New Units Have Entered the Fray! Fractured State marches forward in development showcasing a host of new improvements and introduces the Laperian Sharpshooter along with the Children of the Ancients new Fanatic unit in its latest update.
Joining the ranks of the Flamethrower, Conscript, Surgeon and Grenadier for the Laperian Army is the Sharpshooter. This long-range weapons specialist can deploy his rifle giving the player the ability to align shots at opposing players from a distance.
The Children of the Ancients welcome the most zealous followers, the Fanatic, into their fold. These units posses mythical abilities that enable them to launch an astral projection into a group of enemy combatants or confuse opposing forces to turn on themselves.
GENERAL UPDATES & IMPROVEMENTS
Added a particle attractor library
Removed Tab key toggling tactical map temporarily since we don't tell players how to toggle it off and folks were getting stuck in it
Added a small graphical effect to the hotbar when a skill comes off cooldown
Added a no-enter cursor for mousing over a transport with a selection of units that can't be passengers
Changed default reflection quality to Low since some folks were getting stuck on the loading screen for a long time
Restored flavor text for structures that broke in last update
Players can now bring up structure/territory info by tapping Alt instead of having to hold it down
Lots of cleanup to old code and refactoring for future things
UNIT/SQUAD UPDATES & IMPROVEMENTS
Units now space themselves out when moving and attacking
Units in buildings now stand farther apart by default
Vehicles have slightly more realistic steering (still needs work)
Added Fanatic unit to Children of the Ancients
Added Sharpshooter unit to Laperia
Surgeon heal amount increased from 5 to 12
Radiance radius decreased from 25 to 12.5 (now matches skill effect)
Increased Toss Canister radius from 5 to 7.5
Toss Canister now applies an accuracy debuff instead of blocking line of sight
Removed the ability for units to have interior only weapons
Simplified structure prequisites for some units so they become available earlier in the game
“This update concludes our 0.2 development cycle. I'm really excited to start iterating very quickly which means future updates should come at a much more rapid pace! More cool stuff is on the horizon. Onward to 0.3!” – Matt Kelso, Mechanical Monocle
“Designing new units and then putting the pieces together to get them in game is always fun. I hope everyone has as much fun playing them as I had making them!” – Todd Curtis, Mechanical Monocle
We Salute You!
Thank you to everyone who has been playing and enjoying Fractured State throughout it's development in 2017! We hope you had a great holiday, regardless if you are a Laperian lap-dog or hippie Child of the Ancients, and wish you nothing but the best in 2018! ːsteamhappyː We can't wait to show what all we have in store for the new year!!! May the gears turn in your favor.
If you are enjoying the game be sure to write up a review and let us know what you think. If you want to get in touch with the devs and report any issues you are having, give them your wishlist for future updates or just pat them on the back and wish them well, be sure to sound off in the Discussion Forums here on Steam or over at the game's official forums at: http://forum.mechanicalmonocle.com/
Changed networking architecture from Unity to Photon Thunder
Territories with rally points now get an indicator at the edge of the map. This indicator changes to the color of the team that owns the territory. Clicking on it opens your recruitment panel and defaults new squads to that territory
Made the world reflection probe taller and the center higher to have better reflections and prevent weird lighting artifacts that happened on taller buildings when reflections were turned off
Improved world lighting
Added a static background to the world
UNIT/SQUAD UPDATES & IMPROVEMENTS
Reworked the skill bar so it works with any number of squads selected and displays the number of units/squads who can currently cast each ability
Added keyboard hotkeys to abilities
Removed Take Cover squad ability for both Laperia and CotA
Surgeon: Changed ability swapping to display a button over each unit's head in the world
Grenadier: Changed Place Mine ability so player picks a spot on the ground instead of it being placed at the Grenadier's location immediately
Transport: Changed Disembark ability to display a button over each unit's head in the world
Flamethrower: Added ground indicator to Canister Toss and gave it a max range
Ancient Fist: Changed Radiance ability so player picks a spot on the ground instead of it being placed at the Fist's location immediately
Warden: Changed Shield ability - It's now placed by the player; squad mates do not automatically move under it; it remains up until the player cancels it or it gets destroyed; updated graphics and effects; increased health of shield to 1500
Vicar: Changed Heal ability to display a button over each unit's head in the world
Ruhk: Changed Slam ability so player picks a spot on the ground instead of it being placed at the Ruhk's location immediately
General improvements to how the Surgeon works
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug where multiple ragdolls spawned when a unit died
Fixed a bug in the lobby where new players would get incorrect information about which faction other players had selected
Fixed the scrolling speed on the color selector in the lobby
Fixed a sync error that could occur when a unit dies while exiting a building
Fixed a bug in the resolution dropdown in the Settings menu where it would apply the wrong resolution
Added logic so units can handle player orders to attack enemies in different world states. Now outside units told to attack inside units and vice versa will act accordingly instead of doing nothing or breaking themselves
Spaced out the spawn positions for new squads so units don't spawn on top of each other
Fixed a bug where unlocked units wouldn't lock again between matches
Fixed a bug where cover points would be permanently lost if the player told the unit to do something else before they reached the cover point
KNOWN ISSUES
LAN multiplayer is currently not working
If you discover any issues while playing the new build please let us know in the discussion or join us in the forums at http://forum.mechanicalmonocle.com/
Update 20170622 is LIVE!
We’ve just published update 20170622 for version 0.2! Here’s the changelist:
Update 20170622:
Updated engine to 5.6
Removed XML based processing of menus (this basically meant re-doing all the menus)
Added RSS feed to landing page
Added options to change screen resolution
Added option to run game in windowed mode
Added lore to menus
Dev Blog 6/15/17 | Conservatory + Title Screen Update
You've seen the Sanctuary, now check out the second half of the new building pair - the Laperian Conservatory. Stalwart upper class lads go here to learn the ways of sharpshooting and the proper posh guffaw.
