- Basic tutorial in Release Candidate State. More polish is needed, but fully functional!
- Voice overs for Basics tutorial Up to section 5 (which is about a quarter of the way in)
- Builds Updated to current PBR and Emissive standard
- Three ships updated to PBR and emissive standard
- Fixed ancient bug around a specific ship hull.
- Weapon Upgrade for buildings more consistent with the rest of the system.
- Asset Screen energy display for an installation no longer as jumpy
- Fixed issue in campaign mode where one couldn’t order a ship correctly.
- Loading a saved game will go straight into the game without have to press resume
- Various Fixes
Rank: Warmaster
Patch Notes for Version Alpha 0.8.11.3977
Rank: Warmaster News and Updates August 2, 2022
Greetings, Warmasters and Candidates! This is the newsletter for August 2nd, 2022, the first August newsletter. There are several major parts of this release. First, the buildings have finally been updated to the new PBR and emissive standard, the Basics tutorial is fully playable, and even has some voice overs attached. Of course there are the bug fixes, polish and clean up.
Quality of Life
As suggested by the testers, loading a game will take the player straight into the game, rather than having to click on resume on the Omniball. The upgrading of turret buildings now is more consistent with the rest of the game with the order being Beam weapons, Pulse weapons, Missile weapons then Cone weapons(WIP). There also was a bug where the system was misidentifying your own ships so they couldn't be ordered around in the campaign mode, while it was fine in the tutorials. There also has been more minor tweeks to the objective and dialog system to try to make it more consistent. It is an ongoing process.
The Basics tutorial is now fully functional. Polish is always needed, but it does fully work finally! Part of that polish is the voice overs that have been added to the beginning of the Basics tutorial campaign.
Artistic Update
A lot of graphical updates this time. All the buildings have been updated now to the new emissive and PBR standard, as well as several ships.
Here is an example of a long shot showing the upgraded buildings while a battle happens in the distance.
Short-term RoadMap
The Basics tutorial will get polish updates as needed. Voice overs will continue to be recorded and added. The hope is finally get back to working on the AI. There is a possibility of better steam integration in the multiplayer and perhaps even achievements. The former is likely before the next release, the latter probably not but is being looked at.
That's all for this update, stay tuned for more news next time! If you'd like to give Rank: Warmaster a try for yourself, pick up a copy on Steam and begin your conquest of Mars!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422270/Rank_Warmaster/
Rank: Warmaster News and Updates July 19, 2022
Greetings, Warmasters and Candidates! This is the newsletter for July 19th, 2022, the second July newsletter. The big part of this update is some quality of life polish and improvements. In this case, remembering where the player put the Omniball or dialogs per screen, as well as extensive tooltips for the Quick Designer. Various more minor fixes were implemented of course.
Quality of Life
The biggest quality of life update is the tooltips for the Quick Designer, and the remembering of positions of dragged the Omniball and Dialog boxes. The Quick Designer is the preferred way to design ships within Rank: Warmaster. While there are other ways to do finer detail, it is the best balance between simplicity and function. A design can be as simple as selecting a Role and hitting defaults, or further tweaking as the player desires. Apart from the basics tutorial, nothing really told the player what did what. That has now changed so that each control better reminds the player what it does. It is still recommended to complete the tutorial first, of course.
The second big change is remembering positions of the Omniball and dialogs on a per screen basis. This was requested in feedback and now has been implemented. Each screen has it's own real estate problems, and while efforts were made to keep the pop up locations reasonable, even if the player dragged things out of the way, the next pop up would simply return to the default position. What is best for the player would change per screen, so now that is remembered per session.
Some other minor improvements is to the mouse wheel support, which now is more consistent and doesn't fight with the old drag and throw methods which are still there.
The reload should be more reliable from different screen saves. A lot of smaller bug fixes and updates have been done across the various screens. See the patch notes for such details.
Short-term RoadMap
The Basics tutorial is playable now and still being polished, especially on the Quick Designer. Some voice overs have been recorded, but a lot more need to be done. There is a lot of polish and clean up that is in process of being done on the tutorials and various screens. This will continue for the next few weeks.
