FairyGodfather asked for a separate thread, so here’s one to put all of the bugs, errors, and inconsistencies in Choice of Robots in one place so they can be worked on (or, in some cases, clarified as non-errors).
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From the other thread:
Ok, in one of my increasingly numerous playthroughs I hit on an incongruity in the text: Even if married to Juliet, I get the same text for the Vegas airport departure as I would if not married. “I think she really does like me” just feels a bit odd to say regarding one’s spouse and a slight rephrase might be nice there.
-This is turning into a bit of a bug hunt, but if Tammy was arrested after the factory fire (and indeed also tried to blow me up), there should probably be a different text on the clearance forms about her currently being deep in jail rather than “hoping someone takes her away”.
-This applies again later (her jumping robots in the Empathy chapter)…why doesn’t that woman end up on some sort of institution on a long-term basis at that point? Between the two attacks and the clearance forms (if not the call to the cops from early on as well), there should probably be some sort of impact on the game from all that.
-If you move to Canada post-war to get married to a companion bot, the game still reacts as if you’d fled the US during the war. Again, it’s not much of a fork but it feels awkward.
-There’s also another bit of Tammy stalking around the house even after I offered to hire her; that feels like another rarely-traveled fork that wasn’t resolved.
If it is Tammy who gets put on trial, the options still read as if it were my robot who is/was. Also, two things seem a bit incongruous:
(1) In spite of driving her to bankruptcy/suicide, I still had a relationship with her of 78.
(2) Likewise, it would seem that if my relationship with her is that good there should be an option to settle the case post-victory for a few dollars (the test case being what my character was presumably shooting for, the judgment being little more than a detail on that front).
-Continuing on the Tammy thing, I think part of the error might be her not taking a relationship hit if she leaves the company, even with a severance package…though there the issue, IMHO, is that there’s no way to reverse course if she expresses outrage at working with the military.
-The whole Tammy-runs-off-and-later-attacks-your-robots bit seems a bit…disconnected with what she was talking up earlier (being in love with the robots, etc.). As usual, not saying it is wrong, just saying that the dots don’t quite connect there.
From Cat_Raider: I also found out that somehow tammy/silas likes sending bombs to my house randomly. I had cleared it up with them on the article and guess what I got? A bomb. Oh well, never really liked the right arm anyways.
From Sylfaen:
-Speaking of that, in addition to Juliet never mentioning Knife Throwing at that point neither of my robots ever mention Tammy being the one who attacked them. My character just magically knows. Even when I was married to her she somehow sneaked out and vandalize them while I stayed home with her.
-I married Elly, everything was fine on that front until I hit the War. China began to inexplicably begin kicking the USA’s ass, which was a nice change of pace, but I soon began to see a number of odd bugs. First the agent came to see me, a-okay, sent Elly a ‘coded’ message to leave which she did successfully. I decided to leave as well to go aid China in the war, and stopped at Elly’s place to grab her. She revealed she didn’t want to go, so I stayed… That is where the bugs began. My robot randomly began to choke me, and I had to stop the revolution, which ended in a robot victory… Yet the plot inexplicably said they only took over America, which confuses me, why would my robot be trying to kill me in Canada when I had fled from the location of the revolution? Then I went to my mom’s house after she had died (aka 20 years later), and the text said that I could offer it to Elly since she was “recently released”, presumably from the new age concentration camps.
This is incredibly odd since she managed to escape, which means she wouldn’t be in a concentration camp… Also the robots are efficient enough that I doubt they’d let the camp people sit around for 20 years. After calling her to offer it, turns out she was with Chi-Hsien, having apparently forgotten we had taken a vow together… Not that I can blame her since I had apparently forgotten she was my wife for the past twenty years. So yeah, it was incredibly nonsensical to the point of not even being enjoyable.
From Havenstone:
Has it already been mentioned that even if Josh dies in the factory fire, you can still get, “Josh is really starting to be successful in the robot business, with or without you” a few pages later? Some guys seriously don’t know when to quit.
