Java Corrupted Saviors [Release 58] [CSDev]

[Scepticism]

I know I had a short-sleeved top at one point while I was testing out the options, do you know how to replicate it? Maybe an outfit ID it happens on if you just mess with the sleeves?

Messed around and got it to work on ID 102 by covering forearms followed by adding upper arms and then removing forearms again, though every other ID is a no-go, regardless of layer and materials. I guess I'll have to give every chosen ID 102 and then edit if I want short-sleeved clothing. Very weird.

 

[CSdev]

Might have found another interface glitch similar to the one i posted before. For this one to trigger, you go to the custom chosen creation menu, then go through the normal process like you normally do until you reach the body customization screen. Now, click on the "Thicker Hips" button until you reach "Girlish Figure" on the interface. Now click once more, and the interface will not update itself to the next values. I've noticed that the demon lord body works just fine on this one though, so i guess it's just the custom chosen interface that's being sassy.

Looks like the difference here is because the custom Chosen creation menu edits their genetics, while the Demon Lord/Forsaken one directly edits the body itself. Changing male Chosen hip size was increasing their genetic predisposition toward large hips by 1 point, but because their hips grow more slowly for each point of genetic predisposition, it'd sometimes result in the same description even after being changed. This will be fixed in R45c.

So, i wanna make sure i understand this one properly, i'm still confused. If my forsaken are female, i can make them pregnant just fine, so i know that's working. But if my forsaken are male, i first need to give them the anal womb so they can get pregnant as well, is this correct? If so, how do i do this? If a ritual is not required to give them the womb, then i have no idea where to do this. I can't give them the womb while in the custom character creation, because they will still be chosen at this time. If i go and attempt to change their body, they will completely change their forms to female or monster, so that's not it either. Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated x D

Oh, this is a problem related to the menu structure which was set in previous versious back when customization worked differently. The anal womb option is located in the "monster" menu.

So.. do the Forsaken damage bonuses all stack multiplicatively? For example, if I have +50% from animalistic, +50% hate from distortion, +20% Hate from Breeder, and Disgrace of 64% granting 72% base damage, then would I get 72%*1.5*1.5*1.2 = 194.4% Hate damage, then also multiplied by fighting style?

Most of the multipliers in the game (including the ones you mention here) are multiplicative. This can get pretty crazy, but that's by design.

Hi! For those who have high pixel resolution and/or the text is too small:

Cortana > resolution > change text size, apps and others > 100% > open corrupted saviors.exe > up the 100% to 200%

Boom! both buttons and text are 2X the normal size!

Until dev makes the feature to customize, this will patch your problems.
Hope it helps! <3

Is there any way to adjust the button bar at the bottom? It's ignoring my OS's display scale and all of the buttons are tiny

Could someone please tell me how to make the buttons bigger? They were already frustratingly small, but then they became unplayably small after I hit f11 trying to make things bigger. Windows 10.

For anyone having issues with button visibility, an incredibly janky workaround is to use the magnifier tool that comes with Windows in whatever mode you find least annoying/distracting. I prefer putting magnifier on the full screen setting and having it not follow the cursor, so you can position the game window within the blown up portion of the screen and mostly play as normal

I finally got around to making the buttons scale properly in R45, so please let me know if further adjustment is necessary to make the game playable on your screens!

CSdev I think there's a bug with the new Tomorrow's Newspaper. It does not appear to grant access to the multi-modifier commander techs Versatility and Synthesis, just Completion. It does provide discounts for these techs, suggesting it's intended to provide them. The commander builder with this item also appears to be bugged - if the attachments are added in the order punisher->defiler->suppressor it works correctly, but if you add the suppressor first it won't let you add the defiler. I've attached a save where this can be observed - I have Tomorrow's Newspaper and have not yet bought Versatility.

Sorry for not catching this bug sooner - I believe it's fixed in R45.

Are t4 breaks supposed to interupt distortions?
I'm using a drain commander to finish up some total confidence breaks on my negotiation distortion team of chosen, but when I do, the distortion locks (what prevents t1 and t3 breaks from disrupting your distortion) unlock and will subsequently break whatever distortion I happen to be going for unless I use cheats to keep t3 breaks from happening. I can still continue the distortions as long as I'm extra careful (or turn off adaptions) this however, prevents me from doing the t4 innocence break, so I want to ask if t4 breaks are supposed to be mutually exclusive to distortions or if this is unintended behavior.
I'll go ahead and include my save (Camcheat 1-3) in case this turns out to be a bug report. To replicate the supposed issue, just fire up a drain commander and ambush either Vendetta or Silver (suntorn dawn pack), pass a dozen turns or watch for one of them to have a dignity break, then either force retreat or play the rest of the battle.
I am using cheats but I don't think that would impact any of these mechanics.

This is a bug. It only occurs when using drain and spite together, and causes a "fake" Dignity break when EXPO reaches Lv.3. This fake break resets negotiation progress, but doesn't get recorded as a vulnerability break. From looking at the code, it's referencing the wrong commander body type. Oddly enough, this does cause other oddities with using a drain/vanity commander.

Thank you both for helping to track this bug down. It's now been fixed in R45.

