Have you played DCSS? (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup[crawl.develz.org]) If not, then you should definitely consider trying it, a major roguelike in constant development for even longer than Cogmind, and a great game among those which sent me on my own quest to explore the roguelike genre in 2009 and shortly thereafter start creating some of my own.

DCSS is similar to Cogmind in that it's a balanced tactical experience, so the two games have always had some player overlap either as we send our players in that direction, or welcome them over from that community (including even a number of DCSS developers throughout the years).

Now what does that have to do with Beta 17...

Well, DCSS is a traditional fantasy RL, and within it are gods you can worship to spice things up, usually for the better. Considering the player overlap, naturally many are familiar with a lot of DCSS content, and one god in particular, Xom, the god of chaos, is often referenced in our community (not least of all embraced by myself) as overseeing the distribution of random craziness that can occur across a run. In that sense, one could consider Xom the god of RNG. Emergent fun!

Xom has also been referenced by or appears in other roguelikes, and is such a common symbol in the Cogmind community, that I really felt like they deserved a proper home in the world. With the Unchained we have an opportunity to do just that--not a true god, but perhaps close enough that it doesn't matter ;)

There are actually areas of the lore which are perfect for just such a character, and I've been working up to it over the years.

It's 2026. The wait is over, X0-1V1 is here.


So do you have to cause enough mischief to get this "Unchained" dispatched on you? No! I considered including that possibility at a very low weighting, but decided to hold off on that since this X0-1V1 character is far too disruptive, almost certainly changing your entire run through and through.

Instead, interacting with X0-1V1 is entirely optional, and doing so involves what one might do in DCSS: find an "altar"...

It's somewhere in -10/Materials, so you can do this right from the start. You will need to figure out what to do there (it's not that hard), but there is also a more direct hint found elsewhere in the early game.

Now why might you want to immediately bring this upon yourself? Well, maybe they're not all bad ;)

If you've been to Scraptown and browsed Cyclist databases, in particular Soloparser's Compendium, you may have already come across the primary reference to X0-1V1:

"UC/X0-1V1: This is a weird one. Get on their bad side and they'll come up with creative ways to make your life miserable, but have also been known to offer help at times, which is strange. Don't count on it, they probably just want to mess with your head before your untimely demise."

Of course Soloparser's rumor-based sourcing doesn't know the half of it. By comparison, anyone who opts to hit up that altar will quickly become an expert, for better or worse.

While interacting with X0-1V1 is probably an option more suitable for experienced players since it will add extra challenge at times, it will also likely be interesting for anyone who's been playing for a bit, and in a way offers a sort of alternate start. X0-1V1's behavior fits well with Cogmind's general strategic theme of "adapting" to unexpected situations, in this case making them even more sudden or unexpected.

One cool thing is that this "affiliation" is compatible with any other alignment in the world. Unlike many of the other long-term alliances you can establish, X0-1V1 is not mutually exclusive with anything. From a design POV this is because they are essentially self-balancing ;)

I was originally wanting to release this on April 1st, which would've been funny as a very real joke, and in the lead up to that time was flying through development, but it turns out implementing sufficient variety to keep this interesting throughout an entire world with so many mechanics was simply not something weeks of sprinting could accomplish xD. From its beginning Cogmind has always included some smaller references to DCSS (and other traditional roguelikes), but this is on a completely different scale. As such I had to push back my target, only to then also be hit by some bombshell personal life issues (inevitable when expanding on a single project for so many years...). Still working through all that, but with the worst bits stabilized for now, I'm happy to deliver you into the manipulative arms of--I mean delivering your new savior, X0-1V1.

This release was going to be a Beta 16.2 update, but given that its scope turned into a whole mini-expansion of its own... Xom has successfully hijacked Beta 17, which seems appropriate :P

Credit to coolio for the awesome Xom tile work in DCSS! Included as part of the cover image for this release, we also frequently use it in the community and in general over the past decade over on the Roguelikes discord server.

• NEW: 1 new Unchained (interaction optional via manual trigger process in -10, changes nature of entire run)
  
• NEW: 4 new robots
  
• NEW: 12 new items
  
• NEW: 7 new scoresheet entries (total = 1,182)
  
• NEW: 2 new achievements
  
• NEW: Regular game now includes first unique source of Protomatter (rare)
  
• NEW: [Temporary] Sfc. Transmogrifier always found in Subcaves lab, replacing 1B-0RG's Assimilator test from Beta 16.1
  
• NEW: Recalibrator effect description more explicitly states no effect on faulty or corrupted parts
  
• NEW: Destruction from overheating results in more specific "Core Melted" game over state
  
• NEW: Trap Scanners also have higher separate chance of detecting and disarming adjacent traps
  
• NEW: Some Unchained carry Trap Scanners
  
• NEW: In-theme reminder about speaking to UFD leader if about to leave without having done that after joining
  
• NEW: Additional smaller number of weaker Assembled arrive during particular extended game event to enable parsing of their parts for gallery purposes
  
• NEW: History log records initial spotting of Unchained, H3-MLN encounter, and stealing IN-MT5's Pitchfork schematic
  
• NEW: LMB on directly adjacent inactive bot automatically attempts to rewire it
  
• NEW: LMB on directly adjacent bot with force melee mode active also works to force a melee or ramming attack
  
• NEW: Number-based menu interaction and text entry treats numpad number keys as regular numbers
  
• NEW: Keybinds now support adding multiple additional new keyboard inputs for the same command under a name different from defaults
  
• NEW: Advanced.cfg pauseMoveDurationActiveSensor option also applies to repeatedly waiting
  
• NEW: Option to disable "Quit, Delete Save" option in game menu (activate in advanced.cfg: noQuitDeleteSave)
  
• NEW: Option to override default key repeat delay for held keys (system.cfg: keyRepeatDelay)
  
• NEW: Option to override default key repeat interval for held keys (system.cfg: keyRepeatInterval)
  
• NEW: All patron supporter names registered since Beta 16.1 added to in-game list (see Credits menu)
  
• NEW: All patron item-attribution names registered since Beta 16.1 added to the item collection gallery
  
• MOD: Increased leniency of Unchained-related timers with respect to slower builds
  
• MOD: Unchained pursuit into new maps slower on average
  
• MOD: Unchained even slower to dispatch and chase to Access
  
• MOD: Some Unchained pursue for fewer than three valid maps
  
• MOD: V4-D3R unit count scaled down in smaller maps
  
• MOD: V4-D3R does not return to same map if forced to retreat
  
• MOD: Increased hacking threshold before potentially attracting CY-PHR in non-Rogue difficulty modes
  
• MOD: Fabricated/repaired parts affected by CY-PHR have effects on attach rather than suffering from later breakdowns (patches retain old behavior)
  
• MOD: 1B-0RG's Assimilator immune to permanent disabling by side effects
  
• MOD: Borg never use siege/shielding modes if equipped with melee weapon
  
• MOD: Borg immune to rebooting
  
• MOD: Botcube able to use Tactical Coordination Suite
  
• MOD: Multislot parts can no longer occupy temporary slots
  
• MOD: Chute Traps no longer trigger due to treads movement, even if overweight
  
• MOD: Golem, Assembler restored to original color despite recent conversion to Special class
  
• MOD: Enh. Scrap Shield source item armor bonus applied at integrity values between 5 and 10 as well
  
• MOD: Using CRM also wipes any non-expired dynamic key knowledge
  
• MOD: Tactical behavior of SC-armed SW somewhat more effective (spoilers)
  
• MOD: <HOSTILES> button tally updates more responsive
  
• MOD: Intel and other offscreen map object markers shift down from behind temporary interface messages or mode indicators
  
• MOD: Removed "Toggle Inventory Autosort" hotkey (Ctrl-F6)
  
• MOD: Removed "Inventory Autosorting" from Options menu (has been permanent default behavior since Beta 13)
  
• MOD: Moved blockVi advanced.cfg setting to Options menu as "Block vi-Keys"
  
• MOD: Removed CMD_DOMAIN_PARTMANAGE Numpad-based keys from rebind list (now supported implicitly)
  
• FIX: Several 0b10 Decoder Chip detection effects operated on 50% less area than intended [aoemica]
  
• FIX: Disrupted Borg could by rewired and therefore indirectly assimilated by Programmers [spider, aoemica, CaptainWinky]
  
• FIX: "CQB" achievement detection could fail in 16.1 even if circumstances should allow it [ravioli_consumer]
  
• FIX: KE Penetrator recoil accidentally zeroed in previous version [ravioli_consumer]
  
• FIX: More lenient ally hostility checks in 16.1 unintentionally increased difficulty of taking sides in 01-MTF/KN-7UR meeting [Plexion]
  
• FIX: Kinecellerator effect could stack despite <no_stack> tag and correct weapon damage visualization [alice_fexa]

For the complete changelog including all bug fixes, see the latest iteration packaged with the game or online here[www.gridsagegames.com].

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 17, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 16.1 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like. Cogmind will remind you which branch to use if it finds an old save, and your old save won't be deleted or affected by the update.


Most new content is centered around our new friend X0-1V1, and I'm not going to spoil it so, um, yeah not so much else to share today :P

There are a few unrelated things to pick out here though...

First of all, the temporary easy access to 1B-0RG's Assimilator in the Subcaves lab is no more, but I've replaced it with another temporary unique piece of tech you may opt to play around with if you visit: the Sfc. Transmogrifier. While the Sfc prefix was introduced alongside the Borg, it isn't technically related purely to them, just referring to the lack of external resources required to operate a given part, meaning it won't destabilize whatever build it's attached to (which is indeed how the Borg grow new functionality without becoming unstable).

Funny enough, the Transmogrifier is uniquely capable of indirectly destabilizing a build :P

You may also come across it in another "normal" way as well, but for now it's there in the Subcaves, too.

As for 1B-0RG's Assimilator, to get that now you'll just have to do it the old fashioned way: destroy and salvage the bot using it! (It's probable there will be one or more additional methods tied to future expansion content.) Fortunately if you do get it now or in the future, I've made it immune to being disabled, which was a bit of an oversight in Beta 16.1 xD. I did my own Borg run, a fun win streamed here, but throughout had to be careful about that knowing the core of the build could be permanently bricked by overheating or faulty parts.


Trap Scanners have been upgraded with new functionality! They were decent, but generally underutilized due to lower competitiveness vs. other parts.

Now in addition to detecting traps at range, they also come with a much higher chance to detect adjacent traps, even while moving fast. This makes them also useful for fast movers, or anyone stepping through trapped doorways where default detection or even Trap Scanners of the past wouldn't be as much help.

Also, traps detected like this are automatically disarmed, and waiting beside known traps will also disarm them.

So this particular type of utility has become a pretty extreme anti-trap solution. I imagine we'll see more builds considering its use, at least situationally.

See here the details for one of the scanners as an example:


So Betas 16 and 16.1 unleashed the Unchained, and now we're gonna sorta chain them back up a little bit ;)

They were a bit oppressive, though intended as they were to stomp mostly experienced players often out there probing certain extremes, it made sense to start them out on the extra challenging side and roll back from there as necessary depending on player performance.

Based on the data, overall it's almost entirely experienced players who are meeting them, if at all, and they don't tend to end runs on their own, but do often provide a significant challenge when they show up. Some players of course have taken to luring and hunting them, very successfully, too. But we've also seen some runs crash and burn under their wrath.

A range of modifications in Beta 17 are geared towards shaving off a bit of that edge, so as you maybe read in the changelog, Unchained will be more fair to slower builds on the move, slower to follow into new maps, and even slower to follow into Access. Even if first announced in Access, it will take them much longer to reach it than usual. Overall, fleeing Unchained in general should be a more valid option if desired.

With regard to multi-map tracking, certain Unchained will only chase for two valid maps, rather than three.

Specific Unchained didn't get much in the way of updates, though V4-D3R forces are nerfed by shrinking their number in smaller maps (oops!), and if you can force V4-D3R to retreat, they won't come back in the same map. CY-PHR isn't as dangerous as the rest, but was also updated to have much less "surprise" (and therefore debilitating) potential due to messing with your fabs/repairs--now effects associated with that will be immediate on attaching, and can't ruin a build like a breakdown could. (For those of you who know what patching is, that currently retains old behavior!)

Despite all the nerfs, Unchained are also actually getting a little bit of new tech to somewhat protect them from one of the more effective ways to deal with them: traps. They, too, read about this new Trap Scanner functionality and said "we gotta have that." :)

For a long time I'd planned to give Trap Scanners stronger adjacency detection features for players, and also ever since Unchained were designed figured this stronger new enemy would eventually need some sort of update (behavioral or mechanical) to deal with how consistently vulnerable they'd be to traps... so right about now was a good opportunity to combine the two, which resulted in also giving scanners the automated disarm ability that players, too, can take advantage of. This certainly doesn't make them immune to traps, just a bit less consistently effective unless you have prepared more of them (which honestly we know is plenty doable xD).

Looking at the future, content-wise there is no guarantee of developing additional Unchained, despite having fully designed all 19 of the core set (again those referenced in Scraptown). Right now we've got 10 of those done (X0-1V1 technically counts!), and without the larger pool to draw on I don't see implementing build-specific dispatching. They are a lot of work for content that fewer people will see anyway, so I'd like to focus on things that more regular players can interact with and enjoy. It is highly likely, however, that you will be meeting some... Unchained-adjacent bots ;)


No major developments in this area. Unusual, I know! (though still at least one important UI feature to come, and a few more optional ones down the line)

We have lots of little stuff, though, like intel and offscreen object markers no longer being hidden behind interface message popups, shifting them down like so:

The <HOSTILES> counter/button up near the top was also sometimes less responsive to the actual current situation, which I didn't notice before since I don't use it myself, but it became more important in Beta 17 because some of the new content is tied to its internal behavior. That should be in better shape now if you noticed it being odd before.

For mouse users (also not my wheelhouse), we have some new behavior since I was notified there was no way to rewire disabled bots without using the keyboard unless you had a Datajack on hand. So now you can properly get the bump-to-rewire effect by simply left-clicking directly on an adjacent disabled bot. Force melee mode also works to force a melee or ramming attack if you left-click directly on an adjacent robot (though you do technically still need to activate that mode via the Spacebar menu).

There are a few new options available as well, implemented by request and listed in the changelog.

For anyone who tried the "CQB" achievement in Beta 16.1 specifically, the introduction of 1B-0RG's Assimilator unfortunately broke detection for that one, meaning at least a few people were unable to get it even though they should have. If this happened to you and you're not planning on doing another run like that in the future but want your achievement, let me know on Discord or via email and I can get that added to your account. I've already done this for a couple people on Discord, which is where I hang out all day most days with players, but figured this news should go out in this general announcement as well. In any case, that was fixed so it should work normally in the current release.


