Watts Up makes Hot Swap useless

[Radicaljoe]

Hot Swap is already pretty mediocre upon a once-over glance. Saving 1 charge at the most theoretical benefit is you get to keep 3 charge from unplugging a full line. Now that would take  270s or 360s (if you have +1 circuit slot) to regen. Now compare to just Watts up, taking a staggering 216 seconds (or 252) from empty. Both of those values are still shorter than the hot swap 270. 

My suggestion to fix this is to either
1- combine it with fine motor control, allowing you to reduce damage to circuits, and reduce the damage done to yourself (not actual damage but ya know)

2- Change it to be a skill that allows you to literally hot swap circuits around. Ex: you want to take a thermal circuit and replace it using a chorus box circuit. The skill opens your chest like the circuit extractor and allows you to hover over the thermal circuit using the chorus box, and it swaps them out so fast you don't lose charge at all. Basically an adjacent version of Right to Modify. This would be balanced by the circuits needing to be the same size to hotswap. Can't swap out 2 circuits at the same time, Ex: chorus box couldn't hot swap a speed+ enhanced illumination even though that's 3 pins total.

[Radicaljoe]

I still think hotswap is bad

[Weevious]

When I wrote my forum post talking about uninhabited machine III being useless it was originally about TWO skills, but I decided to condense it down to be about one specific skill for a more precise discussion. That other skill was Energy-Efficient (which is being called Hot Swap here, which makes me wonder if something is being lost in translation, they should call it Hot Swap that name is cooler.)

Saving one charge from unplugging a circuit is useless compared to Watts up, and even when COMBINED with Watts Up it saves you 105 seconds MAXIMUM from unplugging 3 super-hardy circuits. I came up with two different changes. The first one is simply allowing it to reduce charge lost to 0, it will beat Watts up every single time if you have a lot of small circuits plugged in. The second one is making it so ALL unplugged circuits only consume 1 charge when unplugged, allowing you to quickly swap in any smaller circuit with no downtime, once again this allows it to beat Watts Up, but only if you unplug actual big circuits.

Your second concept for a change completely DESTROYS both of mine, it's actually so well thought out!! If you want to swap out your health circuits before healing and then quickly swap back you can do that by carrying around some super-processing circuits and hot-swapping with your health circuits! Before anyone claims that's overpowered or cheesy, you still lose durability (on both health and sanity circuits) and you have to physically carry the circuits, you have less inventory space if you do this. It's a massive trade off, but one that might feel worth it to certain people, and that's what a skill tree is for, isn't it? Certain people have different play styles and want different things out of a refresh, this gives the people who want to be able to rapidly swap circuits a way to rapidly swap circuits! You still have to carry around circuits for swapping and you still lose a bit of durability, is this not a perfect solution? I mainly talked about swapping alpha circuits because those are all similar sizes, but the beta circuits? You absolutely want to swap between Electrification and Super-Acceleration depending on if you're kiting or tanking. Is it no longer winter/summer? Swap out your thermal/refrigerant circuit for a chorus box one! Super-illumination and Rangebooster are both useful, but not at the same time because being able to see further isn't exceptionally useful in the dark, another perfect hotswap pairing! There are currently no swaps for the 6 energy hogging basic acceleration circuit or the 4 energy optoelectronic circuit but I think that's fine! It also gives Klei free reign to add a 5 energy circuit without needing to worry about any broken hotswaps, assuming it's possible for them to be broken as, once again, you have to carry the circuits with you.

It also adds competition to Right To Modify and Watts Up. With Right To Modify you have an alternative way to swap out circuits, if this is considered too good you could make it so without Right To Modify you can only hot swap the circuit that's on top. That seems very balanced to me. As for Watts Up it gives you a reality where you might not take it, recharging faster is soooo good, but with hot swap you need to recharge a whole lot less! Thinking about this makes me so excited, this might be the best alternative to Energy-Efficient I have ever read!!!! 

