I Think W.A.R.B.O.T.'s Missile Attack Is Just Badly Designed

[Captain_Rage]

Thanks. I keep preparing for the battle using a Scaled Furnace on a boat to keep Thermal Stones heated as well as Fire Balls in different locations but no dice. The missiles keep overwhelming me. :v Guess I will need to practice more once I get the time.

[Cruvimaster]

I received this comment in one of my videos, but I didn't test:

[_zwb]

How am I supposed to know it is heat-seeking missile anyways?

[Wawchik]

20 minutes ago, _zwb said:

How am I supposed to know it is heat-seeking missile anyways?

That's not an early game boss, you probably already know what it does if you got to that stage of the game let's be real 

[_zwb]

1 minute ago, Wawchik said:

That's not an early game boss, you probably already know what it does if you got to that stage of the game let's be real 

The assumption that players check guides before trying anything is quite sad.

[Wawchik]

9 hours ago, _zwb said:

The assumption that players check guides before trying anything is quite sad.

But that's just how dst works, how many hours would it take to reach CC without guides? I'm not saying that's a good thing obviously

Edited June 15, 2025 by Wawchik

[Lisgen]

17 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

导弹对我来说是一个很容易解决的问题。但是，如果这个实用程序的开发人员在下面为此而努力，那就太棒了。

    The point of this discussion isn't whether the missile attack is easy to deal with. As I mentioned before, I never said anything about "resource hoarding" or that the missile design is too hard to counter. At this stage of the game, things like dwarf stars and thermal stones are definitely affordable. The issue is that it feels like a pointless waste of resources. It's a simple mechanic to handle, but it's also poorly designed. There’s barely any sense of interaction—it's like the player and the boss are fighting in parallel, not really engaging with each other. A classic example of this lack of interaction would be the old Crab King fight.

    Overall, a lot of the design choices since the Rifts update have been pretty bad. It feels like being constantly swarmed by endlessly respawning mosquitoes—annoying, exhausting, and never really satisfying to deal with.

 

 

17 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

我在我的一个视频中收到了这条评论，但我没有测试：

沃尔特的弱点与他的独特优势相平衡，因此从逻辑上讲，如果他更容易应对导弹攻击，这实际上是有道理的。

Edited June 15, 2025 by Lisgen

[cybers2001]

How do missiles affect Winona generators? It seems items with durability just lose a chunk of it per hit, like thermal stones, so do they just make generators lose fuel, or do they actually blow them up? What about sharded gemerators?

[Cruvimaster]

10 hours ago, _zwb said:

The assumption that players check guides before trying anything is quite sad.

No one would discover the existence of Ancient Fuelweaver without a guide / without looking at the game's codes. And about boss research, it's what happens most in games. People research builds on difficult Soulslike bosses, for example.

[_zwb]

1 minute ago, Cruvimaster said:

No one would discover the existence of Ancient Fuelweaver without a guide / without looking at the game's codes.

yeah, isn't that bad?

[Cruvimaster]

31 minutes ago, _zwb said:

yeah, isn't that bad?

That's the structure of the game, but you can spend more than 100 hours playing without knowing anything. And 100 hours is too much for most other styles of play. Games with more than 35 hours are bad for many people.

And since it's a "together" game, it must certainly be fun for more experienced players to exchange knowledge with newer ones. At least in theory.

[hoxi]

56 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

How do missiles affect Winona generators? It seems items with durability just lose a chunk of it per hit, like thermal stones, so do they just make generators lose fuel, or do they actually blow them up? What about sharded gemerators?

Both generators have the hammer working action (which the missiles are capable of), so they'd get instantly destroyed.

Edited June 15, 2025 by hoxi

[IAmAFurrz]

whoever thinks key and lock design is good and hides behind 'you have to die to learn it' is insane. knowing that doesnt make it engaging. end of story

lowering your body temp matters not cuz you still need to heat up thermals, hurraaaayyyy fun and engaging right there to just spam 100000000 thermal stones

[SilverSpoon]

13 hours ago, _zwb said:

How am I supposed to know it is heat-seeking missile anyways?

Wagstaff used to have Infroggles. But having that effect full screen would make us all die of seizure.

