Today on Cogmind's 10th anniversary, I'm excited to announce the release of a massive update, in the works for more than a year now. Inside you'll find a huge array of new challenges, more fun mechanics, and most importantly an extensive rebalancing aimed at improving every aspect of the experience. Beta 11 has been heavily playtested across a dozen large prerelease versions by patrons helping fund its development (HUGE THANK YOU <3), and having played a lot of it myself, I agree that it's by far Cogmind's best version yet. Time to share it with everyone!

Cover art by Zyalin, feast your eyes upon the 1080p version for more detail.

This release is so massive we're going to deviate a bit from Cogmind's normal announcement format, starting with a summary of major features and changes existing players will want to be aware of, followed by a changelog excerpt listing only the more important entries, then the usual feature details and demos.


Before we get into details, with Beta 11 it'll be helpful to have a simpler guide through the most important balance-related aspects of this mammoth release, especially for those of you who definitely aren't going to read much beyond the first bits of this announcement or the articles backing it (there is a lot of writing behind the development of this release over on the dev blog).

Have some bullet points!

• Easily the biggest paradigm shift in Beta 11 is giving all storage units the <no_stack> tag, and redesigning storage capacity around this idea. No longer will you be potentially allocating numerous utility slots just to expand inventory size, freeing up those slots for more interesting utilities, of which you'll find many in Beta 11! :D
  
• Hover and flight were too similar overall, with the latter form of propulsion in particular capable of surprisingly powerful builds despite also having the ability to easily reposition or avoid danger. Lowered mass support has now shifted them more towards the intended evasion/hacking role, at which they also do a better job due to lowered energy costs. This is part of the wider efforts to further differentiate builds and parts in general in Beta 11.
  
• Ground-based propulsion overweight penalties were also adjusted to make it somewhat less desirable to shrug off that drawback with insufficient consequences, while doing so remains a viable strategy for some builds.
  
• The number and types of challenges in the main Complex 0b10 areas have increased, and that also generally means greater difficulty, though Cogmind now also has even more tools at their disposal, alongside a greater number of better balanced options that might not have been as viable before. As usual the alternative difficulty settings (Adventurer/Explorer) have been updated to make adjustments to new content so it's less punishing for players looking to reduce the challenge there (adjustments listed in the usual place in the manual).
  
• Fabrication was redesigned such that each Fabricator can only be hacked to build something once, unless using Authchips (which also avoid the new consequences of successful fabrication). Fabrication is still a useful supplementary tool, though unlikely to be able to create almost complete builds from scratch as before.

I'll be discussing some of these topics in greater detail further below.


(Note: As usual my full release notes for a major version won't fit in Steam's system, so the changelog here is presented as an image. See the proper full release announcement on the forums here.)



The full changelog is so long that I also decided to split it in two, where the above is actually less than half of its actual content, but includes all the more generally important updates, the kinds of entries I would normally highlight in past changelogs. Experienced players interested in additional details (and options) will probably want to also check out the full changelog included with the game, or available online here.

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 11, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 10.2 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.


One of the cornerstones of this version is the comprehensive review and subsequent rebalance of many items and mechanics, about which I wrote a lengthy article on the dev blog, conveniently titled "Rebalancing Cogmind." It's not a complete list of changes or anything (although it does include links to spreadsheets :P), but it does cover a lot of the whys and hows while sharing the entire process behind it.



It also links back to previous in-depth design articles written about related subtopics such as propulsion, weapon mechanics, storage units, and fabrication.

Power sources, propulsion, utilities, weapons... no category went untouched, and lots of individual items and mechanics were tweaked to better balance them in the bigger picture of the game Cogmind has evolved into over many years, especially focusing on weakening clearly overpowered parts, or in more cases increasing the viability, desirability, and fun of otherwise previously subpar items. As a result, some old strategies may need to be rethought, though the overall results feels really good once you get used to the changes, with more tradeoffs to consider and more ways to get creative or augment your abilities, made even easier by the storage rework ;)

With so many changes large and small, I recommend that long-time players reset assumptions about many items since they may no longer hold true. You'll likely find that something you ignored earlier is now perfect for your preferred strategy, or some other kind of build you've been considering. Hopefully you're not too paralyzed by all the juicy new possibilities, not to mention all the chaff that was removed to leave room for good stuff, or turned into the good stuff itself!


We've got yet a ton more QoL features, including some major ones that people have been looking forward to, like the dedicated item search UI. (I described the related features in more detail on the blog here.)



It even supports all kinds of filters for more customizable searches, with help text right there in the interface. And selecting an item (listed by distance from your position) shows the fastest open path to that location, and can also be used to move there automatically.



Similarly, it can be convenient to tab through different categories when viewing item labels on the map, e.g. all weapons, all propulsion, etc.



Anyone with a distaste for Shift-Alt commands (or just anyone who has trouble remembering the command when they actually need one :P) will be happy to know there's a new Spacebar menu specifically for special commands. (We've got an article about this one, too. Because of course.) Just hit Spacebar followed by the letter key (or use the mouse) to use one of these helpful features, several of which are new to Beta 11.




We have a new class of combat bot! The "Heavy" can be pretty tough because they have a powerful cannon, cloak other combat bots, use sensors to eventually pinpoint hostiles snooping around their defensive zone, and summon more allies to reinforce the area. Scary! Fortunately they telegraph their location due to their powerful Active Sensor Suite, allowing you to generally avoid them if you must, or want to, though they tend to guard important locations so you'll likely have to deal with one sooner or later.



That's not to say everyone will want to avoid them, since they are a pretty great source of good gear, if you can salvage it after tearing them to pieces.

They have a great line of destructive new heavy kinetic cannons.



They also have a whole set of very useful utilities, among them the very sensor suite they're using to find targets, one that you can also take advantage of to penetrate all forms of cloaking and sensor blocking (though at the cost of sometimes giving away your position).

The suite is even capable of analyzing the environment for tracks to determine pathways that likely lead to points of interest, like machines and exits (there's a whole article on this sensor type as well).

https://i.imgur.com/UEqDSXX.gif

Friends called in by the Heavies to look for hostiles are not very nice, involving either a random Specialist variant (of which Beta 11 has added 4 more!) or another brand new combat class, which carries one of these and will do a number on you if they can get close (fear the SFX!):



There are lots more details about the Heavy class in an article about "area denial".

Note: The Active Sensor Suite environment data for non-Complex areas was not actually completed in time to be included with Beta 11, but it's still already very much worth using.

Heavies generally aren't moving around (well... not usually ;)), so you don't often need to worry about staying out of their path, or that they'll suddenly show up and ruin your plans, but cargo convoys will definitely ruin your day if they surprise you. (The article with lots of details about convoys is here.)

Imagine lots and lots of really good loot, and that loot is on the move and being escorting by lots and lots of dangerous bots, not to mention held inside an armored freighter armed with its own autonomous laser system. That's a convoy, and ambushing one is quite an accomplishment and extremely rewarding, but also makes you think twice whether you're really ready for it!

They'll enter a main map, travel along a predetermined route, then leave. As you can imagine if you're familiar with intercepting Haulers, you can use various means to determine their cargo and intended path, so you can try to hit them at just the right moment. Get creative :D

Mmm, a Modified TNC from the Exiles shows us the loooooot... (the loot is also significantly out of depth, so you can get late-game experimental gear in the mid-game)



Sample convoy route:



Newly active convoys are announced globally, so you'll at least know there's one on the move when it happens, and can consider reacting accordingly.

If that's not enough risk reward for you, you can try raiding a DSF (article with more details). "Distributed Storage Facilities" have been in the lore since the beginning, but they were never a place you could visit, at least not until Beta 11 :)

We have Garrisons, and Waste, and together with those we now also have DSFs, the third kind of small map-between-maps. These store tons of good loot inside, as you might expect, though of course it's also guarded, not least of all by a Heavy stationed in the middle, plus a rapid sterilization system engaged when things get hot (to make them... hotter? :O).



You'll see entrances to these all over Factory and Research, but the only way to actually get in is to hack it open before any combat bots on the floor have even spotted you (or any other threats, for that matter).



Strategically these can be a great place to get a whole new build (or buff up your current one) if you're confident, although doing so also gives up any potential branch rewards at that depth since their exit leads up to the next depth.


There's plenty more new toys than I'll cover here (including many which are big spoilers and a lot of fun), but let's highlight a few of the more common ones.

Machine Analyzers reveal machines networked to the machines currently in view, super useful for tracking down similar interactive machines, or even just knowing where other non-interactive machines are located to help learn more about the map's layout.



This new processor also let's you know when an explosive machine has been destabilized, and when it will blow, functionalities which used to belong to the Structural Scanner.



For its part, the Structural Scanner itself is technically now "new," but it's certainly been redesigned with a more focused purpose, and offers a great new bit of intel, telling you about the terrain immediately behind each wall. Great for quicker navigation through labyrinthine areas where making your own doors is probably faster!



(Machine Analyzers and the revamped Structural Scanner were covered in more depth here along with other infowar work.)

Because you can never have enough intel, we also have Seismic Detectors, one of the six (SIX!) new sensor technologies added to Beta 11. These offer a wide and very interesting cross-section of data since they'll tell you info about distant machines, robots, and certain events, but only those which generate seismic readings, brighter for stronger signals.



They're also pretty easy to acquire--I'm sure your neighborhood Excavator would be happy to oblige if you just blow them to pieces.

It won't help you avoid airborne patrols, but with the right knowledge you can deduce a lot about the signals you're seeing on the cheap. Big brain utility right there.

(The end of the Rebalancing Cogmind article has more Seismic Detector details and demos, and more design info about... Trap Extractors).

TRAPPER BUILDS ARE HERE!

So yeah for a while we've have a number of trapping-related parts, but most are either uniques you have to luck into finding, or hard to build around as a primary strategy. Inventory space was the biggest limiting factor when it came to extensive trap use, but the redesigned Trap Extractor solves that by allowing it to also store and deploy traps that you've hacked or acquired through other means.



Carry more extractors to load up on additional trap types, and watch disarmed enemies run around like headless chickens, or on fire, or just explode into tiny bits.

The new Trap Scanner might also come in handy for trapper builds, or just anyone who wants to speed around without suddenly getting blasted, chopped, or sucked into a chute.



