Hi Generals!!
I was pretty busy in August releasing 5 new versions of the alpha (0.1.18 to 0.1.22). Those updates improved TLG's alpha gameplay and stability, fixed a ton of crashes and brought a lot of new features and quality of life, some new units and a much more enjoyable experience for new testers.
The alpha is now open to Discord members with activity level 2 or more (which is just sending 75 messages in the server or getting 15 likes), so a lot of new testers are joining the alpha every day!
Here are some videos and images from the alpha testers as usual, and at the bottom is the ridiculously long list of changes I made in August!
August Alpha changes:
Changed initial company placement to place a similar number of companies for every player. This will make Dalmino map a bit less brutal.
Made infantry not die so easily from explosions nearby
Made FPV drones explosions more powerful
Fix scrolling to zoom out with low framerates.
Fixed scroll to zoom in/out while panels are open.
Fixed crash when deleting units (feature only available for the alpha and sandbox later!)
Fixed most crashes after resigning and playing a second match, still happens sometimes but it’s pretty infrequent.
Fixed some vehicle mounted machine guns moving in glitchy ways (mainly for MA19 Templar and LHMV)
Reduced turrets motor torques to fix some physics mess caused when they or their cannons get blocked against something while rotating.
Added additional logging to identify issues better
Made speed/pause changes messages last a shorter time on screen, so they are not shown that often in screenshots taken while the game is paused.
Adjusted some factory and unit costs and production times.
Made AI controlled soldiers don’t run aiming for no reason anymore, and hold their weapons in more natural poses when aiming and when idle.
Made helicopters and quadcopters way more responsive when changing directions.
Fixed helicopters rotors not stopping once destroyed
Fixed soldiers recoil continuing to move infantry weapons while game was paused.
Fixed missiles sometimes getting stuck in a spiral trying to maneuver to their target up close. Now missiles maneuver less and also miss tracking of their targets.
Fixed default selected map being Anatra but actually loading Dalmino if you don’t select it manually again.
Made the FPV drones 3rd person camera follow the drone closer
Inverted mouse Scrollwheel default direction for thrust up/down on helis and planes.
Showing detailed production times in factories instead of rounded to the second. It works better for displaying short resources production times on large factories.
Added the ability to increase game speed by pressing Left CTRL + T (or whatever key is mapped to decrease game speed)
Fixed wind turbines imploding when physics are in performance mode.
Fixed keyboard navigation being disabled in the main menu after resigning a match.
Added night vision signatures to soldiers and some vehicles that were missing them.
Updated frame generation for better stability and performance.
Changed grass and details rendering distance based on graphics quality level
Improved shadow distances for each quality level.
Reduced effects and post processing qualities in lower quality levels.
Optimized a bunch of models that had too many triangles in the distance.
Added the first two ships to the game! Now I just need to build a few new systems for them before I can actually use them in the game. That will probably happen in about two weeks, as I need to prioritize more pathfinding improvements and CPU optimization first. See below for a little preview of those ships!
Fixed one of the main crashes in 0.1.18.
Improved troops transport pickup and drop off logic.
Fixed manual dismounts that made soldiers immediately enter their vehicle again.
Improved overriding orders.
Made units ignore manual orders some time after completion.
Fixed units assignments for new companies when giving strategic orders, and reassignments between companies when needed. Now companies will source the closest matching units as expected instead of calling in troops very far away.
Improve danger responses to take into account the risk and distance to the origin of that risk.
Fixed unit indicators constantly switching overlapping order almost every frame.
Made scroll to zoom in/out much slower near the ground for better precision
Fixed MA19 turret rotation pivot point.
Fixed minimap issue with non existing roads going to the middle of the map.
Changed infantry squad compositions so all squads have some kind of capability against armored vehicles.
Updated steam page with newer images and the Alpha 0.1.18 gameplay video, removing some of the older images too.
Avoided unit paths zigzagging backwards to the original position where a path was requested instead of the current position of the unit (while a vehicle is driving fast).
