It’s been a couple months since the last patch and there have been many major changes in the upcoming build!
You can try it here: [[/b]https://aeoriii.itch.io/ironmirage]
This is a devlog for 0.6 "FER DE LANCE".
OVERVIEW
- Early campaign mechanics: salvaging and side missions
- Saving and Loading
- Many new units, crew, and modules!
- Combat targeting improvements
Campaign
This update features several new campaign mechanics. Of course, it’s still very much a work in progress so far.
Starting Resources
The starting squad and motor pool composition has been modified. You’ll no longer start with the best equipment, but the enemy’s assets are ripe for the picking if you can make them part with it…
As for balance, it may be harder to start out - current enemies range from early to late-game. It may be difficult to defeat powerful enemies without heavy losses, so try taking some easier skirmish missions to build up a squad first.
Where is the K-115V? The C1B2? Look how they massacred my squad!!
Crew Management
From the crew management screen, crew can be swapped, hired, and shuffled.
Injuries: crew which are rendered inoperable in combat sustain a stacking permanent injury debuff. If a crewmember has three injuries, the next will kill them.
Aidbay: Crew in the aidbay will have their injuries healed over time.
Salvaging:
After combat, you’ll have a chance to recover destroyed enemy vehicles and modules. How much you can recover is based on equipment and crew, and there is an option to pay for salvage contractors for more capacity.
Salvaged vehicles will often be gutted of modules (depending on how wrecked they were in battle). This means you’ll have to salvage modules to outfit these vehicles yourself!
Unit repairs
Units which take light damage in combat require supplies for repairs.
Units heavily damaged, destroyed in combat, or salvaged from the enemy require time to repair.
Time System
A rudimentary time system is in place which rotates through available missions. You can progress time by taking missions or manually passing time in the map layer.
Missions will expire after a certain number of time periods.
Crew in the aidbay will recover and damaged units will repair over time
Currently there’s no impetus not to spam the progress time button in order to heal and repair everything up, so you can do so if you wish.
Side and Special Contracts
There are many colliding interests and agendas in the Izhisan zone, which suits mercenaries such as yourself perfectly. Across the district there are side contracts to take, which are limited in time and pop up as time progresses.
Currently these are limited to assault missions, although there is a large variety of different enemy squads and compositions to face (and loot). There are many more mission types planned.
Many different mission types are planned, from raids to defense missions!
Special Assault contracts: Missions against dangerous, unique enemy formations fielding powerful and modified equipment. These can be extremely well-equipped units, with superior crew, modules, and vehicles, although for now their equipment will not differ too much from standard units. They are denoted as ASSAULT (S) missions on the map and there are currently five to encounter!
For example, encountering a battalion of the Central Bloc’s 685th Siegebreakers legion, you’ll face modified S-92s which have swapped out their HMGs for R2 and R4T launchers to give them an edge in dislodging enemy positions.
UI
UI across the board has been updated and aesthetically standardized.
The combat screen has been reorganized. Individual crew combat effectiveness is now tracked
Simulator
The campaign now has a customizable simulator where you can choose the enemy composition, region, and map size. Does not count for loot, xp, or injuries.
Spawning system for the simulator (and side missions) have been heavily adjusted, and the chance of enemy units spawning in a bad position at combat start should be greatly reduced.
Please send me some examples, if you find any weirdness!
The map generation has been reworked. This will be most apparent in the simulator/in the side mission maps.
Saving and Loading
The save/load system is completed. Your squad, armory, and campaign progress will be saved when you save and exit or when exiting the armory to mission/campaign.
Can be reset if you wish from the start screen.
Saves are located at appdata/localow/aeoridev/armaphract/.
Make backups if you modify them, at your own risk!!! :)
Any previous scores will not carry over to the new system.
New Units
The K-60 Heavy Tank is a heavy iron behemoth fielded by the Bloc and designed for urban combat. The AVM combat engineering variant features a 280mm high explosive howitzer, as well as thermobaric launchers to clear away buildings and infantry.
The C3 medium tank series: the coalition's first foray into an indigenous tank design, with three variants which show the progression of doctrine, technology, and industry over time.
The C42 tankette: A very nimble light tracked vehicle which can threaten armor with its fire-and-forget ATGMs.
C28-S MGS: A refit of the B-26, meant to be a stealthy ambush vehicle with a 125mm compact cannon (unable to fire sabot) and a light AT team attached.
The KOM-319-PD: CRAM-mounted variant of the KOM-310.
B-30A1P: A variation of the B-30 which has, among other modifications, swapped out the dismount section for an ordnance reloading section. This variant will also get new modules in the next update.
All units are now playable! (since you can salvage em all, and this includes the K-75BM and any unique units as well.)
With most of the “basic” roster filled out, you can look forward to more interesting, niche, and complex designs in the future.
New Crew
Ket: A signals intelligence specialist. Through SIGINT wizardry, she can estimate enemy positions through smoke when a SIGINT module is operational! She’ll also benefit and improve ATGMs and the upcoming electronic warfare modules.
