Greetings, tactics fans! It's been another month, and you know what that means: it's time for another update!
This month sees a lot of bug fixes, controller improvements, new proc gen equipment variations, new tools for campaign creators, and more. Let's get into the changes:
- in gamepad controls, rather than duplicating the left trigger's zoom function, the right trigger is now an automatic "End Turn" button.
- the game now automatically repositions the gamepad cursor when auto-panning the camera during in-battle dialogue.
- a Stone Golem throwing a character onto a space occupied by an object with "flying" passability now produces a context-dependent effect: if the character is an ally, they are thrown on top of the object as normal; but if the character is not an ally, they will now be thrown into the object instead for collision damage (and--if the object is spiked--further spike damage as well)!
- helms can now get modifiers as part of the procedural generation process!
- boosted the heat and cold resistance modifiers from insulated armor from 15% to 25% each.
- boosted the light and shadow resistance modifiers from lead-lined armor from 15% to 25% each.
- doubled the morale effect of Beautiful weapons and armor from +1 to +2.
- new possible modifier for especially high-quality weapons and armor: Gorgeous. Grants the wearer morale +4 while equipped.
- new tag type supported: Immunity. Grants status effect immunity to the tagged unit.
- reduced aggression coefficient for the Greedy AI profile.
- the game now checks for duplicate tags when generating a new skill progression for a character upon promoting or reclassing, preventing characters from reacquiring tags they already possess.
- fixed: traps and holds were not interrupting self-move skills (like the cavalier's Charge attack) as intended.
- fixed: gamepad controls were no longer functioning properly in the shop tutorial.
- fixed: the gamepad would sometimes be locked out of movement during deployment due to an internal failure to clear dialogue triggered at the start of turn 0.
- fixed: music cross-fading was not reliably playing tracks at the correct volume.
- fixed: the game could sometimes throw a range error during character promotions.
- fixed: the game would throw a null error trying to store achievement stats if not connected to Steam.
- fixed: it was possible to click another character and select them mid-combat animation, thereby messing up the game's tracking of who the current character was and causing the original attacker to get another action.
- fixed: ranged attackers could sometimes counterattack after being shoved into water or lava.
- fixed: swimming onto a land tile with a trap would not trigger the trap.
- fixed: Unity's built-in lighting system would screw up when too many lights were casting on the same object (typically in maps with lava tiles).
- fixed: the game was awarding victory spoils twice for battles with a built-in aura reward.
- fixed: the game wasn't picking portraits for promoted generic units correctly.
- fixed: the status effect immunity popup text was misformatted.
- fixed: on lower AI settings, the game was actively valuing lethal blows lower than non-lethal blows (as opposed to merely not valuing them more highly).
- fixed: on lower settings, the AI would not consider lethal blows against destructible objects a viable move at all.
- fixed: lead-lined armor was providing heat and cold resistance instead of light and shadow resistance.
- fixed: skills like Overheat could drop a character's energy into the negatives.
- fixed: destroying fire did not remove its environmental damage effect from the space.
- fixed: when fire was spawned in front of elevated terrain, its smoke particles would aggressively clip through the terrain.
- fixed: flying characters who had been Gravity-Spiked into water or lava and then swam back onto land would reemerge at the wrong elevation.
- fixed: in rare instances, 2D particles could cause the game to throw a null error.
- fixed: the game was inappropriately failing to give stone golems the tag that reduces the cost for Shove 2, and was instead giving it to them as an invalid skill at level 2.
- fixed: skills, masteries, and other things learned at specific levels (such as Book of Power mastery or the Assassin's Leap skill) would get reintroduced into a character's skill progression upon promotion, leading to that character learning a duplicate of that thing upon reaching level 2 of their promoted class.
- fixed: characters' steps taken would be reset to 0 upon promoting mid-turn in battle.
- fixed: if the skills bar was set to a character's second page of skills and they were thrown into water or lava, the game would still display their second (now blank) page of skills upon selecting them, making it impossible to command them to swim.
- fixed: the game was not recognizing player-placed Caltrops as traps for purposes of warning the player about moving their own units into them.
- fixed: proc gen characters in classes that normally have two skills at level one would start off missing their second level-one skill if they had Motivate.
- fixed a typo in the class requirements for proc gen bowmen caused the game to only select characters with a positive psy growth for the class instead of a positive strength growth, leading to many proc gen bowmen developing very little strength.
- fixed: Trade, Twirl, and Juxtapose worked on objects, not just characters. The game now gives you a pop-up message explaining why it didn't work if you try this.
- fixed: Trade worked on enemies, not just teammates. The game now gives you a pop-up message explaining why it didn't work if you try this.
- fixed: if a character attempted to use a self-move skill like Stick-and-Drag or Pull while subject to a Hold effect, it would leave the attacker in place while telling the game they were in the process of moving, eventually freezing the game as it waited for expected character movement to complete.
- fixed: when using a Book of Power in a cut scene, the user's already-open character screen would not auto-update with their new stats, skills, or class name following the promotion.
- fixed: the game would cease to display the effects of morale in the character screen if morale-altering equipment temporarily pushed the total value above 10 or below -10.
