My concept for a full WX-78 update

[Viktor234]

New content is about to come and some users are discussing about the incoming character updates. So I took myself a few days to generate some ideas for a fully WX-78 update, which will allow them to customize their statistics and make them less sort of a gear eater/waster at the cost of loosing their ability to turn gears into health, hunger and sanity.

 

New Abilities, almost same as before:

• Not a picky eater
• Charged by lightning, damaged by water
• Can upgrade with modules

WX-78 starts again with only 100 Health, Hunger, and Sanity (or 120, because x78 stands for 120) but also with 1x Gears in their inventory to allow them getting at least one module early on.

Modules:

Modules are the new Gears which replace WX-78 upgrade ability. Unlike gears, modules do not restore any of WX-78 statistics but still improve their statistics.
WX-78 can upgrade themself 6-8 times till they start refusing further upgrades: "MY BODY IS FULL.", "I CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE BYTE."
An upgraded WX-78 keeps their upgrades until they die or if they use a hammer on themself to smack the last consumed module or a random one out of their body.

A module is made out of:

1. 1x Gears
2. A mob which needs to be collected alive
   • Trap: Rabbit
   • Bird Trap: Crow, Red Bird, Snow Bird, Canary
   • Bug Net: Bee, Killer Bee, Mosquito, Fireflies
   • Fishing Pole: Fish, Eel
   • Shovel/Hammer: Moleworm
3. The remains of a common creature (Pigman, Hound, Bunnyman, ???)

To give players another chance to regain the used gears, modules can be hammered to return (only) the used gear. While doing so, the mob will die and drop a soul.
Each module they consume increases their max sanity, and once they reach their max amount of consumable modules, they'll have a max sanity of xff (= 255), up from x64 or x78. That will also act like an indicator for the number of consumed modules.

Available Modules:

• Maintenance Battery (The hard shell (of the egg) will keep you safe):
  • Recipe: 1x Gears, 1x Redbird (or Crow/Moleworm), 1x Electrical Doodad (or 4x Spider Glands, but WX-78 already needs to kill spiders for silk to get the bird)
  • +50 Max Health
• Chemical Processor (A cleaner fish for your stomach):
  • Recipe: 1x Gears, 1x Fish, 1x Pig Skin
  • +50 Max Hunger, reduces food penalties by 25-33% (stacks additively with other modules of the same kind)
    • Eating too many of these won't allow you to gain health or sanity from food which reduces your health or sanity, but you'll be able to restore your hunger by food which increases your hunger instead. And since rot is the only food with that attribute, you'll become able to restore your hunger with rot.
• Terminator Drones (Hit them harder & way more painful):
  • Recipe: 1x Gears, 1x Bee, 2x Hounds Tooth
  • +10-16.6% Damage (stacks additively with other modules of the same kind)
• Running Gear (A motor operated from a hamster wheel):
  • Recipe: 1x Gears, 1x Rabbit, 1x Bunny Puff
  • +10% Speed (stacks additively with other modules of the same kind)

More Ideas:

• Shocky Shield (This power plug points to the predators):
  • Recipe: 1x Gears, 1x Eel, 1x Frazzling Wires
  • Works almost same as in The Forge: Being hit by any source triggers an area of effect attack dealing 20-50 electrical damage to any nearby mob, stunning them for short. Has a cooldown of 5-10 seconds. Other modules of the same kind do increase the damage output.
  • Works even if WX-78 is wet, deals more damage if the predator is wet.
  • Should trigger automatically if WX-78 is wet?

 

Spoiler

Ideas for first/last Name for the Modules: (Module), Engine, Processor, Accessory, Box, Unit, Battery, Shield, Wheel, Gear

Hunger:

I remember some games when I played as Wigfrid or as Webber.

Wigfrid has only 120 max Hunger and is forced to eat meat based foods. Wigfrid's hunger penalties aren't bad but annoying, due to your low hunger value, you're forced to eat every now and then and you need to wait till your hunger drops down to a certain value till you can eat the food while also getting 100% of the stats of the meal. Thus being said: You shouldn't eat when you ate recently but as soon as you get hungry again, you need to eat something or else you'll starve. Wigfrid also can't rely on smaller meals like carrots, berries, honey, etc. and consuming meat without preparing it in a Crock Pot is ineffective because you won't be able to mix it with fruits/veggies and eating Monster Meat reduces your other stats by 10-50%.

