I'm releasing a new build of the game to the default, public branch. From now on you'll be able to save your progress. With the help of community's testing I'm now reasonably sure the mechanisms work as intended. So - you can save the entire state of your gameplay, as long as you don't have any CAS deployed on the map, or the units on map are not engaged.
Any other changes?
Beacuse this development took so long, I've also added countless small fixes to the game. Most of them related to scripts and AI getting lost in it's little plans, but also a bunch of optimizations to game behavior and physics calculations.
version 0.5.1: * NEW: the game can now be saved/ loaded. You can have any number of saves you want. * NEW: a summary window for all the people you arrest and transport off the map in your cars. You'll gain/lose relations points depending on if your arrests are legitimate. * the screen resolution and other display settings were all moved to the settings menu of the game. No more launcher screen. * optimizations: much less calculations needed for the cars' pathfinding (with exactly the same results as before, wether that's good or bad) * optimizations: a huge reduction in CPU usage for the actors' actions and the way the actors on map scan their surroundings. * fixes to the UI windows, sometimes ignoring the ESC key * fixes to unnecessarily huge memory usage of some of the objects on the map * switched to a more effective physics calculations solution * optimizations of the objects' physics calculations * updated to a more recent game engine version, which will translate into multiple fixes and optimizations under the hood
So what is next and will it take a year to materialize?
Next - I'm gonna add a first batch of persistent, player-buildable structures. I'm thinking of some MG nests, sandbags, watch towers, some better traffic control checkpoints. No other development in this project should ever take _this_ long to materialize. Saves were horrible to do, but they're now in. I will be adding new features to them every time I update the game in the future, but the bedrock of saving is now here, and thankfully will never have to be re-done again.
Also, some other changes I will work on
The AI is very disappointing, oftentimes. Trying to fight almost face to face, and too weak to really be a threat to your units. I will work on various ways of fixing this, from giving your enemies better weapons, to make sure they hide from you a bit more effectively.
Other priority will be adding political elements to the village management. Local leaders, both aligned or opposed to you, and some more interesting interactions there.
tl;dr; You can now save the game.
Saves will remain as an optional beta branch till the second week of January
Saves will only be available as an optional update until January
It turns out some of the testers have experienced issues with their savegames, and some of those issues I wasn't yet able to reproduce. Because of this, I need to delay the official launch of the game-saving update, and for now keep them as an optional branch, only available to those of you who would like to test it and maybe help me find any remaining issues there.
If you want to get involved, you can switch to a beta branch of the game to enable saves.
All the issues will get resolved soon, but the more people join in and help me - the sooner this will happen. The update was scheduled to go live today, because I wasn't able to find any major problems in my own tests anymore, until some of the testers started reporting them to me.
...and if you find any issues, please report them
If the game crashes for you, or you save file no longer works - please report it, either in the forum or by emailing me at pixelmachinegames+bugs@gmail.com, including the player log from the game and the save file itself.
The log files can be found under C:\\Users\\[your user name in windows]\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Pixel Machine\\Invasion Machine\\[any logs that you have here].log
The save file is in the same folder, and has a filename that ends with the extension .sav (for example, 1_12309.sav).
How to switch the game to a beta branch in Steam?
1. Right-click on Invasion Machine in your steam library page. 2. Select "Properties..." from the dropdown menu. 3. In the Properties window that will show up, select "BETAS" in the menu on the left. 4. Switch to the branch named "public-testing - Open testing for the saves feature". 5. That's it. Wait till Steam downloads the new branch and switches to it. 6. Now, when you open the game for the next time - it will be in version 0.5.1, and the load/save buttons will be enabled.
tl;dr; Saves are delayed till the second week of January, and will for now remain in a test branch, available for any of you who'd like to try it out and maybe help report any bugs. I'm sorry for the delay, but I was made aware of some major issues that slipped through and would corrupt your save files, if left unfixed.
Plans for the rest of 2020. When are saves coming to the game.
The game's still moving forward as before (just behind the scenes, for now)
Once again I went radio-silent on you all (at least all of you who haven't joined the Discord). From my perspective, it always seems like it's better to wait till I have some more major news, but after such a long break - I do understand that the game might look a little bit abandoned. So, to say in two words - it's not.
Why isn't there an update up, yet?
I'm finishing work on the saves. It's about 95% done at this point, but the nature of this update is - so far, when testing with some of the players, we realized that sometimes the game doesn't save correctly and all the player's progress gets lost. There's been no public updates to the game in the past months, but internally - we've tested about four different builds with the community, making progressive changes.
So, until all the little but disastrous bugs are taken care of - I cannot go public with the build. I understand there's nothing more infuriating than saving your game, just to realize later that the save got corrupted and all your progress lost for good.
Why so long?
