Barrage News

[p]Hello there![/p][p]It has been a while - I hope you're all doing great and having a fantastic (too much?) start of the week![/p][p]I don't have a new version of Barrage for you today, but since I'll be taking 4 days off this week for a little bit of summer vacation, and since it has been a while since the last post, I wanted to keep you updated on what's going on.[/p][p][/p][h3]Medium AI[/h3][p]As promised I am working on a new medium AI. It's going..okay.[/p][p]It's not 100% complete but it's good enough to be released. [/p][p]What's still missing is some optimisation and some code specifically designed to take advantage of more complex XOs—namely Mahiri (from the base game) and the promo XOs—which are currently being disregarded by the AI.[/p][p]This is a bit of a compromise I had to make to stay on schedule, since I really want to release the first DLC by the end of summer (aka mid-September). As a result, the time I can dedicate to the AI is limited. I also have a list of bugs to fix and quality-of-life improvements to implement.[/p][p]That said, I didn't want to release the AI and then ghost you all for a week, so it'll be released at some point between the 18th and 29th.[/p][p]Regarding the in-game performance of the new AI, I was aiming for an average of 130 points in a 2-player game and 100 in a 4-player game. [/p][p]Unfortunately, at the moment it's more like 100/110 ± 30 points in 2-player games and 70/80 ± 20 points in 4-player games.[/p][p]There are still some situations that I'm trying to address, where it can get stuck and underperform but, all in all, it plays better and more consistently than the current Easy AI.[/p][p]I know it's a bit of mixed bag situation but I wanted to be honest about it, especially because it's not a done deal yet. I will continue to work on it, every chance I get, alongside other tasks.[/p][p][/p][h3]The Leeghwater Project + 5-player map and gameplay[/h3][p]As stated before, the new DLC is on it's way and we are aiming for a mid September release. [/p][p]We still have a few concerns about certain gameplay elements, especially considering all the feedback you awesome folks have shared with us, but we'll do our best to meet the deadline we’ve set—fingers crossed.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]That's all for now, folks![/p][p]Wish you all a dam-tastic week—and happy summer vacations to the lucky ones![/p][p]Cheers,[/p][p]Cody[/p]

[p]Hello there![/p][p][/p][p]I hope you are having a fantastic week! Once again, thank you for your support, feedback and positive reviews.[/p][p]Today we are bringing you version 1.1 - introducing the custom game mode for the single player.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It's a pretty straightforward feature that lets you choose which assets will be available during the initial draft or, if you feel like it, you can assign assets directly to a player.[/p][p][/p][p]One quirk to be aware of is the First Player toggle ("1."). Its behaviour shifts based on whether you've manually assigned assets to a player. If no assets are assigned, the toggle determines who picks first in the draft. But if you’ve given any assets to a player—even just one—it instead decides who takes the first turn after the draft.[/p][p][/p][p]Another neat touch: we haven’t restricted duplicates. So yes, if you’re in the mood, you can stage full-on mirror matches.[/p][p][/p][p]Before I bid you farewell, here's a quick list of fixes also present in this build:[/p][p]+ fixed a bug where the UI mistakenly considered Franz DeLasse as triggered in situations where he wasn't, thus showing the wrong energy value ( According to the rulebook, Franz DeLasse's ability is only active during "production actions" and not energy produced by other means, like tech tiles )[/p][p]+ fixed a bug where Mahiri wouldn't work if Elon Audia was a possible target[/p][p]+ fixed a bug where the objective tooltip could remain stuck open, even persisting in the main menu in some cases[/p][p]+ fixed a crash occurring in the main menu when clicking the "Go Offline" button in case of a network error[/p][p][/p][p]As always, have a great dam rest of the week![/p][p][/p][p]Cheers,[/p][p]Cody[/p]

[p]Hello everybody! Cody here to bring you a small—but not that small—update. A new build, v1.0 b946 is on it's way and here's what you get from it:

[/p][h3]Fixes[/h3][p]+ fixed map building slot tooltip appearing on slots where no building by the player was possible (e.g. opponent' or neutral dams, basins that already had a player dam or power plants complexes where the player already had a power plant in place)
+ fixed "southern" power plants' positioning so that they now are in front of "northern" ones
+ fixed bug where map tooltips remained visible until the mouse left the map or another map element's tooltip was triggered
+ fixed bug on UI where Viktor Fiesler was shown as active during Germany’s bonus production, causing a “NotEnoughEnergyToFulfillContract” error when attempting to close contracts that were incorrectly marked as available due to Fiesler's bonus
+ fixed Octavious' power being available during Germany's bonus production
+ fixed a bug where Germany's bonus production wasn’t triggered if the only water available to use, was added through the resolution of a contract in the normal production
+ fixed a bug where Germany’s bonus production wasn’t triggered if the only valid dam was a neutral one in the same basin where the player also had their own dam, and that dam had no water"
+ fixed a bug with Amir where, if two water drops were placed in the same headstream with different types (e.g., one stationary and one running), both were treated as the type of the second-placed drop
+ fixed bug on rules' optional actions detection method where, when checking for powerplants (and dams), the location of these was not kept in consideration leading to wrong placements being considered valid. This in tail was causing the AI to sometimes trying to act on those invalid placements, causing the "NotEnoughEngineersOrEquivalentsAllocated" error to be thrown.
+ AI - fixed a bug on optional actions where in some particular cases, with Anton Krylov as ExO, the AI would try to use the wrong tech tile for the optional action, causing "NotEnoughEngineersOrEquivalentsAllocated" error to be thrown.
+ fixed a bug preventing certains productions configurations from being selected - for example in the particular case that was reported, if the player had a dam placed in the same lake as a neutral and penstocks on both sides, it was not possible to select the neutral dam for the production