Been a while since I've had a chance to share a selection of art by Cogmind players!

ivelieu did another of their cool stylized pieces, this one themed around hackers' new friend, CY-PHR:

Hermelin created a certain turtle in the visual breakdown style I've previously used to share a few bot loadouts, here using Cogmind parts plus an appropriate unique weapon:

blobthegreat demonstrates how to make a Scrapoid out of Legos :)

Gustav used REXPaint to put together this interesting take on Optimus:

(REXPaint[www.gridsagegames.com] is my free tool used for a lot of Cogmind dev work, for those who aren't familiar with it.)

Sergeooo puts together some great collages, like this take on CY-PHR reading Discord chat for ideas xD

Wyvric drew some hypothetical "monstrosities" dubbed the Scraptor, Hijacked Behemoth, and "actual moth," among other cool unnamed designs you wouldn't want to meet in the dark:

Wyvric also made one of my favorite pieces of late, "Listen and Recite" complete with UFD coloring and Scrap Suit background:

Behold that Great Nut.


Now that Beta 17 is all X0-1V1, the numbering on our release plans needs a bit of an update after a long period of forecasting them with other numbers--just give a nice round +1 to everything previously stated :P

That makes Beta 18 about Hexidium, and so on.

As for this release and what will follow in the near term, in a break from my years-long practice of having a sizeable pool of early adopters test and discuss new content before it goes public, this was actually a surprise for them, too. Tricksy X0-1V1.

This does increase the likelihood of bugs in new content, but as usual I did extensive testing of individual features on my own to ensure functionality, so at worst it will most likely be emergent possibilities that rear their head and are dealt with at a rate determined by the seriousness of any issues (up to and including immediately if necessary). So not unlike a normal release really where the first week or two may see a series of rapid patches to anything that slipped through testing. For details check the always-up-to-date changelog whenever that happens (online[www.gridsagegames.com] and included with the game).

That said, I wasn't entirely alone on this, either--personal thanks to CaptainWinky for help in playtesting this release! CaptainWinky surfed the X0-1V1 wave multiple times, with impressive results, and we're looking forward to seeing what strategies (and as CaptainWinky puts it "coping mechanisms" xD) others come up with.

And of course many thanks to patrons[www.patreon.com] for funding it!

Coming this week we'll have the great leaderboard reset for a new version, followed by the typical run stat analysis, this time no doubt examining yet more new data points (especially the Unchained!).

Ironically for a release dubbed "Unchained More," and one that includes an even wider variety of Unchained personalities and tech, folks are generally going to be seeing them "less" overall xD. This is due to the inevitable arrival of CY-PHR, who we'll get to further below...

First though, wow it's been years since we saw a minor version number! Beta 16.1 adds a fair bit of content, but is built primarily to expand upon and improve the beginnings of the new expansion started with Beta 16, which ideally would have been released with this stuff included, but I put it out early to avoid keeping you all waiting too long (plus of course the large number of new achievements alone would provide plenty of diversions!).

This release therefore focuses on rounding out the overall Unchained experience before we head into adding their HQ and also, yes, yet more of them ;)


While I won't be spoiling all the new Unchained, I will say that on meeting them you will likely notice that members of this batch are very clearly avid fans of science fiction (okay there is one oddball in there, but to begin with I did not mean for this group to almost all belong to this particular subcategory of Unchained :P).

Each comes with their own wild new tech which you can theoretically acquire, but at the very least must first face off against prior to said acquisition--new challenges!

But like I said earlier, they were already relatively uncommon (except for a handful of players consistently being very naughty over the long run, or going out of their way to "summon" them), and there will now be far fewer "unexpected" encounters.

One of the side effects of Beta 16 temporarily having a smaller pool of Unchained to work with, and only fledgling systems to drive their encounters, was that there was not as much leeway for matching dispatched types to appropriate situations. This lack of nuance meant that for example "doing a ton of hacking" (really, a lot), including even hacking that was less relevant/important in the bigger picture, could get an Unchained dispatched on you, and naturally they can in many cases be pretty deadly against such a build. Although normally you'd have the intel and means to flee, especially given the advance warning, being chased down in the first place would certainly be a surprise!

According to submitted run data this is actually where about 50% of Unchained encounters originated, not a desirable balance in the long run, but it took [a lot] more work to build the proper Unchained response to extreme hackers. So a huge chunk of "normal" Unchained dispatches we saw in the previous version have been replaced with something else. Such is releasing major content expansions in the middle of working on them :P. And that's about all I'll say on that.

CY-PHR is a sci-fan, too. You'll see.


Are you a fan of the Borg? Because 1B-0RG is a fan of the Borg. Either way, unfortunately you won't have a chance to bond over your fandom, because they want you dead.

So yes, this is one of the Unchained arriving with Beta 16.1, one you may have seen mentioned before if you've browsed Soloparser's Compendium in Scraptown.

Like the other Unchained, they have some cool powerful tech, tech that enables whole new builds/play styles, tech that you can theoretically steal for yourself if you meet and defeat them. Further into the future there will likely be other ways to acquire some types of Unchained tech (other than actually getting hunted by, and defeating, and successfully salvaging them...), but seeing as such a method does not yet exist, in the interest of spicing up this particular version, for a limited time only (to be removed in the next version), there is a way to acquire specifically 1B-0RG's primary tech, the Assimilator, for free. (If you recall, we did this with the Scrap Engine before the UFD Scraplab was added to the world.)

Just visit 4L-MR0's lab in the Subcaves on -10, and there you will find it just lying on the floor. So it is indeed found in more advanced player territory (but also coincidentally in a lore-appropriate location!), since it's not that easy to make use of at first, and is a relatively complex part with by far the longest description of any item in the game xD

See for yourself:

Technically in this version you can get 1B-0RG dispatched on you while you (mysteriously :P) also have his Assimilator, thereby offering a unique opportunity to enjoy some Borg-on-Borg action. Maybe there will be some bonding over a common interest after all!

A lot of the new parts added in this release are Borg-related (they're kind of like a whole new subfaction, just... more centrally controlled), and most of the rest are just generally Unchained-related tech.


Lots of other little updates even for a minor version, just any new rare coincidences that have been recently discovered, or in particular fixes for features/content that was new to Beta 16 (in particular we got all those new achievements). I'll cover some of them in more detail further below.

• NEW: 4 more Unchained
  
• NEW: 33 new items
  
• NEW: 1 new robot
  
• NEW: 2 new achievements
  
• NEW: 24 pieces of art for all older special parts that cannot be salvaged
  
• NEW: Special parts that cannot be salvaged from robots display new INTEGRATED state, with context help
  
• NEW: Expanded Unchained dialogue system
  
• NEW: With FarCom access, Exiles automatically identify adjacent dangerous Research branch exits
  
• NEW: [Temporary] 1B-0RG's Assimilator always found in Subcaves lab
  
• NEW: Bonus points awarded for "Hunted by Unchained"
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records "Initial UFD Resources" for each map
  
• NEW: Option to represent energy drain in part list energy visualization with orange instead of blue (advanced.cfg: partEnergyGraphAltColor)
  
• NEW: Option to disable all mod-key based keyboard input for Parts window parts (advanced.cfg: blockPartsWindowModKeyInput)
  
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message warning about matter upkeep when attaching power sources with such a cost
  
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message to teach about ramming bots to gain a small amount of matter in some relevant situations
  
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message explaining purpose behind bump melee attack warning while flying
  
• MOD: Unchained announced more quickly in some scenarios
  
• MOD: Surviving Unchained that permanently gave up chase cannot return again for additional triggers
  
• MOD: Added initial stage of nuance to Unchained-triggering behavior detection (more to come)
  
• MOD: Full RIF runs trigger fewer Unchained than before
  
• MOD: Hostile NPCs speaking to Cogmind also become immediately aware and therefore not susceptible to sneak attacks regardless of speed
  
• MOD: Increased but variable leniency for accidental hits on allies
  
• MOD: N-01 Spotter no longer drops parts
  
• MOD: Gui. EMP Blaster now only found in prefabs, redesigned as disposable weapon
  
• MOD: Smartbomb Launcher now a prototype, removed delay
  
• MOD: Electrostorm Shotgun arc reduced from 120 to 90
  
• MOD: Martial strikes and deflection no longer apply to Datajacks
  
• MOD: Golem, Assembler considered Special class, not Derelict
  
• MOD: Data Miner does not redirect investigations for which Cogmind is not near target area, or exterminations/assaults not targeting Cogmind directly
  
• MOD: Using knockback effects to indirectly attack other friendly factions now considered hostile action
  
• MOD: Miss trajectory arcs are similar regardless of aiming at a close or distant spot on the same line of fire
  
• MOD: Unchained will no longer repeat the same dialogue in the same run
  
• MOD: "Betrayal Most Foul" achievement now only triggers for a visible ally
  
• MOD: [RPGLIKE mode] SUBCON Basin size reduced to 2
  
• MOD: [RPGLIKE mode] Cobbler Unit can no longer produce Humpback
  
• MOD: Windows XP (SP3) no longer official supported (theoretically could still work with right setup)
  
• FIX: Windows 7 compatibility temporarily lost due to DLL update [Esven]

For the complete changelog including all bug fixes, see the latest iteration packaged with the game or online here[www.gridsagegames.com].

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 16.1, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 16 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like. Cogmind will remind you which branch to use if it finds an old save, and your old save won't be deleted or affected by the update.


Among the new content we have a lot of additional item art, covering any parts that previously had none because they were not obtainable by Cogmind, just used by other robots. The original purpose behind the lack of art was that those parts could not be used, and therefore (years ago) it would be impossible to add them to your item art gallery. Eventually we got the ability to more easily add parts to your collection without even acquiring them by simply Parsing a target robot currently using them, which helped a lot with parts found on challenging or rare enemies, or those that are simply hard to salvage for whatever reason. But previously art-less items remained art-less. Only a tiny minority of items fell into this category, but it was kind of unfortunate to have any at all given that it's possible to add them to the gallery via other means.

Now all* parts have art!

Part of the catalyst for doing this now was that the Borg happen to use a fair number of new custom parts inaccessible to Cogmind, but I wanted to have them represented visually since item art has a way of unifying groups with a certain "personality" to their design. The other reason was that this release comes a little late (I was out of country and managing a release from there would be more problematic, so have been sitting on this for a little while), and therefore had some extra time available to work on other "low-priority" stuff :)

*note that "all" excludes parts used exclusively in special modes, to avoid requiring that those be played in order to complete the gallery collection, the one exception being Protomatter, which I still want to add to the base game in some form at a later time, as indicated in the manual

Some of that part art for "unobtainables" can be found in the following art selection from Beta 16.1--you might be able to guess a few ;)

Even more importantly in this update from a QoL perspective, the not-so-obvious "this robot's using a part with no art so maybe I can't salvage it?" is replaced by a much clearer "INTEGRATED" state indicator, which also includes context help text to explain as much.

In all, as of Beta 16.1 there is now a maximum of 1,334 item entries in the gallery.


Also this release, Gui. EMP Blaster has reached its final form?!

This is an ancient item (Cogmind Alpha 1!) that has since gone through a few balance shifts needed as a result of changes elsewhere, but it turned out to be simply "unbalanceable" ever since terrain started rebuffing most EM damage, allowing the Blaster to more safely and repeatedly be used for ambush and hit-and-run tactics against whole groups of enemies with almost no chance of coming under direct fire, even over longer periods, because surrounding terrain remained fully intact. This is a stark departure from the normal benefits and drawbacks of most AOE weapons :)

Funny enough, despite its popularity at one point it took years for someone to finally put its latest iteration to the test, truly playing to its strengths, and sure enough even after the last minor buff it got to convince someone to at least try, that run happens to be the highest-scoring run so far in Beta 16, topping the leaderboards at 399,170! (Actually one of the highest-scoring runs in Cogmind ever.) So yeah, it's been proven that simply modifying range, damage, or other numbers isn't really going to cut it. It's either not good enough and no one would ever use it, or easily tips over into territory that makes it just waaaaay too powerful in the right hands.

But I don't like outright removing things from the world (extremely rare in Cogmind), preferring to instead update/adapt them, and if the pure numbers can't be made to work, it was time to do a more drastic redesign, so the Gui. EMP Blaster has been reborn as something which is still very powerful (actually way more powerful than before xD), but is limited in use. It's also no longer a regular piece of 0b10 tech that can be randomly found or fabricated, only appearing in certain prefab locations (the same ones as before). This change pulls it out of the random item pool, which could be seen as a bonus since almost everyone ignored its presence anyway :P

Darcyisverycute, of Gui. EMP leaderboard fame, even made a cool piece of art considering the part to be its own "faction" alignment :P. Now that's dedication.


Cogmind has gotten a ton of performance improvements in various areas over recent releases, but one of them in particular, the alternative SDL DLL, has unfortunately caused incompatibilities in some older/different hardware that can't seem to be reconciled across the board, so as of Beta 16.1 we're reverting to the original maximum-compatibility version. On some systems, in particular if using a 4K display, if you would like to try the drop-in DLL replacement (which does work fine for most people) to eek out some extra performance gains, it's still available on the forums here[www.gridsagegames.com]. This boosts FPS on some setups, though also note that Cogmind FPS is capped at 60 by default anyway, unless you manually uncap it. (Of course added performance also means less CPU strain to hit that 60 FPS, too :P)

Reverting to the original DLL also restores Cogmind's support for Windows 7, which I wasn't aware was broken until it was recently brought to my attention.

XP, however, has been dropped from the list of supported Windows versions. It should theoretically work fine, but I'm not sure why I haven't been able to get it running there again, it has clearly been broken for a long while, support would likely have to be dropped in the future anyway, and it's been years since any players I knew of were using it, so it's not really worth getting into the nuts and bolts on that one.


So there we have it, a minor version that completes a more proper introduction of the Unchained before we move deeper into this expansion with ever-crazier tech and encounters.

The next release may be a bit surprising ;)

In case you missed it in the annual review[www.gridsagegames.com], the Beta 15 stats were analyzed and results posted here[www.patreon.com].

There is no leaderboard reset for Beta 16.1--the runs are included in the same board as the previous version, though the runwise database list puts them on a separate page for convenience.

Many thanks for your support, and as I always say (because it's always true :P), still lots to come...