Thanks for starting this thread.
Even if you’re not sure if something’s an error make a note of it. I came across a few minor inconsistencies, some of which seem really trivial but I noted them down anyway. (And fully expect to be asked to stop being a pedant.)
The game’s massively complex so it’s no wonder there’s going to be bugs as well as inconsistencies and we can just do everything we can to help iron them out.
Ok, let’s throw another one in:
When talking with Galen Medical, Josh will refer to it as a “big break”…even if you already walked away with the bank on another contract. It might be worth having that rephrased somehow, since it feels odd to have a massive military contract and be thinking “big break” at that point.
Edit: Another one that seems slightly spoilery…
Even if I rescue President Irons and make the robots self-destuct, she still dies. That really feels a bit…odd.
Might as well copypaste my latest one from the thread… Spoilers, obviously.
I married Elly, everything was fine on that front until I hit the War. China began to inexplicably begin kicking the USA’s ass, which was a nice change of pace, but I soon began to see a number of odd bugs. First the agent came to see me, a-okay, sent Elly a ‘coded’ message to leave which she did successfully. I decided to leave as well to go aid China in the war, and stopped at Elly’s place to grab her. She revealed she didn’t want to go, so I stayed… That is where the bugs began. My robot randomly began to choke me, and I had to stop the revolution, which ended in a robot victory… Yet the plot inexplicably said they only took over America, which confuses me, why would my robot be trying to kill me in Canada when I had fled from the location of the revolution? Then I went to my mom’s house after she had died (aka 20 years later), and the text said that I could offer it to Elly since she was “recently released”, presumably from the new age concentration camps.
This is incredibly odd since she managed to escape, which means she wouldn’t be in a concentration camp… Also the robots are efficient enough that I doubt they’d let the camp people sit around for 20 years. After calling her to offer it, turns out she was with Chi-Hsien, having apparently forgotten we had taken a vow together… Not that I can blame her since I had apparently forgotten she was my wife for the past twenty years. So yeah, it was incredibly nonsensical to the point of not even being enjoyable.
Ok, throw another one in: If I end up going to China, I get the exact same page describing what my robots do if I make the robots as human as possible (referring to the Chinese doing the same thing as I am. Uh…). Moreover, my stats are 21-1-50-11 there. With a military that low, I’d expect to see my assistance diverted into another area since my 'bots are basically a joke on the field.
Edit: I also wound up getting the same “loss of value of US dollars” result even though I wound up on the other side of the war. If anything, the scenario should be reversed in some respect or another since I’m already in China [my money should be in either CAD (since I went to Canada), CNY (since I’m in China), or another currency (maybe JPY or GBP since they’re both neutral), not USD (since I’m ex-US and would expect any domestic accounts to be frozen), at that point].
Edit2: Ok, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I really have no idea why I’m “raising money for Jane’s defense” if Tammy’s being charged (this is a minor typo), but I /really/ don’t understand why Tammy attacked my robots when I’ve blown out the scales on Empathy (I’m at 59!), I’m only at 6 military (which is basically “I can vaguely defend myself”), and my relations with Tammy are at 92%.
Honestly, it feels odd that I can’t find a way to meet up with Tammy post-war, especially when I’m plunging ahead with the sentient robot project(s) that I was working on pre-war.
Edit3: And another one: It seems like, regardless of when you marry (for example) Juliet, your mother will note it as having been twenty years earlier even when it hasn’t been. This is really a minor bug, but I’d rather pick the nit than not at this stage.
Edit4:
Another bug: If Mr. Sun contacts me when I’ve already fled to Canada, I still get text implying that I’m in the US (i.e. saying that it is technically illegal to ship robots to China but that it could be done via Canada).
This got a crash report, but I just had the game crash amid negative Empathy (I got down to -4 before righting it to -3 through one of those incidental pluses that come up along the line).