[/p][h3]Changes[/h3][p]Now, for the juicy part! Here's a list of changes that I hope you will appreciate:

+ when producing with Octavious, all configurations now have the "X" button, not just the additional ones (Previously, it wasn’t possible to set 0 drops used in the “starting” dam, which forced the player to select another dam to avoid using drops from that one)
+ changed the alignment of water drop buttons in the production configurator from center to left
+ adjusted the layout of the water drops placement popup to give more room to the arrow buttons that change drop type when Amir is the player’s ExO.
+ the map dimming effect now remains locked-on during building and production actions.
+ removed the fade-in/out animation from “ghost” placeholders when hovering over empty building slots on the map
+ added a dedicated label during Germany’s bonus production to remind players of the bonus production rules

Last but not least - what I think is the biggest change in this build - we reworked the building slot highlights on the map to (hopefully!) make everything clearer during production and building actions.

That's all for today's update. Thank you again, everyone, for the continuous support, reports, feedback, and positive reviews! It means a lot to us!

Oh, one last note before I salute you farewell: if everything goes according to plan, next week I'll be releasing the Custom game mode for single-player. It will let you rig the assets extracted for the draft, or skip it entirely (or partially) and assign assets directly to players. Once that’s released, I’ll really start cracking down on the Medium AI, and then shift focus to finishing the UI for The Leeghwater Project, which I hope to release before the end of summer.

That's all folks! Take care and have a nice dam weekend!

Cheers,
Cody[/p]

Hello there!

Another post, another patch! Sooner than anticipated!

As the first step towards implementing a new medium AI, I started refining the existing easy AI. While this patch doesn’t improve its overall performance score-wise, it makes it play way more reasonable actions.
There are still some rough spots but, combined with a few fixes I was eager to put out there, you get yourself a pretty neat update.

Build v1.0 b.923 is on its way and with it, the following fixes:
- fixed a tedious bug where the game could get stuck after some animations on the energy track, mainly after receiving energy incomes at the beginning of the round
- fixed a bug that would cause, at the beginning of a new round, during the incomes resolution, the turn indicator lights to quickly cycle on and off for the players that were about to resolve incomes like machineries or placing water drops on the map
- tentative workaround (as in, I'm still working on a final fix) for expired token in lobby forcing the player to stay offline, when coming back from long single-player games
- AI - fixed a bug causing the error "BuildingSpent" when trying to place a free elevation from a contract while not having any more elevation to place

That's all for this small patch!
Until next time, have a good dam time!

Cheers,
Cody

Hello there!

Once again, I want to start by saying thank you to all of you for sticking around!! A huge shoutout to everyone who left us a positive review despite the initial bugs and issues—it really helps us out!

As you might have noticed, it has been almost a week since the last build. That's because all the "easy" bugs have been squashed, and now most of the remaining ones are much trickier to fix; which generally means that I have no reliable way to reproduce them and pin down the problem.

With that in mind, we’re shifting gears. The rapid hotfix phase is coming to an end, and moving forward, we’ll be slowing down the pace of builds to focus on new features and quality-of-life improvements - while, obviously, continuing to fix all the bugs you've kindly reported.

In particular in the upcoming weeks, I'll be focusing on:
- custom game mode for single-player (meaning you'll be able to choose the starting companies, contracts and XOs)
- removing all the "dumb" moves from the current AI, and start working on the next "Medium" AI
- various smaller quality of life improvements (like some sort of safeguard to prevent mistakenly confirming a production without selecting a contract to name one)

Now, here's what's been fixed in the new build ( v1.0 b.904 )
+ fixed bug on end-round scoring where 1 point each was given for out-of-the-podium draws
+ fixed actions popup footer not resizing when switching production complex ( this time without crashing Mahiri! )
+ fixed a bug where if able to build a penstock with Jill with concrete mixers but without having any excavator in the warehouse, clicking on the building slot on the map wouldn't open the relative build popup
+ fixed an issue where the company power icon in the third power plant slot on the player board, sometimes displayed the wrong one.
+ AI - fixed a bug causing "cantPayBuildingCost" when trying to build a penstock with the tech tile "excavators=concrete mixer" having Jill as XO
+ AI - fixed a bug causing "NotEnoughEngineersOrEquivalentsAllocated" that could occur when resolving an optional action to build a power plant without engineers

And the changes:
+ Tooltip Mahiri - Added names of clonable XOs
+ Tooltip company power - added explicit label on the status of the power (locked/unlocked)
+ GameOver view - localised "WINNER" label and added different label in case of draws
+ GameOver view - added label to explain how the tie-break works (in case there was one)
+ GameOver view - in case of a draw, resolved with the produced energy rule, the produced energy for the involved players is shown

Thanks again to everyone for your support and feedback!
Until the next time, have a good dam day!

Cheers,
Cody