Additionally, I feel it needs a bit more balancing in how the bots are gotten from the junkyard and parts.
I feel broken bots are worth too much and repaired bots are worth too little. That and the bots you find in the scrap yard should probably not have a single functional part on them (I am liking the single broken part however). I also feel that a non-functional bot should cap out at value at around 1K, where as a functional bot should get a multiplier boost to its cost so it is worth at least 4K. I reason this because I can camp out in the junkyard all day long and easily make 4-10K a day whereas if I repair a bot it may take a day or two and only return 2-3K of value.
At the moment it feels like the ranking system for parts is a bit all over the place. Adding all the parts (or at least filling out a single E-A grade part) for each component may be a good place to start. Later on it would be cool if the higher grade parts granted perks to the bot they were equipped too.
I would also like to see personal bots and client bots as two different inventories. The difference is you can assign roles to personal bots, where as you can only repair and train client bots, I would suggest 6 personal and 12 client. The reason behind this segmentation will be clear with my later requests.
I would also like to see the role system flushed out a bit more. The roles I would like to see are bedroom, techie, clerk, hacker, scavenger. The bots would take an active role and do things for you, and thus would require maintenance to keep going in an automated manner. As to the roles the bedroom role would more or less stay as is, with your bot visiting you for a moral boost, with each rank increasing the boost and likelihood of that happening. The techie role would continue to function as is, aiding you when you go to repair, but I would also like this role to allow the bot to automatically repair bots and parts for you with a way to prioritize personal, storage or client. I figure at E rank the bot could only repair 5% at a time and can only repair up to 20% total a turn interval, it cannot self repair. The clerk would sell parts for you automatically, and sort your inventory. Of course higher rank, means more parts sold for a higher premium price. The hacker bot would maintain the psychocore and would function much like the techie in this regard. The scavenger would help you find stuff in the junkyard and aid you in your search. Of course you would still have to train your bots but this would mean towards the end game your bots will more or less run things for you letting you go off and enjoy other aspects of the game.
I feel there needs to be a way to more rapidly increase your own skills. Perhaps adding classes your character can take which costs both money and mood. I would also like to see the combat skill to be use for something, perhaps there will be an arena added later.
Anyway, I hope this helps! Thanks for the game!
Bot preview, item rates already in code, will be deployed with next update.
Detailed information in high priority part of todo list. Likely will be implemented as settings switch, don't want to info dump and don't want to tie it to difficulty.
Right now bots end up at scrapyard if CPU or Powercore is dead, other parts optionally.
Flea market traders are greedy bastard, expect about 50% price difference when buying/selling
Plus they calculate value only based on bot parts, pretty much ignoring skills.
Other places with calculate prices differently, like RoboSechs. Other places with different requirements and price functions will be added. Eventually
Camping at scrapyard is probably good to make some money, but repairing/training train your skills too. Later in game skills will be important. They important already, especially on hard.
Rebalancing numbers on todo list. Just want to get core flowing and UX less annoying first.
More parts surely will be added, with having at least one of each rate in each category is mid-high priority on todo.
Part specific quirks already in place, but only QuadX and v7 CPU have these. QuadX lower xp gains by 50%, v7 boost by 100%. More will be added. Eventually.
Having more bots is something i like to avoid. There is good chance i will add some sort of off-site storage for bots. But for near future 6 is max you will have. UI and gameplay reasons. May reconsider in future.
Roles will be reworked little bit, addressing some of your concerns. Plus i plan to add more workshop/home upgrades, some of them will passively help you, like upgrading you bot capsule will slowly repair/stabilize/teach bot and so on. Likely will add high level techie passively repairing random bot every time of day and so on.
My idea behind limiting bot count (and some other things) is to make you find good enough options with limited resources, more you play - more you learn about small tricks and obscure methods, less limited you feel. Really don't want to create something with 150 bots harems where fun is simply lost under geological layers of micromanagement.
Yep, some sorts of boosted MC training will be added, i guess can expect Home Computer/NetConsole will provide one or two. In near future, but not next update or two.
Thanks for feedback! Even if suggested ideas are not implemented exactly as described or not at all, i still keep them in my mind, somewhere, occasionally thinking if there are way to add something like or very different, but related, so not waste of time!