Webber, on the other hand, can gather Monster Meat with no effort: Just feed a spider and tell him to attack a spider coming from another den. Your max hunger is higher than the biggest meal ingame so you don't need to wait till you starve, and Monster Meat can be consumed without penalties, even if uncooked.

According to these facts, it might be necessary to give WX-78 a module which allows him to increase the size of his stomach, but once you reach 150-200 hunger, there will be no point in increasing it even further, especially because WX-78 is able to consume spoiling food without penalties.

• Modules should drain WX-78 hunger a bit so he'll be forced to increase his stomach or to keep some food in his inventory, else the animals in his body will starve
• Reduce the penalties granted from different kinds of food
• Reduce the Hunger loss by 5-10% for every hunger module

Sanity:

Being insane is not as bad as it looks like, also having too much sanity might be bad for WX-78 cause they'll need more food or time to get their sanity back to a point where nightmares stop attacking them. It's hard to manage your sanity if you have low max sanity (Sanity drops quickly to 0) but it's also hard to manage it if you have high max sanity (100 Sanity -> 1x Taffy is enough to become sane; 400 Sanity -> 4x Taffy needed). So: Who's going to waste their modules for sanity?

Possible Solutions:

• Remove the Sanity Battery and give them +16.66 Max Sanity for each upgrade they become
• Add a way to refresh his sanity easier (increase the sanity gain from food & other sources by max sanity / old max sanity or give them a sanity/min similar to Maxwell)
• Leave it as it is

Ideas for other modules:

• Overcharge Battery: +50% Overcharge delay
• Vision Module: If you enter darkness, you'll start shining like if overcharged at the cost of hunger.
• Collection Module: Collect Berries etc. faster & chop/mine faster
• Physical Shield: 10% of damage taken is turned into hunger (calculated after armor)
• Thermal Shield (Koalefant Tunk): +60 Insulation for Winter & Summer (+ reduced damage by fire (Fire Hounds, Dragonfly, Klaus) and more resistance against freezing (Winter Hounds, Deerclops, Klaus))
• Aqua Shield (Fish / Eel / Tentace Spots): +40% resistance against wetness
• Spiky Shield (10x Stinger / 3x Bees): Reflects 17 (Walking Cane) damage back to the attacker

Overcharge:

Being overcharged won't grant WX-78 a speed boost anymore, but it will still make them act like a Light Source while also increasing the effect of their consumed modules by 25-50%: WX-78 will be able to get more health, more hunger, more sanity, more damage, more speed than they can get from Modules and become stronger than a Wolfgang on a full stomach, but only if overcharged.

Cons:

• Low Starting Stats: WX-78 starts with only 100 Health, 100 Hunger, 100 Sanity. WX-78 needs to decide if they want to use their upgrade slots to get good stats or to improve their abilities.
  • Thanks to WX-78's ability to eat spoiled food without penalties, they'll be able keep food longer in their inventory and evade this con a bit.
• Advanced Short Circuit: Wetness still drains health over time but also reduce the effect of WX-78 modules. At 100% Wetness, a fully upgraded WX-78 act same as a WX-78 without any modules at all.
  • Having your health stats fully upgraded and drying up shouldn't raise your health from 100 to max health but rather stay at 100.
  • This con has been designed to balance PvP a bit: WX-78 will be forced to wear water resistant clothes, otherwise players will become able to disable their modules by throwing Water Balloons on them (Freezing them with an Ice Staff will help).