The interior was fun to do as I got to work on fiddly patterns again, which I haven’t done for quite a while. I tried to make it seem less militaristic than the exterior. Instead I wanted it to have a gentleman’s club feel…in the British sense.
Here's a shot of what our landing screen looks like now compared to what it will look like in the next update. We revamped everything and included an RSS feed for our development updates.
-Todd Curtis, Mechanical Monocle
Check out past dev blogs at fracturedstate.net
Dev Blog 5/24/17 | Sanctuary
So it has been a while since I posted, this is largely due to reworking the UI, but I also moved across the country and got married…small things. This time around I thought I would do sort of a basic rundown of how I texture while showing you the Sanctuary (the first of the next two unit specific buildings, and the first buildings that function differently per faction).
The first step for me is blocking in colors. This lets me get a sense for what the finished asset might look like barring large changes, but it also lets me locate everything on the texture sheet…which is sometimes difficult.
From there I tend to complete the texture section by section. Trying to work across the entire texture at once might be better for getting colors correct the first time through but it involves jumping through a massive number of layers (this one texture alone probably had over 300, maybe that is just me being overly regimented).
One of my main focuses when texturing is creating the illusion of extra polygons/3d dimensional space in the model. Hopefully you can see what I mean in the path and path edge below compared to the first image.
And then I complete the owl…I mean finish the texture. After all the sections are done I tend to go back and re-evaluate any colors that feel lackluster. For this model I didn’t have to do very much of it.
Another aspect of maximizing depth in most of what I texture is adding gradients that make vertical planes darker at the bottom than at the top. This tends to trick the eye into reading those darker planes as further away. It needs to be subtle though, otherwise it can look a bit ridiculous.
And lastly one quick image giving you a general sense of scale. This is probably the most divergent building we have designed yet. Primarily because it is the first building to be specifically designed around the Children of the Ancients themes. The trick is making sure I don’t go too far from the general feel of the world/culture we they come out of.
So we’re three weeks into Early Access (nearly four now I suppose). It’s been a long, strange road to this point. I started this game by myself in an attempt to satiate an urge for a fully moddable RTS. In a way, I suppose, I was hearkening back to my days in high school and college plunking around in data files for old Westwood and EA titles; trying to coax the engines into this or that. In all honesty, I didn’t think we’d create something as unique as Fractured State is; even at this early point in its life. Heck I didn’t think there’d even be a we. But there is – since Todd came on in June of 2012 we’ve Ryan in Pennsylvania and Joe and George in the UK. We’ve signed a publishing agreement with John in Texas. As I write this, Todd is in the process of moving his entire life across the country with his soon-to-be wife. Mechanical Monocle will be officially bi-coastal and trying to meet with people internationally will require additional math. But we’ll make it work.
Todd and I have tried to do this before. We spent a year of our lives working on a turn based deck building game called Grid Fighter. We didn’t know what we were doing and we got burned out and it sort of collapsed like a house of cards. We didn’t speak for some time after that; not because we were angry or anything, more I think we were exhausted. I will be forever grateful that he agreed to attempt this ridiculous process again. I don’t think I could ask for a better creative partner; but don’t tell him I said that.
Currently we’re in the process of ripping out the fifth large system. Here’s the first “official” post for Fractured State (there were a few before this) showing a Map Editor that was more inspired by StarCraft or Command and Conquer. We threw this out and completely re-wrote the game from scratch 5 months later. Originally we had to build a navmesh by hand for a map. We threw that out and replaced it with a grid graph that generated automatically at run time. Later we simultaneously replaced our entire networking architecture and upgraded the visuals to include reflections and better lighting. Now we’re revamping all of our menus and pregame lobbies.
Just a few other housekeeping notes:
Todd and I did an interview for 15 Minute Gamer last week that you can catch HERE. We’ve also had some folks do some gameplay videos on Youtube so check them out HERE and HERE and HERE.
We launched a forum to gather player feedback and bug reports so take a second go register.
And thanks again to anyone who’s purchased the game thus far. We hope you like it and will continue to support us going forward!
-Matt Kelso, Mechanical Monocle
Check out past dev blogs at fracturedstate.net
Join the fray! FRACTURED STATE is LIVE!
Happy Launch Day Everyone!
Welcome to Fractured State! Everyone here at GPAC and Mechanical Monocle are excited to launch the urban combat RTS action into Steam's Early Access and start working with you to build towards the official release. Join us in the dicussions here on Steam or on the forums at: forum.mechanicalmonocle.com
To learn more about why we we've decided to launch into Early Access and some things to expect be sure to read through the "Early Access Game" section on the store page.
“We’re excited to finally get Fractured State in front of everyone! Your feedback will aid us greatly in helping get the game out of Early Access and ready for its official launch. Coming from a modding background I'm excited to finally make a standalone game. I can't wait to collaborate with content creators to build the features they want to see and to tell the story of the Laperian conflict.” – Matt Kelso, Mechanical Monocle
“It's daunting to put our work-in-progress out to the masses, but doing so should help us craft the best experience possible. We know that the feedback and interaction we will get from the community, with the passion and insight they will bring, will allow us to fine tune our game for a better final product.” – Todd Curtis, Mechanical Monocle
Now it's time to grab some friends, choose a side, and join the fight. Command the Laperian Imperial Army or the Children of the Ancients and help forge the final version of Fractured State with the flames of war.
