Iguana-on-a-stick

Like Slar said at the start, there's no achievement for the non-aligned ending, so that one is hard to count. Either way makes sense to me that the saner of the two pro/anti-servile factions are the most popular.

I am very interested to see that the "solo" score is that high compared to the normal faction endings. I mean, if 2-3% only complete Normal or Veteran, how the hell does 1% complete solo and 0.6% pacifist?

This was asked on the steam forums, and Jeff said he'd add a way to see creation resistances in an update. https://steamcommunity.com/app/2480560/discussions/0/4357869680019156353/#c4357869680019267443

I also have a party of 6 (3 Glaahks, a vlish and an artila) and it happens even in pretty non-cluttered areas, just from having creations around. I.e. here my shaper wants to move 3 squares to the other side of that mine. Should be 3 action points. What happens instead? He moves 1 square up and is out of moves. Perhaps it happens more to me because Glaahks and my guardian are all melee creatures, and so much more likely to surround a target? Edit: Links to bigger versions https://ibb.co/bRH22Qn https://ibb.co/VYPXnsV

Ah, I missed that part at the bottom. I'm afraid that on my system it's not rare. It happens quite often, and not just with creations in narrow spaces. Even just moving to a place that says it costs 6 action points often instead costs all 8 if there's an obstacle somewhere on the path. Not sure what is causing it, but I'm guessing it's something system dependent like your processor's speed.

Sorry for the double post, but this is unrelated to the previous one. I've been trying out the mod, and I noticed that since I increased creation speed, pathfinding in combat sometimes fails. i.e. I have a bunch of creations standing in a narrow space V G G G G # V is a Vlish, G are Glaahks, the # is the vlish's destination. Clicking at # now often removes all of the Vlishes' action points but it doesn't actually move as it bumps into the Glaahks. I see it rapidly twitch back and forth for a brief while, and then it stays in place but its turn ends. Even though it had the action points to use it. A side effect of the speed increase being too fast for the pathfinding perhaps? You can work around it by clicking on open ground and moving short distances only, but still worth keeping in mind.

Reminds me of Lilarcor the talking sword in Baldur's Gate That one came with suitably annoying voice acting too.

Seems like a wasted opportunity, given that the whole Drypeak mountains are a failed experiment in getting plant life to flourish in inhospitable terrain and that many of the life forms that did flourish turned out to be horrible thorny indestructible weeds. Would have made perfect sense to add some backstory about a Shaper trying to create a tree that would seek out water only to end up with an ambulant plant that was only good for killing things, so he then spliced it with a turret. Or something to that effect.

So on the topic of creation upgrades: What does boosting strength do for a Glaakh? Their main attack deals energy damage and is boosted by magic skill. Their cone attack does energy damage and is boosted by magic skill. Their terror skill is a magic effect and is boosted by magic skill. Strength boosts... their carry weight? Wait, creations do not have carry weight. (No Glaakhs wearing sweaters in this setting, no sir.) So does strength do nothing for them?

Wait, melee skill includes a chance of an attack costing fewer action points? Since when?1 I had no idea. Also, some of those tooltips on weapon shaping are brutal. Seems I wasted some money there... Suggestion: Healing craft -> Does it also boost the recovery effect of i.e. cure affliction? The tooltip on that spell lists a percentage bonus. I always thought that meant more turns' worth of debuff would be removed. If so, the tooltip could clarify that it's not just hitpoint healing. Mechanics -> Tooltip could include that it also helps with disarming mines, manipulating power spirals, and using machines. (Though anyone who installs a mod probably already knows that.) Either way, thanks for making this.

I'm currently doing a loyalist guardian with Magic shaping because I thought they'd be great for support. Vlishes were disappointing, Artillas were cheap but useful, and Glaakhs are great. (Stun, charm and terrify everyone!) No gazers, but who'd want to create such Barred abominations anyway. While you could create Drayks, those too are barred which seems to go a bit against the idea of a loyalist. Rothgroths would probably work but it would leave you with an all-melee party.

Yeah, I think this is a viable strategy... at very low levels only. At the start, when you're a new player figuring out if you want to go down the fire or magic or battle-shaping paths, you can use your starting shaping skills + maybe an item or two (x-skin Jerkin) to try out various creations, and use essence to boosts their level instead of investing in skills. This lets you try out tier 1 and maybe 2 (if you find a canister) creations, without having to commit to a path. But at higher levels, it just won't fly.

Haven't done the math (can't afford that many yet) but with leadership boosting control and battle shaping now providing double control boosts, all my creations are for now sitting at "perfect" control. And you'd end up with much more than 10 battle shaping in this schema anyway. (I am recommending buying essence mastery only when it is MUCH cheaper than battle shaping, and as soon as you do, battle shaping becomes the better choice again because the essence mastery cost goes up.)

I did not know that. I also tend to play no-canister, so that tends to affect where I spend my points. But yeah, that's definitely a reason not to invest too much too early. Yeah, that's nuts. So I agree: At a certain point you have enough essence, and building a character that goes beyond that results in effectively wasted points. That said: I still think there's a case to be made for gettin getting more essence. Let's take your Rothgroth example. I'd personally want to give them overload and innate haste and also put the spray on at least a couple, but perhaps that's not optimal so let's say they just get overload. And I'm playing a guardian instead of a shaper, so that character would still have to invest some more. But that's besides the point. But let's take your example and say that 141 essence is enough and we're playing a shaper, so it fits. But now start comparing skill cost again. By the time I have invested 60+ skillpoints in Battle Shaping, I am up to 9-10 skillpoints per point. If I haven't bought any essence mastery, those 9 skillpoints would get me 2 levels of essence mastery, or 44 essence. And that is enough to buy all the Roths a level WITH 2 points of strength or endurance. Upgrading all 7 roths costs 35 essence, so until you do that 5 times, 35 essence is much better than a level of fire shaping. Let alone 44 essence. So for Roths, the formula should be: Whatever is cheaper to get, 30-ish essence (rounding down to account for the bonus stats), or a level of shaping skill. So the essence mastery is better if it's about 2/3rds the cost of another point of battle shaping. Until you reach max upgrades, which in this formula would be 7 * 43 = 301 essence. Now if you used creations with more expensive upgrades, like Eyebeasts, that formula obviously changes and investing in magic shaping would be much better value for money until you reached a really huge cost discrepancy. But of course you'd need to invest some in essence mastery just to be able to afford that, so an early investment still would be a good idea. So in conclusion: * I still think it's smart to start investing moderately in essence mastery in the early game before you start levelling shaping skills * Either you end up using expensive creations, so you'll need the essence. * Or you can buy extra levels for the creations and get bonus stats for the same skill point investment * But I agree that you should invest much more heavily in shaping skills in total

You're always going to want at least a few points of essence mastery, so getting those points early doesn't hurt you at all in the long run. And early on I also like the extra flexibility a lot (Boost creation level or get an extra creation, lets me try out various creation types without locking myself into a single path.) But do you really get more essence than you need by the end-game? To max out all creations and still have enough for spells/battle shaping? Wouldn't a full squad of (Ur)Glaakhs/Eyebeasts/Gazers/Rothgroths costs 100s of essence, requiring a large investment? Or do you guys consider it more optimal to not max out the number of creations you can field or use lower-tier ones? Mind you, I don't play on Torment so I don't claim my playstyle is at all optimal. I just always run out of essence in every Geneforge game.