[A12d] More Mechanoids (v1.07b - updated 31.12.2015)

[Redshadow]

After reading most of the sugguestions, I've made my own little list of ideas

An AI Processing Core that's super power-hungry, but prevents bots from going crazy, or simply make it very rare for a bot to malfunction, a simple +120 mood effect when it's got power should do(which doesn't make it impossible to go mad, just very difficult)
-An event that disables the AI core for a random set time (possibly ranging from a day to two weeks?)
-Could need something like 10-20 AI persona cores to build it due to the need for processing power
-A very very rare event that instantly disables the core for a day, and makes all the bots malfunction for the duration of the core downtime

Someform of beacon that increases the likelihood of mechanoid activity(like Mechanoid Raids, maybe ship parts too, but that'd be a bit OP with the market value of the AI persona cores)

A system that adds negative mood effects for injuries(not the standard 'Oh noes, i'm not 100% health' debuff, but a 'I have 4 wounds, so I have IAmHurt X4, but maybe also including the standard debuff), thus making the more damage they take, the more likely they are to malfunction

A bed-like structure(in functionality) that repairs bots (like the MAI charger from the miscellaneous mod, and also kind of like a Droid Charge Pad from MD2)
-Bots automatically come to it when they need repairs
-Bots that are incapacitated are automatically selected to be hauled to the pad
-A resource cost, like Plasteel, could also vary between the amount of damage it's repairing, and the parts its repairing(Because rebuilding an arm of a mechanoid is more costly than ironing out a dent in a little toe(if mechanoids decided to grow toes, that is))

The ability for you to have your colony converted, yet still being able to play & have control over your converted colonists, but your colony is friendly to mechanoids after that point, but everything that hates mechanoids, now hates you...
-For a Mechanoid... uh... Mechanic? Builder? Something like that to spawn after you've been converted and simply replace non-metal walls&floors with metal floors, and do other changes to the colony to give it more of a shiny synthetic feel
-Access to mechanoid-themed buildings after being converted(could also have an optional plugin for allowing standard colonies to research those same buildings)

Self-replicating bot(s)? Maybe something like Replicators from Stargate
-A Group of Replicator Crawlers have arrived! Try to destroy them before they steal the entire map's resources and eventually come to kill you!(Alphabeavers see dem' rollin', Dey hatin')

Malfunctioning also being able to happen to enemy mechanoids if you build some kind of costly building, maybe an 'AI Process Interceptor' that 'Remotely sends malicious code to attacking mechanoids' and can either turn them friendly towards you(Don't attack colonists), disable their weapons(or make them unable to attack), make them join you, or make them just go insane

As for events
-occasional defective mechanoid visits your colony(Self-Aware Mechanoid is visiting your colony)
-Mechanoid siege. I feel as though this would be a good way to showcase some of the Mechanoid Hive tactics they supposedly use when not trying to kill us (Such as having crawlers collect resources to build more crawlers/combat units)
-Mechanoid randomly joining colony (like the visiting one, but joining)
-Mechanoid Assimilation (other colonies are having mechanoid issues and their manpower is significantly reduced, which would be good to show that you're not the only one that the mechanoids hate)
-Mechanoid Terraforming (mechanoids trying to control the entire planet's atmosphere, the temperature outside is a consistent 0 degrees with no weather events for a random amount of time)
-Raider-like mechanoid retreating(only occasionally though) where they try and kidnap other colonists whilst they retreat
-A mechanoid colony (A mechanoid colony has appeared, lead by a self-aware Mechanoid queen(or whatever the tip of the hierarchy is in Mechanoid Hive terms), they just add a new colony temporarily to the list, before they're re-assimilated into the usual mechanoid hive
-Mechanoid Mechanic trader (sells bot corpses and AI chips, plasteel, AI cores, Steel, that sort of thing.
-Mechanoid passing by(just avoid them and they won't be any issue, unless they malfunction with the Process Interceptor building I mentioned earlier)

Hope this super-long list gave some inspiration to such a great mod!

[Asfalto]

/\

Nice.

[skullywag]

well the core not getting power during eclipses/flares would be your events no need to add specific ones.

[Asfalto]

well the core not getting power during eclipses/flares would be your events no need to add specific ones.

Any interest in adding yourself the two commands i was talking about?

