21a Patch Notes - Campaign
Contents
The single player campaign is finally here! 28 missions across all three factions, plus a new Teams Mode setting for maps and a handful of balance changes.
Back in the 20f notes I said the next project was expanding the tutorial into something more like a prelude. The project ended up growing into a full campaign! (It’s also the reason this update took as long as it did.)
Campaign
There are 28 missions in total, split more or less evenly across one storyline each for for the Humans, Robots, and Critters.
To play, press New Game, then Campaign, then pick a faction. Progress is saved automatically, so you can exit in the middle of a mission and come back later.
The Human campaign must be played first. It starts from the very beginning with the most basic of basics: moving units, attacking, abilities, etc. and builds from there. Once you’ve beaten the first 6 missions of the Human campaign, you’re done with boot camp so you can start the Robot and Critter campaigns.
The later missions in each faction are meant to be a bit more challenging, even for more experienced players. That said, let me know if you feel like it’s too easy or too hard. I may eventually add a ‘Hard Mode’ to the campaign later on, intended for veteran players. For now, it’ll probably be more on the easy side.
Note: the campaign is very much a work in progress! It’s a lot of new content all at once, and I’m relying on players like you to tell me what works and what doesn’t.
Specifically, I’d love feedback on the difficulty, length, and story of each mission.
As always, please bring up bug reports and feedback in Discord! Your feedback helps improve the game for everyone else.
Teams Mode for Maps
Maps now have a Teams Mode setting, sitting alongside the other map settings in the map editor.
This exists because maps built for team play, where allied bases sit side by side, made for pretty cramped free-for-all games. If you’ve ever started an FFA on a 2v2 map and found yourself spawning awkwardly close to your enemy’s base, this should help fix that.
When designing a map, please pay attention to this setting:
- Set it to Free-For-All (the default) if the bases are far enough apart for an FFA game.
- Set it to a specific teams mode (
2v2,2v1,3v3,2v2v2) if the spawn layout only makes sense for that mode.
Maps set to a teams mode will no longer show up for free-for-all games. FFA maps can still be used for team games, since spread-out bases are fine either way. (2 player maps are unaffected, since they’re always 1v1.)
I’ve gone through and updated the existing maps that were obviously built for teams. If you’ve made team-oriented maps of your own, now’s a good time to check what mode they’re set to.
Escalating Turn Timeouts
Until now, the turn timeout was a flat 24 hours for everybody. That’s been fine for the most part, but it can get pretty annoying in the cases where someone’s turn needs to be skipped every single time.
The timeout now escalates based on how many times that player has been skipped:
- Never skipped:
24 hours(unchanged) - Skipped once:
12 hours - Skipped twice or more:
immediate
The timeout resets the instant that player submits a turn of their own. So if you time out once, just take your next turn normally and you’ll be straight back to the full 24 hours. Life happens, and this system is not meant to punish the occasional timeout, just to help in cases where someone has completely left.
Once a player has reached that immediately-skippable stage, the skip dialog also offers a new “Always skip this player” checkbox. Tick it and that player is skipped for the rest of the game without anybody having to press the button each turn. Players in that state get an indicator in the game list and the game details screen, so it’s obvious what’s happening. They also stop receiving a “you were skipped” notification every turn.
As before, all of this only applies to non-ranked games. Timed out players in ranked online games can still be kicked.
Balance Changes
Pistols for support units
- Medic
Weapon: Unarmed -> Pistol
- Defragmenter
Weapon: Unarmed -> Pistol
Both of these units were stuck with melee attacks, which doesn’t really fit the archetype of a support unit. Now they’ve each got a Pistol. They’re still not meant to win fights on their own. Standing further back from the action makes more sense for a supporting role. Also, both these units have been underpowered for quite a while, and this should help alleviate that a bit.
Omnibus: Place Teleporter rework
- Omnibus
Place Teleporter: a single placed teleporter now warps any unit stepping on it to a square adjacent to Omnibus.
Place Teleporter was a bit awkward to get a payoff from, since it did absolutely nothing until you had 2 teleporters placed. You’d spend a turn placing the first one, and have to wait another 2 turns before placing the next. At that point, the first one may have been destroyed!
Now the first teleporter is useful on its own: Anything stepping on it moves next to Omnibus. Place a second one and they link up into a normal two-way teleporter, exactly as before.
A word of caution: this works for enemies too! A lone teleporter is now an invitation for the other team to land right on top of your Omnibus, so think about where you’re leaving it.
Gunslinger: Haste
- Gunslinger
Haste: +2 temporary movement -> temporary movement equal to Gunslinger's full movement (+4)
Haste has always been a bit under-utilized. Two extra movement points, in exchange for your action or a Ready Attack, is a bit underwhelming.
Making it a full refill of Gunslinger’s movement should make it more useful as a hit-and-run, since you can shoot, and then run allll the way back out of range, to live to shoot again next turn. In addition to hit-and-run tactics, it could also be used for a quick reposition after respawning to get back into a faraway fight.
Firewall: Throw Oil Barrel
- Firewall
Throw Oil Barrel range: 4 -> 5
This reverts the range nerf from 20a. Sometimes the more balanced thing is less fun :)
Help Text Improvements
- New: terrain help for cover, walls, and pits. Tap them to see a description, and tap again to dismiss. This is mainly intended to help new players get oriented on the map.
- Fighter immunities are now showing up in the help text again.
Teleport Gun(Architect) now correctly mentions in its description that it deals 2 damage.
Other Changes & Fixes
- New profile stat: Total Turns Submitted
- Fix for healthbar weirdness during replays
- Fix for various camera issues during animations
- Plenty of smaller fixes throughout
Thanks to everyone who reported bugs! Player feedback is ALWAYS appreciated.
What’s Next
With the campaign out the door, the free-to-play work I talked about in the 20f notes is next up. The campaign was always the blocker there, since it’s hard to invite a much larger audience in when tutorial is so short and
But before any of that, I want the campaign to actually be good. So play it, and tell me what you think! The more specific the feedback, the better.
Please continue to tell us your thoughts about the game, either in Discord, Reddit, or using the Report a Bug form in the in-game options tab.