- fixed in 1.047a: characters ending a battle while swimming would have their movement type appear as swimming during deployment for the next battle.
- fixed in 1.047a: - fixed an error in the way the game checked for level-specific skills in the progression which could cause a freeze upon promoting certain characters.
- fixed in 1.047a: cross-fading music during promotions was not behaving as intended, leaving two tracks playing simultaneously.
- fixed in 1.047a: cross-fading music was causing the new track to play too quietly.
- fixed in 1.047a: faded-out music could unexpectedly start playing again during scene transitions.
- fixed in 1.047a: the game was reconnecting and spawning a brand-new instance of the Steamworks manager class every time the player returned to the title screen.
- fixed in 1.047a: level-ups and promotions produced by items used via a character screen from within reserve supplies menu would not "stick."
- fixed in 1.047a: the game wasn't accounting for the dodge bonus granted by tall grass when displaying attack accuracy upon mousing over an attack tile.
- fixed in 1.047a: the AI wasn't accounting for the dodge bonus granted by tall grass when weighing different attack options.
And finally, loads of fixes and improvements for campaign creators!
- new skill added to the engine: Mind Domination. It's essentially Mind Control, except Enthralled has a base 100% chance to take effect.
- new skill added to the engine: Mega Charge. Covers one extra space of ground and has 2x 75% chance to stun. Cavaliers have a new, corresponding animation which matches the longer charge distance.
- new skill added to the engine: Grappler Stance. Creates a Hold on a single adjacent space.
- skills which create Holds can now be targeted on spaces occupied by other characters.
- new script action supported: AddStock. Programmatically adds stock to an existing shop in the scene. Lasts until the scene ends.
- objective reticles may now be placed and removed using a character name (or ID[] tag) instead of just x and y coordinates.
- RemoveSpawn may now take the loadID parameter "Deployment" in proc gen maps to remove procedurally generated deployment spots.
- the game now recognizes Health Left and Energy Left as stats for most stat-related script actions.
- new supported text sprite: Time.
- you can now assign a percentage spawn chance to all army and object groups for proc gen maps in the map editor.
- the game now takes minimum distance rules into account when randomly placing objects and characters via SpawnUnit using -1 , -1 coordinate parameters.
- characters created with the character creator now have an appropriate babble voice set assigned to them.
- new reply type supported, cut scene only: Next Frame. Ends the current dialogue and proceeds to the next frame of the cut scene.
- new AI tag: AreaPreference. Alters the AI's calculated value for moves in which the tagged character ends their move in the named Area. You can use to nudge particular AI characters toward choosing moves that place them in specific areas of the battlefield; or alternatively, to dissuade them from pursuing moves in certain areas.
- updated usable skill icons with the new Mind Domination and Mega Charge icons.
- fixed: "duplicate dialogue branch" functionality was not working correctly in the dialogue editor.
- fixed: moving a branch downward within a dialogue tree would produce a range error.
- fixed a null error in the map editor when loading a map with a global lighting condition as its first condition.
- fixed: the Protect Char condition was not working on destructible objects.
- fixed a range error when cycling through permitted integers using a number picker in wrap-around mode via the "previous" button.
- fixed: the game did not clear the New Roster scene tag when hitting New Scene in the cut scene editor, resulting in an already-open scene's new roster carrying over to the new scene as well.
- fixed: the character creator could roll up generic units with morale above zero (i.e. neutral).
- fixed a bug in the game's battlefield generation logic that was causing counterattack-possessing objects like Spiked Barricades and Fire to cluster within two spaces of the player's deployment spots.
- fixed: the game's battlefield generator could spawn enemies on top of traps.
- fixed: players could click on the main text box during character selection branches of dialogue and it would progress to the next branch of the tree with no character selected.
- fixed: it was still possible for the AI to make proc gen spearmen use Trade all the time.
- fixed: when renaming a proc gen character, the proc gen character's generated dialogue would have their old name baked in and left unchanged.
- fixed: a typo in the game's tile data meant that the game couldn't find tiles surrounded on three diagonal corners by cave tiles and would simply leave a hole in maps where such tiles appeared.
- fixed: the game would not recognize premade characters for purposes of the AddPortrait script actions if the game hadn't already saved loaded characters at least once.
- fixed: typing the letter 'L' in the cut scene editor would still trigger the game's "save log" functionality.
- new in 1.047a: updated in-game documentation to more clearly explain what each level of the AIHandicap script action does.
- new in 1.047a: the map editor now supports loading and saving a discrete defeatScene attribute for battles, allowing you to easily set a next scene dependent on the player's defeat without using conditions.
- new script action in 1.047a: SetDefeatScene. Sets the defeatScene attribute to a different scene for the current battle.
And that's about all for this month!
What's next?
I've been continuing to work very hard on Together in Battle, adding content, improving balance, and fixing bugs. TIB is already garnering some very nice reactions from players--I'll just highlight this one, which I particularly love:
Pretty awesome, no?
As always, I remain incredibly grateful for your support. I'll see you in the next one, folks! ;)
Yours in tactics,
Craig