inert robot kills crew (indirectly)

[thebigJ_A]

I'm enjoying this game immensely, but I've encountered something that I think might not be working as intended. At least, I hope it's not, as it's quite annoying.

I was fighting an enemy who was attacking me with boarding drones, among other things. I barely managed to pull ahead in the fight, when they offered to surrender. Now, normally I don't accept such surrenders, but they were offering fuel, and I was down to my last jump. So, I accepted. I set about repairing my ship, including a hull breach. Trouble is, the last drone they'd sent, just before the surrender, was sitting, inactive, in the room with the breach (directly on it, in fact).

Even though he was inactive, and the fight was over, my crew had to shot at him (not melee, for some reason) rather than repairing. I lost two of my crew to suffocation almost immediately. That's out of a crew of three, after losses in the fight. I'd been prepared to rotate the wounded crew out as they lost health while repairing, but with a door blocked by an inert robot they felt compelled to shoot and a un-repairable breach, there wasn't time.

I'm all for challenge, even sudden death, but this doesn't feel quite right to me.

[rwhit85]

I think this game is introducing a whole new generation of gamers to what a 'roguelike' is. And it's actually a lot more forgiving than most traditional roguelikes.

Yeah, that's part of the luck of the draw. I've died like that once - and it sucked - but from then on I kept a mantis or rock guy on reserve in the med bay to deal with such an occasion.

However, that's also what makes it so much fun.

Also, consider juggling your air supply a bit - it feels like if I open the adjacent rooms that still have air in them, it supplies a bit more air to the room that's got a breach while I'm fighting/repairing. I don't know if this actually works but in my short experience so far it seems like it helps.


I see the issue though, and it does seem a LITTLE bug like. Why would my crew bother killing an inactive robot instead of repairing a gaping tear in the hull? Maybe they should be auto-reclaimed for some extra scrap metal if the battle ends and they're still alive (hey, there's a lot of scrap metal there!) or possibly self-destruct, starting a fire. Maybe a 50/50 shot of either - you can either get some good out of a leftover bot or some bad.

[Maze1125]

I think this game is introducing a whole new generation of gamers to what a 'roguelike' is.

Peh, Dungeons of Dredmor did it first.

[angelocire]

Dungeons of Dredmor is great, but I never felt the kind of urgency or fear of death I feel with nethack, FTL, or even Hack, Slash, Loot. DoD is just too forgiving. Lots of food. Lots of OP spells. I only think I ever die now if I'm facing 20+ enemies, provided I'm actually clearing all of the levels as I go.

[thebigJ_A]

I think this game is introducing a whole new generation of gamers to what a 'roguelike' is. And it's actually a lot more forgiving than most traditional roguelikes.

Yeah, that's part of the luck of the draw. I've died like that once - and it sucked - but from then on I kept a mantis or rock guy on reserve in the med bay to deal with such an occasion.

However, that's also what makes it so much fun.

Also, consider juggling your air supply a bit - it feels like if I open the adjacent rooms that still have air in them, it supplies a bit more air to the room that's got a breach while I'm fighting/repairing. I don't know if this actually works but in my short experience so far it seems like it helps.


I see the issue though, and it does seem a LITTLE bug like. Why would my crew bother killing an inactive robot instead of repairing a gaping tear in the hull? Maybe they should be auto-reclaimed for some extra scrap metal if the battle ends and they're still alive (hey, there's a lot of scrap metal there!) or possibly self-destruct, starting a fire. Maybe a 50/50 shot of either - you can either get some good out of a leftover bot or some bad.

I know what a roguelike is, thanks. I've played rather a lot of them. As you yourself admit, after the assumed superiority, it doesn't seem quite right. Something not working properly is not "the luck of the draw", and is not what makes the genre great. Were that the case, any broken game that killed you randomly would be fun. Roguelikes are great because of the interlocking systems that can cause outcomes (usually death in some form) far in excess of the apparent surface simplicity. If you suddenly starved because food stopped working, just did not work right, that would not be a death in the spirit of the genre, nor would many call it fun.

[rwhit85]

Assumed superiority? Geez, touchy. No wonder losing one game because of this made you so upset.

Oh well, enjoy. Sorry for wasting my time.

[Zuriki]

Now now ladies.

It sounds like a "bug" to me. I mean, it's not REALLY a bug, because the AI prioritizes attacking enemies first. The drone is treated like any other enemy in the programming. The only difference is it becomes inert when a battle is over. So for all intents and purposes it should be undeployed (warped back on to own ship, or just self-destructs or something akin to that) after battle to avoid this kind of problem.

Anyway, I suppose the set of circumstances where this is a problem is kind of limited, the bot MUST be blocking the only exit, the room must be a hostile environment (vacuum / on fire) and the crew trapped in the room must be on significantly low enough health to not be able to destroy the robot (assuming it can be destroyed at this point. If the droid can't be destroyed then it is definitely a bug!).

[GoldenShadowGS]

if you have an anti personell drone, that might work, since they dont need air.

[Simbert]

Unless it is in your oxygen room or medbay, you can just run in, shoot it a few times, heal up, etc... I don't see how you would lose crew to an inactive drone.

[thebigJ_A]

Unless it is in your oxygen room or medbay, you can just run in, shoot it a few times, heal up, etc... I don't see how you would lose crew to an inactive drone.

You don't see how you could lose crew, except for the two instances in which you see how you could lose crew?

Regardless,I don't care about losing the crew, I don't care I died. I care *how* it happened. I care that something in the game I enjoy does not appear to be working properly. If I destroy an enemy ship, I don't have to go on attacking the inactive enemy drone floating around outside before my ship can jump. The crew should not attack an inanimate object. A drone like that should disappear. Or (better) be able to be captured, with a fail state perhaps. Anything at all other than continuing to be treated as hostile when it's not hostile.