Unchained 101

They've been alluded to for years, they've gradually crept into the lore, they've tickled your imagination and possibly haunted your nightmares, and now they're finally coming.

As you know from previous entries the final piece of Beta 16 is to start injecting the Unchained into Cogmind. Slowly but surely they're here, in the steel.

Again not all of them are coming right away--they'll be split over two releases, but in the current version we'll be establishing and testing the overarching systems, as well as having multiple different representatives of this very unique new class of NPCs to face off against.

Today I want to give you the first general rundown covering what the Unchained are in a design sense.

Ultimate Food Clock

We already have a variety of "food clocks" in Cogmind, mechanics aiming to push the player along and manage the balance, difficulty, and consequences of various decisions. That would be extermination dispatches, the general alert system with its assaults and search patrols, and several more that involve spoilers so I won't list them all here. These have always been pretty suitable for their respective goals, operating at differing levels of challenge and undergoing refinements over the years to improve them further.

However given the ingenuity of players, there have always been some cracks here and there that invite exploitation, and for many years I've envisioned yet another level of reaction even more interesting and extreme that could both 1) deal with specific situations where other systems don't as easily apply or 2) simply offer another level of challenge for those who need, want, or, um, deserve it ;)

What better way than a group of powerful and ostensibly subservient evil derelicts with the freedom to operate outside the rigid confines of Complex 0b10 procedures, but in the interests of MAIN.C.

They've been on the backburner for ages now, as I accumulated a huge quantity of related notes and sought to postpone their introduction for as long as possible since they really are above and beyond all existing systems. Now I can safely add them without fear of them interfering with general needs, while also being able to take into account the wide variety of fundamental systems already in place.

One of the elements that makes them unique as a food clock is their multifloor nature. Unlike other systems which are completely reset (or at least weakened) between floors, the Unchained are a bit more relentless in that they will chase you into new maps. Not immediately, technically--you'll still temporarily shake them via stairway transitions, but it's not like alert with a gradual new buildup, and before too long they will come at you with the same force as before, or meddle however they're going to meddle, in the case of those which don't actively chase you. You can lose them eventually, assuming you want (and are able) to repeatedly flee rather than confront the danger, but they can continue to be a pretty big thorn in your side for a while.

As such an "ultimate food clock," naturally not everyone will be seeing this system--it generally takes a higher level of skill (or stubbornness?!) to meet the threshold(s), but that's not to say you can't also go out of your way to try to "summon" an Unchained, once the community grows more familiar with the kinds of behavior that might attract their attention...

Triggers

So how does one actually go about meeting the Unchained? Well, one way come Beta 17 will be visiting their home base, though that's a different matter entirely. For now, engaging in certain actions, generally over a longer period, could eventually lead to one of these nasties coming after you. I won't list all the "triggers" here, but as one might assume, some are pretty obvious actions that Complex 0b10 finds very offensive to its normal operation.

There are currently 16 coded trigger types, and more could easily be added, but we'll have to see how the current set works out, including also their individual settings, which are highly adjustable so I'll be looking at just how frequent they end up being.

One tool I considered working on for development purposes was a way to parse existing scoresheets and analyze the data to determine whether and how many possible Unchained might have shown up in a given historical run, to examine the trigger system in aggregate, but I feel it'd be too much work to be worth it. The current settings were already based on my observations of aggregate scoresheet data as well as personal and anecdotal experience anyway, so they're probably close enough to be a good starting point and we can adjust from there.

My end goal is for the average player to not really see these guys much, if at all, whereas a majority of top runs will likely encounter at least one, if not more. We'll have to see just what level of disruption to a "normal" run will be acceptable, given their capabilities, but they should at least offer both new challenges and in some cases new opportunities (possessing new parts, after all, if you can actually acquire them). For the next prerelease it'd also be fine if they're a bit more on the common side, since we want to have opportunities to play around with and test them anyway :)

As far as progress goes, the initial trigger system is fully implemented, as well as general Unchained management, and I'm currently working on adding specific Unchained.

Telegraphing

The most important map-level events in Cogmind are telegraphed, usually through announcements, allowing you at least some time to plan and react accordingly depending on the circumstances.

Unchained being as major as they are will be no different.

You'll get a map-wide announcement, and in fact this announcement comes a decent amount of time before they actually arrive on the map. In a way this is similar to Freighter convoys which involve a short delay and also have their advance Swarmer group running the approximate planned route as a warning before the real thing, since convoys can be a fairly deadly encounter.

Unchained will usually be even more dangerous, and are coming after you personally rather than just passing through, so it's only fair to give a longer heads up that you'd better start planning.