And if you don't swap circuits often at all, you simply ignore this perk and spend the insight on whatever you find more useful or enjoyable. It's perfect. If this doesn't get into the game, I may be forced to learn modding. As for how to implement this with the current HUD, I think hitting the "Plug In" button while at full storage space should open up the HUD used for unplugging circuits with the circuit extractor, but instead of the circuit extractor floating around to unplug specific circuits it's the circuit you want to hot swap floating around, 

Here's a stupidly basic mockup done by simply holding the item next to the circuit. Klei already has the assets used for when circuits are plugged in but not charged, they can simply have that float around, just have a little text pop up that says "Hot Swap circuit" it already says "Unplug First Circuit" when you hover over it with the circuit extractor.

[Radicaljoe]

30 minutes ago, Weevious said:

Hot Swap

I think the name got changed early in the beta, but when I had made this post it was still called Hot Swap at the time.

[Weevious]

I didn't even realize this was originally posted March 20th. I read every word in the post super carefully and double triple check everything I claim with in-game testing, but I forgot to read the date this was posted. My mind is an enigma.

Anyways they gotta Hot Swap the name back, and rework it. It's so comically underwhelming.

The people yearn for skills that make swapping circuits not feel so punishing and clunky. Some of those people are determined to keep swapping circuits instead of swapping chassis.

[Jakepeng99]

Make hot swap half the charge lost instead rounded down. So 3 notch circuits you lose 1, 4 notch lose 2, and rabbit circuit lose 3.

[Ridley]

While I love the chassis ability, I think it really undermines these circuit convenience perks. You can make these two perks balance against each other but I am still only unplugging a circuit once or twice a Don't Starve year.

[Random Guy000]

Hotswap's main function is keeping your circuits active 24/7. Aka you unplug from beta, but your alpha Circuits stay active anyway, because you didn't lose enough charges to block them. Problem is, 1 measly charge isn't worth jack ****

They could try buffing it to 2 charges (so full refund on size 2 circuits) to see how it pans out, or just reworking the skill entirely, since watts up already does it's job but better

[gamehun20]

38 minutes ago, Random Guy000 said:

since watts up already does it's job but better

Originally i didn't test hotswap and thought that it was fine but man after actually testing it to see how my build should be i was very disappointed in it. I was thinking the same update to it that was said above half charge kept rounded down might make me want to use the skill but even then watts up is just so good

[Weevious]

Gamma Circuits are now in the game (sorta), Energy-Effcient (the artist formerly known as Hot Swap) is still terrible, but it has the potential to be so good because all of the new Gamma Circuits are quite big, unplugging one will devastate your alpha and beta circuits.

I also wrote my original comment under the impression that it took 1 minute and 10 seconds for a charge to be regained without Watts Up, I was wrong, it's 1 minute and 30 seconds. It doesn't cut it in half, it basically cuts it in THIRDS, Watts Up doesn't tie with Hot Swap when you unplug a circuit that takes 2 energy, it BEATS IT BY TWENTY SECONDS. It's still clear that this point is meant so your OTHER alpha/beta/gamma circuits don't lose charge in the first place, but saving one charge doesn't matter, as someone above me said.

I still think the second Hot Swap idea is perfect. Being able swap circuits without losing energy at all, but only in a specific limited way is genius, but that costs development time! I think if anything is going to change it's going to be changed in a way that's quick to implement. I'm still hoping in my heart of hearts that the Hot Swap rework of my dreams is added into the game, but I'm also advocating for a much more realistic "Only lose 1 charge when unplugging a circuit, regardless of size." As I said, a lot of the gamma circuits are large, unplugging one is devastating to your other circuits, now they won't be. 

As another person here has already pointed out, these perks are already outclassed by the Chassis perks, so it really doesn't matter if you make these circuit removal perks "too good." Players who LIKE to remove circuits, such as myself, get to save a lot of energy if a large buff is made to Energy-Efficient, players who don't remove circuits in the first place get to save a skill point by not taking this skill.

I still yearn for the ability to unplug circuits freely. I tried to do a survival world where I took Chassis skills to encourage me to use them, and I just ended up not using them because I LIKE unplugging my circuits more than I like swapping bodies despite one being objectively better than the other one. Klei please I know there are more players like me, we NEED this.

[Mr Giggio]

I think hot swap shouldn't be a skill and instead just an base mechanic. Feels odd not being able to take the circuit you want out