The completely redesigned Force Booster is an example of a rarely used (or confusing/hard to use) mechanic that has been given new life, and why you might want to reassess your opinions that may have formed over previous runs as to which items you like and which you avoid. It now simply increases max melee damage.



It actually also has a clear drawback to using it (one of the first such utilities to do this), in that it decreases accuracy, but if you can overcome that (or ignore it), Force Boosters sure can make already deadly melee weapons that much more devastating.

Force Boosters are also one of the new utilities to take advantage of a new tag halfway between <no_stack> and <stacks>, called... yes, <half_stack>. So you are allowed to simultaneously use a second one to add half its bonus, increasing damage even further (for example the best one gives a 40% damage boost, so half-stacked it's +60%!). Some items with effects that could not be stacked earlier are actually allowed to partially stack now! Another point to review :)

Look, Target Analyzers can be half_stacked, too!



Like I said before, a bunch of new toys fall into what I would consider spoiler territory (go out there and discover things!), but I'd add least like to point out here that a few of the new toys resulted in adding engine support for new twists on old mechanics, especially in the projectile department, and along with that we now have support for "directional explosions." So instead of explosions always projecting outward in all directions, we can get them exploding in an arc, like, oh I dunno, claymores? ;)

Here's a sample of the mechanic in action, where this wide explosion technically doesn't actually blast Cogmind or the Terminal (this was an engine test--there is no weapon exactly like this):



With these kinds of things having engine-level support, I'm sure we'll see some more real examples in the future.

To end this section we have not a new toy, but a new feature for an old one: Autohackers can now hack through doors that require manual codes, too, making them somewhat more useful (and of course aligning with what one might expect them to be capable of!).




There are a ton of little mechanical additions and changes, which is what the changelog is for (well, except where I left out a ton of new stuff because it's more fun to just find it), but anyway there are some bigger changes that deserve a bit of discussion. Let's go over some of those mechanical highlights...

There has always been a player tendency to want to build up a massive inventory capacity and hoard items like there's no tomorrow.

I mean yeah, there are indeed a lot of useful parts out there, and you're also going to lose parts and need replacements, but when the hoarding starts getting so out of hand that many of your utility slots are taken up by inventory-expanding parts
and it cuts into your actual ability to fight, or use intel, or... have a real build, then that's a bit of a problem where the game design needs to come in and save players from their own tendencies (as a player I, too, am guilty here xD).

Having huge inventories also leads to inventory management annoyances, and there's always going to be an inventory management aspect to Cogmind gameplay, but we literally had players with 10 pages of inventory items... like... wow. Okay so that's an extreme example and a more common number might be 40-50 or so on a heavier build, but still.

The solution was to only allow you to use one storage at a time (so basically add the <no_stack> tag to all storage units). And of course this change isn't made in isolation--all storage units get a redesign towards this new goal, meaning capacities increased and mass updated etc. Basically we decided what a reasonable cap would be for inventory size, and extrapolated a reasonable scale for the units under this new system, taking into account both build balancing needs and the desire to avoid going overboard on inventory management.

It feels great.

There is indeed more inventory pressure since you can't just keep expanding it to accommodate more (aside from upgrading to a larger, heavier type of storage, up to the limit), but if you were a hoarder before you now have so many more free utility slots to actually use interesting parts and also increase your build effectiveness at whatever it is you're doing, be it evasion, hacking, intel, combat..., and this actually results in 1) a more engaging experience along with 2) likely less part attrition in the first place!

Even bothacking builds are fine, one of the first setups I was eager to test under this new system, since I like running them and traditionally they relied on a huge inventory. But all those extra utility slots meant I could actually attach a bunch of couplers and better use them in combination with RIF abilities. Botlord, indeed.

It might take a little getting used to, but your builds are going to be a lot better for it, and... if you must, there are some newer very large and heavy storage units, but the extra slots come with increasingly diminishing returns in terms of mass. So far most people testing the game haven't really gone for the largest possible inventory size anymore. Enjoy your new utility slots ;)

As part of the storage changes, Cogmind's base inventory size also increased from 4 to 5 slots, without any storage utilities at all.

Oh yeah, of course there's a whole article on this topic here with lots more details.

Your choice of storage is important when coming up with a build theme, and so is propulsion, which also saw some fairly big adjustments. This, too, is where experienced players are really going to have to suppress expectations and reevaluate strategies.

• Treads: Treads lost their innate accuracy bonus, as they're clearly quite good now and can eventually take advantage of siege mode for that accuracy (and other benefits) if they need it, not to mention using some of those freed up utility slots for optional targeting computers. Their overweight penalties increased because it was too easy to ignore the slowdown in exchange for all the extra support it offered, though for some people/builds the penalties are still within acceptable/usable limits. That's always my goal with balancing, to make it so that some people will make use of a particular approach or mechanic, but not everyone or most people. So treads nerfed a bit but still very good at what they do: support combat builds that blast everything in sight while taking a beating and laughing it off.
  
• Legs: Legs are carving out a bit more of their "mobile but pretty combat-capable" niche with a new momentum-based mechanic that increases their evasion with momentum, but decreases their accuracy at the same time. So they're now even better at repositioning while under fire, though suffer if they try too much running and gunning while out in the open. On that note, by extension this also improves legs as a choice for heavy melee combat--chaaaaarge!
  
• Wheels: Wheels didn't change much, already serving their niche pretty well as the propulsion known for being fairly fast, supportive, and easily acquired but also easily shot off. They just got a little bit of an overweight penalty nerf.
  
• Flight: Flight builds definitely got a mix of buffs and nerfs, trying to reorient them away from having such crazy combat potential, especially in the late game. They're already super fast, they don't need to be super powerful at the same time? xD. They're still just as good at scouting, escaping, hacking, and anything that benefits from speed and can rely on lightweight gear, though flight unit mass support was reduced, making it that much harder to fly around with bulky stuff. It's still possible to get creative and make a decent flying build that can fight if it has to, though its effectiveness won't be as extreme as it once was. Energy costs were also reduced, making it easier to power the core of a flight build, or easier to stack more units for even faster speed.
  
• Hover: Hover is the new (old) flight. It's pretty fast, and it can definitely still support some of those combat builds flight was running before, but doesn't have the flight advantage of being able to hop enemies and get out out of almost any scenario without actually destroying anything, so at least more balanced in that respect. Hover is still basically filling that "jack-of-all-trades but also challenging to maintain" role.

Obligatory propulsion article.

Like propulsion, damage types in Cogmind have undergone a fair number of updates over the years, and Beta 11 is easily the most balanced they've ever been. They've all got their proper niche now, and more importantly are all worth using if you want to build around that niche, or have a situation that calls for one type or another. For all the details check this article.

Thermal weapons were too easy to lose before, so were outright buffed by increasing their longevity via a combination of increased integrity and lower coverage (as balanced it's a niche since they're less likely to be hit than other weapons, but still have lower integrity, meaning if well-protected they will last even longer, but will be lost more quickly if not protected).

Kinetic cannons were very hard to sustain as a long-term build solution because they didn't leave much if anything of targets to salvage (most importantly matter!), but now they blast matter right off victims with each hit.



EM got nerfed, uh, again :P. Who would've thought that being capable of bypassing almost all defenses would require so many counterbalancing drawbacks!

The new tradeoff is pretty interesting, where EM creates "corrupted" salvage, which adds to Cogmind's system corruption when attached.





There are ways around this, for example preventing or getting rid of the corruption via other utilities, or evolving it away,
but it does often mean that salvage (which EM is actually otherwise quite good at obtaining) obtained like this may not be immediately usable without some extra drawbacks.

As you'll find, Beta 11 actually comes with several new utiltiies for dealing with corruption. The System Backup Module mechanic (actually since merged with "System Restoration Modules" for Beta 11) was also changed to have them operate more quickly but damage the module in the process, which is overall a better design approach that avoids require tedium.



Be aware that point blank AOE EM tactics can actually now cause a chain reaction in Cogmind's power sources, in the same way as it could for other robots. There's no log in this recording, but you can clearly see the secondary explosion and screenshake!



You don't need to worry about other bots doing this to you, which would be sorta unfair, so it's always your fault if it happens :P. Power Shielding also protects against the effect, so at least that's one way to more safely use this strategy.

Impact melee got buffed (AGAIN!), and having used it in my stream earlier this week I must say it's pretty formidable. Those weapons were totally redesigned and despite their unusual targeting mechanics can really pulverize a robot good...

Prior to Beta 11 there was only ever one meaning of "critical strike" in Cogmind, and it meant destruction of the target part/core, but we've now got 12 of them! This is good both for further differentiating weapons as well as adding new tactical options. The in-game context help will be useful here as you examine weapons to learn more about them.



The Blast crit, generally found on kinetic cannons, can blast parts right off of a target:



See all your (and their) critical effects reported right on the map, too:



So that's all the general weapon-related topics I wanted to cover here, but know that lots of individual weapons got tweaked, too, so be on the lookout for changes :)

(Note: Again due to Steam limitations, the rest of this section has been cut. See the announcement on the forums for the remainder of the Mechanics section.)


Tons of QoL, as usual.

(Note: As above, this section also cut, includes 13 QoL-related demo animations/images on the forums.)


(Note: As above, more information and a few animated demos were cut from here as well.)


For those of you just starting out, leiavoia has put together a nifty guide to Cogmind, one which avoids any major spoilers. It's got pictures and everything!

As always, aoemica's Cog-Minder is a useful Cogmind reference and theorycrafting tool for advanced players, or just someone who wants to look up stats for some robot or item.

And leiavoia's Dataminer offers a great alternative way to examine your scoresheets or those other players have uploaded.

The leaderboards will finally be reset tomorrow now that we have a new major version out!!!

I've been streaming Beta 11 prerelease versions throughout the past year (archives), and look forward to continuing with more runs in the completed Beta 11, and of course yet more prereleases as we eventually head towards... Beta 12 ;)

But let's not get ahead of ourselves...


Having just dropped this huge update it's a little early to go into depth about what's to come, but in short, I imagine we'll next see an 11.1 with some more fixes and tweaks, especially some little stuff I wanted to include in Beta 11 but didn't have time for (also that Active Sensor Suite data for non-0b10 areas). Then after that we'll be on the way to beta 12 and 13, each of which will be adding another new faction ;)

Eternal Cogmind Updates: Powered by me and the patrons. Thanks for your support!