That's all for this update, stay tuned for more news next time! If you'd like to give Rank: Warmaster a try for yourself, pick up a copy on Steam and begin your conquest of Mars!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422270/Rank_Warmaster/
Patch Notes for Version Alpha 0.8.11.3953
- Omniball, Objectives and Dialogs positions are remembered per screen
- Added extensive tooltips on the Quick Designer
- Fixed Name showing up for items in the Quick Designer
- Fixed mouse wheel inconsistency
- Fixed Rank Change to the same rank would cause another player to change their rank to the same
- More stability for reloading (reloading now works if it takes you the building screen, for example)
- Upgrading turret weapons now cost appropriately
- Various Fixes
Rank: Warmaster News and Updates July 6, 2022
Greetings, Warmasters and Candidates! This is the newsletter for July 6th, 2022, the first July newsletter. This release was slightly delayed because of the holiday. The big part of this update a lot of clean up and polish, and especially reliability. Various problems and polish issues were discovered in testing, and while the full scope is still a work in progress, a lot of quality of life things have been added that were sorely missing.
Quality of Life
The biggest quality of life update is mouse wheel support for the different lists in the game. The game has a lot of scrollable lists, such as dialogs or even research listings. While mouse wheel support was obvious, it wasn't a priority. Well, it was made one, and now it works well. The Basics tutorial (or Prologue 2 as it use to be called), is now playable all the way through. We are still working out the kinks but at least you can do it start to finish now. A lot of polish is being added, such as having better positions for the dialogs, and that if you drag them, the "Space to Continue" message actually follows the window. It's the small things that end up mattering.
The reload and new game functions should now be far more reliable. A lot of smaller bug fixes and updates have been done across the various screens. See the patch notes for such details.
Artistic Update
Here is an example of the Basics tutorial where the player is shown how to get their own fighters to attack a group of fighters. The screen shot is only showing one such interaction.
Short-term RoadMap
The Basics tutorial is playable now. Voice overs are started to be recorded. There is a lot of polish and clean up that is in process of being done on the tutorials and various screens. This will continue for the next few weeks.
That's all for this update, stay tuned for more news next time! If you'd like to give Rank: Warmaster a try for yourself, pick up a copy on Steam and begin your conquest of Mars!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422270/Rank_Warmaster/
Patch Notes for Version Alpha 0.8.11.3938
- Mouse wheel support on lists
- Cosmetic fixes on Multiplayer Lobby, Research Screen (Names Update properly and other clean up), Asset Screen now has button click sounds, Building screen (Upgrades don't crash), Factory Screen now show multiple queues again
- Dialog Windows now have a defaulted position based on the screen.
- Press Space to Continue now follows the dialog window
- Fixed Salvage AI not targeting disabled Enemy Ships.
- Fixed Crash from automated dropping off cargo if it was from a saved game.
- Basics tutorial (Tutorial 2) in RC (release candidate). Still needs polish and likely a few fixes.
- Fixed Ship AI Attacking Targeting and Salvage to co-exist.
- Fixed Basics tutorial to be able to get past placing 4 nav point requirements.
- Better Reload reliability
- Cleared up issue around ~ key (it's to the left of the 1 key)
- Fixed issue in Flight tutorial where if travel mode was on, it would deadlock the acceleration test
- Various Fixes
Rank: Warmaster Special Update!
Greetings, Warmasters and Candidates! This is a special update announcing the upcoming release of the Rank: Warmaster Original Soundtrack on July 5th! The music in Rank: Warmaster was composed by composer Christopher Kaminski and the album features 9 songs that add up to 51 minutes of music.
You can wishlist it here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1780200/Rank_Warmaster_OST_Soundtrack/
Of course, you can play the game that the music was written for here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422270/Rank_Warmaster/
Rank: Warmaster News and Updates June 21, 2022
Greetings, Warmasters and Candidates! This is the newsletter for June 21th, 2022, the second June newsletter. The big part of the update is the salvage system has been automated. Of course a lot of work has been done on the tutorials, which have now been renamed.
Quality of Life
While salvage has been working for a while, it has never been automated. Now if you a ship design with a cargo bay and salvage beam, you will be able to order it into salvage mode. It will clean up the disabled ships on the battlefield from both sides, and return the salvaged RMs and CMs back to your warehouse automatically, and then wait for more!
