This might seem deterministic, though wasn't necessarily easy to control since the Scrap Engine requires multiple different items to be loaded as resources, but might only use some of those to create a new construct. The first iteration simply averaged together the stats of all the input items. Of course that might make them a little less representative of the kind of system we'd need later, and therefore require more changes down the road (spoiler alert: it did :P), but at least it would be easier to wrap my head around this crazy feature while working on the building blocks.Ĭreating a construct and modifying one are two rather different processes.Ĭonstruct creation requires multiple unique items as input, which is both more interesting and makes more sense since we're trying to create something new but based on existing parts (which comes in handy as a baseline for proper balance!). In fact, I was unsure throughout the entirety of building the system, which made it rather challenging to work up the motivation to power through a lot of what needed to be done (I normally need to see a clear goal to help with that!).Īs with building any complex system, I took the safer route of starting simple, using power constructs as a first test case since they involve the smallest number of variables.
I was really unsure any of this would work at all, since internally it's quite complex and therefore hard to gauge what outcomes are possible and whether they'd really fit into Cogmind, which has a pretty strong focus on design balance. Utilities are generally defined almost exclusively by their effect and its degree, and due to the architecture (that again!) cannot even combine effects (this one is most definitely impossible in Cogmind, unlike the workarounds that enabled randomizable item stats without too much trouble), so no utility constructs, but in the end this is probably for the better due to number of other reasons I won't get into here. Although in both cases the results are indeed based on the inputs, the process is not deterministic, so it's not a pure "crafting" mechanic in that sense.Ĭonstructs can be power sources, propulsion, or weapons. Instead of creating new ones it can also use these resources to modify existing constructs.
These items are presumed to be disassembled and added to the Engine's resources in order to be mixed with others and reassembled into new "constructs," the name for a new category of randomized items.
The Scrap Engine operates like the Field Recycling Unit in that in addition to the normal inactive and active states it can also be cycled to COLLECT mode, during which it will "eat" items at the current location.
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