As Cogmind enters its 9th year of continuous development, let’s once again take a look at the past year of progress in our typical annual review, now available on the blog! Beta 11 is approaching completion, Patreon support is looking (really) up, and we've finally met the requirements for two new factions to come this year, as foretold by the Forbidden Lore ARG...

So what has Grid Sage Games (and by Grid Sage Games I mean me :P) been up to in recent months... Those who follow the dev blog, my streams/YouTube, or Discord will be familiar with most of what I'm writing here today, but I know some of you prefer to get your news here, so let's catch you up!

In the last SITREP wherein I half joked about this being "Cogmind 2," the summary of our next major update is still just as relevant:

"Beta 11 is indeed shaping up to be the sizeable overhaul we always wanted to get to one day (talked about since like 2015 xD), one that revisits lots of parts and some mechanics with an eye towards tweaking and rebalancing to better integrate them into the whole that Cogmind has become--redesigning some, removing others, as well as introducing new ones to smooth everything out where necessary. Basically we're further improving on the experience in so many areas. And although new content isn't the focus of Beta 11, yeah we're definitely getting some of that, too ;)"

Since then the previously mentioned revisiting of storage capacity, overweight mechanics, propulsion balance, and damage types have all been completed, and as promised I covered each of those topics on the blog...


On the blog this series is filed under "Design Overhaul," pretty significant game-changers coming to Beta 11 which you can read about in their respective articles:

There's Design Overhaul 1: Capping Inventory, which might sound like a nerf when framed with just those two words, but in practice ends up being a buff in most cases due to how things were changed ;)



Design Overhaul 2: Propulsion took quite a while to nail down due to that topic's complexity and far-reaching implications of any changes, but eventually settled on a significant flight and hover rebalance, leg upgrades, overweight penalty changes, and other tweaks here and there.



Design Overhaul 3: Damage Types and Criticals would have to be the one which boils down to the most "pure fun," adding a wide variety of critical strikes and other new related mechanics to further differentiate weapons and their damage types.




On the completely new stuff front, for Beta 11 I finally got to add something I've been imagining for years: a way to view a sort of historical robot traffic data as a form of potentially useful intel. I go into how this data is calculated and presented in "Desire Paths" for a Robot World.



A WIP screenshot (the path system later became purple in practice):



The whole "desire path" thing came about as part of yet another infowar expansion, the Active Sensor Suite. Yes we already significantly expanded the infowar game in Beta 11, but you can never have enough infowar!

Active sensors have a number of big advantages and big drawbacks which you can read about in more detail here.



Just follow the purple brick road...



Even the content of primary maps is getting a bit (okay a lot) of love in this version, the first such addition being freighter dispatch events, which I detail in Spicing Up Primary Maps 1: Cargo Convoys.



As part of that article, to explain some concepts (but mostly for fun :P) I put together a sample Cogmind world map in which 1 pixel = 1 cell. It's just one permutation, of course, since there are different possibilities for a number of these connections, plus the ability to revisit other versions of the same map in a single run etc. (The map is also incomplete since it leaves out a number of areas considered redacted-level spoilers, though a full spoilers version is available via a link in the article.)



As if escorted convoys weren't enough, we're also getting more classes of 0b10 combat bots, because what's better than having new types of hostiles trying to stop you? ...perhaps aside from finding new toys to deal with them, but don't worry we've got that covered, too ;)

Right now I'm in the middle of reworking the fabrication system, which is looking promising and should add more strategies to the mix.


So what do we do once Cogmind Tw--I mean Beta 11 is finally done? Well, first of all of course we release it :P (no I still don't know when that'll be)

But seriously, that's going to be the beginning of a period of pure expansion, and mark a return to more reasonably-sized updates that don't take ages to complete xD

At this point I can announce that thanks to support from patrons, Beta 12 will feature a new mini-faction, the Unchained, which have so far appeared only in bits of lore here and there, and were further described in last year's Forbidden Lore ARG.

And assuming we reach the review threshold I mentioned back in 2019, which now seems possible, as promised that will trigger a new content update which will become the focus of Beta 13, built around a new faction of derelict scrappers with unique tech :D (another of those mentioned in the ARG)

(Note the Merchants Guild is still waiting on the sidelines, but they will happen as a much bigger expansion later on.)


As usual I've been streaming Cogmind runs to introduce and test these new features, among them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkY0Jwykoc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhCYve2wASc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws-vORyIEkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gw1_BezQqQ

Some patrons have also been streaming their experiences, and will likely be sharing more, including Tone, Luigi, Plexion, Runia, Vectis.

Tone and MTF in particular did a co-op stream all the way into the extended game playing through a sort of tailored ARG which filled in a bit of hidden lore that people didn't uncover in last year's ARG. It was epic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ3aEfsZpvM

aoemica has been busy continuing to improve Cog-Minder, the Cogmind reference and theorycrafting tool.

Most recently aoemica added part comparisons:



And a build simulator with link sharing:



Also a heads up for some of you who might be interested: Cogmind player Runia is offering unofficial-but-sanctioned third-party merch in the form of 3D printed bots! Having discovered pretty much all the in-game bots and converted them to 3D form, he's been honing his craft and polishing his Fabricator over the past months, and it's been fun to see the results of this work (including printing these while streaming Cogmind :P)



An older shot from a few months ago showing some of Runia's bots (some since refined, and more added):



You can find Runia with us on Discord (where I also hang out every day as I work on Cogmind). I look forward to getting some of these myself eventually :)

Now it's back to work in the fabrication mines...

A SITREP?! But it's not Saturday! Feel free to wait until Saturday to read it, but it's here now so let's just all pretend it's Saturday.

Haven't done one of these updates since switching to generally only announcing releases, but it's been a while and there are plenty of people who probably don't check other sources of Cogmind news so they have no idea what's going on... Let's bring everyone up to speed :)


Following our Forbidden Lore ARG from last year, I wrote a post-mortem if you're interested in how that event was designed and panned out.



There's even a complete ARG walkthrough filled with spoilers, though it does offer a good shortcut to just obtaining all the Cogmind lore locked behind puzzles.



Congratulations to those players who managed to solve the entire ARG!

We also have Beta 9 stats summarizing the data submitted throughout that release series, including many new topics such as build types and causes of death as enabled by our expansive new scoresheets.




Just kidding, of course we're still on Cogmind 1 here, but Beta 11 is indeed shaping up to be the sizeable overhaul we always wanted to get to one day (talked about since like 2015 xD), one that revisits lots of parts and some mechanics with an eye towards tweaking and rebalancing to better integrate them into the whole that Cogmind has become--redesigning some, removing others, as well as introducing new ones to smooth everything out where necessary. Basically we're further improving on the experience in so many areas. And although new content isn't the focus of Beta 11, yeah we're definitely getting some of that, too ;)

This year so far I've been testing out experimental features with patrons, keeping the most successful concepts of the bunch while continuing to stream runs in these builds to explore the effects of changes. For example this latest crazy one looking at new infowar utilities (after having made other changes to existing ones in builds prior to this):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-oDntMLB3w

Others can be found on my YouTube channel.

So far we've revisited storage capacity, overweight mechanics, propulsion type balance, and plenty of specific part changes, with plenty more to come. Next up over on the dev blog I'll be covering some of the major changes, beginning with the adjustments to storage and propulsion, followed by a rework of some damage types.

Already though the blog has been covering some of the new stuff coming to Cogmind, including...

Item searching and filtering:



...perfect for finding just the right part (patrons voted for this one--lots more details and related features demoed in the article).



A map ruler and other overlays:



For the min-maxers out there: No more need to count cells or guesstimate the distance between two positions :)



New infowar utilities mentioned with regard to the stream above:



Dedicated Trap Scanners:



New Structural Scanner behavior:



And the almighty Machine Analyzer:



This is just the beginning...

There's no set schedule for Beta 11's release, since it's by far the most sprawling of any update before it, with less concentrated work in one or two major areas and instead lots of modifications and additions across the board, many of which need to all be integrated into the same update for best effect, but it's hard to say how long that will take given the scope.


More recently, I've been a bit sidetracked by doing a bunch of official 7DRL reviewing for this year (related streams now archived on YouTube), raising a little more money for development, and also doing a bunch of forced website updating due to a huge PHP upgrade by the host. Unfortunately the latter has made some parts of the wiki inaccessible for now (in particular info for some parts), but aoemica's Cog-Minder has you covered there :)

Last but not least, you may have noticed we have a little build update for Beta 10.2 available, but there's no changelog for it ;) ;) ;)

It's a special event for Halloween, and more!

Starting today and for the entire next month, playing Cogmind automatically enters a new mode built as part of a Cogmind/roguelike/tech-themed ARG. Unlike previous special modes, this one doesn't actually make sweeping gameplay changes, but instead challenges you to hunt for clues with help from https://forbiddenlore.gridsagegames.com, scouring the game and internet for passwords to special lore. More on that later...

As you'll see in the changelog, this release is clearly much bigger than just the event, scoping larger than planned as I started early on work to make some of the balance adjustments scheduled for Beta 11. There is still a lot more to come on that front, but a few items were either more urgent, or just things I felt like prioritizing a bit to see how they pan out as considerations regarding the bigger areas of the upcoming rebalance continue to get hashed out on Discord and the GSG forums.

Beta 10.2 also includes a bit of new content, but I'll be leaving that for players to discover.