Does anyone know how to stop the game from just going into an infinite loop in the middle of a battle? Cause for whatever reason the game keeps just soft locking and repeating the last move made in the fight without actually progressing anything.

Literally anything, there was no specific move, target, or user that triggered it. It happened on one of the Chosen's attacks and it happened on my own attacks as well. If it helps it was with a custom team on day 3 and usually within a few turns of the second chosen joining.

The image pack for the Meguca is done, but I can't seem to figure out much of the greater customization features.

1. Is there a way to give a girl a specific personality yet, or do I need some kind of guide to the quiz answers? Also, didn't there used to be a button for determining personalities manually? I'm not seeing it.

Has anyone else encountered this strange glitch where the girls keep Blasting on repeat, completely divorced from the turn system and effectively softlocking the game? Mami and Madoka are doing that to me and it's probably the most irritating thing ever. I can't pull them into individuals without them being active either, and since this happens the minute Madoka shows up, there's no way for me to save the game with all three active. They're too powerful for me man.

I tried the last version, found myself stuck in a loop where the chosen's action description is never full written and it keep changin action.
This seem to happen with every custom chosen i create.

View attachment 2895811

There were some issues with custom single play teams in the last version, but I believe these should be fixed now.

CSDev. I got to ask with the new clothing changes for next update. Does this mean we will have to update our Custom Chosen cloth in future or nah? I'm going cry if I need to edit like 300 times and refer back to wikis haha ＼(º □ º l|l)/ .

The game will give clothes to old custom Chosen, and the names of the clothes will match the custom top, bottom, and footwear specified for those Chosen. But the coverage might not make much sense.

View attachment 2837589
View attachment 2837590
Might be a bit of an edge case, but apparently you do need a T1 break specifically to start generating +2 EE. Wasn't expecting that.

It's true that it's weird, but I'm not sure what (if anything) to do about it. It's more common than you'd think, too - in particular, the boss Chosen Splendor has pre-broken T1s and T3s, but unbreakable T2s, which means that she'll always jump from +2 EE per day to +15 EE per day. The tricky thing is that each sinful downtime action is tied to a broken Vulnerability. I guess it might not mess with the balance too badly to add a few new sinful downtime actions with the theme of "a higher-tier Vulnerability is broken, but the Chosen isn't desperate enough to fully embrace the associated sin yet."

I may be misunderstanding the mechanics, but I think I found a bug. In the later loops, after I have the High-Rizes captured, I have occasionally noticed a heroine starting with negative damage bonuses to HATE PLEA INJU and EXPO.

View attachment 2838380

It definitely looks like you've got negative damage there, but I haven't been able to replicate this bug. If it happens to you again, then I'd greatly appreciate a save of the game's state just beforehand.

Minor bug report, if you click on an attack and instantly hit space (the keybind for continue in battle) you will attack twice.

I think I've found what was making this possible, so it should hopefully be improved in R45c.

Ladies and (I assume mostly) gents, we got em

Last attempt I was one turn off a full orgy, got it this time though
View attachment 2842535

Edit: Small catch, no space between large and penis View attachment 2842555

Thanks for the typo report, it's been fixed.

Did the ability to deflower Chosen in the Negotiation and similar paths get added yet or is that still impossible? I've been showing up at Kyoko's doorstep every day and half the time she almost says I can fuck her, but then in the scene I never actually can. Not sure if I'm just doin it wrong or if it's still impossible due to the old connection between virginity and the level 2 Morality thing.

My plan is to try to implement this for R46.

Before I forget, I just noticed this game doesn't have the incest tag.

Okay, so, I was fiddling around with the outfit editor, specifically ID 235 (I'm assuming these are always the same?).

View attachment 2894134

The first thing I did was to remove the shoulder coverage, but that immediately resulted in that thing where the buttons freeze up, like so.

View attachment 2894137

That said, before this particular bug I was having a blast just seeing a bunch of combinations. I honestly don't know how you manage all this stuff, I'm just so fucking impressed with all the tidbits of information in this game that react to other tidbits in a grand web of tidbits, and it's honestly amazing to me, and I just love it so much.

EDIT Oh, has no one posted the update? Well, here ya go!

You must be registered to see the links

Thanks for the bug report. This looks like a small coding oversight which should be fixed in R45c.

Minor typo in the banter, "passsed", three s- three s'- three esses?

View attachment 2894565

Also in the banter, "You are my her little sister". Typos aside, I'm not really sure what that sentence is trying to convey?

View attachment 2894568

Thanks for the typo reports. These should also be fixed in R45c.

Does anyone actually know how to customize the clothing and stuff for a custom chosen? Cause every time I enter the cosmetic customization screen their weapon and outfit is reset to one of the defaults. Also unless I'm blind, there doesn't seem to be a way to add/change their weapon anymore.

Currently, when you go back to customize a Chosen you've already customized, the outfit you made for her is reset to default. I'll see about fixing that.

So I just tried customizing a full team (from the main menu). I randomized everything as normal, I went through one character's cosmetic options but I didn't change anything, except when it asked me if I wanted to make them a mother. I toggled it, pressed continue, and I got that thing where the game keeps running but the button is pressed and nothing's happening.