Cogmind's 12th annual review[www.gridsagegames.com] is available over on the dev blog, summarizing a year featuring two major releases that finished off one expansion while kick-starting another.

2025 added a significant new map, over 100 new items, and Cogmind's 10th unique ending concluding the UFD plot line. A new batch of achievements also caught us up with seven years of new content. And the first members of the Unchained have arrived! (lots more coming on that front) Read more about all that and check out player art and more in the full post.

Beta 16.1 is around the corner, focused on, yep, more content and improved Unchained systems to go along with them as they evolve towards better integration into the world :D

A new expansion begins! Our Beta 16 eponymous opponents are upon us... With them comes upgraded Scanalyzer functionality for all, and a batch of over 200 more achievements to catch us up with the last seven years of ever-expanding content.

Hard to believe I've been working on Cogmind full time for 12 years now, with still several major releases planned out, but given the trajectory of recent versions as we arrive at and continue to explore increasingly extreme possibilities, I'm really looking forward to what's coming :)

Today let's get started with the changelog, then dive into demos and some of the more interesting topics within...

• NEW: 228 more achievements covering new content since 2018, spanning plot, style, challenges, and more
  
• NEW: 5 Unchained
  
• NEW: 21 new items
  
• NEW: 17 turrets and drones
  
• NEW: 3 new robot variants
  
• NEW: Use Scanalyzers to study common non-prototype 0b10 parts for an additional permanent modifier to using any such part

• NEW: Separate Heavy ARC variant specific to assaults and other non-patrol uses
  
• NEW: 11 new sound effects (total = 1350)
  
• MOD: Luggers generally smarter about selecting goals and dealing with more complex scenarios
  
• MOD: Moved Cep. Phasing Heat Sink into the lab area
  
• MOD: Special prototype robot variants added in Beta 15 now explicit about RIF immunity
  
• MOD: Achievement "Wheee!" description now more specific
  
• MOD: Achievement "Armchair Analyst" more specifically limited to Terminal sources
  
• MOD: Splice Drones no longer indirectly award "Error 47" achievement
  
• MOD: Removed achievement "What Is This Thing?"
  
• MOD: Removed challenge mode win achievements

• NEW: Item search window results include any Unknown parts and unidentified prototypes
  
• NEW: If part data visualization in info mode, item search also shows info summary instead of last known integrity
  
• NEW: Prefix item search window text string with '-' to exclude it from results
  
• NEW: Added .mat(ter)-specific type search filter to item search window
  
• NEW: Added .unc(ollected) filter to item search window to limit to items not yet in gallery
  
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message on first time affected by Drag when moving
  
• NEW: Option to intermittently show full text of map comments even outside comment mode (advanced.cfg: mapCommentsPersistent)
  
• NEW: Option to persistently highlight all known Heavy sensor ranges (advanced.cfg: alwaysShowHeavySensorRanges)
  
• MOD: Comments created via autocommentHeavies advanced.cfg option no longer automatically cleared upon security rotation
  
• MOD: System corruption visual effects no longer continue while in game menus

• NEW: Using RIF Installers restores any lost Relay Coupler IDs
  
• MOD: Search patrol dispatches may become applicable more quickly than before
  
• MOD: "Search Patrol Dispatched" influence decrease reduced from 150 to 100
  
• MOD: Allies will not swap with Botcubes during build sequence
  
• MOD: Myomer Exoskeleton speed improved from 100 to 90
  
• MOD: Dimensional Slip Node armor reduced to 5
  
• MOD: Removed bothacking penetration bonus from offensive hackware (low-impact remnant of older placeholder system)
  
• MOD: Access(Main) branch hacking results inside Garrison no longer report specific exit destination
  
• MOD: Fabnet override duration increased from 10 to 20

• NEW: Scoresheet records Scrap Suit usage data
  
• NEW: History log records successful CPS Tube targets
  
• MOD: Scoresheet "Initial Warlord ECA Mod" records highest value for overall stat rather than total
  
• MOD: Scoresheet instead records intercept dispatches on a one-to-one basis with announcements

• FIX: Security rotations almost never occurred more than once per map [R-26 Lightspeed]
  
• FIX: Arc weapons always hit within their potential arc, even on a miss [Runia, aoemica]
  
• FIX: Civil war avoidance guarantee following quickest exit route could fail if top-right Scraptown stairs not yet discovered [aoemica, calico]
  
• FIX: 0b10 autonomous weapons were unaffected by active ID Mask [Infomantis]

Extended Beta 16 changelog including additional categorized minor details for advanced players...

>>>: CONTENT

• NEW: 1 new type of build class modifier based on new mechanic
  
• MOD: Deep Caves detects a wider variety of intruders
  
• MOD: Multinova Projection Cannon can no longer be faulty
  
• MOD: Immobilizer description specifically indicates target must have innate disruption immunity to be immune to the effect
  
• MOD: Updated C-30 ARC analysis text

>>>: QOL / UI

• NEW: Option to bypass warnings for removal of fragile/fused parts (advanced.cfg: ignoreDestroyOnRemovalConfirmation)
  
• MOD: Selecting an item to path to via search window ignores advanced.cfg warnOnMoveOutsideMapView setting
  
• MOD: Context help for originally melee-specific damage types updated to remove melee-only references
  
• MOD: Several log message colors for non-controllable allies switched to use same as controllable allies
  
• MOD: Some original achievement icon border types and default order updated
  
• MOD: [RPGLIKE mode] UFD Drillbomb size reduced to 3

>>>: SCORESHEET / DATA

• NEW: Scoresheet records "Prop Armor Coverage (%)"
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records "ECM-based Alert Blocks"
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records total thermoelectric energy gain
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records part restoration tallies

>>>: MISC

• NEW: All patron supporter names registered since Beta 15 added to in-game list (see Credits menu)
  
• NEW: All patron item-attribution names registered since Beta 15 added to the item collection gallery

For the complete changelog including all bug fixes, see the latest iteration packaged with the game or online here[www.gridsagegames.com].

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 16, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 15 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like. Cogmind will remind you which branch to use if it finds an old save, and your old save won't be deleted or affected by the update.


First introduced back in 2020 as part of the ARG event[www.gridsagegames.com] that teased a wide variety of optional future content, the "Unchained" have gradually made their way into Cogmind lore, most extensively as part of the latest two UFD-related releases.

If you've been to Scraptown a few times, by now you may have collected references to some of their names and capabilities.

Rightly feared by Derelicts everywhere, these former wild Derelicts now work for MAIN.C in a semi-autonomous capacity, featuring unique AI and gear seen nowhere else. Each is quite different and presents its own challenges, with the power to significantly shake up a run depending on the circumstances.

Unlike other mechanics designed to keep Cogmind moving along over time, Unchained are capable of tracking and pursuing threats to the Complex (e.g. a dangerous Cogmind) across multiple maps. Eventually they'll give up the chase, or you can opt to confront the danger.

Just like other such pressure mechanics, however, they are telegraphed in advance via announcements, so you'll know they're coming and can take evasive or preparatory action as necessary before they actually arrive.

The average player or basic winning run will not really see these guys much, if at all, whereas top runs by experienced players are much more likely to encounter at least one, if not more. Incurring the wrath of Unchained is even rarer (though not entirely impossible) if not playing on the harder difficulty setting around which Cogmind is balanced: Rogue.

But how to attract their attention to begin with...

Aside from sterilizing a large map, no individual actions are capable of triggering them, as they are more intended as a response to long-term behavior, in general repeated cumulative actions that Complex 0b10 finds very offensive to its normal operation. This is also why quicker shorter runs/wins are not as likely to see them, either.

For more background on Unchained design, you can check out this article[www.patreon.com] from last month on Patreon.

Importantly I must say that the Unchained are a work in progress! There are many more types to come and while the goal was to have half or more of the total completed by now, before introducing their base of operations in Beta 17, I didn't want to keep everyone waiting too long between major releases, and a big chunk of time was instead already allocated to the achievements expansion (which itself was planned for later, but I decided to move that up).

Aside from greater variety, we'll have a possible tiering system and weighted dispatches, finer control of where each can and cannot appear or chase, and more general behavior tweaks... altogether things that will be better implemented once we do have a wider array of options available.

There are currently five different Unchained to meet.

Huge thanks to the patrons playing prerelease versions, especially the Unchained hunters out there forcing encounters to face these threats head on, but also just everyone in general providing very useful data with regard to when, where, and why Unchained were appearing, chasing, and to what extent this impacted runs, allowing for ongoing tweaks.

Not going to spoil anything else about these guys, just expect the unexpected. Maybe the Exiles can help.

Things sure are looking a little different around these parts...


Although naturally not everyone will be able to partake in (suffer at the hands of?) the arrival of the Unchained, everyone will be able to take advantage of our newly-upgraded Scanalyzers!

Scanalyzers have always had useful core functionality in terms of identifying parts and acquiring schematics for them, functions that some players make extensive use of, but for years I've wanted to expand them to include an even greater number of use cases across almost any build or strategy type.

Well for Beta 16 patrons voted to include this feature, and it's here! Also it's great :D (Personally as a player given my own strategies I tend to ignore Scanalyzers most of the time, but will definitely take advantage of them from now on given this new feature...)

In short, with a common (non-prototype) 0b10 part in your possession you can retrieve "studies" for that technology, giving you a better understanding of its capabilities and therefore improve a stat for all parts of that type.

The steps to this process, with an example:

• You have one or more Carbon-fiber Legs attached or in inventory.
  
• Visit a Scanalyzer and use the new direct Retrieve Study option which gives a list of all parts in your possession for which you can download study data.
  
• Select Carbon-fiber Leg from the list and, if successful, the effective move time of all Carbon-fiber Legs you ever use is reduced from 120 to 105!

Many builds are composed of salvage to some degree, and most salvage is common parts, so this is a consistent way to put together even more effective builds from "junk."

Parts for which you have an applicable study append a '+' after their name, as you cna see in this example below that downloads multiple studies:

To keep things simple, the type of stat modification acquired for a given part is consistent across entire categories of parts, as follows:

• Lgt/Mic/Mni power sources: +1 supply
  
• Other power sources: +2 supply
  
• Treads: Penalty/2
  
• Legs: -15 time/move
  
• Wheels: -10 time/move
  
• Hover/Flight: +1 support/slot
  
• Weapons: +10% accuracy

There are no studies for Utilities, but you can do some really nice things with the rest of these options, especially given how aside from repeat salvage from particular robots, you can also find larger caches of useful regular parts. Some common parts may also see use through long stretches of certain run types, increasing the value of acquiring a study on them early.

Just like the Insert() feature, Study() allows you to identify unknown parts (hence their same base chance, actually, which is high so this is pretty easy for non-hackers to pull off).

Like schematics, part studies also prevent you from losing the respective part IDs to corruption.

And as with schematics and analyses, we're going to need a way to access a list of what you know, so that's been added to the Status window where you'd expect (the button in this case being named just "List" so we can use 'L' for keyboard access as 'S' is unavailable).

Alongside schematic, fabrication and repair lists, run scoresheets now also include a complete list of where and what parts Cogmind studied, which will be very interesting to look at in the future data.


Well it's been a hot minute since we got new achievements in Cogmind :P

The existing list has served us well over the years, but naturally a huge amount of content has been added since the first batch went out in 2018, but no new achievements to match! I kept waiting to introduce more since I imagined that would be better left as a "near 1.0" sort of thing, but seeing as there is still no specific timeline for 1.0 and it's been this long already, I decided we really need to catch up with the content on this front sooner rather than later. Another part of what originally kept reinforcing the decision to wait was that expanding our achievements would be quite an undertaking, not just for the sheer amount of content to take into account, but also because I would need to rewrite some of the underlying architecture to increase the system's flexibility. On that note, good news is it's now very easy to add new achievements, so they'll be able to better keep up with any new content or mechanics needs going forward.

Beta 16 includes 228 new achievements spanning the full range of categories I established[www.gridsagegames.com] back when developing the first set. They are distributed as follows (graph was put together several months back, before a few more achievements were added for yet newer content, but it's close :P):

There's more background info on development of the new set available in this article[www.patreon.com].

As part of this process, I also did a full review of old achievements, though little was changed among those, mainly just a few icon adjustments in light of newer developments.

The biggest change was the removal of all "challenge mode" win achievements. This is not the Challenge category achievements, of which we're seeing plenty more, but instead refers to the old challenge modes which most people don't know about--they're too different from the regular game, not easily accessible, and, most importantly, no longer updated/maintained. The modes themselves can still be accessed as indicated in the manual, there's just no achievements associated with them. At the time many years ago they might have become a more integral part of the game, but I decided not to go down that route, and it's not feasible to properly maintain them or require that players activate and deal with those just for achievement hunting.

But this achievement update is essentially just more more more...

For those of you who've been playing for a while, you will likely earn quite a few new achievements very quickly, since you'll be able to breeze through a run and interact with an even wider array of mechanics compared to newer players. You may also earn some achievements in a sometimes unexpected order, but this is because they're designed with a fresh player experience in mind, not the experience of someone who's been playing for dozens/hundreds of hours already. New achievements from the Style, Challenge, and Win categories will of course come at a more reasonable pace :)

A reminder that hidden achievements are such because they'll be earned through normal play across all story and build types / content interaction, so you don't really need to look them up unless you are explicitly trying to earn all achievements in as short a time as possible (the record for 100%-ing Cogmind achievements through planned runs is under a month).

And another reminder regarding Steam "global achievement" rates: They have always been pretty off for Cogmind given that achievements were introduced years after release, and the weirdness will only continue with this new batch, in fact getting far worse and confusing, so one shouldn't pay attention to those numbers xD

Aaand one more important notice here: If you are playing Beta 16 via Steam on day 1, note that it will take some hours after release before all new achievements are available on the platform itself, but don't worry about missing any since if you play in the meantime and do earn achievements, as usual Cogmind records them in its own more detailed interactive interface/database anyway, and will sync up with Steam once those do become available very soon (after you start up the game again on any later date). Accessed via the game menu (Esc) -> Records (7) -> Achievements (a).


Mmmm, tasty QoL...

I've finally accumulated enough little things I wanted to do to further improve the already-powerful item search feature to package it all up for release in Beta 16. Like in the past item searching always used the integrity view for listed items, but now if you're in info mode (Q), it can show that instead! This might allow you to better see the effects of rating-based filters, if you use those, or just generally more quickly identify the basic stats for a part you may have forgotten the details of.

Text searching also allows for exclusion of a string by inserting a '-' before it, for example "-corr" to exclude corrupted parts:

Searches can also now properly find prototype or otherwise unknown parts, if that's what you're looking for (or want to exclude).

