Genre: Shooter, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Strategy, Indie
Out of Ammo
Update 0.4 Released
Summary
The focus for this update has been improving the controls and bugfixing, especially for the tutorial. We've also included quite a bit of new content such as a completely revised sniper rifle, machine gun emplacement, and even a new environment!
Existing players are strongly advised to redo the tutorial to learn the new control changes.
Weapon state isn't saving when you depossess a unit.
Sniper rifle starts unloaded.
Enemy Snipers of Port Environment can spawn in hard to reach places.
General
NEW: Added a check to see if units or objects fall under the map and will reset their position if they do.
NEW: Added more space between scoreboard buttons, reduced collider size.
NEW: Added a light to muzzle flash.
NEW: Left Controller App button brings up Game Menu with game running at lowest simulation speed
NEW: Restart level option on game menu
NEW: Sniper rifle with better optics and new model and authentic reloading
NEW: Pistol model
NEW: Assault Rifle Model with iron-sights
NEW: Magazine for Assault rifle now has bullets/no bullets when empty/full
NEW: Machine Gun model and authentic reloading mechanics for MG
NEW: Machine Gun emplacement which has better sandbag protection from enemy units
NEW: Quick-possess option on Left Controller App button
NEW: Texture Quality and Resolution Scale performance options
NEW: Graphical Indicator for positions that don't have anyone in them
NEW: Graphical helpers for reloading machine gun and sniper rifle
NEW: Commander radio in left hand now replaces HQ for commander abilities
NEW: Port Environment made by Virgil (ShyOblivion). A large open port for you to defend!
NEW: Initial implementation of shotgun for combat engineers.
CHANGED: Max one rocket infantry for friendly troops at a time. Only two rounds can be fired by player while possessing
Bugs
FIXED: Units not properly looking at their target when getting shot.
FIXED: Engineer toggle showing up for all units.
FIXED: Florence nightingale achievement is now working.
FIXED: Target aquired achievement is now working.
FIXED: Being able to build on helipads and other level clutter.
FIXED: Quit game menu UI was too small, made larger with more space
FIXED: Some objects don't collide correctly with bullets. Simplified collision on many objects to improve performance.
FIXED: Machine Gun bullet damage too low. Now has same damage as sniper rifle (instant kill) but only when player operating.
FIXED: Tutorial allows you to possess units at any time
FIXED: Can run out of ammo in tutorial
FIXED: Tutorial doesn't make user practice how to place on ground. Now contains test of this mechanic.
FIXED: Tutorial tells user to get ammo from body. Now tells user to get ammo from hip
Map Changes
FOREST: Replaced some missing nav-mesh modifiers to prevent enemies from getting stuck
DESERT: Added some additional nav-mesh modifiers to prevent enemies from getting stuck
Next Update
As with all our updates so far we are primarily focused on bugfixing and performance improvements. Key new features for the next update are Roaming Enemy Vehicles that will spawn at higher waves and Logistics which will give you more control over your medics/engineers and also require you to manage the ammunition delivery to resupply your units. We're also hoping we can get another environment in the next update as well!
Update 0.3 Released
Summary
We decided to do another performance patch focused on GPU. We've now added options for anti-aliasing. Users with older GPUs (or who experience stuttering/lag) should try lower AA settings. We tested on a i5 4460 (CPU) and GTX 950 (GPU). Such a machine would be below our minimum requirements, and yet it worked fine. We noticed some controller lag when the chaperone came up.
We also included a much requested feature... scope for the sniper! It's now pretty awesome. We also increased the distance sniper bullets travel to go with this. Enjoy!
New
NEW: Added anti-aliasing settings option to main menu
NEW: Added render to texture sniper scope (currently fixed zoom)
Bug Fixes
FIXED: Was forcing TemporalAA at max quality (was destroying FPS on anything less than a 980). Now default to FSAA x4.
FIXED: Sniper projectiles now last for 3 seconds, not 1 second. Previously was impossible to shoot some distant targets.
FIXED: Decreased near clip plane to allow weapons to get closer to your face.
FIXED: Toned down physics on deployable crates to stop them from glitching out.
FIXED: If a unit gets stuck they will now teleport to where they want to go after 5 seconds.
FIXED: If a unit or deployable falls through the map for any reason, they will be respawned at the players base.
FIXED: Grenades now respawn properly on defences if they've been shifted or blown away.
FIXED: MG movement glitches badly when player hands get too far from MG. Now holding will be reset if player hands get too far from the MG.
FIXED: MG damage too low. Now set to be twice as high. Still too low, but until we remove unlimited ammo it would be overpowered to increase it.
Urban
Corrected helicopter flight path so that it no longer comes too close to buildings on approach and when flying away
Added several nav-mesh blockers to help enemy units path through the city
Adjusted enemy spawn points to stop units from occasionally spawning inside buildings and being stuck
Simplified collision on many assets to improve performance
Next update
We delayed efforts on new environments and the replacement HQ because they require rebaking of levels and much testing, so that we could hurry this update out. Next update will have these and improvements to the tutorial.
We're currently planning out how to add more depth to the game with an initial focus probably on some logistics (fixed weapons running out of ammo and engineers resupplying them). Please feel free to discuss on the forums as we will take all the ideas we can from there.
Update 0.2 Released
Summary
This is our first update. We focused very heavily on optimization. There was a number of easy tasks we undertook to improve performance, particularly on CPU bound machines (such as those with an i5). Hopefully this will target the frame lag that some users have been reporting.
