an idea for part of WX's skilltree: circuit merging :]

[fabin]

A while ago, I remember seeing a WX-78 skilltree concept made by @Armonia, and in it was a very neat concept of investing some skill points into what is essentially two circuits in one, and I thought "Damn, that's a really damn cool and interesting idea!", so I've been thinking of way to expand upon that concept in a neat way.

So... introducing, the Circuit Splice-O-Matic!

What this thingamajig would essentially do, is use all circuits plugged into its 7-slot motherboard, and combine the circuits together into one singular, space-efficient circuit!

I don't really know what it's recipe would be, but it'd definetly involve scrap and gears.

I'd envision it working mechanically like this:

Spoiler

Requirements to merge a circuit:

• Spliced circuits would derive their costs from the circuits to be merged, with scrap added as an additional material.
  • To be more in depth, it would take the combined amount of Bio-Data to make the circuits plugged, as well as 1 Scrap for each 2 sockets used. (Can't be below 1)
• Merging "stat" circuits with "effect" circuits would increase the cost to make a spliced circuit. It'd increase the Bio-Data cost by a flat 10, as well as adding one of the materials required to make the effect circuit to its recipe.
• You can't merge more than 1 circuit of the same "type". (i.e.: No merging a Hardy and Super-Hardy, or more than a singular Super-Gastrogain)
• You can't re-merge merged circuits.

Then, if you succesfully merge a circuit, you'd get one that:

• Has less pins than the total amount used to make it.
  • I'm not very good with formulas, but i'd say that the final amount would be (Total pins divided by half, then rounded down, then add 1 pin. Final result has always a minimum of 2 pins.), so that a 7 slotter, for example, would take only 4 slots.
• Has the combined effect of all circuits used.
  • I feel, as to not make stat circuits overly amazing, they'd get a -15% stat penalty. Acceleration circuits would be unaffected. 
• Has more durability than an average circuit, based on how many slots were used to make it.

 

And as to not make the artists draw 10^bajillion sprites, the programmers could come up with a way to "assemble" a circuit. Like, using two halfs of circuits sprites, coloring them based on the respective circuits merged, then combining them into one sprite, so there'd be a neat color gradient. Sorta like Walter's slingshot mods.

"MULTIPLE CIRCUITS IN ONE. MY INTELLIGENCE CONTINUES UNMATCHED"

But not all is for free. As to use the Splice-O-Matic you would need to plug it into your own circuit board, to charge it up! Charge would be indicated by the little spinning whirlygigs on the side, as long as they're spinning, you're good.

Plugging it in would cost 5 slots, essentially crippling you until if you want to use your circuits. Charging it up would take the same amount of time as gaining a charge normally, and once you're done charging the Splice-O-Matic, unplugging it wouldn't affect your charges!

And if you are really good with experimenting, you'd be rewarded with some very, very special circuits...

Spoiler

Super-Tough & Mega-Tough Circuits

Combination of all Max Stat circuits (Hardy, Processing, and Gastrogain).

• If all Super versions are used, results in the Mega-Tough circuit.

Super-Tough Circuit:

"A FLESHLING WOULD NEVER COMPARE"

• Sockets Used: 2
• Effects:
  • +75 Max Health, Sanity and Hunger.
  • Reduces damage taken by 2%.
  • Slows hunger drain by 5%.
  • Reduces negative sanity aura effects by 7%.

Mega-Tough Circuit:

 

"I WILL BE UNSTOPPABLE!!"

• Sockets Used: 3
• Effects:
  • +125 Max Health, Sanity and Hunger.
  • Reduces damage taken by 5%.
  • Slows hunger drain by 7.5%.
  • Reduces negative sanity aura effects by 15%.

Overclocker & Frigiflux Circuits

Combination of Thermal/Refrigerant Circuits with Super-Acceleration.

