Hello, Mercenaries!
Our new major patch, The Dragon Reborn, is now available in the beta branch! We've already discussed the patch details in this devlog.
How to Access the Beta?
Anyone interested can access the Beta through the special section in the game's "Properties.":
Betas -> Beta Participation -> 0.6 Beta
Disclaimers:
- Why beta? We want to test the patch, its stability and balance before its release. If you're interested in helping us, you can access it through the beta functionality. Don't forget about feedback and send your reports through the in-game form.
- Currently, English, Russian, and French localizations are ready. For other languages, we have prepared interim localization, but there may be errors in it. We would appreciate it if you could help us update the localization.
- Remember that this patch will wipe saves. So don't rush to update if you want to play on your old saves.
Patch Highlights:
- Rework of resistances, armor, and damage.
- Complete overhaul of barter: quick trading, dynamic supply/demand market.
- AI overhaul: "factional" logic of relations during combat.
- First narrative faction arc consisting of three missions.
- Added a huge number of new items, weapons, and armor.
- Added new stations.
- Added tracks for the first and third phase of quasimorphosis for the Martian bramfatura.
GENERAL
- Global rework of overall balance, armor, and weapon characteristics: Added limits on resistance and evasion and accuracy Reworked shooting modes
- Reworked barter Quick barter (no more wasting time) Stations now consume, produce, and transport resources between each other. The value of items on the market is determined by supply and demand. The value constantly changes depending on the player's activity and the activity of game factions.
- Reworked movement mode mechanics: The game cycle now consists of turns, and turns consist of action points. A turn is a set of action points for the player depending on the selected movement mode. And an action point is already what used to be a turn and a "basic update" for all game subsystems You can only change the mode at the beginning of the turn before any actions are taken, otherwise the switch will occur on the next turn (the switch will be displayed in the interface) Fixed cases where enemies intercepted the player's turn due to a change in movement mode
- Toxic puddles will now evaporate over time until they completely disappear.
- Added mission difficulty, now each mission will have varying difficulty, which will affect the number of enemies and rewards. You can see the task difficulty in the mission tooltip when hovering over the station.
- Reworked player character death visual, now the death screen will be displayed after the player character's death animation finishes.
- Now if there are more than 6 corpses in one cell, they will turn into one impassable pile of remains.
- Reworked enemy behavior, they now attack not only the player but also other representatives of hostile factions.
- Changes in the quasimorphosis mechanic: The collapse of opponents can now occur all over the map, not just in the player's line of sight. Human opponents can turn into possessed over time. Possessed retain equipment, injuries, and status effects after transformation Quasimorphs after the collapse (and possessed after transformation) will belong to a separate conflict side "Wild Quasimorphs" and will be hostile to all conflict sides on the mission. However, such quasimorphs will be allies for Tezctlan on Venus. If the player is on Tezctlan's side and has maximum reputation with his faction, then wild quasimorphs will be his allies In missions against quasimorph factions, the level of quasimorphosis will not decrease to the level of doubt (except for defense missions)
- Reworked injury and health mechanics: Any decrease in a character's health leads to the appearance of a wound. Weak wounds have no negative effects. The effects of amputations depend on the type of damage that caused the amputation. Significantly reworked the properties and parameters of medications. The logic of character states has been reworked, and new states have been added, further status effects (infection, poisoning, dependencies, frostbite, and shock). Visual display of status effects on the player has been added. Each status effect has its own progression logic from 0% to 100% and has 4 stages (the first 0-25, the second 26-50, and so on). Each stage has its own set of debuffs applied to the character. Dependency status effects (narcotic, alcoholic, nicotine, and kavakha) may occur with a chance when using corresponding items. With each use of such an item, the chance of addiction increases. Using such items on a character with an existing addiction will reset its progress to 0% but will not remove it. There are separate items for treating dependencies. Treatment of a status effect occurs through the use of items that reduce the progress of specific status effects by a certain percentage. If after application the progress of the status effect is 0%, it will automatically pass.
- The duration of defense missions has been changed from 150 to 80 turns.
- Improved the model and texture of the ship. Both for the regular and "Support Set" versions.
UI / UX
- Mission goal descriptions now include clarifications about the location of the task objective.
- Added a screen to display item prices, where you can learn about changes in the price and demand for various goods.
- Added a quick trade option, which allows trading with stations without landing. The option is enabled in the settings under the General tab.
- Added an option to disable camera shake.
- The camera has been reworked to remove shake in some cases.
- The visual display of interaction restrictions with items and interactive objects while running has been reworked for greater clarity.
- The description of the Pyromaniac perk has been supplemented. It is now specifically indicated that the perk affects the duration of fire on the ground (+1 turn) and the duration of burning on the target (+1 action point).
- Added display of critical hit chance for melee weapons on the mercenary class screen.
FIXES
- Fixed: characters could not move to an adjacent cell if there was a fence barrier nearby.
- Fixed: interaction with a container and corpses consumed an extra action point.
- Fixed: flamethrower affected targets behind closed doors.
- Fixed: the disc launcher did not damage enemies in front.
- Fixed: the disc launcher did not damage the player.
- Fixed: fire spread through closed doors.
- Fixed: when discharging the grenade launcher, extra fragmentation grenades were issued.
- Fixed: skull display on the ground after picking it up.
- Fixed: in some cases, highlighting of selected enemies did not illuminate all parts of the enemy's body.
- Fixed: bullet decals were painted purple after loading the level.
We would appreciate your feedback! Join our community on Discord to be the first to hear game news and receive notification when the patch release occurs! Also, follow us on Twitter!
Good luck in battle!
Best regards, Magnum Scriptum Team.