We also have some new advanced options regarding more persistent data visualizations on the map. Normally the map view avoids using too many permanent extra indicators, since they can be distracting, but in the past I'd identified some features that I thought might be interesting or useful to have as permanent options for some folks.

The first is map comments. Of course there are customizable map comment indicators that mark each location, but to see the contents you have to enter comment mode. Well how about always (well intermittently based on your settings) showing the full text alongside the marker, which may not be too distracting if you're the sort of player to leave only occasional short comments... Here's that option in action (advanced.cfg: mapCommentsPersistent), with both an automated and manual comment:

There's also an option to always shown the detection warning radius for known Heavies nearby, the same info you can see when putting your cursor over them (advanced.cfg: alwaysShowHeavySensorRanges):

(I'm putting myself in the wall there just so we can watch two Heavies rotate past :P)

Among the other long-term notes I have finally converted into reality... we have a new variant of the Carrier class. Previously ARCs have always belonged to one of those rarer single-variant classes, but come Beta 16 you'll (maybe) be seeing a new type of ARC: C-45 Heavy ARC.

For quite a while now I've been sitting on the possibility of adding a new ARC, saving the idea for a special future case that simply hadn't materialized yet, but was more recently inspired to put it in action to address an occasional annoyance: ARC confusion.

More than once we've seen folks who aren't aware there's a difference between an assault and a patrol roaming around in an ARC, plus of course even if you're an experienced player there are situations where you may not be sure which is which unless you watch for a bit. Viewed in QoL terms, it would be really nice if these uses were more explicitly differentiated!

So from now on regular patrols use the old ARC, and any other instances (mostly assaults) use the new Heavy variant (which is red).

Naturally now that we've differentiated the two we also have further leeway to consider other changes beyond the purely cosmetic! Assaults may sometimes get even closer to visible targets before deploying (if not shot at beforehand), which could be interesting. They'll also be better protected, with core shielding and a switch to Armored Huge Wheels, making them a little slower but also more durable. Also good news for Garrison divers who want to salvage some of those sweet wheels ;)

See this Heavy ARC test with closer deployment:

And a comparison between a patrolling ARC and... ARCs of a different persuasion...

In addition to reflecting their different purpose, adding this variant will be a nice reinforcement of the idea that their respective contents are different, too!


Lotta great work coming out of the community these days! Sadly for health reasons I have not been able to stream--sucks, though in the meantime as usual we do have others streaming some great runs mostly on Discord, or sharing snapshots of sweet builds or lamentable situations, or there getting advice on their runs from other helpful folks.

And streaming or no, we can all appreciate some sweet fan art :D

u/Southern_Shine200's 3D tank render composed of ASCII art for the actual parts one might use for such a build (source and more shots here):

A sighting of the Great Nut?! This is what McSaucyNugget[discord.com] would have you believe...

Watercolor G-47 Trooper, also by McSaucyNugget:

Zyalin's been cooking up something else new we'll maybe get to see in the future, but this one's just a quick sketch of my TRAPPER-ASSASSIN build I was streaming some months ago.

(I guess I did also stream some Beta 16 early on to share the new Scanalyzer study feature--that, too, turned into a gladiator/assassin build :P)

I should make some new wallpapers or something since I haven't done that in *checks calendar* a decade (xD), but it seems like u/Southern_Shine200 has you covered there, too!

CaptainWinky continues to expand his crazy amount of "expanded lore[www.gridsagegames.com]," many with design, art, and visual aids.

Merchants, you don't say...

One very impressive piece of work to come out in recent months is not of the visual variety. If you're into excellent writing, I'd like to point you in the direction of fernman's fanfic "All's Quiet on the Warlord Front[archiveofourown.org]," a short story describing a particular theoretical scenario from a regular Derelict's point of view. Short excerpt:

It unfolds. It’s beautiful and it’s disgusting. The disk morphs into something massive and ethereally angular – no bot should be that large and not grounded. Armour plates curve out and flex around, a cloth cloak crossed with the wings of a metal beetle, exposing an esoteric mass of sensors and processors and tertiary subsystem computers that rapidly mark it as a far greater threat than even Warlord, who is himself broadcasting the order base-wide – not that it’s likely anyone is left to hear it – to ‘Come and help me deal with whatever the hell just flew into my throne room,’ and he’s squeezing off a volley that strikes mere armour.

Within the full 2k words is an inspiring vision of what earning the "Traitor" challenge achievement must feel like from the other side, assuming you're prepared to pull it off ;)

---

That's the rundown. Get out there, earn some achievements, study some parts for more efficient builds, maybe find some Unchained (or more properly speaking, get found by some Unchained), and... expect a 16.1!

Been a while since I did a minor version release that wasn't just a patch, and have never actually announced one in advance, but this time is different due to the state of Beta 16 and how it differs from what I'm aiming for before we head for Beta 17: We need more Unchained!

Again, catching up on achievements ended up getting priority and we're at a good enough spot for public Beta 16 release now already, so better than pushing it back just to accommodate more Unchained work. Their overall balance will improve as more are added though, plus there are a lot of neat but complex internal mechanics on the way to support them, so better to not try rushing any of that.

Also of course there will likely be some tiny updates here in the near term--those don't get announced separately but patch content is always added to the changelogs as usual, and the in-game version/News reminder is another way to know about those if you have it active in the options.

The leaderboards[www.gridsagegames.com] will soon be archived and reset for our new version followed by stat analysis from our tens of thousands of runs submitted from Beta 15.

The epic conclusion to the UFD expansion is here, bringing with it a major new map, 100 new items, and Cogmind's 10th unique ending!

Within you'll also find a huge range of other updates, notably including Extermination and Assault squads without free tracking to Cogmind?!

As usual I'll be avoiding content spoilers (and there are a heck of a lot of surprises to spoil), but following the changelog below will be describing and demonstrating some of other the new features, while also providing some useful background info before you get started.

• NEW: Branch map "[redacted]"
  
• NEW: 100 new items
  
• NEW: 1 new ending (total = 10)
  
• NEW: Additional optional boss and alternative extended challenge
  
• MOD: Extermination/assault squads no longer automatically track directly to Cogmind's position
  
• MOD: Optimized rendering gives significant FPS boost to 4K and other high resolutions [Luigi]

• NEW: 8 new encounters
  
• NEW: 12 new robot variants
  
• NEW: 2 new robot classes
  
• NEW: 3 new robot tiles
  
• NEW: 2 new major events
  
• NEW: 1 more major NPC
  
• NEW: 1 new unauthorized hack
  
• NEW: 40 new lore entries
  
• NEW: 81 new sound effects (total = 1339)
  
• MOD: Several nearly-"guaranteed" encounters in certain maps now actually fully guaranteed (includes A7, 4L-MR0, -8/MAT GAR and more)
  
• MOD: Main Warlord cache moved to its own room
  
• MOD: Approaching S7 with FarCom causes entrance lockdown

• NEW: Reverse info comparison between two items via new REVERSE button (or 'r' key)
  
• NEW: Info page for individual allies shows damage and kill tallies
  
• NEW: HUD borders animated in purple while under effect of Stasis Trap or Containment Facilitator
  
• MOD: Special manual Terminal hacks, including persistent ones not listed in menus, now accepted without "\\" prefix (IAMDERELICT!)

• NEW: Successful Fedlink also locates all Recycling Units on current map
  
• NEW: PSU Rigger capable of toggling manual timer for rigged power source detonation, akin to Sapper Charges
  
• NEW: Encrypted Comm Array detects and labels nearby friendly ambush traps, even from inventory
  
• NEW: Repair Station with repair in progress may drop the part upon being disabled
  
• MOD: Multiple exterminations can no longer be dispatched across a very short period
  
• MOD: Natural influence decay applied more gradually over time, rather than in large chunks at greater intervals
  
• MOD: Removed Sensor Arrays and Signal Interpreters from Watchers (available from new TF Nodes)
  
• MOD: Dropped heat of most kinetic cannons by 15%
  
• MOD: Increased average kinetic cannon coverage by 10%, integrity by 20%
  
• MOD: Transmission Jammers have a small chance to fail to block transmissions
  
• MOD: Active Sensor Suite coverage halved, integrity increased
  
• MOD: Hybrid power sources have significantly decreased coverage
  
• MOD: Retrieved drones with damaged parts or core are repaired using the bay's integrity as a resource
  
• MOD: Main maps also have spawn protection against Behemoths being stationed immediately nearby
  
• MOD: Siege mode accuracy bonus reduced to +15%/25% for Standard/High siege
  
• MOD: Fully transitioning into/out of siege mode requires 7 turns instead of 5
  
• MOD: "Siege" stat listed in part info replaced with more generic "Special" for treads/legs to accommodate new alternative mechanics
  
• MOD: Restarting a disrupted ally via bumping always succeeds
  
• MOD: Allied Mechanics no longer arm Cogmind if any weapon slot already contains a functional non-backup part
  
• MOD: Combat Programmers cannot be hacked, only parsed
  
• MOD: Relay Coupler [Swarmer] base value reduced from 28 to normal (20)
  
• MOD: Index(Terminals) and equivalents exclude limited-access door control Terminals
  
• MOD: Jammed Operators can still lock DSFs directly upon reaching their Terminal to call reinforcements
  
• MOD: In Rogue mode, destroying a Garrison Access point attracts two assault squads instead of one
  
• MOD: Cogmind parts no longer inherently immune to disruption (constructs always immune, and part shielding/Dynamic Insulation systems prevent it)

• NEW: Scoresheet includes more specific breakdown of alert sources
  
• NEW: Scoresheet Intel section includes infowar usage breakdown
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records number of average and unused spare parts
  
• NEW: Scoresheet lists Repaired parts in centralized format as well, as with Fabricated objects

• FIX: Under certain circumstances, machine intel markers may autodeactivate on acquiring new intel [R-26 Lightspeed]
  
• FIX: Some known branch entrances may appear as stairs instead of doors under certain circumstances [R-26 Lightspeed, Mr Goldstein, RNGesus]
  
• FIX: Mak. Microdissipator Network causing final ablative damage to multislot construct destroyed it outright instead of downsizing [Darby, Cracklepappy]
  
• FIX: Active Sensor Suite description did not mention its inability to overcome Scan Cloak 5 [aoemica]
  
• FIX: Inventory(Components) and Inventory(Prototypes) did not include all relevant stockpiles [aoemica]
  
• FIX: Non-overweight flight-capable bots had become blocked from using their ability to jump bots if too close to Cogmind, or on sensors [Plexion]
  
• FIX: Tech Extrapolator provided schematic for Structural Scanner instead of DSS [Hermelin]
  
• FIX: Influence for off-turn spotting still applied even if Cogmind visible on AI's next turn, especially relevant when fighting Sentries [DDarkray]
  
• FIX: Adventurer mode showed cargo convoy path automatically (normally only given in Explorer mode) [8fpsbossfight]
  
• FIX: Properly stop the potential infinite typing sound at Terminals under conditions such as retrieving a manifest longer than the output display area
  
• FIX: Squads will no longer split up as much due to being blocked in narrow corridors under certain circumstances (behavior introduced in Beta 14)
  
• FIX: Addressed several situations where it might be possible to display the left half of an inventory item tile twice instead of the entire tile
  
• FIX: Main Access Shell may not always open automatically even if door properly hacked
  
• FIX: Mechanics could not repair allies during W assault
  
• FIX: Red line could appear over top-left of map area after map transitions in modal UI layout

Extended Beta 15 changelog including additional categorized minor details for advanced players...

>>>: CONTENT

• NEW: Additional Garrison layouts
  
• NEW: Looping Garrisons without RIF increases chance of exits from other Garrisons at same depth leading to a different area
  
• NEW: Entering Garrisons increases Programmer support within other Garrisons at same depth
  
• NEW: Using a certain route enables Scrap Engine theft without angering UFD
  
• NEW: Culmination of the large-scale -2/Research event gives access to Cave Seal Controls
  
• NEW: [Player 2 mode] Player 2 included in ending animation
  
• MOD: Updated lore to reflect new extermination/assault squad behavior
  
• MOD: Slightly increased possible Recycling Unit count in Factory/Research
  
• MOD: Security Level 3 type Recycling Units less common
  
• MOD: Data Miner responds more naturally to more types of potential hostilities
  
• MOD: Exiles also discover theft in Storage if reached before Factory
  
• MOD: Increased frequency of multiple rare Zion dialogues
  
• MOD: Adjusted a few Scraptown areas to accommodate new content
  
• MOD: Scraptown response to hostility updated to account for new content
  
• MOD: UI border color lost if disowned by UFD
  
• MOD: Increased armor of Botcube Storage access door
  
• MOD: Botcubes have their own robot class
  
• MOD: Decramped some prefab areas containing salvageable robots or scrap to streamline salvaging process
  
• MOD: Allies from Ambush Traps switched from generic purple to W faction
  
• MOD: "D-Prototypes" static terminal target renamed to Protocatalog for more generic use
  
• MOD: Siege-capable treads contribute towards TANK designation for build classification

>>>: QOL / UI

• NEW: HUD displays Encrypted Comm Array modifier while appropriate
  
• NEW: HUD gains "UFD Traitor" label to reflect that faction status where appropriate
  
• NEW: On-map item label category filters also reset when using keyboard mass labeling command or corresponding Scan window mouse button
  
• NEW: Mouse wheel also capable of cycling on-map item categories while items mass labeled
  
• NEW: In keyboard mode, 'r' may be held as a modifier to jump the examine/targeting cursor in combination with vi-keys/arrows/numpad, as with Shift-Numpad
  
• NEW: Interactive machine data obtained indirectly via terrain scanning, Derelicts logs, etc. added to intel
  
• NEW: Some types of intel markers darken after a while has passed since first learned, especially for those representing former positions of mobile objects
  
• NEW: Additional details provided in effect description of a certain unique Exoskeleton
  
• NEW: Animation and audio feedback in parts list for forced removal due to causes such as blast/sever/sunder crits and Segregators, Tearclaws, etc
  
• NEW: Unique audio feedback for skim results
  
• NEW: Evolution interface supports arrow/numpad/hjkl key control
  
• NEW: F2 for toggling keyboard mode also works in machine hacking window
  
• NEW: Context tutorial message explaining difference between gray and green '?' for dialogue markers (previously only in manual)
  
• NEW: Option to display total move time required to reach destination while highlighting path via Ctrl-Alt (advanced.cfg: dynamicPathDistanceTime)
  
• NEW: Options to automatically mark discovered stationary Heavies/Behemoths/Sentries via map comments (advanced.cfg: autocomment options)
  