• NEW: Unique Halloween mode for 2020, automatically activates on 10/29 for anyone who has played at least 10 runs (lasts through November)
  
• NEW: Command line argument "-forceMode:Halloween2020" (or "-forceMode:ForbiddenLore") to enable the Halloween mode from 2020, regardless of system date
  
• NEW: [Forbidden Lore mode] Hunt for clues with help from forbiddenlore.gridsagegames.com to scour the game and internet for passwords to special lore
  
• NEW: 1 new prototype robot
  
• NEW: 1 new weapon
  
• NEW: Most door-access terminals in 0b10 converted to new Door Terminal prop
  
• NEW: Hostile 0b10 bots that lose track of Cogmind raise alert
  
• NEW: Relay Coupler [NC] combined with Signal Jamming RIF ability also blocks busy Engineer calls for reinforcements
  
• NEW: Escape key recenters view on Cogmind if currently following drone
  
• NEW: Advanced Commands help for message log includes Shift-Alt-z for note-taking
  
• NEW: Version check now includes build number, allowing for in-game notifications about smaller unannounced updates
  
• NEW: Screenshots of difficulty selection, title screen, and intro sequence have unique filenames
  
• MOD: Special-purpose 0b10 terminal functionality limited to locally listed hacks, and special manual hacks where applicable
  
• MOD: W base defenses changed
  
• MOD: Data Cores can no longer be stolen by Master Tearclaws
  
• MOD: Programmers require an active Remote Datajack to hack targets
  
• MOD: Programmers no longer hack targets once disarmed
  
• MOD: Sensor layout as learned from a certain NPC's data core behaves differently
  
• MOD: Field Lobotomy Kit no longer works on unpowered, unconnected, or broken bots
  
• MOD: Movement due to ramming and knockback makes all the same checks regular movement entails, ensuring the same results in terms of environmental factors
  
• MOD: Ramming an adjacent target is no longer a valid way to immediately escape stasis
  
• MOD: Ramming drones without destroying them no longer produces matter
  
• MOD: Base chance for all Recall() hacks reduced by 10%
  
• MOD: Master Thief encounters occur under different circumstances
  
• MOD: Only Master Thieves capable of stealing from inventory and prioritizing target parts
  
• MOD: Base steal chance of all Tearclaws reduced
  
• MOD: Thieves have innate bonus to using Tearclaws
  
• MOD: Nerfed CR-A16's weapon
  
• MOD: Terrabomb reduced to 1 slot
  
• MOD: locate_prototypes effect limited to a range of 15
  
• MOD: Threat Obfuscation RIF ability level progression effect reduced from 25,50,75 to 25,40,50
  
• MOD: Armor Integrity Analyzer effect description clarified to specify no impact on any area of effect attacks, rather than singling out launchers
  
• MOD: Transmission Jammer toggle animation highlighting of jammed bots changed from red to yellow
  
• MOD: Core Cannon critical hit chance reduced to 0%
  
• MOD: Satisfying the conditions for a Warlord response from cave seals overrides the effect of core reset
  
• MOD: Launcher-using bots take ally resistances into account when deciding whether to fire on targets in close proximity
  
• MOD: Extended game C prefab added in Beta 10 reduced in size, composition adjusted
  
• MOD: Map export images prefix filename with current world seed
  
• MOD: Font config file format updated to maintain compatibility with engine changes
  
• FIX: Murdering more than one Exile did not count any beyond the first in the scoresheet for the Uniques/NPCs Destroyed tally [zxc]
  
• FIX: Hostiles would not attack unconnected drones [zxc]
  
• FIX: Unconnected drones could follow through map exits [zxc]
  
• FIX: Using a Reconstructor while standing on a Slip Node moved to the side instead of remaining at the same position [zxc]
  
• FIX: Dormant bots ignored enemy cloaking effect when checking for wakeup [zxc]
  
• FIX: C-40 Crushers might get stuck and fail to pathfind to otherwise reachable target [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Was possible to simultaneously activate two Remote Datajacks by removing a launcher while autoUnreadyLauncher option active [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Robots disabled while transitioning into/out of siege mode would allow the process to finish even while still disabled [Vectis]
  
• FIX: Ally with PICKUP or COLLECT order could overflow inventory capacity if final acquired item is multislot [Vectis]
  
• FIX: Recalled squads, coupler squads, and fabrication retrieval Haulers could be blocked by a Sentry standing on their intended exit [MTF, JackNine, Tone]
  
• FIX: Beta 10 caused Transmission Jammers to no longer block non-combat robot calls for reinforcements in certain situations [MTF, JackNine, Terminus]
  
• FIX: Core reset interactions with Beta 10's new extended endings was broken, fixed in earlier silent hotfix [GJ, Terminus]
  
• FIX: Beta 10 part drop destruction warning system caused Go Naked command to leave one part attached if insufficient space to drop everything [GJ]
  
• FIX: Self-destructing before depth -9 reused total score from previous full run in same session on game over screen [Hippasus]
  
• FIX: Log messages for ramming terrain and machines did not match up with the type of method used [MTF]
  
• FIX: Siege mode did not prevent ramming terrain or robots [NikolayAg]
  
• FIX: Matter decay due to overheating was deducting energy instead [aoemica]
  
• FIX: Beta 10 new endings broke game over screenshot tags for w8 and several types of losses [CaptainWinky]
  
• FIX: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 situational dialogue typo [sterv]
  
• FIX: Ally with a PICKUP order would move to nearby Scrap and Derelict Logs even though unable to acquire them

(I didn't highlight "more important" entries in the changelog like I normally do, since the vast majority were being highlighted anyway when I went to do that :P)

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 10.2, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 10/10.1 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.

As with any other release, I might do quick unannounced hotfixes in the coming hours or days if players discover/report something new and urgent (the chance is somewhat higher with 10.2 because this release went without the usual prerelease playtesting by Patrons to keep it a surprise for everyone). We now have an even more specific version check system based on build number, so if you're playing and have the News feature active, it'll remind when you're playing without the most recent hotfix.




Cogmind is pretty big on lore, creating a deeper world with its various factions, NPCs, and the stories they share. And there's so much more room out there! In the lore you can already find references to pieces of the world which don't currently exist, some of them likely to happen one day (some of them guaranteed :P), but reliable information is spotty. This Halloween event will fill a few gaps and also give glimpses of other locations and inhabitants of Tau Ceti IV.

Starting from the event's home page, at the bottom you'll see your first hint. Hints suggest where in the game world you'll find either a password or another clue as to how to obtain the password, and with that password you can follow the link on the event page to the next level, which will also reward you with FORBIDDEN LORE (and usually a bit of art to go with it). For simplicity the username at every level is always simply "cogmind", it's the password that will be unique each time and that's what you'll have to figure out. In-game clues can take a variety of forms, but are always presented as some sort of text, be it NPC dialogue, a special announcement, etc.

Note that you won't get additional clues for the same level, nor do you need to use multiple clues together--each is a completely individual and separate thing. For example, a hint might indirectly suggest you talk to an NPC, so you reach that NPC and they give you a clue, which is probably a cryptic puzzle to solve in order to get the password to advance.

Although I know at least a few people who could definitely complete this entire challenge on their own, not everyone will be capable of figuring out every step alone. Don't be afraid to ask the community for tips or additional hints along the way at various levels where you need it. I'm sure there'll be plenty of discussion and help available on the Discord.

Working together with others to solve the mysteries would also make it easier to rise through the levels more quickly, since multiple runs will be required to follow every hint. I suggest using a new password on the site immediately after discovering it, in case the next hint is somewhere still within reach in your current run, in order to achieve it more quickly.

This being an ARG, most of the passwords are actually found outside the game itself.

Good luck :)


Shout out to PlasticHeart for putting together the CogFont based on fonts developed for the game, which came in quite handy when making the event website :D

Forbidden Lore mode will automatically activate for you on new runs started on or after 10/29 (through November), if you've played at least 10 runs before.

If you want to play beyond the end of the event, or regardless of your run count, you can still force it by adding a command line parameter when running COGMIND.EXE: "-forceMode:ForbiddenLore". Within Steam this is handled by going to Cogmind > Properties > Set Launch Options, like this example from Player2 mode earlier this year:



(Note that although the event mode will be accessible after the period is over, and likely also in future versions, but I can't 100% guarantee that it will be fully completable forever since, as an ARG, advancing relies on the presence of information found outside the game, elsewhere on the internet.)

If you want to play a regular run during the event*, you can suppress date-based event triggering by adding the "-noSpecialMode" command line parameter:



If the event mode is active, you'll see a notice in your message log on startup.

*(though again this mode doesn't really affect much in the way of gameplay, even though runs in this mode will technically go to a separate leaderboard)


Beta 10.2 includes a fair number of nerfs, and the changelog itself isn't nearly as balanced as I like to keep it (an equal helping of both buffs and nerfs/new features is best), but we'll be getting plenty more buffs and fun stuff to play with in Beta 11, and in this release I just took advantage of the opportunity to prioritize responding to areas the community has been cheesing the hardest by moving up planned changes, or just increasing the overall challenge level of various parts of the game.

Also a number of the nerfed bits here were intentionally introduced as OP features with the intention of tweaking them after seeing how they were used.

On that note, against the trend there is a new potentially OP weapon you might be able to get your hands on ;)



To address some of the biggest changes here...

All those easily-hackable single-tile door terminals that were a major security liability for 0b10 are a thing of the past. They now do nothing more than open their door, as opposed to providing one after another weak backdoor into the mapwide system :P (i.e., no indirect hacks there). All such terminals now also have unique names so they're even more recognizable at a distance, the majority simply being called "Door Terminal," although this change also applies to the other instances of special-purpose terminals that control something nearby.



Prior to now, with assistance from door terminals a good hacker could very easily end up with far more terminal resources than they could reasonably need and exhaust, especially in certain branches with lots of blast doors. Now instead of simply running out of hacking target ideas, these builds may in some cases have to be a little more selective, or in some cases have a (slightly? xD) harder time getting access to a suitable Terminal on short notice.

This change does also negatively impact builds that could only effectively use low-level Terminals to begin with, but those builds have had numerous buffs over previous releases to begin with.

Another change related mostly to flight-hack builds is that alert is now also raised when enemies lose track of you! The primary hostile interaction for gaining alert has traditionally been through destruction, but if you're zipping all over the place frequently attracting attention then slipping away it makes sense that the Complex should respond to that, too.

I'm really interested to see the results of this change, which could add a bit of pressure to flight runs and make stealth approaches that much more enticing rather than simply outrunning everything but then safely remaining on the same map. The amount of alert involved here might be further tweaked, but we'll see how it pans out in the current release first.

Also the current result of high alert accrued via this method will be assault dispatches, as usual, but the response will be different in future versions--I just haven't gotten to that point and added this bit first.