Overclocker Circuit:

"MECHANISMS OVERCLOCKED. READY TO DEMOLISH"

• Sockets Used: 3
• Effects:
  • Emits a heat aura but no longer fully protects from freezing.
  • Performing work actions (rowing, chopping, crafting, etc.) increases temperature:
    • Temperature rises by 0.2° > 0.7° per action (caps at 85°).
    • The hotter WX-78 is, the faster they work: +75% > +133% work speed at max heat.
    • If a work action can't be performed faster, they'll be done more efficiently, at half the work rate.
  • Overheating threshold raised to 80º.

Frigiflux Circuit:

"COME NOW FLESHLINGS, BEING FROZEN SOLID THEN SHATTERED INTO COUNTLESS PIECES DOESN'T SOUND THAT BAD"

• Sockets Used: 3
• Effects:
  • Emits a cold aura but no longer fully protects from overheating.
  • Produces ice periodically when moving:
    • Produced Ice Freshness: 10% > 25%.
    • Converts 15 wetness every 10 sec into 1-3 > 2-5 fresh ice.
  • Consuming ice lowers WX-78’s temperature instantly by 5° > 7° (this can, and will set you below the freezing point).
  • The next 5 > 7 hits apply 0.5 > 0.7 freeziness (like an ice staff).
  • Chopping, mining, and hammering embrittle objects, making them easier to break:
    • +15% > +35% efficiency per hit (caps at +50% > +100%).
  • Walk speed increases by up to 35% > 60%, depending on how cold WX-78 is.

Thermoelectrification Circuit

"THE MEATSACKS WILL BE IN FOR A SUPRISE. HA HA"

Combination of Refrigerant, Super-Hardy, and Electrification Circuits.

• Sockets Used: 4
• Effects:
  • +175 Max Health.
  • Shocks attackers for 42.5 base damage:
    • 68.25 damage when dry.
    • 113.75 damage when wet.
  • WX-78 becomes immune to stuns, and reduces knockback.
  • When hit or freezing, WX-78 gradually accumulates freeziness until becoming fully frozen.
  • While completely frozen, WX-78 is immune to damage for 3 hits. They can thaw out by simply trying to move, and cannot be frozen again for an entire minute.
  • After thawing out, if wearing armor, it becomes frozen solid, gaining:
    • Flat +250 durability.
    • +2% extra protection (additive, not multiplicative. A 80% protection armor would become 82% instead).
  • Frozen armor lasts for 2 days:
    • Cannot be frozen again until it breaks or thaws.
    • If it thaws with less than 250 durability, it breaks immediately.

Telegander Circuit

"I WILL SCAN THE WORLD!"

Combination of Opto-Electronic and Processing Circuits.

• Sockets Used: 2
• Effects:
  • Increases vision range (like the Horizon Expandinator) and map discovery range by 50% > 63 > 75%.
  • Gives a new right-click ability: "Gander":
    • Allows WX-78 to gander far, far ahead in a chosen direction:
      • Half a screen > One screen > One screen and a half away.
    • Cannot move while gandering.
  • Costs Sanity: -40/min > -60/min > -80/min while in use.

Gastrovault Circuit

"I CANNOT BE SATED"

Combination of Super-Gastrogain and Beanbooster Circuits.

• Sockets Used: 3
• Effects:
  • +250 Max Hunger and +50 Max Sanity.
  • Reduces hunger drain by 50% > 60%.
  • Can eat monster and raw meat with no penalties.
  • Negative food effects are reduced by half > gone completely.
  • Food restores 10% > 20% more health and sanity.

Dronemaster Circuit

"PUTS FLESHSACKS IN THE RIGHT PLACE. WORKING FOR ME AS A LOWLY MINION"

Combination of Chorusbox and Beanbooster Circuits.

• Sockets Used: 6
• Effects:
  • +250 Max Sanity and regenerates +9 sanity/min
  • Critters are no longer afraid of WX-78.
  • Hostile creatures are less likely to target WX-78.
  • Nearby creatures that can be followers instantly become loyal to you (up to 2 at a time).
  • Followers:
    • Follow WX-78 3x longer.
    • Gain a 20% damage reduction.
    • If they can perform work, they perform it 2 times as fast.
    • Beefalos tame 25% faster when ridden.
  • Sanity:
    • Each follower (not counting the first 2) reduces passive sanity gain by a flat -3/min.
    • When insane:
      • Max nightmare creatures increases to 5.
      • Passive sanity gain drops to 0.