• NEW: Option to also show map-specific turn count in HUD (advanced.cfg: hudMapTurnCount)
  
• NEW: Option to override the longer temporary movement block duration when warned of extremely slow movement (advanced.cfg: extremeSlowMoveSpeedBlockTime)
  
• NEW: Option to override timeout duration while drag-dropping an item via mouse (advanced.cfg: dragDropTimeout)
  
• NEW: Option enabling custom input methods to rebind the continuous "running" movement modifier (advanced.cfg: runCommandModKey)
  
• NEW: Option to stream entire combat log to an external file as messages are generated (advanced.cfg: combatLogStreaming)
  
• MOD: Warnings and intermap transfer when followed by multitile allies at exits consider all ally-occupied positions rather than top-left corner
  
• MOD: Prototype non-controllable allies appear light purple instead of retaining crimson override color
  
• MOD: Significantly decreased audio range of Micro-nuke detonation
  
• MOD: Using a Datajack to quick boot an ally or accelerate assimilation does not restore as default manual target for next fire action
  
• MOD: Flashing characters for on-map siege mode activation now red instead of yellow
  
• MOD: Scrap Shield delivery ignores those in temporary slots, regardless of integrity, so long as have another in inventory
  
• MOD: Volley window weapon reference letters listed in alphabetical order
  
• MOD: Added second exception for coupler autoreplacement when one is more damaged but has higher value, consistently preferring the latter
  
• MOD: More position-specific dialogue messages accompanied by on-map indicators
  
• MOD: Most scene messages from log also reflected at bottom of map view
  
• MOD: Direct mouse access to map robot info blocked while any status screen list open (was only sometimes possible in non-modal layout)
  
• MOD: condenseSlotTypeHeaders/alwaysCondenseSlotTypeHeaders renamed to "[...]PartCategoryHeaders," reset for everyone, and disabled by default
  
• MOD: Options menu Keyboard Mode value now stored in user/system.cfg rather than options.cfg, to prevent transfer across systems by Steam Cloud
  
• MOD: deferredAudioLoading setting moved from advanced.cfg to system.cfg, to prevent transfer across systems by Steam Cloud
  
• MOD: Map particle rendering order inverted, may impact some animations

>>>: MECHANICS / ITEMS

• NEW: Concussive RPG blasts also push items on ground
  
• NEW: Added full description to Compactor
  
• NEW: Junk Cannon description expanded to include warning about automated recycling at 0 ammo even while inactive
  
• NEW: Several teleportation technology effect descriptions include additional details
  
• NEW: Master Drone Bay description now implies possibility of failure to survive destruction of host
  
• NEW: Multitool gives explicit feedback if attempt use on non-Terminal interactive machine
  
• NEW: Resource container effect description explicit about inability to retrieve resources from inside while item corrupted
  
• NEW: Core reset effect also marks redacted exoskeleton position with hypermatrix surge
  
• NEW: Controllable Mechanics now list current remaining integrity repair "Supplies" among their inventory
  
• NEW: Watchers gain explicit Sensor Jamming trait to retain original jamming functionality
  
• MOD: Reduced predictability of extermination dispatches
  
• MOD: Removed relay_feed robot hack (no longer applicable)
  
• MOD: Increased damage of some Linear Accelerators
  
• MOD: Diametric Drive energy cost reduced from 1 to 0.5
  
• MOD: Diametric Drive, Cld. Cesium-ion Thruster integrity increased
  
• MOD: Heart of Steel coverage and integrity increased significantly, but destroyed on removal
  
• MOD: Matter Drive size/energy decreased, coverage increased, now fragile
  
• MOD: Alien consumables reduced to 0 coverage, given differentiated integrity values
  
• MOD: Renamed "Point Defense Array" and "Antimissile System" to types of Point Defense Systems
  
• MOD: "Recoil Nullifier" renamed "Adv. Recoil Stabilizer"
  
• MOD: All EM Disruption Fields renamed to corresponding EM Shields, highest rating increased to 9
  
• MOD: Energy Mantles merged into single new "Adv. Remote Force Field"
  
• MOD: Imp. Remote Force Field rating lowered from 8 to 7
  
• MOD: Exp. Force Field removed from general item spawning pool
  
• MOD: Major NPC's Beam Splitter replaced with Thermal Barrier, difference added as innate resistance
  
• MOD: Scatter Rocket Array radius increased to 4
  
• MOD: Rocket Array matter cost increased to 30
  
• MOD: Unique Pitchfork and Trident weapons have attack delay
  
• MOD: Siege Articulator effect increased from 2 to 3
  
• MOD: Updated descriptions of all Concussive RPGs to better reflect their mechanics
  
• MOD: Thermal Lance explicitly indicates unique heat transfer property in description
  
• MOD: Mechanic combat repair block extended from 5 to 12 turns
  
• MOD: Mechanics no longer arm Strikers using a melee weapon
  
• MOD: Botcubes capable of using Expert System
  
• MOD: Hacking Drone innate heat dissipation increased by 2
  
• MOD: Microwarp Drive size increased to three slots
  
• MOD: Vmp. Broadsword integrity and mass increased
  
• MOD: Field Manipulator cost to Stasis Trap reduced from 5% to 3%
  
• MOD: Cannot store resources in corrupted resource containers
  
• MOD: Engineers building machines displace items in designated area, or destroy them if no available space
  
• MOD: Armed mutual allies capable of swapping with one another in more circumstances
  
• MOD: Temporary part disabled status removed when traveling between maps

>>>: SCORESHEET / DATA

• NEW: No more than 60 of a single robot class contribute to score in a single map, though total kill data still recorded in scoresheet records
  
• NEW: Expanded scoresheet "Hostile Shots Fired" records with more possible stats
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records Encrypted Comm Array modifier values for entire run until behavior is no longer compatible with faction
  
• NEW: Scoresheet includes relevant Membrane/ITN/NEM data in status summary
  
• NEW: Scoresheet includes robot disruption stats
  
• NEW: Scoresheet movement data includes travel through potential cave-in locations
  
• NEW: A-bots destroyed specifically via DC code also recorded among NPC kills in scoresheet, as is GM if explosion triggered via hack
  
• NEW: Gallery export data includes Fragile trait
  
• MOD: Attacks on controllable or temporary allies don't count as Friendly Fire for scoring purposes
  
• MOD: Parts Attached section of scoresheet only counts each unique part once even if reattached

>>>: MISC

• NEW: All patron and Alpha supporter names registered since Beta 14 added to in-game list (see Credits menu and item collection gallery)

For the complete changelog including all bug fixes, see the latest iteration packaged with the game or online here[www.gridsagegames.com].

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 15, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 14 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like. Cogmind will remind you which branch to use if it finds an old save, and your old save won't be deleted or affected by the update.


The UFD sees you making fun of them. What could this hodgepodge group of robots hailing from an obsolete complex ever hope to accomplish? It's time for the UFD to take it to the next level.

For those who've forgotten or were not yet aware, Cogmind's previous release (Beta 14) was only the first half of the so-called "UFD arc." We needed a content cutoff somewhere, and that cutoff happened to require leaving out even some of the Scraptown experience itself. Although the UFD of Beta 14 brought much in the way of new tech and ideas (lore!), and could come in handy as allies or a source of resources supporting new build styles, if you weren't impressed before you may be more interested in their full offering...

To see what's new, join up and visit the previously empty council room to meet a famous fellow you may have already heard of. Note there were originally a couple Terminals in that room which you likely read if you've been there before, but it's probably important to remind yourself what's on them (also a third one has been added). "Fedlink" matters now, in ways you'll discover as you go (it wasn't strongly integrated into the game yet due to the aforementioned cutoff). This new plot line will eventually lead you all the way to a new ending, one quite different from any of the others.

You may also encounter some new more direct routes to reach Scraptown in the first place.

Good luck :)


Not to be outdone by lowly scrap-loving Derelicts, MAIN.C has been working on something new as well, very new. So new I can't tell you almost anything about it, or even where it is, but the UFD will help you.

Okay I will say 1) it's a new map that is 2) somewhere higher up in Complex 0b10. Although this may currently put it out of reach for some of you (both getting there and using it for any of its purposes is on the challenging side), you'll at least find that Scraptown itself (available earlier on) and plenty of other aspects of Beta 15 are quite accessible and ready to improve various aspects of your runs.


The biggest news you may have caught on to when first mentioned in the introduction is that Exterminations and Assaults will no longer come straight to Cogmind when dispatched! Yep it's a pretty big change with a number of implications, but gone are the days of new players believing it possible to just hide in a tiny room until they pass by or go away, only to discover it's always one or more Programmers hot on your tail for as long as it takes to reach your precise location. Yeah we had friendly contextual derelicts to help explain that mechanic (in addition to the lore behind it which could be read for further details), but it was clearly not great from a design standpoint, more of a necessity as one of the few "food clocks" to help add pressure to a run, and one that needed to be pretty direct to have a more meaningful effect. Well this many years later we're now in a world with even richer maps--more obstacles, more challenges, more variety than the one into which Exterminations were born (and by extension Assault dispatch behavior), so it's time to give them more realistic and interesting behavior to go with their roles.

From now on, rather than targeting you specifically, Exterminations and Assaults instead head to your general area to begin searching. If you're not there by the time they arrive, then it's possible to give them the slip (same goes for Assaults!), although over time they do expand their search radius and will continue looking for you, albeit via an increasingly inaccurate and slow process. Naturally having sensors and access to more nearby routes will make it easier to avoid them for as long as you need to.

Of course you may still run into them later, which might not be under ideal circumstances, but at least it's not an inevitability and you have even more options than before.

Extermination dispatch timing is also now much less predictable, but also gone are the days of multiple dispatches in quick succession.

If Programmers do find you, note that the disruption property of their weapons can now temporarily affect your parts--Cogmind was always inherently immune to that effect, but if you want that immunity now you'll need to use either part shielding (for specific part categories) or a Dynamic Insulation system for blanket protection.

The above is just one area in which the general "pressure" across normal floors is evolving. Aside from a bug fix related to spotting that should likely result in somewhat lower alert buildup overall, more directly you'll also see (if you have a way to see it :P) that alert decay is now applied gradually instead of in large chunks at greater intervals, resulting in a natural and smooth process but with the same ultimate effect as before.

For the detail-oriented player, scoresheets now also include a complete breakdown of all sources of alert/influence increase and decrease across a run. See the boxed section in this sample excerpt below:


Buffs! Everyone loves buffs, and if you're a KI cannon buff you'll really love this one. They've gotten a heat reduction across the board, as well as a coverage boost and even bigger integrity boost, meaning they're outright more efficient to run than before, and will last longer while simultaneously offering a bit of extra cover for your other parts. Remember to still carry surplus matter storage and/or consider employing a Tractor Beam so you can immediately suck up all the bits you blast off your targets.


Okay this one's a nerf, but an inevitable one just long in coming, and relatively minor in the bigger picture of siege superiority. In fact it might even save you some time :P

Who hasn't started sieging up to blast some incoming bots then finished them off so fast you barely even started getting any benefits from the mode only to have to unsiege before you can move again anyway? Well sieging now takes 7 turns to complete rather than 5, so not necessarily an immediate reaction for nearly all encounters. Remember that the entire time you're entering/exiting siege mode you're also at a disadvantage (due to immobility combined with a targeting bonus for your enemies), so some of those quick last-minute siege/unsiege situations often turn out to be pointless at best.

The siege mode targeting bonus is also somewhat reduced, but it's still quite good, with the reduction having a smaller proportional effect on Siege-type treads, leaving them with that extra edge--it's in the name :D

Sieging is likely to be a little more deliberate going forward, and is still just as great for all its same defensive benefits.

Note this change did not come in isolation, its timing was determined to coincide with the introduction of multiple new mechanics: more special propulsion modes! Be on the lookout for new types of legs on your travels, the result of patron voting as part of Beta 15 development. Leg-based assault, skirmisher, and melee builds all have something to look forward to.


Watchers have been stripped down, doing the same old jobs as before but without the Sensor Array or Signal Interpreter. It was always kinda weird they never used them for remote sensing despite the original lore explanation, and now that we have other bots that do properly use sensors (in fact more than one now as of Beta 15), it was time to make these guys a little more realistic.

But you do need a convenient source for these useful parts! And you'll have one, albeit not from those annoying flighty dodgy guys. You'll see the new source pretty quickly, and there's some lore to explain those more, but attacking Watchers would be mainly to shut them up, or if you want their optics which are still nice to have.


Drones have always been fully repaired for free upon returning to a bay, though this was behavior from Cogmind's early days when there was just one type of drone, and just for exploration, whereas now there are drones with all kinds of functionality, including combat drones and some of them quite formidable in their own right.

Well giving them all free repairs is equivalent to infinite integrity if one is willing to baby them, so a change to that aspect was another long in coming, and just hadn't happened yet. Part of the delay is that my intent was to wait for a bigger drone update (more drones!) and do it together with that (since reconsidering some drone stats in this light would be a good idea), but Beta 15 introduces yet another combat drone, an incredibly powerful one, so I didn't want to wait on this any longer.

Drone repairs now drain the integrity of corresponding bays upon repair. The process is all automated and uses the best options available at the time, including inventory-based bays; the costs are also fairly lenient at the moment due to the lack of drone stat changes, so doesn't really have much impact on normal drone use, just getting that mechanic in there now.


It's a Cogmind release, of course there's tons of QoL!

While using the item name display feature, you can now also cycle through the categories with the mouse wheel, rather than just one of the keyboard options:

You can now reverse the comparison between two items' info--there's a nifty [REVERSE] button to click, or hit the 'r' key:

For some extra audiovisual reinforcement when a part is forcefully removed by some mechanic, there's new animation and SFX for that:

It's generally pretty obvious when it happens, and hard to forget, but now there's also a persistent HUD border animation to go along with being stuck in non-beam-type stasis effects:

When Terrain Scanners or other non-direct intel methods discover machine locations, they're added to your intel marker records as normal, rather than just being visible on the map:

For those of you who would like all known Heavy/Behemoth/Sentry guard positions to be autocommented on your map, there are separate settings for each of these in the user/advanced.cfg file (and the manual has more information about their behavior):

The new advanced dynamicPathDistanceTime option shows you the exact amount of time required to reach a given destination given your current speed while manually highlighting a path to a destination:

Here's a fun one--now you can see just how many kills and damage have been dealt out by your favorite Botcube, NPC ally, or random Hunter follower who just seems to be casually murdering all comers:

It's now possible to see the actual amount of integrity supplies remaining in your allied Mechanic to provide repairs--not that many people ever hit this limit (and no it's not some new restrictive limit so don't expect it to become a problem, it's always been there!), but a select few RIF-heads do indeed run into this (shown here with its context help copied from the manual):

Use any of the normal directional keys to control the evolution UI (arrows/vi/numpad), not just letters or mouse:

Among its new data entries the scoresheet includes multiple bigger new sections, including some pretty cool ones like a breakdown of all the infowar used across the run (17 types total! although this sample only shows 6 of them):

Like the Fabrication list we now also have a list of every repair performed and the item's original state:

And now we'll know just how many spare parts of each type people are carrying through their runs (extra replacement parts in inventory at a given time), and how many of those went completely unused/discarded later:

I'm sure these sections will provide some very interesting aggregate data to share later in the usual places!