The flight tutorial has been getting more polish, and the Basics tutorial that handles the RTS and 4X aspects of the game is on the verge of being playable all the way through. So please try it and give some feedback! Obviously a lot of polish need to be done. Also some helpful minor updates are that disabled ships will just turn off their engines, rather than if their main engine still worked they would effectively run away, which made them harder to salvage. Also loading a save from a different screen than the flight sim screen, you will return to that screen upon load. The last more major update is the campaign now has useful and randomized defaults, including logos and colors for your corporation. There is a longer list, if interested, please check the patch notes.
Artistic Update
Here is a closer view of the newer buildings, showing some of the building tweaks. Also, coloring of the different transport beams have been standardized. Red for extracting resources from a building, purple for putting resources into a building, white for the builder beam, blue for repair, and green for mining or salvaging.
Short-term RoadMap
Tutorial 2 is in the final push of getting it running. It will need polish, but it will be functional and much of it already is. The automated ship designer is likely to be worked on next to have the opponents makes more sense in their design. Automated repair ship AI will come hopefully afterward. As previously mentioned, the tutorials allow a lot of gameplay and shows what needs to be fixed or updated. Sort of triage for a video game.
That's all for this update, stay tuned for more news next time! If you'd like to give Rank: Warmaster a try for yourself, pick up a copy on Steam and begin your conquest of Mars!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422270/Rank_Warmaster/
Patch Notes for Version Alpha 0.8.11.3907
- Salvage ships will now automatically work once given orders include auto drop off.
- Tutorial 2 and 1 advancements and fixes. (Still WIP)
- Disabled ships no longer fire main engines.
- Salvage is now able to salvage shielded ships if they are disabled.
- CMs (Component Materials) now able to be dropped off, and totaling fixed.
- Loads will return to screen they were saved at. (Fixed)
- Campaign now has starting defaults including logos, and colors
- Command menu now working with Num pad.
- Various Fixes
Rank: Warmaster News and Updates June 7, 2022
Greetings, Warmasters and Candidates! This is the newsletter for June 7th, 2022, the first June newsletter. As usual, most of the updates are around the tutorials, however, tutorial 2 is about ready.
While not polished by any means, it at least can be completed (if the proper path is taken). There has also been a graphical update on the buildings. There are the typical bloom refinement and bugs fixes of course.
Quality of Life
The tutorials has been the main focus. While Rank: Warmaster isn't hard to play or understand, especially if you've played the genres before, the controls may need a small refresher for how we defaulted the controls, and the progression of the game itself. Also doing the tutorials show a lot of places polish and improves, and even bug fixes are needed, which is a lot of why they are taking as long as they are. It's not so much putting in the dialog, but making sure what they are referring to is working correctly. What came out in playtesting was how long it took to extract the resources to build a building wasn't needed or even planned to be that way. So now that is far quicker and therefore less annoying. Many other flow issues switching between screens has been cleaned up, such as the building screen. There is a far longer list, if interested, please check the patch notes.
Artistic Update
The building bloom tweaks have started. There are still a few things to iron out, of course, but the buildings do have a more sci-fi flare to them now. Also the effects for moving resources have been standardized to take advantage of the new bloom effects, so extracting is red, placing is purple, mining/salvaging is green, and repairing is blue, with building still being white. As a bug fix, we noticed that the building effects had stopped working in the Navigation screen, which of course is now fixed.
There will be further tweaks to the buildings, and the first round of updates to the ships should be coming soon.
Short-term RoadMap
Tutorial 2 needs a lot of polish and finishing touches. The Quick Designer has a few paths through it in tutorial 2, and while the short path is usable, the longer and more in-depth still needs to be fleshed out. The Salvaging AI is currently being worked on and should be expected in the next release. What this will mean is you can make a cargo ship with salvage beams and order it to clean up the battlefield and it will do so on it's own, and drop off the cargo back at base or a local cargo ship or repair ship. Automated repair ship AI will come afterward. As previously mentioned, the tutorials allow a lot of gameplay and shows what needs to be fixed or updated. Sort of triage for a video game.
That's all for this update, stay tuned for more news next time! If you'd like to give Rank: Warmaster a try for yourself, pick up a copy on Steam and begin your conquest of Mars!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1422270/Rank_Warmaster/