Hey people, Luke here.
A reminder that you can play the latest [tester] build of ATS by:
right-click on ATS > properties > Betas > Beta Participation > None > tester - unstable
( Reminder that campaign balance is a mess due to past changes, and may crash due to bugs )
Alright let me catch you up on the last few months of work.
Modding! (experimental)
Yes, modding is here. You can make your own Faction and Units.
Though still buggy and incomplete, I've put together a rather approachable "character sheet" modding system for creating new units and factions with their own models, behaviours, stats and weapons. All without you needing to write any code at all! The (very incomplete) Example Glaves Mod on the Discord contains everything you need to start making a full faction. Modded factions can even be put into Custom Maps. Just remember that the player needs a copy of the mod in order to run it.
The mod example currently contains an example of a Light Ship, a Platform, and a Yard. Eventually it will contain a complete tutorial on how to make most things in the game. The only issue is I'm the one that has to put all this together, and I still have a ton of other work to get done that's more important. So sadly you'll have to fight with a very incomplete example mod. But at least it's a good starting point and there are plenty of people to talk to on the Discord if you want help.
Also editor bug: You can't give modded units to the player's loadout via the Editor > Config menu yet. But you can do it via map events. Sorry will get this fixed at some point.
Also you can play modded faction in Skirmish if you set a loadout for them in their faction file. Fun.
Apocrypha Side Campaign
It's not done yet, but Brendan has been doing a lot of work to get a whole new mini-faction of opponents for us to face. (I should know, I keep having to code new/adjusted features for them!)
Rest assured that you will meet some wondrously terrifying objects in the storm'ed dusts.
Major Crash Solved
We managed to figure out the big crash last month. Long story short it's a Unity issue that we've had to brute force a solution to. It's a problem baked into the high-performance ECS systems that ATS uses to have all it's ships running around.
But I've gotten us around it, so crash-to-desktop should only happen if you run the game for several days straight or play ~30 unique maps in one sitting. Hah, which would be both impressive and concerning. Do remember to sleep and rest, games like all things are more enjoyable in moderation.
General Awesomeness
A lot of units have had their death-effects spruced up by Brendan. More explosions, more bits and bobs thrown around. Lots of pretty stuff to look at. On top of that several units have had fixes to their behaviour and changes to their strengths and weaknesses. The Kontaalen missile heavy, the Grytes - as a recent example - just got a heaping +45 piercing on it's Anti-Armour rockets with a small reduction of 25 damage.
Tychon Division Faction
A lot of stuff has changed with Tychon, as Aleks works to get the awkward third child ready to play with the battle hardened older siblings of the family. Quite a lot of careful reconsidering is going on, a lot of stepping back and thinking. Tychon is intended to be as unique as is reasonable from the other two factions. It's obviously no good having another Kontaalen, or another Vaalkorei when they already exist. It's also tough to gauge how strong or weak a unit or strategy should be, when the entire faction works differently to the other two.
Discord
A reminder to join the Discord for frequent updates, and just to chat with us three Developers.
Alright, that's it from me. Cheers.
Luke AP