Special status indicators from the HUD are also now reflected in the scoresheet's summary at the top--unique modifiers like Membrane/ITN/NEM...

A really important QoL update that I don't have an image for is actually a fix to a new bug introduced in Beta 14 while getting rid of the old issue of a combat AI sometimes hopping over another in an attempt to reach Cogmind (even around a corner or without flight capabilities). So that original issue was fixed, but in the process apparently introduced another unwanted behavior where groups of bots might block each other, and individuals rerouting as a result could sometimes even temporarily split up roaming patrols that were supposed to be working together. If you noticed more lone combat bots wandering around in Beta 14, that was likely the reason and the latest behavior updates should resolve that now.

Some other random demonstrative recordings from development, not necessarily QoL...

If you've ever tried the Inventory(Components) and Inventory(Prototypes) hacks before and were slightly (or enormously :P) underwhelmed, checking out this sample of the new behavior in a small area of this Research map might change your mind:

Concussive RPG explosions now push items away from the source:

For those of you who know what ECA is, there's a convenient reminder of your current level directly in the HUD, which will also update in real time so you can see the effect your actions are having on it:

Any PSU Rigger lovers out there? Of course there are! Well, you also now have the option to use your improvised proximity explosives as time bombs instead:

It's now possible to output the entire combat log as messages are generated, for any external realtime monitoring and processing needs (advanced.cfg: combatLogStreaming):

---

And there it is, I've said as much as I can without giving away any of the best bits--you'll just have to see for yourself!

I can't believe Beta 15 ended up adding even more items than Beta 14, which was already crazy xD

I originally thought we'd get maybe 40-50 new ones this time at most, but design needs present themselves when they do, same with adding new robots, new encounters, or generally any other content to improve the quality of the experience while aiming for a particular vision, and it had to be done :D

Thanks to all of you, and a special thanks to the patrons for your ongoing support of my work to help bring yet more content to everyone! With the epic reorganization of the 450-page TODO list[www.patreon.com] that went into preparation for Beta 15 in particular, there's an even more refined list from which to pull in more features alongside the remaining planned expansions--the Unchained are coming, and much to the dismay of some inhabitants of Tau Ceti IV, the Merchants will follow...

The leaderboards[www.gridsagegames.com] will soon be archived and reset for our new version followed by stat analysis from our tens of thousands of runs submitted from Beta 14.

Cogmind's 11th annual review[www.gridsagegames.com] is available over on the dev blog, summarizing a year of massive updates on both the interface and content side. We got larger fonts, map zooming, multiple UI layouts, a whole new faction and two new maps, with much more to come just around the corner.

Inside you'll also find some dev stats and a selection of community content from art to popular videos and streams.

The upcoming Beta 15 is already a significant update in its current state and shaping up to be a great release for players old and new alike!

THE UFD HAS ARRIVED. A whole new faction introducing new robot classes, mechanics, and a huge collection of lore and dialogue across many dozens of new encounters. This expansion includes 83 new items for you to find, salvage, steal, fabricate, or piece together, most featuring new mechanics and thereby further enhancing your existing build ideas or enabling a range of fresh alternatives.

Beta 14 comes a little later than planned, essentially since this release is bigger than planned, having added about 7 weeks of work on extra features beyond what I'd set out to do as described in Cogmind Vision 2025, where you can still read about yet more coming releases.

The biggest chunk of that extra time can be attributed to yet another architectural overhaul, but this time it wasn't the interface like we got with map zooming and multiple UI layout options in Beta 13. No, this time it was data architecture, and I'm pretty sure you'll notice the results when you start up the game and you're in almost immediately, with any potentially slow-loading maps on some machines also being that much faster to enter. RAM use has also been cut down significantly. Not that these were serious issues before, but saving on resources and time is always welcome :D

Funny enough, despite the massive content expansion, Cogmind's disk size has actually decreased in Beta 14 due to the optimized data formats. Just so much content is being added that even if it was within acceptable loading speeds in prior versions, I can imagine that with Beta 14 and going forward it was going to get increasingly annoying (also for me during development xD), so it was finally about time to address that part of the architecture.

Let's take a look at this release!


The raw changelog isn't quite as long as some of the other major releases on an item-by-item basis, but this is actually the largest single update in many years as far as content goes, and as usual the many new gameplay elements are not explicitly listed below, instead relegated to being numbers and waiting for you to discover them ;)

Cogmind Beta 14 "United Federation of Derelicts" (240806) changelog (excerpt):

• NEW: Branch map "Scraptown"
  
• NEW: 83 new items (most employing new mechanics)
  
• NEW: 50+ new encounters
  
• NEW: 11 new Derelict robot classes, many with new AI
  
• NEW: 16 new robot variants
  
• NEW: 8 new robot tiles
  
• NEW: Hundreds more lore entries covering new factions, technology, and history
  
• NEW: Optimized preprocessed data loading allows Cogmind.exe to start almost instantly, plus faster map generation on entry
  
• NEW: Deferred audio loading system, allowing faster startup and significantly cutting RAM use (deactivate via advanced.cfg: config.deferredAudioLoading)

• NEW: 4 new unique NPCs
  
• NEW: 4 new unauthorized hacks
  
• NEW: 11 more unique manual robot hacks
  
• NEW: 62 new sound effects (total = 1258)
  
• NEW: Rebuilt and expanded Recycling
  
• NEW: Scrap Engine relocated to its proper new home (rather than freely given at entrance to Recycling), and comes with in-theme instruction manual
  
• MOD: The large-scale -2/Research event has more repercussions, including extra spillover and additional patrols on some later maps

• NEW: If no auto-replace target found for attaching ground item ('a'/LMB), repeat command to open manual swap-from-ground menu
  
• NEW: Left-click on parts list autopair markers to swap back (equivalent to '/'+a~z+y or Ctrl-RMB)
  
• NEW: LMB on self while standing on item with full inventory capable of autoreplacing worse items, matching 'g' key behavior
  
• NEW: Gameover screen requires delayed confirmation to Reset or Quit if have a loadable save state in Adventurer/Explorer mode
  
• NEW: Tile/ASCII for robots currently affected by ignore_targets darkened, as if disarmed
  
• NEW: Separate state indicator and context help in info window for "fragile" destroy-on-removal parts, overrides ACTIVE/INACTIVE
  
• NEW: If no RIF or 0b10 Alert Chip, HUD Location also reports high/max security and sterilization status in those cases
  
• MOD: Zionite Depthwide Sectors intel targets use dynamic naming scheme based on actual depth

• NEW: Attacker accuracy reduced by [system corruption]/X% (X = 4 for Cogmind, 8 for others)
  
• NEW: Cryofiber also doubles cooling effect of all active Heat Sinks
  
• NEW: Hacking Drone capable of accessing Cave Seal Controls
  
• NEW: Combat AI groups may sometimes be more aggressive around bottlenecks higher in the Complex
  
• MOD: Dismantling machines via Plasma Cutter increases alert as normal
  
• MOD: Army Drones no longer capable of being armed with a launcher
  
• MOD: Hpw/Lrn. Tractor Beams rating increased
  
• MOD: System Restoration Modules and Purifiers now destroyed on removal (fragile)
  
• MOD: Reaction Control Systems apply full benefits to legs
  
• MOD: Increased fabrication counts for some NC bots
  
• MOD: Increased fabrication count of some non-prototype parts
  
• MOD: Heavy Door and Blast Door melee resistances increased from 34% to 50%
  
• MOD: Reinforced Barrier resistances increased to match Heavy Doors
  
• MOD: LC Capacitor area more accessible

• NEW: Multitile robots can push single-tile robots out of the way
  
• NEW: Multitile robots capable of crushing other robots under some circumstances
  
• NEW: Multitile followers try to keep their distance to better stay out of the way
  
• NEW: Multitile controllable allies with a STAY command attempt to move away if approached
  
• NEW: Some larger robots capable of smashing through obstacles
  
• NEW: On entering new map with multitile followers, walls and doors near entrance are smashed

• NEW: Added examples to effect descriptions for all utilities based on value ratios
  
• NEW: Machine hacking tutorial context messages also show in shell console so immediately visible even in modal UI layouts
  
• MOD: Updated context help for item Stability/Burnout/Siege stats to explicitly indicate how to apply relevant special modes when applicable

• NEW: Many new scoresheet history log entries
  
• NEW: Scoresheet records peak and average build rating in each map, and rating on entrance
  
• NEW: Bonus points for besting VL-GR5 in competition

• FIX: Lightning Scan Cloak level increased from 4 to 5, to match analysis [R-26 Lightspeed]
  
• FIX: Crash during special assimilation win ending animation when using new modal layout with inventory closed [necris81, mrjoebobfred, CaptainWinky]

Extended Beta 14 changelog including additional categorized minor details for advanced players...

>>>: CONTENT

• NEW: Additional behaviors from major NPCs during W/R attack event
  
• NEW: 3 new build type descriptors
  
• MOD: Pre-existing patrols on new maps start with more realistic spread
  
• MOD: Imprinter no longer remains in Zion forever if area comes under attack
  
• MOD: Clippyterm no longer sometimes appears empty
  
• MOD: Block/half block glyphs in size 14 ASCII map font now touch cell edges
  
• MOD: Increased minimum resolution from 600px to 720px in system requirements

>>>: QOL / UI

• NEW: Attaching a part in a temporary slot requires confirmation
  
• NEW: Adjust the distance of each use of keyboard-based map view shifting (advanced.cfg: mapViewShiftJumpDistance, new default is 15 instead of 10)
  
• NEW: Holding Ctrl-Alt in keyboard examine/targeting mode highlights path to cursor
  
• NEW: "Swapping" a part into an empty temporary slot via the part-based swap menu now possible
  
• NEW: Drag-drop attachment of parts into a temporary slot allowed if target slot is empty
  
• NEW: Special ALERT announcement if only one usable Garrison Access point remaining in Access
  
• NEW: System Corruption immunity status reflected directly in HUD
  
• NEW: RIF ability count included within HUD button itself
  
• NEW: Keyboard mode also shows RIF status as HUD text
  
• NEW: Option to always hide part category headers in modal UI layouts, regardless of current slot count (advanced.cfg: alwaysCondenseSlotTypeHeaders)
  
• NEW: Option to require confirmation when manually dropping inventory item onto another item (advanced.cfg: warnOnInventoryItemDropOnItem)
  
• NEW: Option to shift hue when visualizing longer paths to reflect the distance (advanced.cfg: dynamicPathDistanceHue)
  
• NEW: Option to display percent integrity remaining instead of raw values alongside map item labels (advanced.cfg: itemLabelIntegrityPercent)
  
• MOD: Attaching parts prioritizes use of permanent slots over temporary slots if both are present, regardless of listed order
  
• MOD: Exiting examine/targeting modes no longer automatically recenters on Cogmind (restore functionality via advanced.cfg: exitTargetingCentersCogmind)
  
• MOD: Explicitly entering keyboard examine mode rather than targeting mode while view following allied drone no longer recenters on Cogmind
  
• MOD: Removed itemLabelAddUnidentifiedSize advanced option, behavior now automatic in Tactical HUD mode
  
• MOD: Removed useless swap all autopairs command (Shift-Alt-w)
  
• MOD: EX-Prototypes Database terminal moved
  
• MOD: Chain reaction explosion data in power source descriptions toggled in real time alongside Tactical HUD, rather than requiring a restart
  
• MOD: Temporary Scrap Engine content list shifted below on-map messages in modal UI layout
  
• MOD: Temporary Scrap Engine content list hidden while any extended on-map combat logs visible
  
• MOD: Manual robot hacking input console and any known manual codes always both appear to right of robot hack list

>>>: MECHANICS / ITEMS

• NEW: Transmission Jammer effect description explicitly indicates ability to indirectly jam via drones, Watcher Feeds, etc
  
• NEW: Active Sensor Suite effect description explicitly indicates immunity to all scrambling and cloaking effects
  
• NEW: Core Physics Calibrator more explicitly lists late-game effect restriction
  
• NEW: Engineers have additional task type
  
• NEW: Melee attacks made with any momentum benefiting from speed bonus while using overloaded propulsion can cause burnout as moving normally
  
• MOD: Active Sensor Suite tile switched from Processor to Device
  
• MOD: Engineers no longer "form the Earth" and wait for Tunnelers to clear areas targeted for excavation if already cleared via destructive means
  
• MOD: Engineers might wait longer to effect some types of repairs
  
• MOD: Manually triggering friendly AOE traps applies alert and aggro as a normal attack
  
• MOD: Several special outlier effects that apply corruption now pass through normal defenses against it, for consistency

>>>: MULTITILE ROBOTS

• MOD: Multitile robots can better avoid known hostile traps in certain situations
  
• MOD: AI spotting of/by multitile robots more accurate

>>>: HELP

• NEW: Tutorial message regarding manual ground swap feature when slots full and no auto-replace options
  
• NEW: Tutorial message regarding meaning and use of markers that appear next to autopaired attached parts in Tactical HUD mode
  
• NEW: Tutorial message on first using the keyboard mode hotkey (F2) which hides the mouse cursor, primarily meant as a warning
  
• NEW: "Cooling Resolution" section in manual detailing turnwise heat processes for min-maxers, given the increasing number of cooling options
  
• NEW: Manual notes about Launchers indicate some portions of AOE damage may be capable of passing through walls under the right conditions

>>>: SCORESHEET / DATA

• MOD: "Inspector Gadget" achievement description updated to explicitly indicate disqualification due to gaining non-utility slots via other means
  
• MOD: "Straight Shot" achievement description updated to explicitly indicate Garrisons/Waste/DSF okay
  
• MOD: "Specialist"-type achievement descriptions explicitly state that damage calculations are across an entire run

>>>: MISC

• NEW: All patron supporter names registered since Beta 13 added to in-game list (see Credits menu)
  
• NEW: All patron item-attribution names registered since Beta 13 added to the item collection gallery
  
• NEW: All Alpha supporter names registered since Beta 13 added to in-game list (see Credits menu)

For the complete changelog including all bug fixes, see the latest iteration packaged with the game or online here[www.gridsagegames.com].