Programmer allies were nerfed by making them unable to hack if disarmed, a sad loss because it was quite fun to have a disarmed hacker friend literally owning everything, when it happens naturally, but players were starting to intentionally create these OP allies so that behavior had to be removed and put them on par with hostile Programmers.

Master Thieves got a pretty significant overhaul. They've been in the game for a while now but no one was really taking advantage of them until much more recently. Even more changes are probably in order, but the related mechanics are no longer quite so abusable.

A range of individual parts were adjusted as per the changelog, mostly nerfs of various degrees, although you've also got single-slot Terrabombs now, which will make those a lot more enticing (technically that and a few other items on the list were modified as part of silent post-release 10.1 updates, but are included in the changelog this time around since they were otherwise not recorded or announced here).

There's not a ton of QoL like we usually have each release, but I did add Escape key support for recentering on Cogmind while cycling through multiple drone views with Enter:




Cogminder aoemica has built a wonderful tool, dubbed Cog-Minder, a very convenient site to filter and search through Cogmind's many items:



Notice the Spoiler button there which can be toggled on to include everything, even uniques and other special parts you'll only find in mid-/late-game branches or the extended game. You can leave that off if you're just starting out and want an unspoiled experience but would like to examine "regular" parts.

Over on my Twitch channel I streamed my first Beta 10 run, a hover run that eventually went on to obtain one of the new endings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hr0_xUPiYg

That's the first of five videos, a looooong run because 1) it hit a ton of locations and 2) there was a lot of discussion along the way :P. (More recently on the channel I'm trying out the space roguelike Prospector, which is pretty cool.)

Starting this week over on Patreon we're also voting for secondary QoL features that patrons want to prioritize for Beta 11, so the results from that should probably be known by the time the next announcement comes around.

I leave you with the amazing Mobile Combat Recycling Unit by Zyalin!



We know what happened after a good year or more of players joking about the possibility of "Combat Swarmers" (TRACKERS!). Well, the long-running joke that followed that is "Combat Recyclers." Hmm...

Not an especially huge changelog here, just a tiny addendum to last week's massive release. Seeing as I wanted to put out a couple of important fixes anyway, I decided to throw in a few other items from the short list that I could get done in a reasonable amount of time, so today we have a mostly QoL-oriented Beta 10.1!

Beta 10 saves from runs in progress are compatible with this release, so you can upgrade/switch over right away to get all the benefits immediately!

• NEW: Removing or dropping a part that will be destroyed due to insufficient space gives a warning and requires confirmation
  
• NEW: Matter/energy storage utility descriptions indicate that stored matter can also be extracted directly if on the ground at current position.
  
• NEW: Simply waiting long enough in W base is enough to trigger the event without interacting with any other triggers
  
• MOD: Field Recycling Units now only collect parts when activated a second time for new COLLECTING mode, also collect more quickly (once/turn)
  
• MOD: Field Recycling Units no longer limit parts they'll collect based on remaining scrap storage, always top off regardless of waste
  
• MOD: Borebot Coring immunity is now full Critical immunity
  
• MOD: Swarm Drones now melt down if parent destroyed or lost bay
  
• MOD: Updated core reset interactions with Beta 10's new extended endings
  
• MOD: Transport Network Couplers and Trojans relaying 0b10 bot positions now only report active bots
  
• FIX: Some conditions for a certain scoresheet history log message were not being checked against one of the new endings [JackNine]
  
• FIX: [Player 2 mode] Crash on bringing Player 2 to one of the new endings [Minty]
  
• FIX: Multitile robot AI update in Beta 10 caused Behemoths to sometimes fail to return to their original guard location after losing all targets [Tone]
  
• FIX: Q-Series were unable to relaunch drones after the first retrieval
  
• FIX: Direct dropping currently attached Storage Unit containing items did not give warning or require confirmation like unequipping to inventory did
  
• FIX: Unequipping a part under certain conditions did not deduct energy
  
• FIX: Beta 10 fix to improve rapid label closing via Escape broke both advanced options: disableEscMenuAccessKeyboard, disableEscMenuAccessMouse

Field Recycling Units have a new mode to help avoid accidental situations where it might eat something you actually wanted to pick up but forgot that your FRU was active and munching away. Now like overloading a part you simply toggle it a second time to go from activated (processing accumulated matter) to the next step, collecting (eating parts under you!). In this mode it will show in a brighter color as well have a special tag.



General FRU usage was made even more friendly by not caring about wasted resources--just run over stuff to suck it up, even if it will overflow the unit's capacity.

And hooray for yet more warnings! Dropping parts will now warn if there isn't enough room to do so, in which case the result will be to crush it.



As scheduled, leaderboards were reset just last week the day after Beta 10 released. No need to reset again--10.1 and 10 will remain on the same board.

The full ambient soundscape is here, and it's not alone! In Beta 10 we also have expanded bothacking abilities, two more alternate endings, many more types of drones, and of course lots of other features to improve the overall experience.

Diving right in here...

(Note: Like Beta 9 before it, Beta 10 is far too large to fit the entire release notes on Steam--their system doesn't support it, so I've had to share the changelog here as an image rather than text. For a normal view of the full release notes, see this same announcement on the forums!)



Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 10, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 9.6 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.


You can now fully hear the world of Cogmind!

Cogmind has always had a ton of sound effects that help bring the world to life, but as far as continuous tracks go, for many years we've only had a few ambient sounds emitted by special machines and sample mapwide tracks in a couple maps as a test. Now all named machines have their own audio, as do all the maps!

Hear an array of Construction Platforms at work in the Factory, the rumble of a Megafabricator in the distance, Plasma Injectors down in the Mines, the hum of Power Conduits, busy Mainframes echoing throughout the Research branches, and so much more.

Aside from thematic mapwide drones that meld everything together, when you're not blasting robots and using the interface the audio experience is primarily defined by environmental factors, yet another new facet of Cogmind's emphasis on immersion.

Here's a debug shot visualizing the variety of machine audio across a Factory floor, where each unique sound is associated with a random color:



Any gaps or areas where no specific local machine can be heard will generally have a higher-volume mapwide ambient track to unify the floor's audio and maintain the theme, as you can see here in this visualization of mapwide ambient volumes (brighter is higher volume):



I wrote an in-depth article about the content and process behind Building Cogmind’s Ambient Soundscape:



Related to the expansion of Cogmind's audio content we have an important new advanced option, muteAudioOnFocusLoss, which you might want to turn on if you do a lot of Alt-Tabbing and prefer that Cogmind not continue playing its audio while you're in some other window. We might want that to be on by default, but it's off for now since I need to make sure it doesn't mess anything up first :P (it seems okay so far, anyway--I've been using it for a while now, but that's just me).

The soundscape is also fully accessible in text form as well, a new feature that will benefit both those who can't turn up the volume or simply want the extra visual reinforcement enabled by being able to also "read" all the audio sources. This is made possible via a new Audio Log, off by default but toggled in the options menu.

See the Audio Log in the top-right corner, listing all heard ambient audio sources and their relative volume as heard from the current location as I walk around a Materials map:



Here's another demo showing ambient sound sources alongside sound effects and the visual sound effect system as a battle rages outside this room:



There's a summary of Audio Log features and behavior in the manual, or if you want an even more in-depth look at how the system was built you can check out the article I wrote on the topic: Audio Accessibility Features for Roguelikes.



The install size of the game has definitely gone up as a result of all the new audio, by a whopping 50%! It wasn't exactly huge to begin with, but with Beta 10 we're going from 30MB to 45MB.


We have two new endings, bringing us to a total of nine different ways to win! I won't spoil the new ones here except to say that they're both a part of the extended game, and to point out the obvious, that yes the "expanded Warlord arc" indicated in the changelog is what you've been waiting for if you're one of us Warlord fans. Warlord forever! (Hopefully...)

Each of the new endings presents new challenges beyond what was already in the game, and of course as with the other seven, they each come with their own unique animated ending sequence. A ton of work went into these endings as a whole, and based on initial feedback from patrons they seem to have turned out pretty well. I even had to add a whole new type of UI window to enable you to trigger access to one of the new endings--you'll know it when you see it ;)

On a related note, I've also expanded some NPC interactions that people have wanted to see over the years. Under the right circumstances it's been possible to get certain major NPCs to meet each other, but in the past they wouldn't take notice or otherwise react in any way. Now they do, usually with consequences :P


There was a decent list of optional features to consider for Beta 10, and this time patrons voted to prioritize a drone mechanics rework together with a significant expansion of the types of drones available. It's turned out pretty nicely, resolving what I saw as some longstanding issues while adding fun new options at the same time.

Importantly, the new additions are not simply "drone with guns A, drone with guns B, etc.", or even drones using just standard tech, but instead come with unique features or behavior that can enable special strategies, or at least just be really fun to use--launch decoys, self-guided bombs, your own posse of thieves, drones that do your hacking for you, and more!




The most fundamental change with respect to drones is that you must have an attached and functional matching type of bay in order to use them. The bay does not actually need to be active, however (activating a bay is simply a way to launch drones). There are a number of implied changes connected to this one, including:

• Releasing a drone directly from a bay on the ground (e.g. with '>') can only be done if a functional matching type of bay is already attached
  
• Zionite Recon dispatches now arrive as a Z-Drone Bay (since you can't have drones without a bay anymore :P)
  
• Drone bays never autoactivate on attach, regardless of part autoactivation settings

If you remove the necessary drone bay (or it's destroyed xD), all related drones will take on the new "Unconnected" status and shut down. You lose the FOV info, but can gain it back again immediately by attaching an appropriate bay.

Drone connection demo:



Drone FOV connection demo:



This requirement really opened up the drone space for more possibilities and was pivotal in making the new drones much more interesting since the bay becomes a part of the requirement for using them, meaning we can get more powerful/numerous drones because the bay itself can be huge or heavy as a balancing factor to compensate :)

One surely welcome QoL under this new system is that if you have multiple matching drone bays and the attached one is full, drones can actually return to those which are currently in your inventory, as long as one has sufficient space.


Overall there'll be less micromanagement involved with drones, and in some cases other allies as well, with the biggest change being the complete removal of the GOTO order! That feature just encouraged a lot of micromanagement to get the most out of allies, especially drones which could then be carefully moved around to explore manually in some cases, and would often be optimal but tedious (i.e. not good). (Even after the removal you can technically still get them generally where you want by using a combination of movement, waiting, and STAY orders, though this incurs a time cost which can be prohibitive except when very important.)