We delayed our content update for a future patch so that we could get this out as fast as possible. So new environments will be coming out in our next update. Thanks so much for your feedback everyone!
If you are concerned you don't have the update, try restarting steam. If that still doesn't work, try using "verify cache" to ensure you have the latest version
Known Issues
BUG: Units can become stuck by attempting to enter an inaccessible defense. Such as buildings placed on roads in the Urban environment
BUG: Unoptimized building colliders on Urban map can still cause CPU lag for some machines
Edit: GPU bound users may still have issues. A new patch tomorrow will try to address this.
General
NEW: Added tail and strobe to helicopter
FIXED: Optimized colliders on a large number of world objects, reducing the overall hit on the CPU
FIXED: Depth of Field was being calculated causing significant performance hit on many machines
FIXED: UI not being properly destroyed when a defense is blown up.
FIXED: Sniper unit sometimes dropping their gun on possession.
FIXED: Building placement clipping through the terrain. Building now calculated based on terrain not a flat plan, supporting future maps.
FIXED: Units sometimes not being able to get to their target location and permanently breaking.
FIXED: Deployable crates sometimes colliding with the helicopter blades and being flung off into the distance.
FIXED: Defense placement being allowed on the helipad and stockpile.
FIXED: Pistol round casings dance comically when colliding with the terrain
FIXED: Cursor was too emmisive and was causing excess bloom when placing deployables.
REMOVED: Grass and mud has been removed due to cost of transparency. Will return later as mesh objects.
Tutorial
Smoothed out problematic hill next to the base (was breaking unit assignment)
Enclose all but the front of the base to help prevent confusion as to where the player should be facing
Moved explosive barrels back a bit to prevent accidents
Disabled shadow casting on river and pond
Thinned out the trees and bushes on the visible parts of the map, removed many that the player will never be able to see or were inside of other trees/under the ground (~150 instances removed)
Removed bottom light-blocking floor (no longer need w/ removal of Time of Day)
Removed truck spawns to prevent potentially breaking flow of tutorial
Removed duplicate river actor under map
Removed duplicate pond actor with a null mesh value
Removed several grass-card actors with null mesh values
Removed Farmhouse_With_Rail actor with null mesh value
Removed extra HQ label planes
Forest Environment
Smoothed out problematic hill next to the base (was breaking unit assignment)
Removed shadow casting on the giant clouds, river, and pond
Added several navmesh blockers to prevent enemies from walking through trees
Removed bottom light-blocking floor (no longer need w/ removal of Time of Day)
Removed duplicate river actor under map
Disabled shadow casting on river and pond
Removed several trees/bushes that were never visible to the player or inside other actors/under the ground (~50 instances removed)
Added a couple more explosive barrels on an approach that had none
Removed fallen pine tree, seemed too out of place
Urban Environment
Added/Swapped in some new assets (buildings, some cars, etc)
Altered & added some obstacles in the streets slightly to change enemy pathing and sight-lines
Re-positioned some of the rooftop snipers to lessen chance that they can't be seen or fall down
Moved the Hesco barriers inside the base to the corners of the helipad and stockpile instead of intruding into space players may want to build structures
Moved engineer's rally point a bit closer to the center of the base to decrease how vulnerable he is to waves near the stockpile
More evenly distributed enemy spawn points
Removed leftover instance of old smoke particles
Moved HQ and Med Tent in slightly to more easily allow a defensive structure to be placed behind them
Desert Environment
Added in some additional background detail
Added a couple obstacles on one approach to better break up sightlines and enemy pathing
Moved engineer rally point slightly to reduce vulnerability
Added a couple more natural boundaries to the base to even out defensive gaps
Added ability for enemy snipers to spawn around the map
Alpine Environment
Rescultped the mountains to look a bit more natural
Adjusted color of fog - some of the red was lost in previous lighting changes
Removed the light pole in the middle of the play space and replaced with an invisible spotlight to slightly increase visibility
Evened out spacing of fires to be more useful to detect incoming enemy movement
Remade the power lines and added a blinking light
Tweaked drop off locations for enemy transports to prevent some nav-mesh issues
Next Update
There will be another update this week focused on further bugfixing and some new content. We've got two new environments nearly complete and a new HQ building is ready to replace our placeholder one!
We're officially live!
Well the time has come and we've officially released our initial build!
Difficulty Balancing
Our current plan is to focus on balancing to ensure that players experience intensity and fun, but not to the point they can't play. This has been one of the hardest parts of development for us.
Tutorial
One of our key aims was to try something really different with VR. We were not very convinced that VR could offer the game experiences we were interested in. What we quickly learnt is that when doing this kind of experience you make a very steep learning curve.
We have revised our tutorial so that most people should be able to learn the mechanics for the game, but we do find that some people still struggle. We are going to patch in a newer, better, tutorial as soon as we can. However, this is a very risky fix.
Experimental Branch
As soon we can we will be implementing an experimental branch so you can see our latest builds. This will be announced in detail in a separate post when the time comes.
More content!
Virgil has been working on a new level but it wasn't ready for our release candidate. It was quite a challenge for him as it is very different from our other levels. We'll be looking forward to introducing everyone too it!
Beyond...
We're still figuring out the best way to approach VR titles so we will be focusing a lot of effort on getting a good dialogue with the community and to set some great goals for the project.
It's been a really enjoyable project, working with the HTC Vive and UE4 has been very enjoyable!