Made vehicles drive on the right side of the roads instead of the middle.
Fixed paths sometimes not going to the best road position as expected when starting long trips from inside a farm or city lot.
Fixed paths sometimes taking a small detour to a side at intersections or transitions between different road types (for example city streests to rural roads or dirt roads)
Enlarged units’ brains from peanut size to lemon size.
Improved PC controlled FPV drones movements to hit their targets more often without going in circles around it.
Made FPV drone target selection more stable and prioritize closer targets better so they don’t switch constantly between targets without hitting any of them.
Fixed unit indicators selection while paused and moving camera around.
Allow deleting strategic orders while paused.
Added pain voices when soldiers get hit
Restored main menu animation speed while loading.
Made footsteps louder
Now pressing Delete when nothing is selected toggles the eraser tool.
Limited menus to 60FPS to avoid wasting CPU and GPU power when it’s not needed.
Re-enabled water reflections in Medium quality setting.
Change construction speeds for all the buildable objects.
Improved turning when driving vehicles in first person.
Fixed vehicles thinking they are stuck when reaching their destination but being off to the side.
Improved turning speeds and braking for turns in vehicles.
Increased some vehicles top speeds.
Increased missile locking time.
Improved line of sight spotting.
Improved visibility calculations for air units flying low (usually helis and drones)
Fixed visibility distances calculation for air units.
Improved all visibility distances.
Updated translations with a few more languages that have been fully translated and approved.
Changed unit reassignments between companies to prioritize full squad transfers, keeping them together when possible
Made companies distribute their platoons with even spacing along defensive lines instead of random positions.
Fixed area orders moving all units in one point instead of distributing their platoons nicely.
Made helicopters landing gear show up when almost touching down on obstacles and low horizontal speeds
Made helicopter wait after leaving direct control before following other orders.
Made helicopters survive harder impacts so it’s easier to touchdown for dropping troops without blowing up.
Made troops not jump out of helicopters if they are too high to survive the fall.
Fixed squad types in the factory panel to show the correct squad type based on the actual soldiers it’s producing.
Fixed issues when vehicles and infantry squads were produced and got stuck near the factories or training centers.
Fixed issues with spawned and produced squads not knowing the correct initial number of soldiers they have (which would cause individual soldiers to be left behind during reassignments).
Show spawned infantry indicators as one squad instead of all individual indicators.
Made soldiers leave vehicles at a more consistent rate.
Made passengers survive vehicle destruction and exit the vehicles. Later survival will depend on how intense the impact was, which part of the vehicle was hit, if it penetrated, etc.
Improved units movements away from factories or toward bases when they are not assigned to a company yet.
Deleting and drawing new bases makes unassigned units update and move to the new closest one.
Fixed strategic orders image quality issues.
Fixed crash in planes movements job under some unusual conditions.
Allowed generic matching for units reassignments between squads/platoon/scompanies. Now a mechanized infantry platoon can request an armored infantry transport and both an APC or an IFV can be assigned to it. Before you could have 50 IFVs waiting for a company to join and they would never join if those companies were requesting an APC.
Made artillery target spotted units constantly if there aren’t any strategic orders, and bomb strategic orders constantly if there aren’t any spotted units (pretty rare)
Reduced nighttime visibility/spotting distances.
Swapped unit indicators for APP6 style indicators.
Added additional information labels on the right side. Right now they are displaying if the group has AA or AT capabilities, but later will also show if they are missing ammo or fuel, or if they are damaged.
Now unit indicators show the total number of soldiers inside vehicles for that indicator’s entire group.
Added new indicators to differentiate regular cargo trucks from fuel trucks.
Added new indicators to distinguish all types of drones.
Improved indicators sizes and reduced flickering and visual glitches on small icons.
Made supply switch in a smarter way between loading supplies and dropping supplies.
Made supply trucks load and unload much slower.