This encouraged me to make some improvements to the AI as well, most importantly that unarmed followers will slightly trail behind rather than gathering around your current location. And they'll be smart about retreating ahead of you if you're retreating, too, generally keeping them out of the line of fire (unless you're suddenly ambushed from behind, or surrounded, in which case good luck :P).

Implementation: Instead of following your precise location, unarmed followers will target a point lagging behind you, as demonstrated here during debug mode (you can't normally see the point itself):



Drones and all allies will also really do their best to avoid stepping on known traps now. It turns out that although they would never path through traps, they might sometimes decide to stand on one if you were hanging around near it long enough.

Fleeing drones will now always RETURN automatically, rather than running around wildly, so it'll be easier to get them back and they'll be much more likely to survive longer. By extension, any disarmed combat drones will also automatically return, possibly improving their lifespan as well. The potential drawback here is that they might lead enemies right back to your position! Of course if you're not there when the enemies finally arrive then it's all good anyway... (or you can choose to sacrifice the drone by removing the bay to disconnect it and then you'll be fine, too)


One long-requested new feature is the ability to have the map view follow a drone as it moves. You can easily cycle through your drones using the normal Enter key (or center mouse button), which highlights them and their FOV. You can just use this to more easily check where they are, or even pass turns while focused on them and watch as they explore even distant areas.

Drone cycling demo:



Drone following demo:



When active drones are offscreen, you also get a blue 'n' marker like the one you get when Cogmind is offscreen:



And there's a new type of dedicated intel marker to record the location of a drone that was destroyed when that happens outside your remaining FOV:



The allies menu system got some upgrades, too:

• Opening an ally order list via the Allies console centers display on that ally if they are outside the map view
  
• Accessing the ally order list via keyboard displays it adjacent to the ally rather than below the Allies console
  
• Fleeing controllable allies appear differently in the allies menu, and explicitly refuse orders with a warning message

New ally order list location:



Returning drone cannot be ordered:




A majority of the new drone bays are available in the early game, although every single type except for one is a unique part, so you won't be seeing all of them in the same run. Less unique drones with similar mechanics might be available in the future (for example via Merchants!), but there's currently no good place to add them yet so I decided it would be better to make the bays unique so they could be especially useful or fun.

Many are available in the Mines via a new prefab encounter, and the rest are scattered about in other plot areas. One is a regular 0b10 prototype bay.


For all the Botlord builds out there, the pool of potential robot hacking abilities has been expanded from 9 to 15. Half of the new ones can be obtained multiple times to increase their effectiveness.

(Skip this section if you want to discover them on your own!)

Here's an overview of what's new...

• Hotswap allows you to automatically swap in additional matching Couplers in sequence from your inventory when the effective code value of current attached Couplers is insufficient for the desired hack. (No this doesn't mean hacking directly from inventory Couplers, but it does reduce the need to free up utility slots and attach additional Couplers mid-combat, while also allowing you to more easily get the most out of your existing Couplers.)
  
• With Command Fork you have a chance to duplicate each hack, also applying it to the visible applicable target nearest to the initial target, at no extra cost! It's compatible with most hacks, excluding generate_echo, map_walls, map_earth, map_route, or those that would have no meaningful effect. This is super useful because you can hack a combat bot and have the same hack affect a nearby different type of combat bot for which you don't even have a Coupler--very powerful under the right circumstances!
  
• Threat Obfuscation reduces all influence increases by a certain percentage (depending on your ability's level).
  
• Signal Jamming blocks local transmissions from visible hostiles while you have a matching Coupler attached, making it impossible for them to share information about your current position. Also prevents calls for reinforcements, and suppresses alarm traps. Basically against bots it's like having a targeted Transmission Jammer, a nice little bonus for having a given Coupler.
  
• Zone Cloak causes extermination squads to take longer to pinpoint your position for dispatching, essentially the same effect as taking out Garrison Access points, but you get it for free.
  
• With any [NC] Coupler attached, Watcher Feeds makes it possible to tap into the visual feed data of all 0b10 Watchers within a range of 24! This basically gives you temporary access to free drones that can maintain visual contact with enemies without themselves being attacked. One less reason to destroy Watchers :P

Demo of a link_fov fork:



Demo of forking overload_power and streamctrl_high:



Demo of the Watcher Feeds effect (while applicable, the link range is highlighted in faint yellow):




You can ram walls and machines now! Doing this is will mess you up pretty bad and there are warnings against it, of course, to help prevent you from smashing your face into that adjacent nuclear reactor, although if you're getting really desperate and squads are gathering around, this might actually be a good idea ;)



So it's there if you need it. This also provides a last ditch way out of escaping situations in which you've accidentally allowed Engineers to entomb you without any weapons to escape :P

Ramming like this uses the same old force melee commands.



We also have a more controversial mechanical adjustment in terms of using melee weapons in dug out spaces. For a number of reasons being able to safely dig winding tunnels could be pretty cheesy, even more so using them to fight pursuers. Projectile weapons could cause instant cave-ins when used like this from within unstable areas, but not melee weapons. Now all weapons are treated the same in this regard. The chance of melee attacks causing a cave-in are lower than, say, a kinetic cannon, but it is no longer completely safe to do so.

In terms of tunnel combat I imagine the effect of this change is less of an issue for players since that practice probably wasn't as widespread, though this does also affect the ability to dig consecutively through multiple spaces with a melee weapon, which will no doubt cause concern for some stealth builds which will need to consider alternative options if they can't risk a cave-in.

In any case, we'll see how things turn out, but stealth is already super effective and melee digging in particular was only one small part of that effectiveness.


Trackers have been nerfed. See the multiple changelog lines regarding them :P

The changes essentially mean they'll be a bit slower to catch up to you, and also have to be within view before they can open fire. Technically this is also an indirect nerf to builds that liked to farm Trackers and take their OP gear to turn it agaist 0b10, but players who could do that were few and far in between (in Rogue mode, at least xD).

We also have some OP weapon nerfs, specifically the Firepult and Guided EMP Blaster. Both are still good, but were definitely way too good earlier. The Firepult nerf in particular was planned to happen eventually, but don't worry, it's still quite good, just can't be used indefinitely because the idea behind most EX-tech was that it's stuff which is fun and effective to play with through the early/mid-game rather than become something you stash away to help crush the extended game :P. Some other Exiles parts will likely be revisited in the next release for updating as well (they were intentionally made OP when first introduced basically just for fun, since you can't get them every run anyway).

Impact weapons got a situational buff across the board, since all walls and reinforced barriers are now weaker against them.

I made some changes to the Access garrison situation, namely removing the original extremely deadly result of visiting one, a nasty surprise for anyone doing it their first time that was probably not survivable for most builds. The origial effect (instant Max Security!), was my first reaction to Pimski trying to loop indefinitely since it was an easy way to use the game's existing content to mostly discourage or outright block that possibility. Now there's a much less deadly result specifically for that situation.

Going inside that garrison itself has gotten more dangerous, however--I mean it's Access, right?! :)


Our favorite three-letter combo around here!

We've got some useful new protective warnings, including most importantly a warning if you're attempting to attack from a position that might cause a cave-in as a result, since it can be easy to that accidentally in the heat of battle. (This warning also includes melee attacks, as per the earlier mechanical change mentioned earlier.) There's also a warning if your attempted line of fire is blocked by another robot, since a fair number of people don't seem to notice that as readily, especially if the situation is changing as a lot of bots are moving around during combat (note that the LOF indicator also changes color).

Previously used guided waypoints can now be recalled even if some were outside FOV:



By request, as long as you have Tactical HUD mode active, parts that have been damaged for whatever reason (like... being shot :P) now retain a box around their integrity display in your parts list until your next action, so that you can more easily recall what has just taken damage:



I've activated this behavior by default, but if it bothers you you can deactivate it in advanced.cfg using partDamageIndicatorsRetained.

Also by request, we now have the ability to add custom log notes!



Log notes could later be expanded in a number of ways depending on player needs, but the primary purpose behind its current form is to allow you to leave in-game notes about what you were doing at the end of a play session, making it easier to pick up where you left off next time.

This feature is currently only accessible via Shift-Alt-z, but we'll be later getting a new menu system for easier access to all Shift-Alt key combo features, including mouse accessibility.

And no, your notes do not appear in the final scoresheet at this time (they're excluded from log output and only appear in game).

I've updated any Mines reward encounters that required randomly visiting a hidden location, which encouraged the optimal tactic of scouring every inch of the Mines in search of them, especally in the hope of uncovering the famous early Exp. Sensor Array:



As you can see, the event is now triggered by rifling through some visible Scrap. The original behavior was meant as a placeholder until there was a better solution--now we have one :)

We've got a couple little special mode updates as well. First of all a dedicated indicator for when your built-in sensors are being jammed, since the normal indicator was attached to sensor parts, which you may not even need in RPGLIKE mode :P



Player 2 now displays their parts with raw integrity values rather than as percentages:




I've been doing a lot of streaming over the past months, about half of it Cogmind-related. In fact, we'll be starting a new run today, not long after Beta 10 is officially released here :)

Past streams are archived on my YouTube channel, including the relatively recent Magneto run where we go for that achievement, some RIF runs, and others checking out the new ambient audio, including one dev testing stream.

Many others have been streaming lately as well, including MTF, Tone, Valguris and other top players. The Discord is a good place to get a heads up on streams and when people are planning to go live.

For those of you out there interested in the latest flavor of cheese, Pimski has put together an Exiles Kill Guide demonstrating a new pastime among Cogmind's more brazen and greedy (and evil!) players:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeIgKc_aozM

As per the announcement last month, the leaderboards are back in action and better than ever. I'll be continuing to expand their features down the line.

The next leaderboard reset will come tomorrow now that Beta 10 is out! All the current scores are from the Beta 9 builds (although the separate patron leaderboards include some Beta 10 and prerelease runs).


Thanks to all patrons and players for your support!

We've still got that OP rating, so the next goal still stands. Keep the reviews coming :D

Reminder: There will eventually be a big free expansion happening that adds Merchants (in fact there are a growing number of references in the game foreshadowing their arrival, including more in this release ;)), though I haven't yet decided for sure whether it will be before or after 1.0.