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 14, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 13 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like. Cogmind will remind you which branch to use if it finds an old save, and your old save won't be deleted or affected by the update.


I won't be going into any details to avoid spoiling the experience, though I will provide a little background and direction here to help get you started.

There is a lot to discover in Beta 14, much of it tied to the new faction, and you can reach their primary location via Recycling, which is itself accessible via two different routes, either Storage or the Subcaves. The latter option is generally for more advanced players, but there are other specific (new) advantages to going that route as well. (As described before, Subcaves, Scraptown, and a new future map-to-come are all part of the same UFD arc on which the current expansion is focused--they're all tied together on some level.)

Access from the Storage direction is locked behind a door that requires either a manual code you've learned in another run from a particular major NPC who told you as much (easiest way), or cutting a hole with a Plasma Cutter, or melting your way through with an engine bomb, or maybe you've found one of the items that will automatically hack nearby doors for you. 01-MTF will also be happy to help if he shows up.

Across multiple trips you'll learn more about the UFD's history and where they're from, which will also help explain why they are where they are, a bit out of the way. On repeated visits you'll also find that the contents can vary significantly--there are a lot of possibilities, while at the same time offering some guaranteed encounters you can take advantage of if you plan for them, once you know what they are.

If you have any questions or need help, or just want to share, feel free to drop by the Discord server[discord.gg] since that's where most of the active players hang out, as well as where I am every day most of the day, and is also where most Cogmind streaming takes place.

In a general departure from other potential allied factions, you'll find there are often some items found locally which you must be hostile to obtain, though some of these are incredibly rewarding in and of themselves (alongside some potential drawbacks later, for being hostile). The overall balance and considerations regarding these particular items will be changing somewhat in Beta 15, so don't worry about those too much yet, although patrons testing out the prerelease have been more than happy to murder everyone to get everything that they want xD (it's not exactly easy, but if well-prepared yeah you can do it...)

But the most important thing to know about Scraptown and the UFD is that there is more to come. In order to let you play with this substantial update rather than sit on all of it until the entire expansion is complete, as previously announced the final part of the UFD experience will be coming in Beta 15, including a new ending and more outlying and/or UFD-related late-game content. As is their main plot line has not been included, since it would be weird to have that introduced but not be able to see it through, so for now you can use the opportunity to get acquainted with them and take advantage of all the new items and other features while I continue working on that. In Beta 15 there will be another NPC to help fill you in on long-term goals, but until then if you do join them make sure to read their central terminals, in particular about Project Fedlink and related. (I've already finished a chunk of Beta 15 content, by necessity as it is of course tightly coupled with Beta 14. A sizeable portion of Beta 14 content itself was actually completed last year, long before Beta 13 was even released :P So this version has been in production for much of the last year.)

In the meantime there is a lot to get acquainted with, considering not only all the new mechanics but also the new NPCs and lore. This single release increases the total lore by 52% (purely counting by the number of entries which are added to your collection on discovery), and the number of items by 8% (up to 1,156 collectible/usable components now) so those out there adding to their collections will have plenty more to uncover.

If you do want some content spoilers, late last year I shared a series of articles starting with this one about Cogmind's "post-balance" item expansion[www.gridsagegames.com] which provides some context for the wild new mechanics we're getting and shares some specific examples along with their design. Those things and many many more are all accessible in game now.

For a general video introduction to Scraptown and the UFD, I've been streaming some of my own playtest runs in recent weeks, starting with the first here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQDS2bHvKQ

Not really the best tight introduction, just a long stream recording (followed by others), but if you're interested it's there :)

In a related development, the Scrap Engine[www.gridsagegames.com] introduced back in Beta 12, which enables a very different play style and since then has just been given for free at the entrance to Recycling, now lives in its proper home, which won't take long to find if you are visiting that same map with the new destination in mind. Also you'll probably have somewhat fewer questions about how it works, because it now comes with a complete in-game, in-theme manual, as planned :)

Good luck, scrapper!


Beta 14 isn't just about content, as always there's a fair share of QoL goodness to streamline various parts of the experience or expand the number of optional interface customizations.

One of the most desirable features is a way to manually swap a part on the ground directly with an attached part, when the autoswap behavior doesn't find any obvious swaps to make, thereby allowing you to swap in a completely different part type from the ground if needed. Normally you would have to first have to remove an attached part, or at least add the desired part to your inventory in order to perform such a swap, but now you can perform a manual replacement by simply repeating the attach command ('a'/LMB) a second time (i.e. after the autoswap system reports no suitable targets) in order to chose the part to replace, like so:

Another new feature sure to be of use for mouse users is the ability to swap pairs of attached and inventory parts back and forth by clicking on the ticks to the left of attached parts, which are there to indicate you are still in possession of whatever part was in that slot before:

As you can see, once the cursor is held over the tick/button for a moment, it will also pop up all the names of existing valid pairs.

(Keyboard users have quick access to the reswap feature as usual via the normal swap functionality and 'Y'.)

Adventurer/Explorer mode players who have an existing usable save state will now be shown a reminder and prompted for confirmation if attempting to restart or quit on the game over screen, which should help avoid accidentally restarting in such a scenario:

We now have a dedicated indicator in the part info window (as well as corresponding context help if you click on it, as usual) for those which are destroyed on removal, the term for which is FRAGILE. Originally this behavior was specific to certain part types, Processors and by extension Hackware, but over the years for balance reasons this behavior has been extended to a number of other special parts, so we ideally need to know which those are before attaching them, mainly for those of you encountering them for the first time. Sample:

The main HUD also has a few siutuational updates such as reflecting corruption immunity status if applicable, and a change in the RIF button to include the number of abilities known (adds useful information to screenshots!):

That button doesn't normally display in keyboard mode, which accesses RIF info via the spacebar menu, but in order to display the RIF ability count it will now report the same information as non-interactive text.

Also useful to know for screenshots (rather than something you'll likely forget is happening...), the HUD also shows high/max security or sterilization if any are applicable. This is not something you need RIF to know, since it's announced--not the same thing as precise alert level at all times, which you would need to learn via other means.

Beta 13 and its new modal UI layouts were made possible in part through a combination of being able to hide the inventory and even shrink the parts list by removing type headers to keep the inventory visible through a greater number of depths. But some players reportedly really liked having no part type headers at all, even when removing them was not necessary to save space, so by request I've added a new advanced.cfg feature "alwaysCondenseSlotTypeHeaders" to always hide those regardless of slot count. For example this is what it would look like upon just starting a new run with the initial 7 slots:

Another new option (itemLabelIntegrityPercent) implemented by request replaces raw integrity values displayed alongside map item labels with percent integrity values:

Personally I don't think this is as useful raw numbers, since the general integrity percent is already reflected in the label color, but some apparently prefer it regardless. Try it out if you're in that boat!

This next one I mainly implemented for fun one day, plus it looks cool and technically can help visualize more information at a glance, but the new "dynamicPathDistanceHue" option displays paths with shifting color based on distance from your position to the destination:

That's the path shown when moving the cursor around (although above brightened by holding Ctrl-Alt, which is how you could always highlight the path for better temporary visibility). Keyboard players normally won't see it, but can also now display a path to their examine/targeting cursor by holding Ctrl-Alt (and technically path there via the spacebar menu!).

If you're a Scrap Engine user also making use of the new modal UI layouts, you'll be happy to know that the content list will be shifted under active messages rather than letting them obscure it, in case you need that info at the same time:


It's finally here: For several major updates now I've wanted to include a dedicated pass over multitile robot behavior, especially when allied with you, since having them follow standard ally behavior could be problematic in many cases, to say the least. Having completed the desired enhancements I'm happy to announce that the big guys in Beta 14 are much more enjoyable to partner with!

For pathfinding purposes they are not nearly as limited as before, and are capable of smart behaviors like spreading out and actively trying to stay out of your way. Here you can see a test group of multitile allies following in a sort of "caravan" formation to avoid bunching up:

They've also got some new complementary abilities to facilitate pathing, such as pushing smaller/regular-sized bots out of the way, as in this demo:

This and related changes do, however, mean that hostile multitile robots are going to be that much scarier if they discover your presence, so look out for that! Finally proper nightmarish Behemoth encounters :D

Normally for releases and/or progress updates I'll have a number of articles I've written to point to for more details, but this time I've been pouring the entirety of recent months directly into development (not to mention working mostly on things I don't want to spoil by writing about them in advance :P), so there isn't so much of that this time. However with Beta 14 released there are definitely some topics I'd like to cover, including for example a sequel to my older piece on Developing Multitile Creatures in Roguelikes[www.gridsagegames.com], this time looking at advances made in that area to improve the experience. For now, if you'd like to read a bit more about the development of multitile bots and some other newer features, I do have one post in particular on Patreon which shared related updates along with some more info and samples earlier this year when I was working on it (now public): The Features [Temporarily] Left Behind But Not Forgotten[www.patreon.com].


Not a lot of balance changes this time around, though there are a few particularly noteworthy ones you'll want to be aware of.

Corruption has a negative effect on accuracy (-corruption/4%), giving it another persistent drawback at higher levels and therefore a real reason to seriously consider not letting it get that high. Many players/some builds don't necessarily care even if it's at 50%+, but that will be a bit more problematic now since it will often cancel out some of your targeting bonuses. To some extent this also works to your advantage if using EM to attack targets, other bots being more susceptible to corruption to begin with, meaning even just one or two attacks will already start making it harder for them to accurately retaliate. However bots other than Cogmind instead use X/8% for their formula since they can gain corruption so easily (good news for your allies, at least).

Reaction Control Systems now providing their full benefits to legs means you probably want to consider them as a serious slot contender in your melee leg builds.

Cryofiber, the niche supplementary cooling option, got an outright buff via synergy with Heat Sinks, significantly increasing their cooling potential. You can put together your own multislot cooling system with greater functionality, and Heat Sinks are easy to come by... It's cool now! So try to break the habit of ignoring it :)

The most generally impactful balance adjustment is an update to resistances of heavy doors and reinforced barriers. It was always kinda weird that strong doors were more easily circumvented by going through the surrounding walls instead, not to mention said walls and doors had become easier to get through given the greater and greater collection of more powerful tools (basically weapons), so those walls and doors now have matching resistances, and are no longer comparatively weaker to melee weapons. Melee weapons do still do more damage than projectile weapons, in particular impact weapons and high momentum providing an alternative method of accessing some areas, though this change also solidifies the Plasma Cutter's position as a useful tool.

---

And that's today's summary heralding the curious arrival of the United Federation of Derelicts! As mentioned, work on Beta 15 has already begun, though no idea when that will go out. We'll be exploring yet another new map, this one promising some serious action, and of course the aforementioned extended UFD features.

In the near term we'll have Beta 13 player stats to examine, no doubt interesting given the influx of new players this year following the combined effect of Cogmind adding zooming/large text layouts and the video by DoshDoshington.

You can go meet this fellow today. Play nice :)

Not long after the release (and seventh and final patch) of our latest major new version, Beta 13 "Zoom All The Things", I'd like to do something I've never done here before: talk more about the future. This is only something I tend to do with frequent players on Discord, or patrons, and even then only in the broadest strokes or occasional disjointed details since anything is subject to change and I don't want to accidentally mislead anyone or create too much unnecessary hype for things that have no specific timeline. But in my own notes I do always have a fairly clear plan for the future, if one that sometimes still shifts around according to near-term priorities (for example our latest adventures in map zooming and upscaled UI layouts).

Preferring to write and share information about features that are already completed, for many years now I've subscribed more to a "deliver, then describe" methodology rather than "promise, then deliver." That said, over the years I have indeed made a handful of rather big long-term promises, promises that will come to fruition, and we're coming closer to those points in development, so I figure now is an opportune moment to remind folks what these things entail, fill in some of the blanks, and also bring plenty of newer folks up to speed, those who are not steeped in the decade-plus history of Cogmind development and community interaction :P

Let's go.

(animation by Maiker, depicting a particular special type of bot you may know about)

I started giving a general outline back during my typical annual review, the last one in December[www.gridsagegames.com] (our 10th!), but let me use this opportunity to provide a little more color on that. Of course Beta 13 already took care of the zooming and upscaling that was planned, even extending so far as to take us all the way through the final "Phase 4" stretch, but now that that's out of the way, it's time to get back to serious CONTENT. That means bigger expansions...


This expansion I technically started working on all the way back in 2022 with the extensive Scrap Engine[www.gridsagegames.com] feature which, surprise, is actually not a major part of "Scraptown" after all xD

It was developed as an experiment in semi-controlled randomization of parts to create an assortment of unique and evolving technology, first of all because it could be a fun mechanic (yep, it's neat!), but more pertinently as a potential central theme for Scraptown. It turned out to not be fully suitable, or at least doesn't meet my requirements, so it will live on in its own way as its namesake town features other new things.

As for Scraptown itself, its scope has ballooned significantly (I have a tendency to do that :P), but is now more or less set and is even more than half realized, it's just a case of going through the motions to finish the whole thing.

But I call it an "expansion" because this goes far beyond the original plan years ago of it being just one extra map you might visit to gain some benefits, and is now a whole new story arc for the world of Cogmind spanning three new maps. These maps technically including the recently-released Subcaves which tie into it in several ways, Scraptown itself, and a new late-game Research branch: Protoforge.

While maps are a fundamental unit of expansion, they imply much more since you've gotta have a good reason for those maps to exist! This expansion includes:

• a new major faction and optional alliance
  
• a new major NPC
  
• a number of brand new robot classes (new tiles!)
  
• masses of new lore and dialogue
  
• many dozens of new items, some with wild game-changing mechanics
  
• multiple new large-scale events in which to test your skills
  
• a new ending, our 10th

This is spread over two remaining versions:

• Beta 14 "United Federation of Derelicts"
  
• Beta 15 "0bPrime"

The biggest chunk is actually coming in that next Beta 14 release, in the coming months, I'd like to say June-ish? The latter version shouldn't take too long either, and while timelines tend to depend on how much other than the primary content I try to pack in along the way, at this point I'm trying to put an extra focus on pure content, especially after our significant UI detour with Beta 13. If not for months spent on zooming and upscaling we'd already have Scraptown out by now, but that was a pretty desirable, timely, and successful detour :)

Anyway, you'll also be seeing Beta 15 this year as well.