So I suggest of a ring-like heat seeking effect that radiates from the WARBOT, or there is heat seeking effect around sonar-like rotating line. The deadly "Ping" sound is optional.

Edited June 15, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[GrapeVruit]

4 hours ago, IAmAFurrz said:

whoever thinks key and lock design is good and hides behind 'you have to die to learn it' is insane. knowing that doesnt make it engaging. end of story

lowering your body temp matters not cuz you still need to heat up thermals, hurraaaayyyy fun and engaging right there to just spam 100000000 thermal stones

Had a feeling most wouldn't like this attack when it came to the main branch, myself included. Even if you have the resources to make all that crap, it's still not a fun mechanic to interact with, which is something that you would want in an endgame boss, for it to be fun. Surely they could think of a clever solution to the problem instead of just spamming a bunch of items over and over? 

[Echsrick]

10 hours ago, Wawchik said:

But that's just how dst works, how many hours would it take to reach CC without guides? I'm not saying that's a good thing obviously

then why support it?

[hoxi]

17 hours ago, milsonmeow said:

So basically those missiles have both the haunt (aka extinguishing dwarf stars) AND hammer mechanics?????? Wow, no wonder those suck so bad.

More so these:

local AOE_WORK_ACTIONS =
{
	CHOP = true,
	HAMMER = true,
	MINE = true,
	DIG = true,
}

And they have some specific checks to handle dwarf stars, thermal stones, and perishable heaters (sun fish), then they check for workable, or pickable, or combat more generically.

 

13 hours ago, GrapeVruit said:

Had a feeling most wouldn't like this attack when it came to the main branch, myself included. Even if you have the resources to make all that crap, it's still not a fun mechanic to interact with, which is something that you would want in an endgame boss, for it to be fun. Surely they could think of a clever solution to the problem instead of just spamming a bunch of items over and over? 

I think there's a ways to improve upon it, some like:

• Fix all the bugs related to the heat-seeking mechanics (there's a bunch still).
• Address the inconsistencies in the temperature calculations (Winona's generators, or smoldering entities that don't have a heater or temperature component, both use ambient temperature + 10 or 5, respectively, meaning they're reliable across all seasons except Winter, where it makes sense that they're not, when ambient temps are below 0).
• Allow players below 0 degrees (or lower if ambient temperature is below it, since winter tends to make other exothermics be targeted much more easily anyway) to be skipped. This means they need to take freezing damage over time to hide from it, but the most reliable way to do it outside of winter is to use a Chill Amulet, which I've seen people wanting it to have an use here (it does have an use, but it could go the extra mile if the player commits). Having one would mean you can't use armor in the body slot, its durability drains kinda fast, and you're taking freezing damage.
• To add to the point above: WX-78 gets to hide completely just by having the refrigeration feature from Refrigerant Circuits active, as endothermic heater entities are skipped completely. This should be kept I feel, but it'd be nice to allow any player character to do the same with some commitment. Also in case people don't know, Warbot won't even use the attack if there's no valid targets around. There's also a bug I already reported (don't get used to it) with WX-78 being counted as endothermic at any point (without either module equipped) as long as world temperature is above 0.
• Lastly, to solve the issue of how to get any sort of clue about the heat-seeking mechanic. Have Wagstaff warn you about it at some point in the fight (he made Warbot, he knows it has heat-seeking missiles). He literally pops up for the Celestial Scion to warn you that extended exposure will accelerate entropy, and that you should subdue the entity quickly. It's vague enough but it sorta tells you that time is of the essence for that phase of the fight (positioning matters more, but it's still an accurate warning as you will eventually have no safe place to stand on).
• In exchange for all this, the detection range of the missiles could be increased. It's currently 18, which is, rather small and even limiting sometimes as things you're using to deviate the missiles might not be detected depending on where Warbot is (it's evaluated from Warbot, not the missiles themselves). Alternatively, check around targeted characters (or just players) for nearby heat sources so they don't get hit next to a burning tree or so that happens to barely be out of range from Warbot.