Brightband Circuit

"THE FILTHY POOP CREATURE IS EVEN MORE OBSOLETE NOW. HA HA"

Combination of Chorusbox and Illumination Circuits.

• Sockets Used: 4
• Effects:
  • +50 Max Sanity.
  • Light radius scales with sanity. Initially, it's reduced by 50%, but can increase up to 50% bigger than 2 Plugged Illumination Circuits.
  • Tends to plants faster than Chorusbox, and from a bigger distance.
  • If lit by WX-78, plants continue growing, and continue growing for 2 minutes after being out of the radius.

Although, to make these fun, I'd make some basekit changes to WX-78, being:

• Circuit Extractor opens a "wheel", letting you chose which circuit to remove, to be in line with more recent skill tree changes.
• Being struck by lightning recharges you back to full. (Come on, why does a LIGHTNING STRIKE charge the same as a dinky generator?)
• Charged Lightning Rods recharge 2 energy.
• Circuits have 12 durability. Dying uses 4 circuit durability. (I know changing circuit durability might make it seem broken, but realistically, when do you ever change circuits? Increasing the durability would not only enable hot-swapping, but also increase people's willingness to try out different circuits, without removing the vanilla WX feel.)
• Right-clicking Jimmy automatically deploys him, instead of having to place him on the ground.
• Jimmy has a sliiighly bigger scanning radius. (I feel the scanning radius is just a bit small, increasing it by like, an itsy-bitsy bit would be really cool.)

And that's it, if you wanna, you can tell me how you feel about these thingies. :]

[Armonia]

Oh this is Fantastic. Certainly more in-depth than mine, though I much prefer this. Secret special circuit merges are great, encouraging experimenting with wacky combos. I'd also like to see the 6-pin circuit base used for something that doesn't get immediately outclassed. Also love (any form of) circuits having downsides, makes them more unique and risk-reward.

I could modify my skilltree a bit, reverting my merges to make this a skill of its own,,,
Lock requires 3 circuit skills, but merged circuits don't have their buffs granted by the, well, circuit buffs. This makes them still viable to be used non-merged, resulting in more variety in one's circuit slots.

I'd hope this makes it to the skilltree, but could also work as a mod,,,

[Pruinae]

5 hours ago, fabin said:

Gastrovault Circuit

 

• Increases max hunger to 200 and max sanity to 50.

Reduces max sanity to 50? or increases it by 50?

Love the visuals provided, I like the motherboard idea.

We really need something that lets us choose which exact circuit we want to remove, your wheel idea is great. I am personally of the mind that they could do away with the circuit durability entirely, or add a way to repair them.

[rain grass]

cool

[Jakepeng99]

I dont really like it to be honest. It feels like it just limits WX circuits even more by making them even less switchable. 

[EerieEra]

The idea of circuit merging and new abilities from such is great, but I'm not to sure on these circuits and their downsides.
Ex.: While low-tier thermo circuits make sense to not protect from Freezing/Overheating, advanced and fused thermo circuits should. Overclocking Circuit could be a separate single circuit that could fuse into the thermo circuits to fend off overclock damage.
The Gander Circuit as a base doesn't need sanity penalty, that makes more sense for an upgraded Gander that can scan for shadow/lunar activity. Though there could also be upgrades to Jimmy to see through and pilot him, scanning for things, while waiting at base - the connection possibly burning fuel a bit faster due to using two machines.
I hope either an advanced circuit or new power upgrade expands upon his lightning capabilities - allowing him to store and discharge electric attacks.