This was the absolute worst part to develop in the project. The amount of interactions between the actors on the map, their plans and intentions, their state, ... All of these just kept on mounting up, and having them figured out, one by one, just took an enormous amount of time. The good thing about it, is - it only had to be done once, so there's no reason for the future updates of the game to take this long.
tl;dr; So - when will the update finally go live? Before Christmas. It's literally in the last stages of testing right now.
Update 0.5 Progression
Hello,
The Invasion Machine Team understands that some players would like updates and announcements on steam, as a result, we will be providing more announcements on the steam forums in the future.
Currently, update 0.5 is in the closed testing phase and the Game Development Team is working extremely well in fixing the issues (bugs) our beta testers are providing us. In the near future, we will be releasing an open testing branch for everyone to test the saves and provide feedback on the forums. The Game Development Team has not yet provided any dates for update 0.5 release or the open testing branch.
Invasion Machine | Live Stream #1
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Introduction
The Network Moderation Team & Network Development Team will be live streaming Invasion Machine #1 on the 26th September 2020 at 15:00 EST/20:00 BST. The Live stream will share some insight into the development of Invasion Machine and future updates including building update, vehicle update and the Invasion Machine community outreach programs. There will be several discussions happening and you can ask any questions to the EN Manager of Invasion Machine Game.
Happy Commanding! ¬ Game Moderation Team
Garrisoning Update is now in the game
What's in the newest update
The units on the map will now use buildings for cover. This is both for the AI (you can now never be sure how much opposition awaits you in the village you're about to roll into) and your own. Units can shoot out of houses, but only if there's a shot line from any of the house's opening to their target. More powerful weapons, like the .50cal, can shoot into the houses through walls, but doing so will not be very effective (except for damaging the house itself).
Here's the changelog: version 0.4: * NEW: both your units and the enemy can now garrison in the buildings. This provides extra protection (it's not fast or easy to take down a determined shooter hiding in the structures) * NEW: before your units can garrison in an unknown building, they'll first breach and clear it. This is similar to the "house searches", but will not reveal any weapons or drugs caches. Immediately after the breach is over, the units will take firing positions inside. * NEW: you can now shoot at houses, and out of them. Shooting at enemies hiding in structures will also engage any civilians stuck there along with the enemy. * NEW: the units inside structures now observe the world outside, which lets the AI engage your units from within structures, or try to lure your men closer (wait with opening their fire until your units are within range). * NEW: each building on the map got hand-placed firing positions, more or less aligned to it's windows. There may be less positions than actual windows (due to optimization concerns), but in general - the units inside will only be able to shoot from the side of the building which isn't solid wall. * NEW: heavy weapons, like te 50cal, can still fire at buildings through solid walls, but the effectiveness of this fire will be rather low. * NEW: snipers are a bit more effective at picking off targets in houses, but they need to be placed in a position that gives them clear view into one of the building's windows. * NEW: you can now select houses, the same way you select your units. * NEW: CEASE FIRE order for all your units. You can now tell your men to stop firing and don't try to engage new targets in their current engagement. * NEW: additional UI for the selected houses, showing you the lines of fire / line of sight from the closest window to the point under your pointer. This should help you realize which sectors of the map are covered by your garrisoned troops. * NEW: AI will try to hide in buildings, if engaged by overwhelming force * NEW: AI will garrison in villages you have no presence in * fix: the "house details" window is now much more mouse-friendly - you no longer need to have the camera focused entirely on the house to get it to open * changes the max passenger count for all the troop carriers to 5 * optimization to the actions splash menu - will now be opened faster
Why it took so long?
No part of my game scripts was ready for this change - in the previous versions, the houses were completely ignored in engagements, and the game had no idea how to target them or use them for cover. I had to rebuild all that, step by step.
What's next?
Save games. Pretty much everyone's asking about saves these days, so I'm making them my immediate next priority.
tl;dr; Garrisoning in buildings is now possible in the game. The next update will be the save games, I'm starting to work on them now.
New update pending: garrisoning will come out this week
What is happening
I've pretty much finished the garrisoning update - in the new build, which I'm about to release in a couple of days, both your units and the enemy will be able to use the houses for shelter and ambushes. Before I release it, however, I still need to do a lot more testing - it's gonna take me a couple of days, so I don't have the specific release date, yet.
Why it took so long?
The previous versions of the game had no concept of targetting buildings, or shooting out of them. The only valid targets used to be the game "actors" - cars and people, and changing this was a rather complicated process. Actors generally only do one thing at once - either they are engaged, or are doing anything else. For the buildings - you can have both civilians and enemies inside, with player units trying to breach at the same time, and other units shooting at them. In other words - it's not as easy to develop.
So when do you release it?
This week. But I don't know the exact day, yet - I'm still testing.
What will you work on next?
Due to popular demand, the next update will be the game saves. I have a lot of updates planned for the gameplay itself, but people are invariably disappointed when they realize the saves don't yet work in the game, and this is the feedback I get the most often. So, here we go - once the garrisoning is out, I'm beginning work on the saves.
tl;dr; there will be a new build of the game out this week. once it's out, I'm starting to work on game saves.