Alternative Cons:

• Incurable Skin: WX-78 isn't able to heal themself with Spider Glands, Healing Salve or Honey Poultice.
  • That disadvantage is avoidable because WX-78 is able to consume spoiled food without penalties, allowing them to keep healing items for longer.
• Hungry Version: Every consumed module will increase their hunger drain a bit, which could force them to upgrade their hunger statistic.
  • Health/Damage Module: +5-10% Hunger; Speed Module: +5-10% Hunger (only if moving)
  • On the other hand: That will make WX-78 too similar with Wolfgang and some players won't like it if a WX-78 keeps using all the gears in the base for their modules and all the food to refuel their upgrades.
    • Wortox has also hunger problems, but he's able to eat souls instead; WX-78 could act like a trash can and rely on spoiled foods.

Ideas for modders:

Spoiler

A mod which allows you to configurate the number of modules you can eat.

Character based modules: Ability to get a BERNIE!, to get an Abigail, to read books, to blow up balloons, to use the Codex Umbra, to get health & sanity from mobs, to not be attacked from spiders & allow controlling them with meat, [to be able collect & use souls (10 Souls per module), to plant seeds](- that might not be allowed because these are DLC-based abilities.)

 

I would like to hear your opinions and perhaps some ideas or suggestions for this concept.

[Mencken]

Dang, you put a lot of thought into this.   Honestly, these are all good ideas, very creative!   Hard to pick a favorite but the shocker shield has real entertainment value as well.

[Axelocke]

Genius, brilliant!

This would allow WX-78 to be a character with a plethora of different playstyles depending on the modules chosen! I applaud your immense creativity.  

[GrandTardigrade]

Thank you, that's really great! I'm glad to see a post this creative... I was thinking something similar to this, but I was too lazy to write it down, and I didn't have any good nerf ideas (let's be honest, all of my WX ideas are trash compared to this). There is some of my ideas (generally based on this topic):

Some other module ideas: 

  Flashlight:

• Crafting: 1x Gears, 1x Fireflies, 1x Moon Rock
• When WX-78 turns on the flashlight, they get a medium/large light radius for a short time (1-2 minutes). WX-78 can turn it off manually. Just like system overload, the size of the light radius will decrease before the end. Once turned off, it can be activated again after 5-8 minutes. If WX-78 is wet, Flashlight has a small chance to turn off in every second.

  Fiery Gadget:

• Crafting: 1x Gears, 1x Redbird, 1x Red Gem
• Fiery Gadget gives a permanent 20% chance to ignite the mob that hit WX-78, or got hit by WX-78 in melee combat. This doesn't work in rain.

Installing items:

  WX-78 can install items into their body. Only one item can be installed at the same time, and installed items will lose durability twice as fast as normal. Items with infinite durability (Walking Cane, Backpack, etc.) will break in 10 days. Items that use freshness instead of durability (Ham Bat, Funcap, etc.) cannot be installed. Each install will cost an Electrical Doodad/Frazzled Wires+10 HP. The installed item can be removed, but it will cause WX-78 to lose 30 HP and the item to lose 10% durability. When an installed item breaks, WX-78 will lose 10 HP. If a mob is touching WX-78 when the installed item breaks (the item was weapon or armor), the mob will get shocked. If the break happens in rain, everyone will get shocked in a small radius. If WX-78 has a weapon installed and another weapon in their hand, the one with the higher damage will damage the attacked mob, but both will lose durability. If WX-78 has an item that increases inventory size installed and another inventory-increasing item in the body slot, the larger one will prevail, even if the smaller one is Insulated Pack. Installed refuelable items cannot be refueled while installed. When a durability of an installed item reaches 0%, it instantly perishes, even if it was a Lantern, Walking Cane, Krampus Sack, etc.

 

+WX-78 cannot abandon boats.