I believe this was related to the custom Chosen bug before, but if it happens again, let me know.

The game really doesn't like short-sleeved clothing. It has to either be detachable sleeves or completely bare.
Anyone else experiencing this bug? It seems to be present both in 45 and 45b.

I know I had a short-sleeved top at one point while I was testing out the options, do you know how to replicate it? Maybe an outfit ID it happens on if you just mess with the sleeves?

Messed around and got it to work on ID 102 by covering forearms followed by adding upper arms and then removing forearms again, though every other ID is a no-go, regardless of layer and materials. I guess I'll have to give every chosen ID 102 and then edit if I want short-sleeved clothing. Very weird.

I see that there are some errors related to sleeves in the clothing description paragraph, but the list of what's covered and what's not should still be correct. I'll be fixing the description paragraph errors, of course, but if you notice a case where the coverage list isn't updating properly, then let me know about that as well.

 

[Anyone9999]

Heya, no idea if it is fixed yet, in Version 45B, I surrounded my custom chosen for the loop with a commander body, and it failed to write the clothing damage paragraph and decided to loop instead, giving me 3 expo ups in a turn. Savegame should be properly set up to just attack chaos and capture her for a double turn.

Actually... this is slightly more fucked up than I realized I think? You know what, I'll upload the save as well as the full day as a text file. Because I somehow got multi turns on fortune as well during the orgy, I think, despite her being a non custom chosen, and I have no fucking clue why. Search for triple !!! with ctr-f in the document to go to the start of the fight. Rather long fight, I am sorry, but I am pretty sure it has to do with expo ups. Chaos and Fortune are affected as far as I noticed.

Also, there is an error in the EE Regeneration action of the two chosen at the start of the turn. They miss an "have".

EDIT:
Still getting double turns on 45c. With the save, attack Justice -> surround justice when commander ends -> attack Fortune with a basic attack -> Capture chaos. The second capture turn on chaos is a double turn.

EDIT2: Still getting the reproducible double turn on 45d, unless it is a problem with how the chosen are stored and they are therefore borked.

 

[Mage4]

Bug report of a softlock. Attached is the save. Load "weird", next day, target stigma, and first turn it'll softlock.

I also seem to get multiple turns occasionally (I choose action, and before that round fully resolves, I get another prompt for another action).

 

[MoarDakka123]

Void's intro lacked the usual banter, and her name tag's bugged or something, ie "null has made her arrival!"

 

[Omicronzeta]

I figured you might have trouble finding that bug. All I have is a saves from 6 days and 18 days before I took that screenshot. and I have not been able to recreate the bug. And as a friend of mine used to say "What do you call a bug you could not replicate? A problem for some other day."

 

[Mage4]

Confirmed the softlock issue I had is resolved in version c. Thank you CSdev!

 

[fraazx]

The menu disappeared after clicking on continue once or twice when I went to observe a chosen interacting with another chosen

 

[Scepticism]

Thanks for your dedication and hard work as always CSdev
Thrilled to see the upcoming update detach virginity with morality breaking and new clothing system affecting more than just the battles.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

Nice to come back to this and see all the improvements to the game so quickly. The game is a lot better at displaying info now, especially dig the stuff on the side in combat and the warning that the girls will flee after their grab.

Some thoughts on the item balance:

I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.

Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless. It definitely seems like a late loop item. The only kind of useful function for early loops feels like the part where it makes girls attack sooner so you can pick up their EE generation sooner, but even that requires you to have some extra bonuses to build up the girls quicker than usual. If you get to the point where you're so strong you can skip days, it's not like it takes that long to enter a battle and leave immediately, so wasting all that EE for a bit of saved time is meh. In comparison, Inferno Pepper and Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear, and even the one time use stuff can seem useful to new players.

Inevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.

I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.

 

[Anyone9999]

Nice to come back to this and see all the improvements to the game so quickly. The game is a lot better at displaying info now, especially dig the stuff on the side in combat and the warning that the girls will flee after their grab.

Some thoughts on the item balance:

I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.

Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless. It definitely seems like a late loop item. The only kind of useful function for early loops feels like the part where it makes girls attack sooner so you can pick up their EE generation sooner, but even that requires you to have some extra bonuses to build up the girls quicker than usual. If you get to the point where you're so strong you can skip days, it's not like it takes that long to enter a battle and leave immediately, so wasting all that EE for a bit of saved time is meh. In comparison, Inferno Pepper and Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear, and even the one time use stuff can seem useful to new players.

Inevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.

I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.

I disagree. Inferno pepper is probably the worst early run item alongside Inevitability because fielding a commander before the standardised 5EE is useless. That is why it was buffed too. Meanwhile, using schwerer Gusion or Barrier Jammer lets you soften up potential tough dual Core Confidence/morality Chosen which are a pain the ass to make progress against, especially if you go up against a Superior/Beastkin Chosen. That alone makes those two top tier to me. Personally not a great fan of the other two (For the life of me, I can't figure out the use for Orgasm in the can, and the expo one at least makes it easier to go through the defenses of the other chosen.) but you can use them to get immediate tier 2 core breaks.