I’d also knocked my Humanity down to 12% as well…this game was running dark.
Now that I have the code at my fingertips, two bugs I dug up:
Capturing Juliet in the Grace chapter seems to have a flipped operator; as it stands, capturing her requires a romance or a low Military stat. I would assume that the intent was to require a high Military to end her vigilante superheroics.
If you have a company and you make graceful mecha, the government “has to protect your identity during wartime,” while if you don’t have a company, your company gets rich and famous from the mecha’s merchandisability. Need to reverse these, I think.
And on an unrelated note, I’m now far more understanding towards companies like Paradox Interactive and Obsidian Entertainment, who have a reputation for bugginess. This game isn’t nearly as complex as something like Crusader Kings or Fallout, people like me playtested it for months (I myself came up with something on the order of ten pages of bugs, suggestions, questions, and material from my back-and-forth with Kevin) and there’s still plenty of bugs that we all missed. It’s a miracle that the big games have releases as polished as they are.
I think my experience with Paradox over the years gave me understanding here: With Paradox you expect a competent, highly playable beta and patching from there. Considering the hobbyist/amateur nature of a lot of games on here, I’d say that a good job was done…but a lot of games are going to roll out in effective beta.
There are probably a few flipped operators throughout the code…and I actually almost want to dive into the code myself, if just because there are a few things in the late game that feel somewhat closed-off due to possible reversals (I think there’s probably such an error in having President Irons not survive, per one of my notes above) that I’d like to be able to read through them.
Yet another one:
I sided with the robots in the rebellion and got taken to the lab. I told them that Ziegler’s work was sloppy, he got shot, and I said I didn’t know the password to the secret room. I then left the facility…only to be able to go back to the facility and re-run the encounter (at which point I suggested checking post-it notes). I probably should not have been able to go to the lab twice like that…
Also, this isn’t so much a bug as it is a lack of an option I’d like…but it fits in the broad context of missing bits:
If I’m married to Juliet and I decide to side with the robot rebellion, she’ll try to attack my robot. I’ve got, IIRC, three options: Attack the robot with her and two versions of “step aside”. I wish there was at least a fourth (“try to restrain her”)…if I have a souped-up military bot I’d know that her attack was suicidal, and at least having the option to try and stop her from getting herself killed would be nice even if such effort would be in vain. I’d actually like some sort of option to the effect of trying to signal to her “Honey, we can pick a fight when the nice robot I spent the last decade perfecting into a killing machine does not have a gun pointed at our heads, but now is not the time to play hero.”
Ok, let’s throw yet ANOTHER bug in: If I leave Josh’s company at the start of the war, there seems to be no impact in the text in a few places (such as the next page or two). You do divert into an “unemployed” course of sorts, but in general there’s no change. Also, I got no version of the Chinese recruitment attempt, though that may or may not be a bug.
Also: If you’re romantically involved with Josh it seems a bit odd for him to want you to stay out of the limelight. That option makes sense for Elly and a LOT of sense for Juliet (being military and all), but for Josh…while I know he wants to be #1 if he can, I’d think he would be willing to roll with fame (if not encourage it outright) for business purposes (it’d be easier for him to raise capital, etc., by virtue of me being on staff and my renown).
While we’re on this: Is it 20 or 25 Grace needed to keep your mother alive? I thought it was 20, but on a run-through at 21 I got the mother-passed-away page. Granted, it was the third stat (only Military was lower), but I’m wondering if this flubbed somehow.
Another thought, since I’m on a roll this morning: In the robot-confronts-you-in-the-bedroom (ok, that sounded awkward but I’m going to roll with it) situation above, a couple of options for offering another option comes to mind. One, in the first part, would be to try to keep your robot talking while Juliet tries to get the drop on it (you’d need to not have the 360-degree camera setup for that to even have a hope of working for obvious reasons). The other would be a two-choice version: Either start arguing with Juliet to stop her from attacking your robot…or start arguing with her to distract/confuse the robot (even if this option is doomed, I always do like the idea of those scenes where two people in a tense situation start yelling at one another and it confuses the heck out of their captors).
