zxc’s Guide to Stealth Wins in Cogmind [SPOILERS]

Very out of date! Needs a complete rewrite due to recent large patches. Some of this is still usable however.

Introduction

Why stealth?

Playstyle

Maps

Scrapyard (-11)

Materials (-10 to -8)

Factory (-7 to -4)

Research (-3 to -2)

Access (-1)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)



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Access is similar to Factory in that the layout is more open than Research, but there is only one exit to the surface. The exit tends not to be along the edges, but rather in a more centralised location. A major tell is that it is a large square room guarded on one side by two behemoths, and on the other side by a large locked door and terminal. Of vital importance is having a high-powered explosive launcher (~5+ rating) to destroy the side walls of the exit room (as an alternative to hacking the door) and a high-powered weapon or launcher to break open the casing containing the exit. In most of my runs, the majority of time spent in Access was in trying to find a suitable launcher, rather than in locating the exit.Wide image ( view in new window ).

Exploration

Locating exits

Secret doors

Enemies

Recyclers

Haulers

Watchers

Grunts

Sentries

Sentry kiting

Swarmers

Hunters

Programmers

Destroying them

Losing them with ECM suites

Outrunning them without contact

Evolutions

2-3 power slots

2-3 propulsion slots

Maximum utility slots

2 weapon slots

Energy, heat and mass management

Version 0.1.3 (Last updated 2015-09-18)1. Introduction1.1 Why stealth?1.2 Playstyle2. Maps2.1 Scrapyard (-11)2.2 Materials (-10 to -8)2.3 Factory (-7 to -4)2.4 Research (-3 to -2)2.5 Access (-1)3. Exploration3.1 Locating exits3.2 Secret doors4. Enemies4.1 Recyclers4.2 Haulers4.3 Watchers4.4 Grunts4.5 Sentries4.5.1 Sentry kiting4.6 Swarmers4.7 Hunters4.8 Programmers4.8.1 Destroying them4.8.2 Losing them with ECM suites4.8.3 Outrunning them without contact5. Evolutions6. Energy, heat and mass management7. Items7.1 Power sources7.2 Propulsion items7.3 Utilities7.4 Weapons8. Upcoming9. Change logI have always loved stealth games. Cogmind has one of the best implementations of stealth gameplay that I've seen. It's a tense and highly satisfying way of playing the game. Stealth wins are also currently the most reliable way of winning in Cogmind. I am fast approaching a point where I can win every game with a stealth approach, and in this guide we’ll explore some of my methods.The idea is to utilise flight propulsion to outrun all enemies in the game, and thereby avoid trouble. Flight is especially well-suited to stealth because enemies will only spot you when it’s their turn to act; the faster you are, the less likely an enemy will immediately spot you the first turn you move into their view, and the more moves you can make in full view of an enemy before they spot you. Various utilities allow for locating enemies from a safe distance to avoid them.I suggest a standard start ie. equipping legs, the heaviest engine, the strongest weapons, and carrying in inventory the spare weapon and engine. Kill some civilian robots if you like, for a terrain scanner or a small storage unit. These will get replaced soon enough so you don’t need to bother with them.Treat the start like any other run. The enemies are not too difficult, and can often be dispatched with your weaponry, but avoid fighting where possible. The first priority is to locate some flight units (swarmers have them) and a launcher (for dealing with swarmers and destroying walls). The second priority is to locate the second tier of sensors and signal interpreters or better, which can be dropped by Watchers. Signal interpreters identify adjacent exits, so you can always avoid the branches if you wish. Seek out all Haulers for the chance of great prototypes. These early floors are probably the only ones where you can find the Imp. Flight Unit prototypes, which are phenomenal and easily the best low-level prototype in the game.Factory is where stealth really gets interesting. Aim for Adv. Sensor Arrays and Adv. Signal Interpreters, which in combination will allow you to detect Hunters from a good distance and let you avoid them. Programmers will be the biggest pain from here until the end of the game. Factory is where maps become truly massive, and hacking for the location of exits becomes much more important. Try to explore the map systematically if you don’t yet know the locations of exits.Research is similar to Factory, except that the map contains more chokepoints and fewer loops. This necessitates carving new paths with launchers at times. Be sure to always maintain a high count of matter. Hacking the locations of exits is even more important here.Below are some large spoilers for what you will find in Access and how to escape. Please consider carefully before opening! I encourage you to wing it and avoid consulting this part until you have won once or unless you are really stuck.Exits are generally found along the main paths. They are almost never located inside rooms ( very rarely will you find an exit in a room - treasure it! ). Hacking terminals with Level Access (or Access(Main) with a manual hack) shows the locations of exits to the next floor if successful, but is one of the hardest hacks to pull off. Avoid exploring deeply into rooms when you don’t need new items and only wish to find an exit. I like to travel along hallways and step into doorways just to see into a room without losing any time. Sentries sitting in hallways are often positioned on top of exits, so at times you may want to get vision of the Sentry in order to see if it is standing on an exit.Secret doors are a good way to avoid and escape from enemies. It is far less likely you’ll find a secret door along the outer edge of a map. They tend to connect adjacent rooms together by a short 1x passageway. With practise, you’ll learn to spot likely areas for secret doors. Watching enemy robot movement with sensors is also a great way of spotting secret doors - in particular, civilian robots and Watchers like to use them. The Local Emergency Access hack displays secret doors in the region, and is a relatively easy hack which I like to make use of.The high tier R-10 Processors are a fantastic source of matter (100-160), but they call for reinforcements when attacked, so ensure you are in relative safety before attacking them.Juicy sources of items including prototypes. They are often escorted, but sometimes you can lure the escorts away with your speed and separate them enough to safely destroy one. Like Recyclers, they tend to summon reinforcements, so try to target them when they are highly isolated.The existence of Watchers is in fact a net