Unicorn lard is a matter of execution. You only lose EE Generation if you made bad choices during your first fight. Otherwise you get what you earned +1 when you skip a day. Really, it is probably the easiest one to use. I have no idea where you got the idea from that it is useless. especially because it lets you get so much sooner to the 5EE commander. For fucks sake, Unicorn lard is the only starting Item that can get tier 1 core breaks on day 10 while still having uses for the rest of the run. (I.E. Negotiation chosen forbidding combat or training forsaken, or just waiting for networked consciousness to come online.)

Meanwhile, Inferno Pepper's use doesn't come apparent until the midgame, where all the 1 saved on commander deployments allows you to get to networked consciousness sooner, probably, whereas unicorn lard doesn't get enough skipped days to make use of it's boni past the early game. However that doesn't help you with breaking cores or gaining more EE early game, where almost all the other items shine. And the 1EE for the first loop becomes a drop in the water when you start deploying your 15EE+ Commander. The same is true for Unicorn lard, of course, but it's main use is to get to the 5EE commander sooner. +1 EE when you generate 1, 2 or 3, and generating 3 sooner at all, is much more useful when compared to regain 1EE when you start to generate 5.

Not gonna lie, never looked at the buffed tommorrows newspaper, but I have doubt's about it's usefulness past loop 1. Certainly better than the original, but Forsaken are usually how you go then. Meanwhile, a new player might get tricked by all those options. Though I admit some of these options early game seem incredibly juicy and I might need to try, and that item can do orgies probably the quickest of all starting items simply because it can skip past going up the upgrade tree to get the third capture.

And yeah, inevitability is in a weird spot. Probably for use to get surround turns for orgy attempts, when the -1 stops to matter? Because I believe you need a tier 2 break to get to the 2EE generation events anyway. I mean, if you can use it to get to the 2EE events in a single battle, it is probably the best EE generation item. Still big fan of the one use items.

Really, if you are going to balance, inevitability needs a buff, if at all. Otherwise the balance is fine.

 

[McHuman]

I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.

The only thing is, considering you cant change your item between loops Inferno Pepper kinda suffers in Campaign. It's definitely useful when learning the game, but by the end of your first successful loop you'll probably understand the game well enough to not need it as a crutch. After that point Inferno Pepper is kinda lackluster compared to most other items.

As for the 10k damage one time use items, they're good for what they're designed to do, to get a free very early T2, which can make setting some things up easier. For example, throw that on a Chosen with a Core vulnerability to the damage type and you can start a rivalry between her and the Chosen with it as a minor vulnerability without needing to put any effort into it. Also just in general the EE you earn from doing that helps you snowball a bit, as you can get a 4-2 commander much earlier than the usual Day 12, which means you can get other T1-2 breaks much earlier as well.

Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless.

I think you're misunderstanding Unicorn Lard, the Chosen still generate EE even when skipping the day, all that you miss out on is increasing their traumas. So while it is possible you'll drop below the trauma level necessary for them to generate EE (in which case just don't use it for that day), you don't inherently lose EE generation, and in fact gain an extra EE for using it. It's not readily apparent but it is very useful early on in a loop, specifically up until day 12 (or however many days it takes you to get a 4-2 commander set up). Since as long as you have all your currently available Chosen producing 1 EE you can skip the day to get their EE + and extra EE, and if this is within the first few days before you have all your Chosen can use it to force the next Chosen to join early, allowing you to get more EE generation a little earlier. For example, Day 1 get your first Chosen to +1 EE, skip Day 2 assuming you didn't manage to drag day 1 out long enough to force the second Chosen to join on Day 2 (which you probably aren't doing, especially for a newer player), on Day 3 get the second Chosen generating +1 EE, skip Day 4 to force the third Chosen to come on Day 5 as otherwise they probably wont come until Day 6 or 7. After that just make sure they wont drop below the trauma requirements to generate EE and skip days until you get a 4-2 commander as you are almost definitely not getting any breaks without it.

Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear

Tomorrow's Newspaper is kinda bait, for the most part (at least in my opinion) using the commander upgrades before you'd naturally get them is not all that worthwhile since it makes the commander super expensive at a point in the game where you likely cant afford to field such a high cost commander without putting yourself super behind on upgrades. Sure you could probably save up to field a 4-2 commander early by skipping the early commander upgrades, but at that point you might as well use any other item that lets you rush an early 4-2 commander.

Inevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.

Funnily enough, a lot of people in this thread claim that Inevitability is the best item. Obviously it's not that useful early on as you have so little EE generation that -1 EE majorly cuts into your generation, but later on when -1 EE doesn't matter it's useful for building up bigger surrounds

I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.

I think that should only be a thing if you're allowed to switch items between loop 1 and 2, as after the first loop you should understand the game well enough to use the other items, so it'd be annoying to have to go through an entire run or reset just to use one of the previously locked items.

 

[dekeche]

Nice to come back to this and see all the improvements to the game so quickly. The game is a lot better at displaying info now, especially dig the stuff on the side in combat and the warning that the girls will flee after their grab.