 

[fabin]

3 hours ago, Pruinae said:

Reduces max sanity to 50? or increases it by 50?

oops, meant it to be +250 hunger and +50 sanity

 

3 hours ago, Pruinae said:

I am personally of the mind that they could do away with the circuit durability entirely, or add a way to repair them.

yea, circuit durability is kinda weird to balance. i'd be fine one of those changes, just something to make them not so "rare"

 

2 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

It feels like it just limits WX circuits even more by making them even less switchable. 

ehhh, i dunno. there'd certainly be new circuit ""metas"", but that's not inherently a bad thing. using the unmerged circuits straight up would be better than merged ones most of the time, unless you want to fill in a niche, which the special merged circuits do. there just needs to be more incentive to experiment

 

2 hours ago, EerieEra said:

I hope either an advanced circuit or new power upgrade expands upon his lightning capabilities - allowing him to store and discharge electric attacks.

i was thinking of a circuit concept that was just that, but i couldn't find a fitting niche for the circuit. i feel like straight up electric damage just isn't WX's combat style, though. most of the time, their combat prowess just comes as a bonus from other circuits, like easier dodging from the extra speed, or more tanking dps from shocking circuits. maybe just adding the old SYSTEM OVERLOAD as a circuit combo would be neat, with some extra flair

good ideas also

[Armonia]

Thinking of new merges is kinda fun.

Speed + Illumination - Overload Circuit

• 3 slots
• Has both of the effects of the components, though weakly.
• Allows the charge meter to overflow up to double the charge (meter becomes blue). Overflow charge passively decays and can't be gotten passively, only from external sources (lighting (rod), generators, eating doodads)
• While overflow is active, speed and light gained are boosted for 35% > 70% speed and light from lantern to slightly lesser star. But also inflicts a minor sanity drain.

Thermal + Illumination - Furnace Circuit

• 4 slots
• Has both of the effects of the components.
• Heat emitted is greatly increased in potency and range.
• Can right click dropped items to cook or turn them to ash/charcoal.

Thermal + Electrocution - Flamelash Circuit

• 3 slots
• Has both of the effects of the components.
• Getting hit deals standard electric damage and sets the attacker on fire (with safe fire, like Willow's).
• Scalemail and second circuit increase fire damage and duration.

Optoelectronic + Super Processing - Hunter Circuit

• 4 slots
• Has faint night vision and 75 extra sanity, but no passive sanity gain.
• Makes mobs less likely to target WX. Standing still for a second triggers the bush hat effect, further decreasing aggro.
• Mobs killed drop more/bigger meat and are more likely to drop chance-based drops (horns, tusks)

Speed + Super Gastrogain - Desperation Circuit

• 3 slots
• Has both of the effects of the components, though altered:
• At higher hunger, the speed boost is lesser, but hunger drain is slower, best over 90%.
• At lower hunger, speed boost is considerably above average, but hunger drain is increased, the most below 10% hunger.

[loopuleasa]

WX's kit has so many things sometimes I have to do a double take to remember he does NOT have a skill tree

[Armonia]

Oh what if same stat circuits could be merged, into brand new circuits that then could also be merged into other stuff. Like three super hardy into one that just gives damage reduction instead of health, or super processing into one that gives bonus damage at high sanity (like modded Woodrow) at the cost of a small passive sanity drain.

[fabin]

7 hours ago, Armonia said:

Oh what if same stat circuits could be merged, into brand new circuits that then could also be merged into other stuff. Like three super hardy into one that just gives damage reduction instead of health, or super processing into one that gives bonus damage at high sanity (like modded Woodrow) at the cost of a small passive sanity drain.

oooh i dunno about re-merging already merged circuits. i don't expect this stuff to be easy to implement already, so re-merging is off the table i think, although i kinda like the "mega" circuits ideas. could be neat to have a 3/4 slot version of 2 slotters that hyper specialize, like a lightspeed circuit made with 3 super-accelerations that let's you slowly build-up momentum over time, at the cost of you being more vulnerable at higher speeds, sonething like that

[fabin]

added some circuit textures and made some little changes here and there :]