What's happening lately: making progress in garrisoning mechanics
The nearest update in the game will be garrisoning, but it's not yet ready.
Though it's usually a very basic concept in strategy games, a few things in Invasion make it a bit more involving than they otherwise would.
In your classic rts, this would just be a "hide the unit model on the map, change the skin on a building, add more healthpoints, all good" scenario.
In Invasion Machine, it's more complicated. * A unit wants to enter a building and take cover there. Ok, but are there enemies inside? If so, the building needs to be breached and cleared, first. Are there civilians inside? Well, then they won't be happy about it. * An enemy AI hiding inside buildings will shoot at your men. Ok, but are they close enough? If not, maybe it's better to come out and chase them? If they are, is there a window or door in the building facing the enemy? If so, what weapon do I have in the house to shoot at the enemy with? * What should the neighbors be doing when a firefight starts in their village? Run away? Join in? Can the houses cooperate to lure your units in and only _then_ open fire simultaneously? * Firing at houses damages them, lowering your relations with the locals.
This is just a few issues I need to work through.
So why is it not ready yet?
Basically, there's two separate mechanics that need to be added to the game. The first one is simply shooting from and into the houses. Before, the game couldn't even recognize buildings as valid targets for engagements (because the only actors in the game able to shoot at each other were people and the armored cars). Now I need to change this, and also take into account that a house can have multiple shooters at the same time.
The other is the garrisoning itself, and a bit of new UI that goes with it. Entering buildings. Leaving the buildings, one at a time, or all your units. The consequences in relations. How it affects combat stress.
So - when is the update?
Not this week. Probably not the next week, either. So far I successfully completed the shooting into/ out of houses mechanic. Now I need to make the AI use it, then I need to let your men garrison in the buildings. In other words - there's progress being made, but the whole feature is a big one and it still requires more effort on my part.
tl;dr; In the coming weeks I'll add garrisoning to the game, where both your units and the enemy AI will start actively using buildings for cover. After this is done, I'll start work on game saves.
New hotfix build released
Hotfix release
I just released a new build of the game, fixing all of the most common errors I got reports for, There's no new features here, just a bunch of fixes.
As new reports continue to flow in, I will keep on patching any of the reoccuring issues.
Release Notes
* optimization of smaller on-map object physics settings * optimization of the terrain renderer * fixes to the foliage rendering system * fix: previously it was impossible to reset the map with stockpiles present. * fix: exception when using the same unit to inspect traffic for the second time in a row * fix: in various cases, enemy AI was getting confused when some of it's actors died after getting shot in the vehicles * fix: AI ambush mission getting stuck * fix: AI patrol mission getting stuck * fix: game crash when trying to cancel a breach of a building * fix: exception when delivering enemy prisoners to HQ * fix: SSE4 requirement, coming from an external library mistakenly trying to run SSE4 code on a SSE2 processor. * fix: the game was trying to update inactive command missions, causing excessive error logging * fix: sniper trying to rotate to non-existent enemy, causing exceptions * fix: exception when AI was trying to confirm locations of no longer existing actors * fix: error when trying to find the drivers of certain cars * fix: error when trying to unpack a car that's no longer around * fix: intel window being visible for a AI mission that no longer exists
What's next
The nearest big step in the update roadmap is the garisonning. Right after it - saving the game.
Update: the buildings on the game map are now destructable
What's happening to the game lately
The last time I posted here, I laid out a near-term roadmap for the game. In the nearest future, there was supposed to be 3 major developments: 1. Buildings should become destructable and vulnerable to explosions and CAS. 2. Units should be able to garrison in the buildings. 3. Add the game saves.
I've just completed and released the first step of these - the buildings on the map are now destructable, and you can flatten them with badly placed CAS. Be warned, though - doing so will devastate your relations with the locals. Neither any surviors of the damaged house, nor their neighbors are ever likely to work with you again. If you happen to destroy a building, you can order it's reconstruction, though. The mechanic for it is identical to opening the social projects - you order some of you units to work on the project, and need to provide the construction materials from your HQ.
Other news
The newest build of the game features automatic (and anonymous) bug reporting. It's capable of notifying me of the crashes and fatal errors in the game (exceptions). It will not notify my about any content issues, like flying cars or stupid AI, so I still do appreciate those reports, but it definitely will let me catch those worst cases easier. You can opt out from the reporter in the game settings, if you really want to. The reporter's been up since yesterday, and it already caught 1,500 instances of (mostely the same, repeated) errors. I've already started patching them and will release a hotfix in a couple of days.
What's next
The garrisoning. It's gonna be a big update, affecting the gameplay in many different ways. No longer will the AI always lay out in the open. They'll be trying to setup new forms of traps, using the cover of buildings. I'm also considering adding ammo limit and enemy weapon stockpiles in the same update, but will need to flesh the idea out if I do.
