibRecordKeeper/62a7993eac8711764eaffa4434f804d3

[Roolo]

Feedback on the new release is much appreciated by the way

I'm using the 1.0 and so far it is working on vanilla Mechanoids. But the ones from the Rimsenal Federation mod do not work. I even tried changing the body def from Brain to ArtificialBrain, still no luck. https://gist.github.com/HugsLibRecordKeeper/62a7993eac8711764eaffa4434f804d3

Thanks for reporting. Getting this mod working for mechs without artificial brains is high on my to-do list, so I'll take a look at Rimsenal compatibility while I'm working on that.

[Roolo]

Update:
- Added mod option that allows you to configure which mechanoids each faction is able to hack. By default, all lower tech factions (including modded ones) have every mechanoid disabled, and the higher tech factions (at least spacer) have it enabled for any mech.
- Greatly improved general compatibility with other mechanoid adding mods. At least the mechanoids from Rimsenal are now compatible.
- Fixed conflict with several mods (including Zombieland) that called HealthTracker.MakeDowned on world generation.
- Fixed conflict with mods that don't have a default job defined for the mechanoids they add, resulting in the mechanoid leaving the map when activated after hacking.
- Added support for mechanoids with other brains than artificial brains.

[Roolo]

I just finished creating the thumbnail as I couldn't find anyone to do it for me ^^. It took me ages to create it but I'm quite happy with how it turned out:

[Canute]

How big are you, that this pic can fit on your thumbnail ? :-)
I would suggest to smooth the text a bit, except you like the rough look of it (looks retro style).

[Roolo]

How big are you, that this pic can fit on your thumbnail ? :-)
I would suggest to smooth the text a bit, except you like the rough look of it (looks retro style).

^^. I don't know why I keep calling it a thumbnail. Banner would be more suited I guess, although my thumbnails are unnaturally big. The text is pixelly at purpose. The font is called "terminal". I thought it's quite suitable for a hacking related mod.

[Madman666]

This is damn amazing, @Roolo. That pic is epic and contents of your mod even more so. I am really damn glad about mechanoid options for factions. I wanted to try and use some mechs pretty much from the point i started playing RW and now you gave me such a possibility. Thank you

[Canute]

^^. I don't know why I keep calling it a thumbnail. Banner would be more suited I guess, although my thumbnails are unnaturally big.

I guess you use the wrong term for it.
Thumbnails are normaly a small preview pic of the original picture. To give the user a feeling of the picture/video before he will click on it and load the 100 times bigger one.
Back at the day's you don't got flatrates and loading a megabyte still takes minutes.

[Roolo]

So currently most high priority things on the list of things I wanted implemented before release have been finished, and I can start thinking about the post-release list (I can just start implementing them, and having them finished before release after all). The post-release list includes the following:

- Add mechanoid consumables, for instance small charge packs, that can be used to charge mechanoids on the go
- Make caravanning possible with mechanoids (for this the consumables will be handy)

Now I'm really thinking about these features, some problems start to arise. One thing is that I really don't want to trivialize the charging at platforms mechanic. So I wouldn't want charge packs to completely replace that. One way of preventing this, is making them really expensive, and make them charge the mechanoids really fast (to make it up for the fact they are so expensive). This way they are more a emergency situation thing, and not something you would use continually. While I like this idea, it does have implications for caravanning. Since they would be the only item that makes caravanning possible, it would make caravanning with mechanoids really expensive, which seems a bit too restrictive in my opinion.

A solution would be to add a portable mechanoid charging platform, which has a large battery in it. You'd charge it in your base, and a mechanoid can last a couple of days with it and would charge itself automatically while the caravan is moving. This platform wouldn't be a normal consumable, instead think of it as a bedroll for mechanoids. One large disadvantage of this option is that it'll be a lot of effort to implement it, while it also doesn't seem as convenient as consumables. 

Do you guys happen to have ideas that aren't too complex (so can be implemented in a reasonable amount of time), don't trivialize the platforms, while keeping caravanning viable?

[Madman666]

Damn, sending out teams with mechanoid bodyguards! Holy crap. This is amazing.

So with the off topic ceaseless amazement done - i really like the portable platform idea, based on solar energy, maybe? So it slowly recharges in day hours of travel and at night, when caravan stops it wll charge mechs depleting what it managed to store during the day. That would be damn cool to have.

Consumables would probably be way easier to implement but... Yeah. RW is full of expensive things lately, even turrets eat steel, so having one more resource sink might not be too great (i'd still use the mechs anyway, its to nice to pass up). Could you perhaps code a kind of consumble that you can produce once, then use to charge mechanoids, while returning an empty battery, which you could then fill up again? It would require you to make several batteries using resources once, but after that you can reuse them... Something like that.

[Roolo]

Damn, sending out teams with mechanoid bodyguards! Holy crap. This is amazing.

So with the off topic ceaseless amazement done - i really like the portable platform idea, based on solar energy, maybe? So it slowly recharges in day hours of travel and at night, when caravan stops it wll charge mechs depleting what it managed to store during the day. That would be damn cool to have.

Consumables would probably be way easier to implement but... Yeah. RW is full of expensive things lately, even turrets eat steel, so having one more resource sink might not be too great (i'd still use the mechs anyway, its to nice to pass up). Could you perhaps code a kind of consumble that you can produce once, then use to charge mechanoids, while returning an empty battery, which you could then fill up again? It would require you to make several batteries using resources once, but after that you can reuse them... Something like that.

I love the solar panel idea. I might implement that. Doesn't make things easier to implement, but when I'm happy with the idea, I'm willing to spend more effort into it ^^.

Rechargeable batteries like you propose would also be a nice addition, but might be a bit too much effort to implement since I wouldn't be able to use the existing game mechanics that much (as opposed to non-rechargeable batteries), while it would also have a larger tendency to trivialize the charging platform mechanic.   

I'll probably go for the solar-powered portable charging platforms, in combination with the emergency batteries (likely non-rechargeable) that are consumable. I think they form a good combination. Just in case your mechs run out of power for whatever reason during the caravan trip, you can have some emergency batteries ready. And of course the batteries can be useful in other (emergency) situations.

Thanks for the ideas and your enthusiasm, it's really helpful