Made trucks positions more stable while loading or unloading supplies.
Made supply trucks look for better options on the fly and not just when arriving to a destination. This allows nicer handling when a factory they were going to get supplies from is now empty, the units they were going to supply are destroyed, or a new unit nearby suddenly needs supplies.
Made infantry vehicles not travel too far just to pick up a couple soldiers.
Changed default antialiasing method from TAA to SMAA (still changeable from settings).
Reduced RTS mode camera field of view to reduce fish eye effect.
Made camera exposure change while the game is paused so it still reacts to changes in light levels.
Paused the game after a victory or defeat.
Optimization of 0.45ms on the CPU main thread, by getting rid of per-frame UI element searches. And an extra 0.06ms of other easy system optimizations, also on the main thread.
Fixed dragging on scroll bar issues on the “Change production” panel.
Fixed crash when giving orders to a large group of units including fixed units like Legion C-RAM or DSAMS.
Fixed crash when giving orders to fixed units to attack something (C-RAM or DSAMS).
Fixed SFRPGs sometimes not firing at vehicles due to line of sight calculation issues.
Fixed turrets and cannons getting stuck and not aiming anymore on some units.
Fix manual orders for companies never being abandoned to go back to the company’s existing strategic orders.
Fixed unit assignment issue causing squads to not be offered as a block as the system expected.
Improved units targeting and aiming.
Units will now decide to not shoot expensive rockets/missiles when there is a very low chance of hitting the target.
Required units to aim a bit more precisely toward their intended targets before shooting.
Fixed crashed or exploded helicopters not being removed from their strategic orders, causing heli attack orders not to receive new helicopters as reinforcements.
Added more parked car models and colors
OPTIMIZATION: Improved chunk capacity for objects after they have been hit by something by about 20%, which improves the speed of any jobs that works on those objects (tons!).
OPTIMIZATION: Improved some parallelized jobs to avoid unnecessary work.
OPTIMIZATION: Eliminated dependencies between jobs to improve multithread utilization.
OPTIMIZATION: Reordered systems and reduced main thread total time.
Added indicators above factories owned by the player so it’s easier to find them. Later the production panel will allow filtering only factories that produce a specific type of unit or resource too.
Added camera shaking in first person when shooting based on recoil strength.
Fixed a crash when starting a second match after leaving a first match while buildings were under construction.
Fixed QBD1 drones that weren’t returning home after running out of fuel.
Fix bug giving tanks and arty negative backup ammo after a truck re-supplies them.
Made both players have a more even initial force, which should make Dalmino a bit less frustrating.
Reduced initial companies counts in all maps to have a bit more breathing time before the chaos.
Made non-human generals give orders to their companies slower.
Canceling orders with ESC while drawing them now properly removes the order preview.
Reconfigured MA-LT weapon to be a machine gun as it should, look a bit more realistic, reduce flashes and smoke when shooting, increased fire rate, changed sound, reduced recoil.
Improved rockets targeting and lead time calculations.
Increased radius affected by explosions so drones causes more realistic damage to soldiers around them (although it applies to all explosions)
Made R4A rifle shoot in single bullets too and not only bursts.
Improved dust kicking up when tanks shoot.
Reduced Charly muzzle smoke opacity while shooting so it doesn’t completely cover the targets.
Made 50cal weapons on STRIVE and LHMV shoot at the right fire rates and increased their ammo.
Improved helicopter and drone camera angles to make it easier to see where you are going while pitched down.
Increased drag for helicopters and drones to avoid ridiculously high speeds.
Fix D-SAMS not always engaging air targets as expected.
Increased D-SAMS and C-RAM engagement ranges.
Fixed locking and locked target sounds to D-SAMS.
Fixed guided rockets hovering in the air when they have no target and run out of propellant.
Disabled frame generation for now until I have time to fix its visual glitches that some players experience with it. Right now CPU is the main constraint and usually frame generation makes CPU load even worse, so it’s not worth it at the moment.