Regardless, we've got lots and lots of plans, both small and large, still out there just waiting for some attention...

YES, the leaderboards are back in action!

With a big Beta 10 mostly done and coming soon, we really needed to get official Beta 9 leaderboards up and running. Not to mention there are plenty of people out there who enjoy either aiming to rise through the ranks, or maybe just browse the leaderboards or other runs to see what others are up to. And of course with Beta 9's incredibly detailed new scoresheets there's even more to see in that regard!

Since they've been silent for a while, the boards currently include all seven releases since Beta 8.




To celebrate, Zyalin drew a bunch of us "Climbing the Ladder":



Of course roguelike god GJ is always there waiting to put us in our place ;)



At the bottom of the leaderboards you'll find a section listing more info about the rankings, and the usual links to archived scores and stats. New in this updated version you'll also find links to one-time leaderboards for past special modes, as well as patron leaderboards for those playing experimental prerelease versions.









Also down there you'll find a link to this nifty new menu, where you can access all runs by all players by version. (Well, "all" meaning those who have opted in to score uploading, since that's all we have data for!)

Technically we had this feature before, but it was simply a bunch of text files sitting on a server and navigated via your browser's file browser. Not ideal! Now we have basic run data in table format, styled for even more convenient browsing :D



Maps are color coded, as are difficulty modes and even score. Plus you've got both the date and mode right there. Another excerpt from a different version:



The scoresheet link on the right gives full data for each run.

Looking forward to seeing new players and interesting runs pop up on the boards where everyone can check them out :)

As for Beta 10, it's just about done, but shortly before I was about to finish everything on the list I decided to add some pretty significant new content (we're suddenly getting two new endings :P) so it's taking longer than originally planned. Anyway, more dev time just means more stuff, so stay tuned ;)

Cogmind's new "2-player" mode turned out to be a lot of fun, and after playing it a bit more I'd already come up with a growing list of other ideas that fell under "low-hanging fruit" for improving your friend's AI to make the mode even better. So rather than waiting until Beta 10 to include these features, I figured might as well release them now as Beta 9.6 while some players are still enjoying the company of another Cogmind!

• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Added dedicated "Player 2" section to scoresheet with 15 new entries
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 better understands the tactical use of launchers when conditions permit it
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 can now swap parts from ground into a full inventory to improve type and quality of spares
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 much less likely to stack utilities that won't benefit from it
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 tendency to use heat sinks as armor toned down
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 part loss also contributes to alert level reduction, as per the Cogmind mechanic
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] 2 more dialogue situations (total = 83)
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] More dialogue lines (total = 660)
  
• NEW: AI-controlled bots with a large energy-based volley may proactively deactivate one or more weapons if it will enable them to fire immediately
  
• MOD: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 no longer considers wasting turns on smaller integrity upgrades when rebuilding from salvage
  
• MOD: [Player 2 mode] Increased frequency of Player 2 dialogue
  
• FIX: Beta 9.6 prerelease bugs hunted down by: [CaptainWinky]
  
• FIX: AS-neutralizer No. 17b applied effect across entire map rather than limiting to specified range [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Scoresheet "Unauthorized Hacks" tally higher than intended [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Part info comparisons with a part using a manual tag misaligned the values by one row [Pimski]
  
• FIX: Scoresheet history log message for bump-rewiring detected and displayed incorrectly
  
• FIX: autoActivateTreadsOnAttack option caused inactive treads to appear active on automatically switching back to core propulsion on a move after attacking
  
• FIX: [Player 2 mode] Potential load issue under certain conditions

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 9.6, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 9.5 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.

Player 2 is now more likely to put together better builds overall, is smarter about launcher use, wastes somewhat less time rebuilding after a firefight, and now actually know how to turn off some weapons in their volley if they're starting to run low on energy. This was originally a bit of a problem during longer confrontations when Player 2 had large energy-based volleys and might end up doing very little attacking, but now for example they can turn off one or more weapons if it'll help them increase their attack rate and improve the outcome of skirmishes.

For example, see in this test how they start off firing both of their Nova Cannons but eventually switch to sometimes firing one in order to keep hitting targets:



Player 2 is also now more talkative than before. They normally have quite a lot to say, but in Beta 9.5 I had set the frequencies fairly low since I didn't want to overdo it across longer runs. After playing more long runs of my own, however, it felt like there was definitely room to increase the likelihood of them commenting on something, especially considering there are so many situations they want to talk about, many different things they can say in each, and most people won't play the mode that many times anyway!

"Player 2: A decisive victory in my favor, I'd say." Spoken immediately after leveling the caves with dozens of rockets...



Some of the new situations I added are pretty fun, but I won't spoil them :)

One thing missing from Beta 9.5 was any kinds of stats specific to Player 2, which we now have in Beta 9.6 \o/

Your scoresheets and stat dumps will now include new entries for your friend, including basic records like evolutions and part changes, but also perhaps more fun are comparisons between who is taking/dealing more damage and destroying the most hostiles, so you can now compete with Player 2 :D (or use this for other types of interesting conduct runs)



In the quick sample above, Cogmind and Player 2 are almost neck and neck for damage inflicted, although Player 2 was taking much less of the core damage (26%).

Although the main purposes of this release was Player 2 improvements, and fixes for new bugs are mostly coming in Beta 10, I did include a few incidental fixes I happened to have been working on. Like we now have proper alignment of part comparison values when one of them has a manual tag (which you can add to an inventory item via Shift-Alt-t):



I'd gotten a report about that once before and didn't make the connection as to what the cause might be until it also hit me during last week's stream and I went back to rewatch that section :P

Sadly the official leaderboards are still being held hostage to coronavirus, but I do have some Player 2 data to share...

Of the Cogmind owners who experienced Player 2 mode, 55 have opted into stat reporting, reporting a total of 132 runs through yesterday.

PLAYER 2 ROGUE LEADERBOARDS
PLAYER 2 ADVENTURER LEADERBOARDS
PLAYER 2 EXPLORER LEADERBOARDS
Oooh, me and Player 2 got third place this round for our epic fight to the end :D

For more leaderboards other than just Player 2 (and to see some of these with "mutations" appended), check out the latest compilation on the forums put together by Joshua, with all Beta 9 series runs through April 12th.

Last week I published a huge article about Developing Multitile Creatures in Roguelikes (currently for patrons), which covers a lot of related topics like appearance, pathfinding, mapgen, design, etc.



I mention because it inspired Ape to grace the community with an update to their graphical ASCII mod for Cogmind, now including the alternative large-character style for multitile bots.

A scary sight if you ever saw one (unless of course you have one of the tools for dealing with situations like this :P):



Also scary:



Inspired by Zyalin's great magazine cover featured in the Player 2 release, KernelPanic created a second issue :D

Behold, Daily Derelict issue 0xF3:



I've been streaming Player 2 since its release, starting with this intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiOfae3lEek

Then continuing the run (and finishing both that and a second one) just last week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SiuIm_NNmc

More to come!

Actually, after this announcement goes up, I'll be streaming another Player 2 run no later than 9 PM EST (Monday 4/14). We're going to teach Player 2 how Garrison raids are done and build an impressive RIF stack to play a support role. As usual, if you miss it it'll be up on YouTube later.

As a reminder, even though the event is over you can continue to play Player 2 mode as long as you like, even in this and future versions of Cogmind.

On Steam this can be accomplished by entering "-forceMode:Player2" as a launch option, as in this example from RPGLIKE (which you can also still play!):



Note that this only works if you have no run in progress (i.e. exited the game directly after finishing a previous run, or did a self-destruct w/save removal from the game menu).

Off Steam, you can either set the launch options for COGMIND.EXE, or run a .bat file like this one--just decompress the archive and drop the file into your Cogmind directory and click it. It simply contains the text "start COGMIND.exe -forceMode:Player2", to start the game in the desired mode.

Are you stuck at home?

Want to play some Cogmind but with extra social interaction?

How about taking on Complex 0b10 with a friend! Don't worry, NO REAL FRIEND NECESSARY, we'll provide one for you!

Welcome to Cogmind Beta 9.5...

This April 1st, just fire up a run and leave the Scrapyard to join forces with Player 2 on the adventure of a lifetime :D

Use the superior firepower of TWO COGMINDS to teach the Unaware that they should've stayed a safe distance away from you.*

*WARNING: This process is known to attract a lot of attention.

Your brand new friend comes with

• new AI behaviors
  
• most of your same capabilities and will evolve and manage their own build and inventory
  
• over 600 lines of situational dialogue to keep you company on the way

More info about this special release after the changelog...

• NEW: Unique AFD mode for 2020, automatically activates on 4/1 for anyone who has played at least three runs
  
• NEW: Command line argument "-forceMode:AFD2020" (or "-forceMode:Player2") to enable the AFD mode from 2020, regardless of system date
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Join forces with Player 2, another Cogmind with most of your same capabilities
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Adds a special interface displaying Player 2's class and movement data, with persistent access to their loadout (toggle w/'9' or LMB)
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Cogmind and Player 2's core integrity levels are linked
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Multiple smarter AI behaviors for Player 2
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Over 600 lines of situational dialogue
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] 1 new unique superweapon
  
• NEW: List of item schematics during manual hacks darkens any that are already known
  
• NEW: Option to block achievement earning while in challenge modes and special modes (advanced.cfg: onlyRegularModeAchievements)
  
• NEW: Manual "Difficulty" section includes explicit subsection for Rogue setting
  
• NEW: Manual part list data visualization descriptions further clarify meaning of heat mode values
  
• MOD: Part autoreplacement feature compares items based on based on current integrity rather than percent integrity remaining
  
• MOD: Part autoreplacement feature never swaps in known faulty or broken parts
  
• MOD: Advanced option "ignoreAscendConfirmation" no longer prevents warnings about leaving allies behind
  
• FIX: Size 36 fonts had become unusable on 4K screens [mudshark]
  
• FIX: [RPGLIKE mode] Pressing '0' with an open ally order list would open RPGLIKE upgrade menu [NikolayAg]
  
• FIX: [RPGLIKE mode] Protomatter might have a negative value under some conditions [Terminus, Rumbl3]
  
• FIX: Part autoreplacement feature was sometimes making undesirable swaps with regard to relative integrity [sunqingyao]
  
• FIX: Automatic waypoint recall for guided weapon attacks had stopped working [Valguris]
  
• FIX: Changes for RPGLIKE mode broke Sensor Arrays and Visual Processing utilities, allowing them to stack [Kerapace]
  
• FIX: Beta 9.5 prerelease bugs hunted down by: [CaptainWinky, Xii, lsend]
  
• FIX: [Pay2Buy mode] Hotkey for closing CogShop was still '0' rather than the newer '9'
  
• FIX: New "Broken" prefix for non-functional parts did not automatically update until part changed in some other way
  
• FIX: New "Broken" prefix for non-functional parts was included in log messages regarding that state change
  
• FIX: [Abominations mode] Abominations more effectively switch between propulsion modes when more than one available
  
• FIX: Since AI modifications to support autonomous weapons, disarmed combat bots might continue chasing targets rather than fleeing after loading a save
  
• FIX: Regular map exit warnings were not displayed if attempting to exit while somehow already on top of stairs
  
• FIX: Starting XP for RPGLIKE mode was added to score data even outside that mode

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 9.5, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 9.5 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like.