Some thoughts on the item balance:

I feel like there's a pretty clear best item for your first run, Inferno Pepper that returns 1 EE for every item you have when using a commander. That gives you a free 1 cost commander immediately or a constant EE refund that helps too much early game and for the whole first run really compared to the rest of the items. The one time use 10k attacks seem pretty underwhelming in comparison. Balancing one time use items against items that are always useful is extremely difficult, maybe those items should be modified to be smaller continuous bonuses? New items is always a possibility too.

Unicorn Lard probably seems really questionable to new players, even I don't really understand it's usefulness compared to some other options. Skipping a day and getting almost no EE generation seems pretty useless. It definitely seems like a late loop item. The only kind of useful function for early loops feels like the part where it makes girls attack sooner so you can pick up their EE generation sooner, but even that requires you to have some extra bonuses to build up the girls quicker than usual. If you get to the point where you're so strong you can skip days, it's not like it takes that long to enter a battle and leave immediately, so wasting all that EE for a bit of saved time is meh. In comparison, Inferno Pepper and Tomorrow's Newspaper's usefulness are pretty clear, and even the one time use stuff can seem useful to new players.

Inevitability seems like it's in an odd place and a bit of a trap. Early game you need the EE generation, and most of mid/late game you pretty much keep girls surrounded 24/7, so it's often just a waste of EE. It might be a bit too niche compared to most options atm, it seems like there's a pretty small window mid game where you may want to use it. Maybe instead of costing EE to use, it could make your first attack every fight stronger or something? Well the 10x attack might need to be decreased then.

I think the items available in the first run should be things that are obviously useful to use even for new players or people will just skip over them even if they'd be useful later. Unicorn Lard in particular should maybe be locked until later runs.

Personally, I'm rather partial to the "Orgasm in a Can" item. From my perspective, it's much more useful than any of the other 10k items. Pop it on day 1-2 on a chosen with Core Innocence, And you'll probably be able to get two 5+ turn surrounds in before the battle ends. The amount of trauma you deal with that setup is usually enough to start generating 2-5 EE. The others seem more useful in the campaign, helping you break core vulnerabilities in advanced chosen species.

I don't think Unicorn Lard is too game-changing. You may be misunderstanding how EE generation works? In any case, your chosen with 200+ angst will still generate at least 1 EE on days without a battle. On the other hand, passing the day will net you at least +1 bonus EE, and guarantee the next chosen spawns tomorrow. Which translates to spawning all 3 chosen by day 5. Which makes snowballing EE generation a bit easier. Not as good as the above, but still useful. As long as one keeps an eye on the remaining Angst a chosen has.

I don't think Inferno Pepper is actually all that good early in a run. It's either a "Free" 2/1 commander, or a 1 EE refund when deploying a useful commander. And while that can be helpful when sending out a basic 4/2 or 5/3 commander.... That refund's not all that helpful when you start unlocking the 20EE upgrades. Latter in the campaign it might be more useful, a "free" targeted 3EE forsaken could be quite useful.

I do agree that Inevitability is a trap. -1 EE for 10x bonus action damage? You can do that already with an "Orgasm in a Can". I suppose there's some synergy between this and Causal Projection? If you can get +5 more surround duration with this than without, it's basically just bonus ANGST generation? Otherwise It's just too weak for anything useful.

Tommorrow's Newspaper - I think this one is the most game changing of all the starting items. Faster commander deployments because you can skip upgrades? And refund EE when buying upgrades? Very good bonuses. Granted, I haven't used it much before the upgrades, but I'm actually looking forward to trying it out.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

I disagree. Inferno pepper is probably the worst early run item alongside Inevitability because fielding a commander before the standardised 5EE is useless. That is why it was buffed too. Meanwhile, using schwerer Gusion or Barrier Jammer lets you soften up potential tough dual Core Confidence/morality Chosen which are a pain the ass to make progress against, especially if you go up against a Superior/Beastkin Chosen. That alone makes those two top tier to me. Personally not a great fan of the other two (For the life of me, I can't figure out the use for Orgasm in the can, and the expo one at least makes it easier to go through the defenses of the other chosen.) but you can use them to get immediate tier 2 core breaks.

Unicorn lard is a matter of execution. You only lose EE Generation if you made bad choices during your first fight. Otherwise you get what you earned +1 when you skip a day. Really, it is probably the easiest one to use. I have no idea where you got the idea from that it is useless. especially because it lets you get so much sooner to the 5EE commander. For fucks sake, Unicorn lard is the only starting Item that can get tier 1 core breaks on day 10 while still having uses for the rest of the run. (I.E. Negotiation chosen forbidding combat or training forsaken, or just waiting for networked consciousness to come online.)

Meanwhile, Inferno Pepper's use doesn't come apparent until the midgame, where all the 1 saved on commander deployments allows you to get to networked consciousness sooner, probably, whereas unicorn lard doesn't get enough skipped days to make use of it's boni past the early game. However that doesn't help you with breaking cores or gaining more EE early game, where almost all the other items shine. And the 1EE for the first loop becomes a drop in the water when you start deploying your 15EE+ Commander. The same is true for Unicorn lard, of course, but it's main use is to get to the 5EE commander sooner. +1 EE when you generate 1, 2 or 3, and generating 3 sooner at all, is much more useful when compared to regain 1EE when you start to generate 5.