[Maxposting]

10 hours ago, GrandTardigrade said:

Installing items:

  WX-78 can install items into their body. Only one item can be installed at the same time, and installed items will lose durability twice as fast as normal. Items with infinite durability (Walking Cane, Backpack, etc.) will break in 10 days. Items that use freshness instead of durability (Ham Bat, Funcap, etc.) cannot be installed. Each install will cost an Electrical Doodad/Frazzled Wires+10 HP. The installed item can be removed, but it will cause WX-78 to lose 30 HP and the item to lose 10% durability. When an installed item breaks, WX-78 will lose 10 HP. If a mob is touching WX-78 when the installed item breaks (the item was weapon or armor), the mob will get shocked. If the break happens in rain, everyone will get shocked in a small radius. If WX-78 has a weapon installed and another weapon in their hand, the one with the higher damage will damage the attacked mob, but both will lose durability. If WX-78 has an item that increases inventory size installed and another inventory-increasing item in the body slot, the larger one will prevail, even if the smaller one is Insulated Pack. Installed refuelable items cannot be refueled while installed. When a durability of an installed item reaches 0%, it instantly perishes, even if it was a Lantern, Walking Cane, Krampus Sack, etc.

Everything here but this doesn't sit with me

[Viktor234]

@GrandTardigrade: Thanks for your reply & your suggestions, I took a look at them but from my point of view, they don't fit that good into WX-78's update.

12 hours ago, GrandTardigrade said:

Some other module ideas: 

  Flashlight:

• [...]

  Fiery Gadget:

• [...]

I thought about the Flashlight idea too, but I'm not convinced of it yet. Adding a hidden button will make it ununderstandable for players, there should be either a button in the layout or it should work automatically. But then it will be a 'Take it only once but no more' module, because all you need is to see the enemies & to keep Charlie away from you, it completely replaces Glow Berries. It might also be too strong in the ruins: You'll be able to fight without using a Lantern or a Miner Hat. The Flashlight should stay as an Overcharge perk.

The Fiery Gadget feels more like a griefing tool & pretty useless. Burning enemies drop nothing but ashes & cooked foods and will make your environment burn too, base included. But besides that: A burning enemy next to you will deal more damage to you than the fire deals to him. You can't kill a bird by using a Fire Staff on it once, but burning yourself or standing directly above a burning item will deal some damage.

13 hours ago, GrandTardigrade said:

Installing items:

[...]

It's way too hard to understand, players would keep complaining about their Walking Cane disappearing and I don't think WX-78 needs that many perks, it won't fit to his pro/con-list at the character select screen. So that's just a clear no.

13 hours ago, GrandTardigrade said:

+WX-78 cannot abandon boats.

Abandoning boats should give more drawbacks for everyone, not only WX-78. Right now it's just a free tp to the Spawn

[ShadowDuelist]

These are great Ideas, here are my 2 cents:

- Upgrades of the same type should not stack their values, each upgrade should be unique and provide its own benefit at full power, you should not be able to get the same upgrade again if you already have one of that kind. 

- Wx should have the possibility to make 10 or 15 different upgrades, but only use 5 or 6 at any given time. This will make picking which ones you install, and what effects you combine, a real tactical "rpg-ish" choice. No 2 Wx's in a server will necesarily have the same perks/cons, and that would be awesome design wise.

- I really like the idea that his con should be not be able to heal with glands, poultice or salves, that actually fits both the fact that he is a robot and his perk of being able to eat healing food and get full effect even when its very spoiled. This is brilliant and should have been there from the start.

- I don't think he should be able to install items inside of him either. If the module system is well thought out, you can get whatever effect you want from them. Also each module you add should add a tiny con to compensate, making combining them even more fun to think through, and different builds for different playstyles could be created. EG: a module that adds 4 slots to his basic inventory but makes you 5% slower. A module that makes you permanently 10% faster but with 20% more hunger rate. A module that makes each lightning charge effect last 100% more, but makes you take damage each time you are hit by lightning instead of healing you. A module that gives him a permanent water insulation of 30%, but makes him take more water damage each tick. Etc.

- Installing modules should still provide his stats increase as it does now with gears (max health, hunger and sanity) regardless of which module was added. His max stats should probably be lower than the ones he has now though.

- Upon death you will drop all the modules installed next to your dead body, except one (random which one you loose). EG: If you only had one installed, you drop none, If you had 6 installed you drop 5. This will make playing Wx less grindy, and painful. He already has cons.

- I like the idea that people can hammer the gear out of already made modules

- Hammering yourself to remove a gear and install another one should have a strong penalty, maybe stunted max health each time you remove one (like when you are revived by telltale hearts), healable by booster shots only.

