Beta 16 X2 Prelease: U-N-C-H-A-I-N-E-D

It begins. Our Beta 16 eponymous opponents are upon us.

So the Unchained are finally ready to make their appearance! Some time, somewhere, they're ready to toss an unexpected wrench into your plans, at least once they've deemed you a worthy enough target.

I've already given a general rundown of their design, so I won't rehash all that here.

Although ultimately the idea is to have Unchained be somewhat more selective in terms of which are dispatched based on your activity and why exactly they're coming for you, currently since only five of the total are ready and we 1) want to test them all out and 2) don't have the necessary variety to account for different responses anyway, the Unchained which might appear in your run (if any!) is entirely random. For the same reasons, I have not implemented any sort of tier system to have certain types of Unchained more likely to be operating at certain depths.

I would've preferred to at least have a few more Unchained ready for this particular release, at least that was the original idea, though the relative architectural complexity arising from not only their multi-floor nature, but also just their unique mechanics in general, and most importantly the decision to inject the new achievements into Beta 16 left less time for extra Unchained. Gotta get another public release out before too long a wait!

In the end this might be a good thing anyway, to allow for actual playtesting of the system overall before introducing yet more unique Unchained. Lengthier testing of a select group of Unchained could also better inform future design to ensure it's going in the right direction.

As expected, the Unchained update is not just about adding individual "robots" (and maybe some related behaviors)--each tends to come with unique parts or even other content, some of which you'll see reflected in the changelog entries.

Once we've confirmed that the current system is working out, adding more Unchained should go pretty smoothly, though the remaining bulk will come in Beta 17 rather than trying to edge in anything new right now--Beta 16 should be pretty much "done"... aside from fixing inevitable bugs.

On that note, X2 will probably be one of the most bug-prone releases ever put out--not to say it's filled with them or there will be a lot of common ones, just that the chance of very specific issues is higher due to the complicated nature of the new systems and how different runs interact with them. In any case, as usual I will be very responsive about fixing issues ASAP (mainly crashes is what I'm referring to here) in order to allow testing to continue as smoothly as possible. I did a bunch of explicit testing and caught what I could catch, but in this case it's not really possible to sufficiently cover the variety of runs we'll see from players. Reports appreciated, including likely save files in order to inspect game state (though I can of course take a quick look at the log to see if that's necessary, or if happens to be something obvious).

Another aspect worth pointing out is that this particular version isn't necessarily for everyone, in the sense that the majority of its content will not be accessible unless/until you are at the stage where you are consistently doing pretty well at Cogmind, winning or close to winning runs or at least being a bigger threat to Complex 0b10 in some way. Nonetheless it does include other fixes, so it's at least worth staying up to date on that.

Changelog

• NEW: 5 Unchained

• NEW: 17 turrets and drones

• NEW: 3 new robot variants

• NEW: 21 new items

• NEW: 11 new sound effects (total = 1350)

• NEW: Several more achievements

• NEW: Manual lists specific Scanalyzer study effects for each part type

• MOD: Search patrol dispatches may become applicable more quickly than before

• MOD: "Search Patrol Dispatched" influence decrease reduced from 150 to 100

• MOD: "Armchair Analyst" achievement more specifically limited to Terminal sources

• MOD: Scoresheet instead records intercept dispatches on a one-to-one basis with announcements

• MOD: System corruption visual effects no longer continue while in game menus

• MOD: Context help for originally melee-specific damage types updated to remove melee-only references

• MOD: Dimensional Slip Node armor reduced to 5

• MOD: [RPGLIKE mode] UFD Drillbomb size reduced to 3

• FIX: Arc weapons always hit within their potential arc, even on a miss [Runia, aoemica]

• FIX: Using keyboard running alongside cleared edge of map would crash [aoemica]

• FIX: Cryocooling Duct effect could take place at beginning of following run if new run started after triggered but before application [aoemica]

• FIX: Full Concussive RPG description still did not appear correctly in some non-standard resolution/UI layout combos [Luna]

• FIX: Overloading non-airborne propulsion increased mass support

• FIX: "DIY Cooler" achievement worked with any type of cooling, not just Heat Sinks

• FIX: "On My Own Terms" achievement did not check all requirements

• FIX: "I'm Coming For You" achievement could not trigger

• FIX: "Insider Info" achievement could be earned under some non-relevant circumstances