Edited June 16, 2025 by hoxi

[hoxi]

15 minutes ago, milsonmeow said:

I think that 'temperature check' range was well, absurd. What do you mean it's 18 wall tiles?????? That's almost as big as an Above Average Tree area protection, which is 22 wall tiles?????? Even BQ range from the hive before despawning was about 15 wall tiles, and even then I already think that's big enough.

I'll only take at least 12 wall tiles range for that temperature check range, no more than that.

I never said 18 tiles, it's 18 in the game's unit measurement (I probably should've clarified since everyone tends to use tiles for reference), it's around 4.5 tiles I think from memory (if tiles are 4 units).

Edited June 15, 2025 by hoxi

[hoxi]

48 minutes ago, milsonmeow said:

the numbers still refer to wall tiles in the codes btw, which well, remains absolutely bonkers for it to be 18 for those rockets to detect players. Therefore it sucks.

If it was 18 tiles then you wouldn't be able to run out of detection range, and someone previously here mentioned you can do so as Walter (which checks out).

 

In constants.lua:

TILE_SCALE = 4

In SGwagboss_robot.lua:

local MISSILE_TARGET_RANGE = 18

I'm pretty sure with how TheSim:FindEntities works, and how 40 is around a fully zoomed out screen + slightly more to account for the edges of the screen (PLAYER_CAMERA_SEE_DISTANCE = 40.0), it's units, not tiles.

[hoxi]

Well my suggestion was mainly because I don't think they want people to outrange the attack so easily, but the current range also runs into the issue that if you set up heaters for the missiles around the arena, they might go out of range.

But also don't ignore all the other things I suggested that could benefit the player and make the phase feel more consistent and intuitive. Right now you have to know some exact temperature emitting values, and world temperature, to know if a heater will blend into the world temperature or not and be ignored (while smoldering things and Winona's generators will consistently never blend in outside of winter or Eye Crystaleyezers, because they add their simulated heat instead of comparing if it's higher than world temperature).

Edited June 16, 2025 by hoxi

[Hungry French]

On 13.06.2025 at 22:33, Lisgen said:

Я действительно не понимаю, как защититься от ракетной атаки W.A.R.B.O.T. Урон уже довольно высокий, и от него практически невозможно увернуться, просто перемещаясь. В большинстве современных руководств рекомендуется размещать большое количество звёзд-карликов и тепловых камней, чтобы просто выжить, и почти все они рекомендуют использовать персонажей с высоким уроном, чтобы пройти бой. В DST большинство сражений обычно становятся более управляемыми при достаточной практике, но эта механика похожа на «наведите курсор мыши на тепловые камни и щёлкните правой кнопкой мыши». Честно говоря, я действительно не понимаю, зачем мне нагревать тепловые камни с помощью звёзд-карликов в разгар битвы с боссом — это кажется совершенно абсурдным и неуместным. В следующий раз можно было бы позволить мне поджарить немного мяса — по крайней мере, я мог бы поесть. Всё это расстраивает и напоминает мне о том, как безнадежно было рубить топором споровые деревья во время битвы с Жабой. Здесь почти нет возможностей для развития навыков.

There is not much place to develop skills in DST. Just make yourself some tough challenges with the worst equipment or without it at all.
And this attack. She just sucks. It's just an additional element of the arena's preparation, which, unlike Lavae, looks normal...

[SilverSpoon]

5 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Lavae

Oh! I remembered! Extra-Adorable Lavae! 

Devs should buff her Health and she more heals when fed, enough to be able to withstand missile. It makes sense for her to be a counter to missile.

[IAmAFurrz]

18 hours ago, GrapeVruit said:

Surely they could think of a clever solution to the problem instead of just spamming a bunch of items over and over? 

like there are so many ideas people have thrown out already yet they seem to reaally like the current state of it. from its inception NO ONE liked it. but klei has the tendency to double down on bad designs so i have no hope in them improving this

[aoka404]

18 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Oh! I remembered! Extra-Adorable Lavae! 

Devs should buff her Health and she more heals when fed, enough to be able to withstand missile. It makes sense for her to be a counter to missile.

Great idea!

@V2C

[Edible Coal]

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

Oh! I remembered! Extra-Adorable Lavae! 

Devs should buff her Health and she more heals when fed, enough to be able to withstand missile. It makes sense for her to be a counter to missile.

how about sun fish