Not gonna lie, never looked at the buffed tommorrows newspaper, but I have doubt's about it's usefulness past loop 1. Certainly better than the original, but Forsaken are usually how you go then. Meanwhile, a new player might get tricked by all those options. Though I admit some of these options early game seem incredibly juicy and I might need to try, and that item can do orgies probably the quickest of all starting items simply because it can skip past going up the upgrade tree to get the third capture.

And yeah, inevitability is in a weird spot. Probably for use to get surround turns for orgy attempts, when the -1 stops to matter? Because I believe you need a tier 2 break to get to the 2EE generation events anyway. I mean, if you can use it to get to the 2EE events in a single battle, it is probably the best EE generation item. Still big fan of the one use items.

Really, if you are going to balance, inevitability needs a buff, if at all. Otherwise the balance is fine.

Being able to field a 1 cost commander isn't useless early game. Girls take notably more damage when you increase their traumas at low levels, helps a bit with the early snowball. For someone that thinks a one time use 10k damage is good, it's odd you'd overlook the early game strength of Inferno Pepper. There are useful skills before Networked Consciousness you know, and it's not some trivial thing to get it early anyways. Inferno Pepper kinda does what the 10k damage items do over a longer period of time (Temporarily inferior to the 10k damage items), but continues being a bit useful even after that help with the first breaks. If you're talking about Superior and Beastskin, you're already missing the point I was aiming at, the first loop.

Unicorn Lard: I forgot the girls still generate EE even when you skip a day, my bad on that. That explains some confusion there. It's been like a year or more since I've played obsessively, lol.

The only thing is, considering you cant change your item between loops Inferno Pepper kinda suffers in Campaign. It's definitely useful when learning the game, but by the end of your first successful loop you'll probably understand the game well enough to not need it as a crutch. After that point Inferno Pepper is kinda lackluster compared to most other items.

As for the 10k damage one time use items, they're good for what they're designed to do, to get a free very early T2, which can make setting some things up easier. For example, throw that on a Chosen with a Core vulnerability to the damage type and you can start a rivalry between her and the Chosen with it as a minor vulnerability without needing to put any effort into it. Also just in general the EE you earn from doing that helps you snowball a bit, as you can get a 4-2 commander much earlier than the usual Day 12, which means you can get other T1-2 breaks much earlier as well.

I think you're misunderstanding Unicorn Lard, the Chosen still generate EE even when skipping the day, all that you miss out on is increasing their traumas. So while it is possible you'll drop below the trauma level necessary for them to generate EE (in which case just don't use it for that day), you don't inherently lose EE generation, and in fact gain an extra EE for using it. It's not readily apparent but it is very useful early on in a loop, specifically up until day 12 (or however many days it takes you to get a 4-2 commander set up). Since as long as you have all your currently available Chosen producing 1 EE you can skip the day to get their EE + and extra EE, and if this is within the first few days before you have all your Chosen can use it to force the next Chosen to join early, allowing you to get more EE generation a little earlier. For example, Day 1 get your first Chosen to +1 EE, skip Day 2 assuming you didn't manage to drag day 1 out long enough to force the second Chosen to join on Day 2 (which you probably aren't doing, especially for a newer player), on Day 3 get the second Chosen generating +1 EE, skip Day 4 to force the third Chosen to come on Day 5 as otherwise they probably wont come until Day 6 or 7. After that just make sure they wont drop below the trauma requirements to generate EE and skip days until you get a 4-2 commander as you are almost definitely not getting any breaks without it.

Tomorrow's Newspaper is kinda bait, for the most part (at least in my opinion) using the commander upgrades before you'd naturally get them is not all that worthwhile since it makes the commander super expensive at a point in the game where you likely cant afford to field such a high cost commander without putting yourself super behind on upgrades. Sure you could probably save up to field a 4-2 commander early by skipping the early commander upgrades, but at that point you might as well use any other item that lets you rush an early 4-2 commander.

Funnily enough, a lot of people in this thread claim that Inevitability is the best item. Obviously it's not that useful early on as you have so little EE generation that -1 EE majorly cuts into your generation, but later on when -1 EE doesn't matter it's useful for building up bigger surrounds

I think that should only be a thing if you're allowed to switch items between loop 1 and 2, as after the first loop you should understand the game well enough to use the other items, so it'd be annoying to have to go through an entire run or reset just to use one of the previously locked items.

Yeah I can see that, I just meant Inferno Pepper seemed to be the most useful for the first loop.

I'm just not a big fan of consumables I suppose, thinking about how it just does something once that will happen anyways feels pretty underwhelming to me. I know it's not as dreadful in this game with the massive snowball and all, but I still have a hard time thinking it as useful as most the other items. I also really don't like that they're a bit rng reliant when you only have one. I will give them a try soon though, maybe my opinion will soften on them.

