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[singalen]

Bots now can follow you and fight for you, and that's awesome.

It would be more awesomeness if you could directly control them.

I imagine the mechanic to work this way:
* only done from a terminal. You need to come to a terminal and already have a bot hacked.
* Bump into a terminal and have extra menu items: "Remote control bot c3p0", "Remote control bot r2d2", etc.
* It costs 3-10 sec to start the direct control session, and 1-3 sec to stop it.
* You leave the JHGuy body at the terminal and start controlling the bot's body. JHGuy is too busy (maybe is wearing a VR headset?..) to sense anything around, so the body is completely vulnerable.
* You get back to JHGuy body by pressing Esc, or if the bot is destroyed, or when JHGuy's body is attacked. Maybe the smarter enemies can even track the terminal that's used to control a bot, or maybe Fiends are enough to make it a risky game.
* This feature could also be balanced by reduced bot's speed or field of vision (the controls are clunky).
* This can probably be done with turrets too. I have not idea why, but why not.

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

I do have several ideas related to hacking and not control, but JH is still more Doom than Aliens. That said if the hacking related builds are enough popular then I'd gladly focus an update on improvements to it. Direct control might be bit to slow pace wise, but who knows!

[singalen]

Why would direct control be slow? Bot controls would be the same as the character's, except for it only has 1 weapon, no traits, and no inventory... it should be FASTER to play, as you have way fewer options.
Unless you backtrack back to JHGuy for repairs. But if people are having fun, why not let them.

Especially if they grow connected to this bot. Was this your speech about roguelikes design, that adviced to give the player a companion, make the player like him, and then kill him?


Hmm, I very vividly imagined a bot menu item "Give name" :D Should be pretty cheap to implement? 8-]


Another idea, to form even stronger connection with the player through greed: what about upgrading your bots with modpacks, and maybe even utility devices? Might have its use, especially in case you have spare ones.
In case there are/will be nano-packs in the game, the bot could last very long. Can we take them down in elevators, BTW?

[singalen]

Whether hacking-related builds are popular or not is a matter of a game balance, and this is your decision.
Look how popular pets in Nethack are.