Or telling me at least where to look..

ty

[Orion]

Lots of cool ideas

Thanks for all the ideas! Some of them are close to what we envision - some of them vastly exceed the time I have for the mod. So we'll see what's doable and what fits with our goals for the mod.

[Redshadow]

well the core not getting power during eclipses/flares would be your events no need to add specific ones.

Yeah, but those only last for about a day, I feel like that'd make the core too reliable given that It usually takes quite a long time to make something go mad(Or a psionic wave). I'm thinking a separate event that disables it for a longer amount of time would make it a bit less reliable and make you focus somewhat more on the welfare of your bots (After all, you wouldn't want to get a giant endgame robot army and make it completely foolproof without a lot of maintenance now, would you?)

Also, an idea that I forgot to add was maybe add a small chance when a bot interacts with something or moves to a different tile, that it gets a tiny bit of damage to a corresponding part(Walking=Legs(or Body Rings for centipede) labour intensive work=arms & core/body/back, hauling=maybe everything (excluding brain & other non load-carrying parts)(heavy load giving strain to the entire frame of the bot)
I feel like that'd give a good sense of maintinence to a robot army, making it more difficult to be able to send all your colonists to cryptosleep and have the bots jus take care of everything, but infinitely more rewarding if you manage to solve the maintenance issue
Scythers & other friendly/reprogrammed combat related bots could be simply given an infinite 'Visit Colony' loop, I feel like that'd work decently
Don't worry, I'm convinced that's my last idea

[Hayhorse]

+1 To the idea of being able to recall the mechanoids to a certain room in your base. A bunch of raiders droped into my base and wiped out all but 1 of my mechanoids and it was one of the 3 cleaners I had, lost all the haulers and had no plant cutters 'cause Ice Sheet.

[Orion]

Seems like the recalling bots feature is really high on everyone's priority list. I never really had much problems with it myself, but it probably is quite handy. I'll see what I can do, guys!

[Redshadow]

Seems like the recalling bots feature is really high on everyone's priority list. I never really had much problems with it myself, but it probably is quite handy. I'll see what I can do, guys!

I know of two mods with generally similar functions. The Miscellaneous mod and the Clutter mod
Misc has the whatsit-doohickey computer(Which I'm sure just about everybody on Ludeon has heared of by now). The Clutter mod has a sofa that has a built-in toggle-able idle gathering point(Once colonists are idle, they'll generally wonder around the vicinity of the sofa). So maybe having something like the sofa, + set every bot to idle when the item is activated. Should work, might be a bit fiddly though 

[Asfalto]

Seems like the recalling bots feature is really high on everyone's priority list. I never really had much problems with it myself, but it probably is quite handy. I'll see what I can do, guys!

Much love.

I managed to handle them, even big numbers, still i'd love that terminal with few functions

Thx!

[Redshadow]

I was wrong, that wasn't my last idea...
Re-purpose combat mechanoids to wander around areas that have lots of non-combat mechanoids, that'd support the whole 'mechanoid HIVE' theme, right? Soldiers guarding workers.

[Asfalto]

Just noticed a bug.. maybe

I currently run a colony with only 9 colonists, and i had 5 crawlers for hauling.
The map isn't the biggest one, i think it is the 4th biggest map size available, but this doesn't really matter.
I mean: i noticed a UBER lag. i couldn't play anymore, it was like my other colony with 60+ colonists, where i tried to "stress" the game. But with only 9 colonists.

So i thought about the crawlers. Well, three out of 5 were harmed, and were moving slowly in the base (around 2.50 speed), more or less idling around.
I think that's because other healthy crawlers (and colonists) hauled things even before those harmed ones could notice it.
I killed them, kept only the healthy ones, and the game went back to normal


Hope this helps

[Orion]

i noticed a UBER lag.

Thanks! I read somewhere else that idle colonists cause a lot of slowdown, and since the bots can only perform a single task, they probably idle a lot, once those tasks are done. Unfortunately we don't have access to profiling information to find out what exactly is causing the slowdown.

Maybe I can create some sort of "suspend mode" when there's nothing to do for them.

[Redshadow]

i noticed a UBER lag.

Thanks! I read somewhere else that idle colonists cause a lot of slowdown

And so my idea of a button that forces crawlers idle and move to an object is rendered useless until the game is super-optimized...
Curses!

[Ykara]

Is there a way to remove the skullywags except of downloading 1.01? I can't handle them at all ^^