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3089 is a futuristic, procedurally generated, open-world action role-playing game. All terrain, enemies, weapons, items, quests & more are uniquely generated. You are a promising robotic android design, made by the Overlord, placed on planet Xax. Your performance in common combat, support & intel scenarios is being closely watched. However, will you become too much for them to handle? What else on planet Xax exists that the Overlord doesn’t know about?

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Programming for fun and profit (Games : 3089 : Forum : General Discussion : Programming for fun and profit) Locked
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Jun 12 2013 Anchor

Dear Sir Overlord,

I'm writing in regard #3234, your so called "promising" design. It appears to me that this robot is no more than fraud and cheat.
This is what his stats look like:

Judging by "You're making a progress" messages you think he finished a few quests, distributed skill points and so on. In reality his is only making progress in lies. I managed to take a peek at him, when he was cleaning his FireWire ports:

As you can see, your android assigned initial 10 skill points you kindly had given him, to programming. Then by repeated reprogramming chips he managed to boost his programming to 25 points. Next, he went to level 2 chip station, and with level 2 chips gave himself more boost. This process can be repeated as long as he wants. Android #3234 never finished even one quest! He didn't even engage in combat once.

To stop this exploits, I strongly recommend removing programming ability from android #3234, along with his arms and head. May I be allowed to assure you of my everlasting loyalty, honesty and hatred towards such dirty tricks as "programming". I would gladly undertake any mission your divine Quest Stations provide to show my skills!

At your service,
kulomiot

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Is there anything that should be done? I suppose Programming should never appear on chips, meaning it won't be possible to boost this stat using chips. This way player still could give himself a large boost to other stats, but at least he has to gain few skill points traditional way. Also, I would recommend allowing only four slots for armor/chips, fifth being reserved for a Smart Link (https://www.indiedb.com/games/3089/forum/thread/smart-link-slot ), this way player could have 4 not 5 chips total, limiting overal boost further. Third, I would make one of the following: make chips always have 5% chance of breaking, no matter how high your skill is or make chips have a limited number of overwrites, for example 10 (I like second option more).

Jun 12 2013 Anchor

Ha! What a wonderful way to share a nasty but well executed exploit :P

Making chips not give programming is probably the best way to avoid this... might make programming less effective too (which will make it harder to program chips successfully). See how that plays out, and if programming needs more limitations, I'll add more...

Jun 13 2013 Anchor

There's no exploit report like an in-character exploit report :D Very cool kulomiot

Jun 13 2013 Anchor

wasent the elder scrolls games pleged with similar exploits involving potions?

Jun 14 2013 Anchor

I actually had been wondering if the Programming mechanic should be reworked a bit.

Not because it's too strong, but because it's a bit too random. Theoretically, the idea is that blank chips cost less, yet you can have that as an advantage if you can program them yourself, yes? But the actual programming is just as random as the stats on the finished chips that appear in the store. Often, in order to get stats that you actually can really use, you have to go through multiple chips to get even one. This is further exasperated if you are having bad luck with them and they are breaking a couple of times while you are trying to get good ones. The simplest way to deal with chips, I've found, is just to outright buy them in finished form; the randomness is still there, but you can at least browse through those, and look at each one before buying.

That's been my problem with the mechanic for awhile now, but I kept forgetting to mention it.

Jun 14 2013 Anchor

^ this. It'd be great if we could reduce the randomness a little; maybe set a few 'goal' stats and the game has x% chance to give that and y% chance to give the opposite stat? e.g. you aim for guns, but if you roll low you get melee instead? Even if it was just that you could increase the chance of a particualr stat getting selected from teh random pool, and then the chances for each stat go down if you try for more than one stat...

Jun 15 2013 Anchor

Misery55 wrote: Theoretically, the idea is that blank chips cost less, yet you can have that as an advantage if you can program them yourself, yes? But the actual programming is just as random as the stats on the finished chips that appear in the store. Often, in order to get stats that you actually can really use, you have to go through multiple chips to get even one..


I don't know if I understand you correctly. You realize that you can click multiple times on any chip to reprogram it? You can have as powerful skill setup as you want, but it may take some time.

Blank chips cost less not because you can program them, because you can reprogram any chip as many times as you want. Main purpose of blank chips is reprogramming them and selling for a profit. For a blank level 1 chip, with prestige 0, you can make 32 credits profit on each part. I think there is a perfect balance between time, profit and other ways of making money. I can sell loot or I can earn by programming.

I like how Programming works now. It's random, yes, but it's a good abstraction of a long process. Otherwise, what would you expect? Have a desired chip configuration in an instant? Or watch a progress bar slowly filling ...Programming...wait...

Programming, even with changes made in 0.77 is still very good skill to increase, but for a price. Price is simply a time you need to reprogram your chips set and having your character less powerful in general. I have 4 chips on me, and whan I was testing stealing, I reprogram them all to stealing/stealth. Then I found an Overlord Temple (= enemy tower), so I reprogram them for agility/stamina/defense/guns. To advance, you must do quests and pour skill points in Programming, but when you do, you have very flexible character.

Of course you can increase other skills, and use chips you buy/found to further specialize your character, so a Programmer is not as powerful in combat as Agility/Guns specialist. Also, you would never have such high Defense score, wearing chips instead of armor. Simply, high score in Programing lets you reassign a pool of skill points. It's flexibility at a cost of power.

Jun 15 2013 Anchor

kulomiot gets it :-) Another advantage to blank chips is the programming results are better when you program a blank chip compared to a regular chip.

Jun 15 2013 Anchor

That makes a lot of sense explained that way, however that 'programming, please wait' bar comment got me thinking... what if we kept the current mechanic as 'quick program', and had a 'manually program' option that let you choose your outcome within limits set by your programming and the chip level (maybe programming*level/2)? which takes a long time to complete? It would only work from blank chips, and there'd still be a chance of failure.

The current mechanic is great, UNLESS you're looking for something specific to fill a major hole (e.g. you just died and lost part of your uber-agility armour/chip/whatever, and now you can barely move), in which case the RNG always seems to take that opportunity to settle the debts for your good luck all at once. When you have a 'stable' build with really good gear, most people want to start taking less risks and going for slower more gradual rewards; and programming drops off in effectiveness as you increase in other areas.

This idea is really starting to border on a core gameplay concept of risk versus reward gameplay, but I've always preferred those games which let you choose exactly how much risk you want to take on and whether you want to try for a sharp rise in fame or play the long game. Being able to manually override the programming at the cost of much extra time seems like it would give players more choice in that regard, without destroying the balance since you're not going to get as good as you oculd have using the quick program method.

Jun 16 2013 Anchor

Ahhh? I'd been under the impression that programming only worked on blank chips.... so I would program the things once, and then stop there every time.

Useful to know.

I'll experiment with the system a bit and then give some feedback on it.

Feb 16 2014 Anchor

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX

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