I did forget that you still generate EE from girls even when skipping a day, my bad. It's been a long ass time since I did that. I still feel like missing building up traumas is questionable most the time, maybe it's just the way I play but I can usually use every battle day pretty effectively (Inferno Pepper helps with that). I leave one girl behind until I'm going to start trying for orgies, so I can still build trauma on a girl even with no or a low level commander. There's a pretty small window where I'm not doing much in battles, so I guess that's why it feels pretty meh to me to skip days. I get that Unicorn Horn is more a playstyle choice then and excels if you're willing to savescum when matches don't produce any new breaks/good results, that makes more sense now.

Guess I'll have to try a full first loop with Inevitability and seem exactly how often it's actually useful. I only used it briefly and didn't feel like it was really all that great compared to the other items.

Edit: People seem pretty split on Tomorrow's Newspaper huh. Just noticed dekeche's post after posting. I have a lot more shit to test.

It's also pretty funny I used to be the one telling people to save for 5EE commanders, and now with Inferno Pepper I'm recommending the 1 cost commander early. It is pretty nice early on, of course it's more just the constant EE refund that really makes it amazing for first loop imo.

 

[QKD-Valkyrie]

My god the player feedback in this game is just killing me. Even after the tutorial and starting a campaign it takes way too long to get anywhere (grinding up 3 EP for 15 days is not fun). I know this game is about experimentation and figuring stuff out but at least games like Elden Ring had a good indication of why I am dying so often.

In this the profiles gave me the answer of doing 10k damage to X stat but even getting to 10k 2-3 times nothing seems to be happening and I gain 3-4 EP. So am I also dealing with mis-information or simply something that I am not seeing? I can't even tell if I am making any sort of meaningful progress.

 

[McHuman]

I did forget that you still generate EE from girls even when skipping a day, my bad. It's been a long ass time since I did that. I still feel like missing building up traumas is questionable most the time, maybe it's just the way I play but I can usually use every battle day pretty effectively (Inferno Pepper helps with that). I leave one girl behind until I'm going to start trying for orgies, so I can still build trauma on a girl even with no or a low level commander. There's a pretty small window where I'm not doing much in battles, so I guess that's why it feels pretty meh to me to skip days. I get that Unicorn Horn is more a playstyle choice then and excels if you're willing to savescum when matches don't produce any new breaks/good results, that makes more sense now.

Yeah Lard is very much an item that plays into the save scumming/resetting days for best results playstyle which the game softly encourages by letting you reset battles for free. And while yeah missing out on building up traumas is questionable, it's fine early on when you really cant build up enough damage to get out of the +1 EE generation state, so you're better off just skipping days there to rush to the point where you can push into greater levels of EE generation.

Guess I'll have to try a full first loop with Inevitability and seem exactly how often it's actually useful. I only used it briefly and didn't feel like it was really all that great compared to the other items.

Yeah I cant really help you that much there, I personally haven't played around with it that much either and was just bringing up what I've seen in this thread. Though I've definitely had niche scenarios more in the middle of loops where I cant reasonably afford a 3+ capture commander leaving me in the awkward situation of having massive surrounds on the first two Chosen while the third is left almost entirely alone as without Inevitability basic trauma attacks are just too slow to build up a large enough surround for the surround to deal enough damage to fuel additional surrounds. Meanwhile with Inevitability a single attack can level immediately jump a trauma to at least level 2 in one hit, letting you get a 4 turn surround with only 2 turns of attacks, or even a 6 turn surround in 3 turns if you attack all but disgust (not really worth wasting a turn hitting disgust when it'll only create 1 opening on the first surround).

Edit: People seem pretty split on Tomorrow's Newspaper huh. Just noticed dekeche's post after posting. I have a lot more shit to test.

Yeah, like I said I can see some niche uses like skipping all the early 2 cost commander upgrades so you can field a 4-2 commander early, then just going back to pick those upgrades up later when you have more EE and/or need the upgrades gated by them. Or skipping out on needing to buy the Punisher upgrades unless you need the upgrade or resolve attack they are a prereq for. But really that's all I see the item being useful for, deliberately holding off on buying commander upgrades until you need the upgrade locked by them. Now sure that can be useful for being able to direct your EE towards non-commander upgrades first, but you will still need to buy most commander upgrades anyways since they block off stronger upgrades, and outside of the early days a 1 EE refund isn't that much. The consumables with their early T2 break and rivalry baiting probably provides more EE than commander upgrade refunds (assuming you don't have 3+ items to get more than 1 EE from the refund), and Inferno Pepper will definitely give more EE while a 4-2 commander can carry you very far anyways so you can still skip commander upgrades anyways as long as you are play more carefully (hell there was one day in which I managed to get every Chosen to level 10 in all traumas and 2-3 T3 breaks with just a 4-2 commander).

It's also pretty funny I used to be the one telling people to save for 5EE commanders, and now with Inferno Pepper I'm recommending the 1 cost commander early. It is pretty nice early on, of course it's more just the constant EE refund that really makes it amazing for first loop imo.

Trying to shake up the "meta" again now are you lol. Though yeah, with Inferno Pepper making 1 cost commanders basically free there is definitely a use for those commanders, it's just that a 2 turn surround isn't going to do much trauma damage, so odds are you aren't even going to get a second surround off it. I suppose if you get the upgrade that lets you disable the ambush you can use it to instantly capture the second Chosen instead right as they enter the battle to activate any Fear levels you have in the first Chosen. But yeah, 2-1 commanders are kinda hard to do anything big with even in the very early days.