I promised this expansion would be added to the development queue once we reached 800 Steam reviews, based on the same premise as the Merchants Guild, which I write about below and actually came in an earlier announcement, but in terms of long-term development organization it's better to build this particular expansion first.


I promised the Unchained as a result of Patreon support. One could say that some funds saved from Patreon have been earmarked as what is primarily powering this particular expansion, which over time has now grown to be even more formidable than initially planned (are you sensing a trend here? :P). I continue to work on its design in the meantime, so when the time comes it will be fairly mature and I can hit the ground running with it.

Who, or what, are the Unchained...

Well, the lore-filled 2020 ARG[www.gridsagegames.com], which touched upon many of the expansion concepts for the first time (and suggests others not mentioned in this post), had this to say about the Unchained, which is still accurate:

They will become a significant overarching mechanic, albeit mainly a potential threat to players who challenge the status quo in Complex 0b10. If you prove you're not some regular Derelict by repeatedly causing more trouble across multiple maps, or even just being more problematic for the Complex in other ways, you may end up with one of these guys hunting you, and they are not your normal enemy. Almost all of them will have special abilities beyond anything possessed by current robots, including new unique AI and behaviors that will add new dimensions of challenge.

And in some cases you won't be able to simply leave a map to escape their pursuit. They don't care about "alert level," they care about finishing the job, and will eventually track you down.

But don't make too many assumptions based on the above description just yet--these encounters will be varied and challenging, but fair and balanced. Of course some players will never even see them at all. Hone your skills in the meantime to be capable of summoning the wrath of one of these ultimate crazies. Think of them as possible recurring mini-bosses of sorts.

This particular expansion is currently planned to span two versions:

• Beta 16 "Unchained"
  
• Beta 17 "Hexidium"

The first release will include a batch of these new friends to play with, and the second adds yet more unique members to their ranks while enabling you to visit their headquarters for bullets or tea. In the end there won't be just a handful of these guys--while they're powerful and you won't likely see many, or any, in a given run depending on your actions, there will be a wide variety to encounter across numerous runs, most of them adding brand new tech and mechanics.

The Unchained will definitely be worked on this year, and also hopefully completed or at least start to be released this year as well (at the very least on Patreon if they're not ready for prime time). You can already find small bits of lore about them in game--Beta 13 added more, including some that will closely tie into later Unchained-related content.

Patrons tend to be more avid players and many enjoy their punishment, or really the opportunity for extra challenges and therefore potentially even more interesting loot as well, so the Unchained seems a fitting "reward" for them ;) (and of course everyone else gets it as well, since this feature will be integral to the world and updated gameplay balance).


The original promised expansion! This one was always going to be around 1.0, so has sat on the sidelines waiting for that part of the timeline. This promise stemmed from when I said it would be really helpful if we could eventually hit an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam, which would require at least 500 reviews, and although it took us a while to reach that point, once there it has tended to hold for quite a while (maintaining that status does help sales, and therefore means more revenue to sustain development of free content since I always simply reinvest revenue into more development). While we've since occasionally lost that status, many thanks for the good periods where we've had it, and the Merchants will be at your service :D

As for what the Merchants bring to Cogmind, they are probably the most mysterious of the future factions, and for that reason likely the most misunderstood. Although you can already find a few vague references to them in the world, they will not quite be the sort of merchants you have come to expect from other roguelikes.

More specifically though, like the Unchained their addition will involve a new map, and aligning yourself with them for a different sort of run is also a distinct possibility (okay, yeah you'll be able to do that). Beyond a single primary map, their associated overarching mechanics will also likely involve other new sub-map areas, depending on the needs of their final implementation.

I still have to test out one of the potential important new gameplay mechanics I'd like them to take extensive advantage of, but there's still time to slip that in somewhere considering that I don't see development on Merchants beginning until next year (2025).


I'm not yet sure where 1.0 fits in between all these, but it's, uh... somewhere out there! It could come at any time, though seeing as each of these expansions will be integrated throughout the normal world and gameplay, and all of them have far-reaching impacts, maybe it doesn't come until after all of them are complete?

To reiterate, as is Cogmind is already a very complete experience and has been since it came to Steam in 2017,
with hundreds of hours of content for those who want to dive further and deeper. Despite the size of these future expansions, there will be no DLC or any extra charge--everything is included in the price at which you get it now, though additional support via Patreon[www.patreon.com] is very much appreciated and helps continue to expand the world with yet more options and experiences.

There technically aren't any more significant requirements left before I'd be happy to officially call Cogmind "1.0."
One of my plans in that regard, from years ago, was to at least run new experiments with alternative UI layouts before that milestone, but not only are said experiments now done, we've already got them fully implemented in Beta 13.

So in terms of regular content and features we're definitely set, although one more thing we do need before that release can happen is at least one more major batch of achievements, there being hundreds of great new possibilities related to content added since the first 256 achievements in... 2018 (!). I've got a looooong list, so maybe slip it in after Beta 15? Maybe even make it its own release, since it'll be a lot (thereby pushing back subsequent version numbers, though not adding a significant delay--the new batch could probably be completed with 2-3 weeks of dedicated work). If I did slip that in we'd have to have another batch for 1.0, related to content added in subsequent versions.

Cogmind has been out so long that the percentages shown on Steam for such achievements will be even more deceiving (remaining incredibly low... forever, even if a larger portion of the current player base gets it), but that's not meaningful compared to individual players being able to collect them and reflect another aspect of official completion. (The current percentages are already significantly distorted from reality, but Steam's system isn't designed for games that add achievements long after the initial release of the game itself.)


Those are the main expansions to bring us all the way through 2024 and a good part if not all or most of 2025.

I have several other factions and maps planned, but can't promise anything more at this point, since even what's above will take a while to complete, and I can't be sure Cogmind will be funded that far ahead, but promises are promises, so the these things will be delivered regardless!

In summary, my vision for Cogmind in 2025 is that we'll have at least three new factions and four or more new maps, all of which of course entail new mechanics and items, the core of what makes for unique new builds in Cogmind, so expect a yet greater variety of strategic possibilities.

Looking at the "little" picture instead of the big, as usual we'll also continue getting a number of isolated non-theme-specific features, many of which I know will be in high demand, including for example:

• Improved large robot behavior. These guys can be really annoying in a number of situations, but the Polymind[www.gridsagegames.com] event made some technical advances in that area which may help in upcoming endeavors to improve that. This applies to both enemies and allies.
  
• Now that we have map zooming and new UI layouts with reduced grid dimensions, there's a good chance that I'll complete and release the so-called "overmap" feature I experimented with back in 2020[www.gridsagegames.com]
  
• A way to manually replace attached parts with parts from the ground when there's no objective improvement for the automated system to make
  
• More visual indicators and/or a way to access ongoing RIF effects on individual bots

These are the sorts of things on my long list of possibilities which get moved around and picked out for development as time permits. The above are relatively important features I know I'll be working on eventually, but I have a virtually endless list of other interesting features, many of which have been inspired by conversations with or among the community on Discord, or just lower priority optional features that keep getting pushed back as more important features or necessary content are often added nearer to the beginning of The List...

The latest stats show that my current primary todo list is about 450 pages long at 150,000 words. Ha. That's just the primary one, but it is the bulk of where I organize things that could be added, except the latest big project, which is the Scraptown arc and has its own separate set of more specific design docs to explain all the finer details. (The main Scraptown design doc is nearing 20,000 words, and it's not quite finished :P)

DISCLAIMER: I can't predict that no bad unforeseen event will happen to me, as it's not like this is a big company and there are people to pick up the slack, so the general timelines given above are assuming I'm okay :P. That'd be another reason I don't like to talk too much about future timelines--life is fickle like that! Health issues have been a significant headwind for me in some previous years, but I'm very hopeful that this year will be better overall. Now off to continue kicking butt...


One more thing: Also in the news, as usual I reviewed a bunch of good 7DRLs from this year's event in order to share them with followers and provide feedback to other devs, so if you'd like some cool games to play in the meantime, you can check out my review list[www.patreon.com] including summaries, screenshots, and videos as well.


Wait a minute, yet one more thing to tack on here that happened after I drafted the above announcement: DoshDoshington has released a great video titled "Cogmind and the Future of Roguelikes." It's really nice to have someone who is more deeply familiar with Cogmind, and roguelikes in general, able to share it with a wider audience of folks that might very well include many who could also enjoy this sort of game.

While it's a good watch even for any of you already playing, I do recommend it as a faithful summary of the experience if you're looking to let others know about Cogmind and what they might like (or not like!) about it.

There are some big plot spoilers towards the end, but he'll warn you and you can stop if so inclined :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b11EA6XW3w

We have a new Beta 13 patch, this time with Modal layout QoL enhancements, and some more fixes for new issues.

If you recall, back when I planned to release the new layout feature for Beta 13, I wasn't sure if it would be feasible to also release so-called "Phase 4," the even more extreme Modal layout. While I did manage to squeeze it in under the deadline, there wasn't as much time to finalize the best possible version of it, specifically with regard to the top-center "multiconsole" area.

This past week after finishing a bunch of other Cogmind-related work, I've been able to give that area some more love and it's now gotten a redesign more suited to that layout, rather than being hacked together from what was there before :P

As a minor patch, existing Beta 13 saves/runs in progress are fully compatible.

• NEW: 6 new font options at size 16, Terminus/X11 variants and a blocky font, mainly to increase options on Steam Deck (now at 16 styles)
  
• NEW: In Modal UI layout, activating combat log a second time (F8, or LMB on button) opens new modal window (also toggled via keyboard scroll commands -/=)
  
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message about machine/terrain Armor on failing to cause damage
  
• NEW: Scoresheet "Steam" entry in Options section records separate value if using Steam Deck
  
• MOD: Neutron Missile Launcher damage reduced, consistency increased
  
• MOD: Convoy path prediction overlay changed from yellow to red
  
• MOD: Removed lower combat log detail settings, simplified to High and Max
  
• MOD: HOSTILES button moved to bottom right edge of message log window
  
• MOD: Allies/Intel/Extended log window order adjusted in top-center console, corresponding F5/F6/F7 hotkeys updated to match new order
  
• MOD: In Modal UI layout, Allies and Intel window access appear as full-size buttons
  
• MOD: Visual style of mode swap indicator for Extended Log vs Combat Log changed in Modal UI layout
  
• MOD: In Modal UI layout, once Allies/Intel modal window closed, top-center console setting automatically restored to Extended Log or Combat Log
  
• MOD: Advanced option autoOpenNewIntel explicitly not applicable under Modal UI layout
  
• FIX: Opening the new More prompt while examining an item attached to another robot could cause unexpected results [Infomantis]
  
• FIX: Sabotage intel marker for convoy interceptions may be placed inaccurately under certain conditions [ktur]
  
• FIX: Automated shifting of map view when following drone that spots hostiles or other events did not position correctly [lyra]
  
• FIX: Crash on distant overloaded Fabricator destroying self via chain reaction in nearby robot power source while simultaneously short circuiting [arkn]
  
• FIX: [Pay2Buy mode] Recycling Units could still drop backup parts on destruction [Infomantis]
  
• FIX: Pressing ESC erased active item labels and reset filter without restoring other input functions to overlapping controls until normal expiry (again)
  
• FIX: Alternative JSON/protobuffer scoresheet data format always reported zero for Corruption Blocked
  
• FIX: RMB to close full log while cursor over map area may also count as map input
  
• FIX: Some cases of UI state change might leave a button highlighted after cursor left its area

The biggest changes are noticeable in the Modal layout, in which the top menu bar better reflects the behavior in this particular mode, with ALLIES and INTEL opening as modal windows (so they get full-size buttons), and L/C being used to set which type of log appears below that area when action is playing out:

To accommodate this change, all layouts have undergone a few modifications as well, including moving the transient HOSTILES button over to the regular message log side (this makes room for another likely button to appear next to ZOOM in a future version), and reordering the top-center console buttons in general (LAIC -> AILC), meaning their F-key hotkeys have also been shifted to maintain the same order, if you're using those.

An important focus of this patch was to give users of the new Modal layout mouse access to the extended combat log history, which is now achieved by clicking on the combat log button a second time to open that in modal form as well, where it can then be scrolled via the scroll wheel normally as with the other layouts.

As usual, keyboard access (-/=) automatically opens this history as well.

Note that the lower-detail combat log settings having been removed, and renaming of the highest detail from "Full" to "Max" will mean that any folks originally using the latter will want to head into the options menu to set it again.

There are still a handful of small visual issues with the new Beta 13 interface that I haven't been able to track down or reproduce through explicit testing (including for example the possibility of the Modal layout's message log final underline not disappearing properly), but they're on the list for more observation...


After all the Beta 13 post-release work settled down, I finally had the opportunity to put together a stat analysis of player data from the previous release (Beta 12), now that the leaderboards have been reset. I posted that here[www.gridsagegames.com].

Not long after that, while the spreadsheets were hot I couldn't help also taking a preliminary look at player preferences regarding our major new interface features in Beta 13 (map zooming and upscaled UI layouts). I posted usage graphs and analysis of the figures here[www.patreon.com].


Cogmind has been technically compatible with the Steam Deck more or less since it came out, though it was marked as "Unsupported" on Steam until just this week when I contacted Valve and had them do an official review in order to change that. The new UI layout options plus zooming should make that a much better experience than it might've been before Beta 13. (Based on feedback so far that is the case.)

As part of today's patch I also added six more font options at size 16, which is the size used by the Steam Deck and some people may prefer one of the newer ones (not sure if they're better or not, since I don't have a Deck to test on and see what they look like on the actual device). Example 16/X11Caps screenshot combining map zooming with the Modal UI layout and under the Steam Deck's resolution (open full size to see proper resolution--1280x800):

Of course anyone on a smaller 720~800px display can also use these new fonts, though it's too bad the Deck has such a low resolution and isn't at least just 10 pixels taller, which would put it in range of a nice font/tile size increase across the board!

Anyway, we'll see what folks end up using, and also get a glimpse at just how many are doing that since this patch adds stats for Deck use to the scoreesheet records.


In the near-term I'll be sifting through this year's 7DRLs, now that the jam is over and there's also been a little time for devs to release post-jam fixes. I'll be sharing what I find on my Twitch channel[www.twitch.tv].

And aside from that, with our final Beta 13 patch now out, it's time to dust off the dozens of fresh items and robots I built last year to populate one of the new maps which sits empty and eagerly awaiting its new inhabitants :)