positive for us. They come equipped with almost everything you need for a stealth build: sensors, signal interpreters, transmission jammers, visual processing units, and light power sources. Watchers with transmission jammers will disable your sensors when nearby, which alerts you to their presence even if you don’t have a signal interpreter. Like most enemies, Watchers follow patrol paths, and will only send a distress call when they first spot you and when other enemies are close enough to the Watcher to help out.Higher tier Grunts are surprisingly damaging, and should be avoided. They often travel in groups, which can be spotted moving along patrol paths slowly with a sensor.Sentries are very slow but they inflict a great deal of damage. They are always found standing guard inside large rooms with items, at chokepoints in wide hallways, or on top of exits. Sensors are especially important for detecting sentries hidden inside a room, which are a nasty surprise. Their slow speed makes them extremely easy to kite.Sentries often stand on top of exits, preventing your progress, or guard juicy items you’d like to steal and terminals you want to access. First, get their attention. This often means standing at range and allowing them to spot you and fire a shot at you. You can use civilian robots to block their fire, or attack a Watcher or Hauler/Recycler nearby to cause a distress call to get the sentry’s attention without taking damage. Second, lure the sentry in a loop around a terrain feature. This includes rooms with two doors and machines inside rooms. Third, use your enormous speed advantage to escape via the other end and leave the sentry far behind. I routinely do this to access exits guarded by a sentry.Luring the sentry into a doorway and flying diagonally over them works in a pinch as well (best used with ~10 movespeed).Swarmers are always found traveling in large groups along patrol paths. They are extremely fast and can often keep up with you, but explosive launchers dispatch them quite easily. They are quite a pain to lose with speed, so avoid them best you can. If you need another flight unit, Swarmers will drop a low tier one for you, if you want to risk taking damage.Hunters are one of the worst enemies you will face. They tend to travel in groups of two along patrol paths. Their innate cloaking hides them from your sensors unless you have an Adv. Signal Interpreter. Their regular speed means you can escape them quite easily, but that won’t stop them from taking shots at you through walls. They can also sometimes spot you and shoot before they are in your visual range, so you know what’s up when you get hit by a bullet with no enemies on your screen. When they lose you, they launch drones to search for you; try to leave that section of the map entirely.Programmers are most likely the worst enemy you will face. They move fast, patrol in groups of two, and fire electromagnetic weapons which cause system corruption. Most importantly, in Factory onwards there will be times where two programmers are released in pursuit of you, shown as a white text notification in the message log. These programmers will have perfect tracking of you until both of them spot you, when their perfect tracking disappears and they become like regular, fast enemies. There is (to my knowledge) no way to avoid the programmer attack mechanism, which serves as something of a food clock, so don’t waste too much time in Factory onwards.I see three ways of dealing with programmers sent for you.This is the approach I go with the least, as can result in the most damage taken, but recently I tried this and found that early programmers were not so difficult to destroy with a melee weapon. Severing or destroying their weapons makes them retreat and is as good as killing them.This approach usually results in a small amount of damage taken. The key thing to note is that the perfect tracking of programmers sent for you can’t be thrown off by ECM suites. You need to let all programmers in the group spot you first (with the ! icon in your hud). Arrange for this to occur in a safe region of the map with many loops (beware dead-ends). Once they’ve all spotted you, outrun them and break LOS, and turn on all ECM suites you have. Energy usage can be a severe problem, because not only must you maintain the ECM suites, but you must keep moving to prevent LOS contact with the programmers, which would reset the process. If you need to pause for a moment to regain some energy, turn off all propulsion and energy upkeep utilities (except ECM suites) until you are ready to move again.This approach can avoid all damage entirely, but is risky when you don’t know the location of the exit as you might just get into a messier, less controlled instance of the previous approach. The idea is to constantly stay on the move and to keep exploring in order to exit the map before the programmers even catch you. Having extremely fast move speed helps (10 delay or better), as does knowing the locations of exits. Using launchers to create new paths and shortcuts is also of importance. Contact with other enemies is sometimes unavoidable with this approach, and is the essential risk you take, along with the possibility of dead-ends. I am more inclined to take this approach when I know the location of the exit, or I have armour equipped but no ECM suites.Ideally you want to maximise the number of utility slots you have. This allows for the most flexibility. Focus on utility slots until energy starts to become an issue, then go with an additional power slot. Utility slots can perform the roles of power and propulsion, as you can amplify your energy sources and expand your carrying capacity. Making use of more propulsion slots will often result in the need for additional power slots.Energy, heat and mass are all interconnected in Cogmind. Flight propulsion requires energy; energy is produced by power sources, which also produce heat and increase mass. This translates into a careful balancing of equipped items, and the entire system can be compromised by item destruction from traps, enemy weapons, or prototype malfunctions. Supporting greater mass by using more propulsion slots results in an inefficient feedback loop where you need more energy income and heat dissipation to support the propulsion. You can break this cycle by using carrying capacity utilities (Weight Redist. System line of items), which are far more efficient for increasing mass capacity than more flight units. A slight negative balance of energy and/or heat while moving is usually fine, and can later be solved by finding better items. Given a choice between heat generation and energy loss, I would say that heat generation is the lesser of two evils.