The key theme for this update is a new event and special mode, "Player 2," featuring your very own buddy with which to take on Complex 0b10. And they will mostly definitely be with you until The End because you can't leave a map without them, and your cores are permanently linked! When you take core integrity damage that same amount is applied to their core, and vice versa.

So you've got to look out for each other and it can sorta feel like an escort mission, although both of you can kick robot butt, and exactly who is escorting who might change from time to time :P

Fortunately they're not exactly helpless, with the ability to seek out and attach new parts they need or want, often in a fairly smart way overall. Just like you they can also increase their inventory size and carry spares, and may even be willing to share if you're in really bad shape ;)

Player 2 upgrading their build:



That inventory view, opened by clicking on the "[Player 2 (9)]" button (or just pressing the '9' key), can remain persistently open as you play to keep tabs on their build, or toggled off as necessary if and when it's getting in the way. Below it is the persistent info tab displaying their current build, movement mode, and speed. (Remember you can turn on your own automated build analysis system by setting showBuildType in /user/advanced.cfg to 1.)

Player 2 mode opens up a lot of new strategic considerations and tactical challenges. Your runs with Player 2 will tend to end up more combat-oriented, although with the right build you could probably keep them out of the full amount of trouble they'll otherwise be getting into since they... like to shoot things (unlike other allies, however, they'll hold back if you've spotted an enemy in the distance before yourself being spotted and haven't opened fire yet). You can sometimes choose to instead play a more supporting role, or prefer a front-line build to work alongside (or ahead of) theirs, at times considering your friend's loadout to determine what it is you'd like to build for.

A screenshot of us in a Research run, one of many because 1) this mode is really fun, and 2) it took a lot of testing to get the behavior right and work out kinks in the AI, which as you can imagine is far more complex than any other AI in Cogmind so far:



In your travels you might notice a number of other new behaviors Player 2 is capable of. For example here they are helping me destroy and loot a Hauler:



We destroy an Energy Cycler together:



And they certainly won't ask for an invitation to share their thoughts. They've got hundreds of lines of dialogue and are happy to give out tips and info and exhibit rampant sarcasm as they comment on the surroundings, events, or status.

Technically there's also a new superweapon added by and for this mode, and you can get it in your gallery, but I imagine this particular weapon is going to be very hard for most people to actually find. There are a couple clues, but still. Anyway, don't worry about it too much since it's also quite possible I'll eventually add another way to acquire it in the regular game as well.



AFD2020/Player2 mode will automatically activate for you on new runs started on 4/1 if you've played at least 3 runs before.

If you want to play on another day, you can still force it by adding a command line parameter when running COGMIND.EXE: "-forceMode:Player2". (Within Steam this is handled by going to Cogmind > Properties > Set Launch Options.)



If you want to play a regular run during the event, you can suppress date-based event triggering by adding the "-noSpecialMode" command line parameter.



Sorry but special modes are not compatible with one another, so you cannot combine RPGLIKE and Player 2.

Reminder: As of Beta 9.3, there is a new requirement specifying that regardless of settings, special modes and challenge modes can only be activated if the game starts up without loading a save. Even restarting/self-destructing won't work in this case, because some modes actually modify the underlying game data, which cannot be reloaded while the game is running.

Although it probably doesn't matter as much in today's new mode as something like RPGLIKE, note that you can set onlyRegularModeAchievements in /user/advanced.cfg to block the earning of new achievements in special modes or challenges modes because you'd like to preserve them for when you're playing the regular game. Otherwise, as per the Beta 9.3 update you can now earn achievements in this mode as well.

Not long after this announcement goes up, I'll be streaming a Player 2 run no later than 9 PM EST (Tuesday 3/31), and continue it one week later at the same time (or do another if we bite the dust :P). As usual, if you miss it it'll be up on YouTube later.

The main focus of work recently has been on the AI required to be able to play like Cogmind (complicated!!!), but a few other things have made it into this release.

Certainly not all the new issues slated to be fixed for the "next major release" have been addressed for 9.5, just some that were incidentally addressed, or really important to get in there now. Among them are some crazy effect stacking bugs introduced by code reworked in order to enable support for RPGLIKE mode abilities.

Stacking visual sensors to be able to see at ridiculous ranges down a corridor? Check!



You could even do this with Sensor Arrays!



Certainly not intended, and long-time players didn't really notice these new behaviors since stacking these is not something you'd normally do (their descriptions also clearly indicate they don't stack), but newer players who've only joined us in recent months definitely noticed, so I'm glad that recently got reported and fixed xD. Thanks Kerapace.

In QoL land, the part autoreplacement system got some updates and fixes as listed in the changelog, and item schematics you already possess are now darkened in the manual hacking menu, like so:



And another previously-working-but-later-broken feature has now been restored as well: automatic guided waypoint recalling so you don't have to keep reentering the same waypoints on subsequent turns to repeatedly follow the same path. After restoration:



The annoying negative Protomatter bug in RPGLIKE was also finally tracked down and eliminated \o/

I did eventually write the promised RPGLIKE design article if you want to read up on how that was put together. It's full of data and reasonings:



I also did a detailed writeup of Cogmind's "Battle Royale" mode, which I was originally going to release for AFD this year but later changed my mind.



Although playable (I released that version for patrons here), I ended up replacing it with the Player 2 event, which was built on the AI foundation created for Battle Royale.

I'm currently working on a lengthy new article about multitile creatures in roguelikes, more of a survey and technical how-to with design tips as well.

Since last time I posted an update I've streamed several RPGLIKE runs, including...

The RPGLIKE intro stream on release day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsB0H5qzBI

A "no-crutches" kinetics run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQikKnDe7Fs

And a 4-slot "Babymind" run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXQb06mD3F4

Switching back to regular Cogmind, I also streamed an imprinted heavy combat run (a pretty tough type of run...):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDj0156kB6k

And a pair of speed runs which resulted in a 908-turn win :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmYGDDwvSok

On the subject of AFD modes, another of the runs I streamed was Cogmind's very first special mode ever, "Launchers" from AFD2018:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08PhohuwdIg

Although not directly related to Cogmind (unless you count the fact that Cogmind was once a 7DRL, or that I converted it into a second 7DRL a couple years ago (!)), I've most recently been streaming some 7DRLs to help out the r/RoguelikeDev community. The video descriptions contain game info and timestamps for each (lots of the devs joined the streams as well):

Day 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZuaDNS61tA

Day 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm1nPNPW5_s

I'll be streaming more 7DRLs when the official reviews are out probably some time next month, but for now it's time for more Cogmind! Again, my first P2 stream will be starting not long after this release goes out.

Sadly the leaderboards still sit very close to completion while progress on them has completely stopped due to complications from coronavirus, which has caused lots of headaches for the developer (reminder: I'm not the one building that external system). Good news is that, as usual, scores from opt-in players are of course still being uploaded* to the server to be included once it goes live.

*In rare cases it might say the upload failed even when it did not, which is kinda weird. You can always tell if it succeeded or not by checking whether the scoresheet contains the URL at the end. And if it truly failed Cogmind retroactively retries the upload on subsequent startups anyway.

Datawise, as you can see here we've had a clear shift in the number of people playing easier difficulty modes now that the option is part of an explicit pre-game menu.



Most still go for the typical hardcore mode, but hopefully with the new menu it's more likely that people are finding the mode that works best for them. (These modes have existed for years, but obviously a lot of people did not realize it!)

Another bit of data I was curious about is the ongoing usage of RPGLIKE as a permanent mode of play, since that was one of the goals in creating it, giving people a way to enjoy Cogmind as if it were a bit more like other roguelikes when they were otherwise having trouble getting used to the unique mechanics and strategies involved. Some have stuck with the mode to this day, although the rate of use is currently only around 5% of the runs per day, down from 30~50% in the month after the event was over. We may get more people into it again once there's an in-game reminder/notice that it exists. I've also been thinking it would also be nice to include anonymous players in the data, but the system is currently opt-in only. That said, the ratio is probably not a whole lot different.

In terms of review numbers, we almost lost Cogmind's Overwhelmingly Positive status on Steam this month, but surprisingly regained it in less than a day since at the time we were just missing one more positive review. Anyway, that still shows we're on the brink of losing it so be ready for that eventuality, likely some time this year xD. Reminder: If we can maintain it for the next couple hundred reviews, I've promised a new map and derelict faction. Because holding that status is helpful for sales, of course, which means making more money to fund additional content without DLC :) (which I refuse to do)

After 9.5 comes Beta 10, which could take a while considering everything it needs to cover. It's too early to share details on that just yet, although I can say that as voted on by patrons it will at least include a bunch of drone-related updates and features, along with modifications to ally AI. Results from the latest round of voting on optional features:



Special thanks to Zyalin for that wonderful "The Daily Derelict" magazine cover shown at the opening of this post! (Also to zxc and other fans for helping coming up with its content.)

Zyalin now has a Twitter account, so you can follow him there for Cogmind and other roguelike art. Some of his great Cogmind works that I've shared over the years:



I leave you with 8R-AWN and his armored bellybutton (sketch by Zyalin, of course).