Songbird: a scouting/recon commander who excels at spotting vehicles and can make use of all installed optics.
Clover: a commander focused on armor and taking hits. She improves every piece of external armor or ERA attached, and increases salvage capacity after battle.
They all come with some downsides as well.
All the old special crew also get a large skill rework.
Aspera: gains a lancewide bonus and more morale-focused buffs
Marrow: Better at ambushing. But she’s demoted to gunner :(((
Mahiri: Removed the faster loading bonus (perhaps a loader will get the skill instead later…), but has more cqb-focused skills
Kana: move fast
Two more grunt crew portraits
Proficiency system
Crewmembers now gain proficiency in one of four areas, and are not locked to a single role. Depending on their performance in combat they gain experience and can improve over time.
This opens up more mechanics in the future such as progression paths (gaining new role-related skills which may specialize the crewmember as proficiency improves) and more gameplay decisions (a crewmember was injured in the last battle, who do I sub in? do I keep skilled role replacements on standby or a jack of all trades?)
New Modules
Smokescreen
Aktorus APS
Applique (Light)
Camo Netting
R2 Pod
Aoron CRAM
PPRV Plough
M5T Trauma kit
ESM Launcher
Model E73 Engine
New weapons
Aoron 10mm Chaingun
20mm Quadgun
2L20 autocannons
50cal dual sponson
280mm Howitzer
ETSM-54 fire and forget ATGM
New Faction(s)
Since more of the Coalition’s units have been added, they’ll no longer rely on the K-115s of the old refinery sim.
The Administra is the third and final major faction to be introduced in Armaphract. Not much has been revealed about them yet.
Currently they temporarily field old Imperial K-50 and B class vehicles. This will evolve as their faction units and modules are added.
Combat
Advanced rules of engagement
Added new rules of engagement. The ROE key now only toggles between Return Fire and Fire Effective, and the others can be set through the ROE key when the ammo screen is open.
Return fire: this is effectively hold fire, but switches to fire effective when under attack.
Hold Fire: holds all fire
Fire Effective: fires all weapons the crew thinks will be effective against the target
Fire All: fires all weapons at the enemy
Advanced Targeting and Fields of fire
Many secondary weapons can now fire independently against enemy targets. Some, like the HMG, can swivel 360, whereas others may have less of a firing angle.
Units automatically switch to the ammunition they feel is most effective. This can be overridden manually or when specific ammo is ordered to be loaded.
Unless given orders, units also swap targeting to what they feel is the largest (reasonable) threat. There’s some “stickiness”, so units won’t always swap unless there’s a big power difference (i.e. swapping from APC to target a main battle tank)
Some APS units can now target grenades, satchels, and the light RS5 rpg. However, these modules can’t differentiate between them, which may or may not be a good thing.
Controls
Can queue reverse and forward moves in a path. No longer stuck to just one or the other.
Added manual or automatic ammo selection rule
Added unload weapon order to clear the chamber and restart the reload (somewhat useful for magazine-based weapons, or to immediately switch ammo types)
use “:” (SHIFT and SEMICOLON) to order a bailout. The crew will escape to safety but the unit will be lost and require recovery after battle.
I already know what some people want: let me dismount the crew and remount disabled vehicles!!!!!!!
Now you can queue up recon by fire!
Infantry
Some more infantry balancing
Kills by infantry are now attributed to their parent unit
Infantry squads now move as boids, and each infantryman will move (more) individually and not like a swaying blob. The squad will switch to single file if moving down an alleyway, etc.
Ordnance
Ordnance firing now shows an estimated accuracy cone and estimated range, which should reduce guesswork
ATGMs have had their speed increased
Weapons
Explosive weapons are better at damaging modules in general, and some weapons gain the fragmentation tag which makes them even better at doing so. A grenade launcher may not penetrate a tank but can mess up external modules quite a bit.
Ammo detonations now scale with ammo onboard
Ramming into units does damage, especially if they are soft and squishy like infantry. Ploughs increase this damage
Tutorials
All tutorials have been reworked, with new dialogue to improve approachability for new players.
Tutorial mission 6 has been added which goes over stealth, night missions, vision, and ROE. I recommend checking it out!
The tutorial manual has been improved and extends to the campaign and armory layer.
Armory
The armory view now changes depending on the mission’s time of day.
Heavily damaged vehicles show some repair flavour text and won’t allow you to proceed to the mission if loaded in the squad
You can discard modules.
Modules stack in the storage compartment
Other
Performance
Smoke and particle performance has been optimized a bit. I haven’t had a chance to test this out on a laptop yet, but it should improve things.
Some weird issues with smoke and fog of war, especially on lower-end hardware, have been resolved.
Feedback on performance + your specs are very welcome and helpful!
Instead of immediately extracting, a prompt for extraction will appear when able to do so.
Thermals are better than other optics at countering stealth and spotting small, stealthier units
units are slightly more accurate when reaching the end of a path, less undershooting and overshooting.
Tons of other small changes