Now that 1.0.4 is out, are people still finding bugs?
If so, please post them or send them in!
Think I found one: I got married to Eiji, then took over Alaska, found him in Ancorage and took him back to my base. But in the final chaper when I call him up to see if he wants to stay in my (dead) mother’s old house, it says he was just “released,” even though I sucessfully signaled for him to flee to Canada. That could be from Alaskan jail, but I’m a little confused as to why he would be there; I still had a pretty good relationship with him despite not being married, and he’s not really a danger to my rule. And he apparently leagally changed his name to Ran halfway through the phone call; he shows up in the dialog that way as well as the stats.
Also I found a few misplaced quotes here and there, but that’s not that bothersome.
Noticed that if you choose to destroy all robots in a chapter 6 Grace, they seem to still exist in chapter 7 Goodbye. The mother got released from the hospital after robot surgery, you can get her robot pets, airports are a thing of the past thanks to the robots’ control of airspace, et cetera.
Not exactly a bug, but loss of humanity for doing anything but throwing the coin in President Irons’ face and getting tossed in jail seems a bit excessive, considering the fairly wide variety of circumstances which can lead to you getting it. The only thing I did for the military was work out a way to phreak the Chinese robots, but I still dropped by 9 humanity.
(On a similar note, humanity in general seems kind of problematic, just because of the way the percentage stat changes work. A lot of significant checks are made at 85, which is pretty stratospheric territory - at that level, you need to get ~5.7 times as much percentage increase as percentage loss to stay afloat.)
media.txt: Killing $crazy with your bot gives a flat -5 empathy, which can bring you into negative empathy.
Overall, not really a bug: Fame recognition caps out at “Prominent in History Textbooks” with >15 fame, but you can get well above that - my last game ended at 43 fame. It’d be neat to have a few more (increasingly hyperbolic) descriptors.
Education: I’m not 100% on the cause of this, but it seems like if you decide to stay and work on the robot the first day (where you choose between turning it on looking at a mirror, at you, or out the window), you miss out on the scene where you pick what it should call you. There’s definitely playthroughs where that hasn’t happened, and it’s seemed like that’s what they had in common. edit: On closer inspection, the choice of names only happens here if you make it start out looking at you. With anything else, you never get a choice, and it defaults to master. Not a bug, I guess?
Why does creating a cult around your robot result in losing all military skill?
Education: Winged robots still have legs, and should be able (like ordinary bipedal and eight-legged robots) to use the swings.
Dreams: Adjusting the head or leg type when Ziegler complains about a robot that has a humanoid head but doesn’t walk results in getting the normal boosts for robo-head or bipedal, without first removing the boosts you got for your previous choice.
Shouldn’t trying to write a novel increase your humanity somewhat even if it isn’t a big hit?
In the War chapter, relations with Juliet are reduced by 10% if you’ll only help the military in nonviolent ways, but they’re completely unaffected if you refuse entirely and your guest is anyone but Mark.
+1
As well as agreement expressed in a way that uses more than 20 characters.
Why express agreement in so many characters when you can just use the like button? 
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I didn’t like all of it. But I definitely liked the quoted bit. 
I think it would be nice if there was something triggered by certain things ending up super-high (such as one time when I think I got wealth up into like the 40s).
If the player joins Josh’s company after being kicked out of grad school, their product doesn’t get assigned - I just told Silas that they sell “Robot nones,”
Missed this one before, despite doing it a lot - if you donate your entire company to charity when the chance comes up, there’s an age mismatch. The prompt afterward is “You find yourself with a fair amount of time as a twenty-six-year-old with neither job nor school to attend,” but according to the stats screen, I’m 30.
Ok, 1.0.6 has been pushed.
Please report bugs only if you have v1.0.6. (the web is running this version; will update when Steam is as well)