 

[McHuman]

My god the player feedback in this game is just killing me. Even after the tutorial and starting a campaign it takes way too long to get anywhere (grinding up 3 EP for 15 days is not fun). I know this game is about experimentation and figuring stuff out but at least games like Elden Ring had a good indication of why I am dying so often.

Really you'll only need to do the boring grind for the first 12 or so days. Basically just hard focus on maintaining 3 EE per day until you get all the 1 and 2 cost upgrades, then save up to buy a 4 turn surround 2 captures commander, this should be done by around day 12 assuming you can get each chosen to +1 EE on the day of their arrival. With this commander (often shorted to 4-2 commander) you can start doing vulnerability breaks which lets you get a lot more EE.

In this the profiles gave me the answer of doing 10k damage to X stat but even getting to 10k 2-3 times nothing seems to be happening and I gain 3-4 EP. So am I also dealing with mis-information or simply something that I am not seeing? I can't even tell if I am making any sort of meaningful progress.

To trigger a T1 break while the game just says to reach 10k damage/reach level 2 damage, it's not just that, once you reach that damage threshold you then need to use one of the associated circumstance attacks (Grind, Caress, Pummel, or Humiliate) to trigger the T1 break. This can be a little awkward though as if you've already used the associated attacks in that surround you'll have to wait until the next surround for that attack to become available against and to allow you to do the T1 break. Though alternatively since the T1 break triggers within only like 1-2k damage away from actually hitting 10k, if you can do that remaining damage within that surround you can just skip the T1 break and do the T2 break instead (which also does a T1 break).

 

[Anyone9999]

Being able to field a 1 cost commander isn't useless early game. Girls take notably more damage when you increase their traumas at low levels, helps a bit with the early snowball. For someone that thinks a one time use 10k damage is good, it's odd you'd overlook the early game strength of Inferno Pepper. There are useful skills before Networked Consciousness you know, and it's not some trivial thing to get it early anyways. Inferno Pepper kinda does what the 10k damage items do over a longer period of time (Temporarily inferior to the 10k damage items), but continues being a bit useful even after that help with the first breaks. If you're talking about Superior and Beastskin, you're already missing the point I was aiming at, the first loop.

Unicorn Lard: I forgot the girls still generate EE even when you skip a day, my bad on that. That explains some confusion there. It's been like a year or more since I've played obsessively, lol.

Yes, the 1EE commander does more early game trauma damage.
No, I don't think it is enough to get past the 1EE stage of any of the chosen. And it doesn't even extend the turn counter for additional chosen to arrive sooner because evacuation still needs to run out.
Therefore, the 1EE commander is effectively useless.
Meanwhile, if you save up the consumable for your 5EE capture Commander, you get 2 tier 1 breaks and a tier 2 on your first capture every loop, and with some proper play and if it's Schwerer gusion or Barrier jammer, 2 Tier 2 Breaks on your first chosen in a run. If you happen to have the right Cores, this can (and admittedly not particular likely) be a double core tier 2 break, btw, which snowballs harder than anything any other item offers because you also get at least a tier 1 core break on a secondary chosen, which leaves you with roughly 40EE + EE Generation (Should be at least +8) which nets you the two 5EE Battle extenders and very close to networked consciousness. And really, I like to have Barrier jammer or schwerer gusion on hand specifically because fighting dual Morality/Confidence core chosen requires much more effort than they really should, and softening up the circumstances that increase damage on them is much more valuable than getting a progressively worse return on my investment with inferno pepper, because I can get the breaks sooner and therefore makes it easier in the future to use them as expo fodder.

Also, I am aware there are other upgrades than networked consciousness. However Networked consciousness is the single best upgrade in the game, and getting to it before day 20 makes everything so much easier because now generic 1 turn captures are actually useful, as well as giving you a free capture turn on everything. Getting networked consciousness early isn't trivial, no, but items that make it easier to get have incredible value.

My favourite use of the 10K item has been the one time on loop 3 I triggered a tier 3 break on day 10 or something lol. But a huge part of this was my 6EE 9 times damage forsaken that just nuked the chosen from orbit with torture from turn 1 onwards, and that required fielding a 300EE+ Forsaken the previous loop.

 

[Celerarity]

Seconding Orgasm in a Can being really good for snowballing, probably a sleeper champion for many people.

The fact that you can start generating 3 EE from day 1 is a massive boost, and kickstarting the EE train is your gateway to getting out of the trauma farming stage and dropping things like disgustingly cheap undead forsaken for even better rewards.

Only real downside is that if you want to be sure you can pop that day 1 can for that sweet trauma shortcut, you may lock yourself out of some distortions on that first girl.

 

[McHuman]

The fact that you can start generating 3 EE from day 1 is a massive boost

How does it let you generate 3 EE, wouldn't it be 2 EE? Unless I'm missing something I don't see how with no upgrades you'd be able to pull off jumping all the way to 3 EE per day from a single chosen, even with 10+ surround turns.