• FIX: "There's More Where That Came From"/"Hydra" achievement requirements not as specific as intended

• FIX: "Live, Flee, and Rebuild" achievement could be earned through a certain redacted means if hadn't already done that before

• FIX: "Assassin" achievement could still be earned by sneak attacking inactive hostiles [Cingulata]

Achievements

Thanks to those of you who've reported on a handful of the achievements that weren't functioning as expected in X1. All know issues have since been resolved, though if you have a run in which should have earned an especially difficult challenge achievement and it failed to trigger due to a bug (there was at least one known such case), for this version I have added an optional new way to give yourself achievement(s).

Simply add a text file named "achievements" (so achievements.txt) to your Cogmind directory, and within that file list the exact name of any/all achievements you want to earn, one per line. If successful the results will appear in the log after you start the game and pass one turn. The results as well as any issues (like whether you maybe misnamed the achievement) will also appear in the run.log file.

Still, continuing to report any achievement issues before this whole new set goes public is greatly appreciated :D

Overall considering the huge array of achievements added so far, serious issues have been pretty minimal (except for that one time...), whew.

Get Beta 16 X2

On Steam, Beta 16 X2 is located on the new beta branch "beta_16_x2" accessible with the code "TrulyUnchained", or if you don't have Steam and bought through FastSpring and would like to try the DRM-free version, send me an email at gridsagegames@gmail.com to be added to the Beta 16 cycle notification list if you're not already on it.

Saves are not compatible with previous releases. However, if you are in the middle of a run from an earlier version and would like to pause it to try this one immediately, you can technically do this then go back to the old version/branch (they are stored as separate save files), though reverting back will lose any specific account-based records (lore/gallery/achievements) that did not exist in the previous version.

Additional hotfixes may come for this release, unannounced except to append a notice here and via an announcement in the #patron Discord channel. It's not uncommon due to the experimental nature of these releases, and if saves are compatible then the same branch is simply updated, otherwise a new branch is created and listed here.

Update 251009a

First save-compatible update addressing some issues with Unchained so far, and most importantly a couple of possible crashes:

• MOD: Unchained general improvements

• FIX: DSF trap caches always contained Fire Traps instead of intended variety of non-Derelict traps [Infomantis]

• FIX: Crash on meeting second unique Unchained with FarCom enabled

• FIX: "Physics Hates This One Trick" achievement check was too broad

• FIX: Crash on attempting to check for a particular hidden Subcaves achievement

There are a couple other (minor) achievement fixes as well, but they require breaking saves, so those will be delivered later on with the upcoming full Beta 16 release. For now still need to see more results from prerelease runs to 1) weed out any more situational bugs with Unchained, and 2) continue analyzing data to tweak Unchained "triggers" for the desired frequency, or at least making sure they're working as expected. It's pretty complex overall, so while I think it looks mostly right so far, I need to be completely sure based on real numbers. I spent the past day and a half putting together a new system with which to do this, so I'm looking forward to seeing this weekend's runs!

If there aren't too many unexpected issues in the meantime, while I'm waiting for more data I may also have an opportunity to further expand on some of the existing Unchained. Some features were left out for now in order to get the release out quickly enough, so I'd like to catch up on that, though none of it is essential.

Update 251010a

• FIX: Crash in one of the potential Unchained behaviors

Update 251015a

Lots of interesting runs coming in, and I've been analyzing the data to make further updates and fixes to the Unchained trigger systems, included here in another save-compatible update:

• MOD: Unchained immune to Chute Traps

• MOD: New "Avg Prop Armor Cover (%)" stat changed to include only values greater than 0

• MOD: "Ghost 'Em" achievement description, behavior updated

• FIX: Some Unchained trigger tracking was incorrect

• FIX: Powered Cannon failed to assign temp slot

• FIX: "Into The Breach" achievement did not trigger for some intended targets

There are a couple achievement fixes that require breaking saves, so I'm still holding off on those until we're about to go public with this, which is looking like it'll be next week! The current plan is to then, after doing the normal stat analysis, actually move forward with a new short-term release schedule where we'll just be getting another batch of Unchained, in a 16.1 build (put out here on Patreon first, of course). You'll get to meet BL-1NK and more...