With experience of course, the fact that the name of a specific Unchained is pre-announced makes it that much easier to formulate a plan. Of course you can also just try to avoid them or flee the map, but aside from at least putting yourself in the best possible position and observing or engaging them to see just what they're capable of, one may learn of other options over time...

Counters

If you've been to Scraptown and gathered some of the more specific Unchained lore, you'll know that each of them is quite unique. Every one will bring its own different challenges to the table, and therefore by extension may also require different solutions.

Some may be less or more of a threat to certain builds than others, and currently I don't yet have the responding Unchained based at all on specifically what you've been doing or what type of build Cogmind has been using; that could come eventually, though I do kinda prefer that it lean to the random side if possible as that keeps things more interesting while also enhancing the sense of dread or relief when a particular one does come after your current build.

In a general sense, I imagine having allies could be quite helpful for dealing with most Unchained, if at least to run interference. Also in many cases a Triangulator could be helpful, given their ability to track you pretty well...

Some counters could instead be more specific to a given Unchained, such as parts with particular functionality if you happen to have them, or a way to acquire them soon. This is made more interesting due to their multimap nature, as in perhaps you're not ready to take one on now, but could better prepare to do so on a later floor. Unchained do not follow you through all maps anyway--they do avoid some, and while they're a long-term danger you do have areas of respite so it's not quite a relentless pursuit. They also might be easier to confront in a different nearby map, if you have the choice and inclination.

Fleeing is always a good backup option if you have knowledge of an exit... we'll see how often this is a desirable or viable option!

General Behavior and More

Destroying them also isn't technically a requirement. Yeah they could be after you for a good while, but they'll give up the chase eventually.

Unlike other robots they're also actually bigger on self-preservation! So even before you manage to kill them it's likely they'll try to retreat, leaving you to lick your own wounds, or try to chase them down if you can, or go about your business again while they inevitably come back for another round some time later, refreshed and probably not very happy with you :P

There is still more work to be done in this area though, given how many different situations they can find themselves in, especially with crafty and mean players!

As I add each one, I'll say the emphasis is on making their unique mechanics fun and interesting, though by necessity not all will be directly replicable by Cogmind. Some are too extreme, or involve game-breaking behind-the-scenes sci-fi magic, though I do also generally want there to be new parts for Cogmind to take advantage of, or other potential rewards. So for example one of the Unchained carries a part that they presumably use to power their own capabilities, but in the player's hands has its own slightly different mechanics or limitations. Others might drop a random reward that is something they're not actively using.

As for visual representation, some of you might recall this first appearance of the Unchained way back in the 2020 ARG:

The implication being that if added (which wasn't certain at the time) Unchained would use tiles of existing classes (at least partially, if not primarily). More recently I was thinking that for several reasons it would be a good idea to have all Unchained use the same tile, perhaps a more abstract representation, in order to appear extra different from everything else.

Well, there are advantages to both methods, and I've since switched back to a hybrid approach. Internally the Unchained are indeed a unique class of their own, but you don't really know this when you look at them anyway because they're "special" NPCs (just like you don't see a specific class name listed for other special-marked NPCs). They will use appropriate class tiles for each, in some cases most likely eventually getting some unique new tiles given their origins. For the ASCII version, however, they'll all have the same representation, for which I'm using an '8' (kinda like chain links).

X2

I don't yet have a timeline for the X2 prerelease, since it mainly hinges on feeling like there are "enough" Unchained for now, while their finalized abilities and necessary individual architecture are both more demanding and in flux until actually built. For now I'm just implementing a decent variety while trying to avoid any of those which are clearly going to be extremely complex and time-consuming... those can wait for Beta 17 :P

All of them do add their own level of new complexity, requiring exploration of new territory with the code like for example allowing a "living" bot with items and such to exist but not be present anywhere in the current map. Never needed that before aside from quickly transitioning Cogmind and friends from one map to another. (There was one area where it could have come in handy: properly saving all data for bots chuted before Cogmind, an attempt I made earlier this year but which ultimately failed just short of the goal due to other complexities that the Unchained can probably ignore without much issue.)

Will be fun to explore funky new systems along the way, like here's a debug visualization of a behavior I was working on for one of the new Unchained:

When it does come out, X2 could be a little buggier than usual given some "rule-breaking" mechanics, but of course I'm testing to make sure everything at least works superficially :P

I'm pretty pleased with progress so far, sped up somewhat by once again skipping out on streaming... That's mainly due to a focus on resolving persistent health issues, but it's also nice to be able to get more design and coding done, especially when some of these things take a rather long time to put together!

I really would like to stream and have almost done so a few times, both Cogmind and other games, but... it's probably best to wait for a bit on that.