[b_legend]

Sound like the hammering thing could come with some griefing capabilities. I can totally see Wortox just straight up repeatedly hammering WX for souls and gears. Also, I want to see that animation of hammering yourself xD

[Viktor234]

Thanks for your feedback @ShadowDuelist

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

These are great Ideas, here are my 2 cents:

• [...]

+1 to your idea to make him choose x out of y available modules without duplicates.

Since it won't be easy and perhaps not really worth the effort to make the developers implement y different modules (plan everything, make an exclusive name, different graphics, >12 quotes per module, etc.), WX-78 would directly consume the modules they're crafting and mark the already available modules with the "science machine required"-lock, till they get their max number of modules. On their death, they'll drop as many souls as they consumed modules together with all the used gears or 'all the used gears - 1', forcing them to gather the ingredients again (or just rollback the world).

The fact, that WX-78 starts with the lowest stats and requires gears to craft their modules are already nice cons, and upgrading their health & hunger will reduce the amount of upgrades they can get. If it's not enough then they should gain an hunger increasement whenever they consume modules to force them to improve their hunger.

About gaining stats when consuming modules: Dunno about that, I'd like to force the players to choose between good statistics and good abilities, but since sanity is a statistic which might be not worth it to upgrade (consumes slots, makes it harder to get sane again), I'd say that WX-78 sould only gain more max sanity when gaining upgrades.

The idea to make WX-78 able to hammer themself is more like only an emergency solution from me to allow them returning their modules without forcing them to die and revive themself. Another way would be sort of an "emergency virus" they can craft & consume to make them drop all of their modules. Other players have ways to swap from one form to the other one (Wolfgang: Fill your belly; Willow: Get Sane/Insane; Woodie: Chop/Gnaw).

1 hour ago, b_legend said:

Sound like the hammering thing could come with some griefing capabilities. I can totally see Wortox just straight up repeatedly hammering WX for souls and gears. Also, I want to see that animation of hammering yourself xD

You can't feed Monster Meat to other players.
You can't use a Telelocator Staff on other players (except in PvP).
You can't stunlock a Wigfrid by feeding her vegetables.
And you won't be able to hammer WX-78 directly, WX-78 needs to hammer themself to reset his modules.

[ShadowDuelist]

31 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

About gaining stats when consuming modules: Dunno about that, I'd like to force the players to choose between good statistics and good abilities, but since sanity is a statistic which might be not worth it to upgrade (consumes slots, makes it harder to get sane again), I'd say that WX-78 sould only gain more max sanity when gaining upgrades.

I understand completely, and I guess it is debatable. My idea to add increased stats with each module is mostly to please the people that are WX mains, or that are very used to the current way WX works, so they feel less "cheated" about such a big change on their tin boi. Giving them what they are used to get by upgrading themselves, plus new perks, will feel less alien to them than getting just new perks and not higher stats.

That was my train on thought, mostly to prevent some people saying "OMG RUINED" 

[Maxposting]

I think there should be 10 or 15 modules but only 5 are applicable;

Booster Module

Adds 60+ maximum to every stat ( ends up 400 if you apply 5 ) but makes WX get 0.1 more slower ( half the normal speed if you are topped )

Anti-freeze Module; Exclusive to Cooler Module

Gives extra 0.2* ( the basic value multiplied by 1.2 ) insulation multiplier ( ends up doubling the insulation when 5 added ) but consumes 0.1 more hunger

Cooler Module; Exclusive to Anti-freeze

Grants 10% imunity to overheating ( 50% immunity when 5 modules ) but consumes 2 sanity per minute

Shocker Module

Similiarly to Forge; It grants a stackable 10% ( 50% if topped ) chance to deal 30-70 damage with 15 second cooldown but damages WX by 10% of the current Shock's damage

Speed Module; Shutdowns and deals damage to WX if WX gets overcharged

Grants stackable 0.5 speed multiplier ( 3.5 speed ) but drains 0.2 more hunger ( 2x drain multiplier when topped )

heres a quick concept art I made

These could be the Modules as a item