The Tactics Update

Hello Commanders!

If you were thinking about getting the game, now is a great time to do so as we are part of the Steam Spring Sale! From March 14th until the 21st, the game will be on sale for 35% off! Make sure to check out Freedom Games' Steam Spring Sale page to pick up some great games to play.

It's time to unveil the patch notes for Update #3, a milestone we have named The Tactics Update!

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Achievements are now available!
Armour: Ships are now more armoured at the front, and have least armour on the back. Deal more damage by positioning your ships behind enemies or to their sides.
Move while attacking: After giving an attack order, the next move order will keep ships aligned to the target they are attacking. Give another move order to cancel this behaviour and switch to a regular move order.
Move backwards: ships can now be ordered to move backwards to a destination, useful for keeping their strongest armour facing an enemy. The default shortcut for this is N.
Set direction: Hold CTRL+RMB when giving a move order to set the direction ships should face when they arrive.
Engage at maximum range: For ships with mixed weapons, you can use this new button to tell them to engage with only their longest range weapons instead of approaching until all weapons are in range. Shorter range weapons will still engage any nearby targets that approach.
Engage in formation: When a group of ships are given an attack order, they now arrange into a formation instead of jostling for a free space independently.
Stances: Ships can be set to aggressive or defensive modes. Aggressive provides bonuses to weapon damage at the expense of speed and armour, with defensive providing the opposite - more speed and armour, less firepower.

Main campaign changes (available for new playthroughs started with this version):

D-SEC now gain access to the off-map galactic power network after mission 3, so they no longer have low power warnings early in the campaign.
The main campaign map has a few extra locations to enable both AI and player to spread out a little.

Balance changes to accommodate the new armour mechanics. Where ships have reduced hull, this is to compensate for the new frontal armour. Where ships have increased hull, this is to reduce disparity against equivalent enemy ships.

Knight has less hull (3400 -> 2700)
Wolf has less hull (3700 > 3000)
Rekjavik has more hull (16000 -> 18000)
Copenhagen has more hull (13000 -> 15000)
Ocelot has less hull (2400 -> 1400)
Orca has more hull (25000 -> 28000)
Jackal has less hull (7200 -> 6400)

Helpful notes:

On the mission info screen, if no ships are present, players are reminded that ships are required to start the mission.
On the prelude, notifying players that the tech tree is reduced compared to the main campaign.

Other changes:

Lots of UI improvements to the starmap.
Fighters are now available to the AI in non-mission battles in later parts of the campaign and sector assault. These will appear in new playthroughs started with this version.
Updates to the strategic AI, making it more of a challenge in sector assault mode and thge campaign.
Added on-screen tips for controls while issuing move orders.
Tutorial modified to include demonstration of the "Engage at max range" command, as well as discussing armour and moving backwards.
Reduced how close the camera needs to be to a turret before it can be selected as a target, to reduce incidence of accidentally selecting a turret when attacking. The "attack turrets" command can still be used at any distance.
New starmap shortcuts: Next turn, Station and fleet tabs, Reverse Engineer, Tech tree and Loadouts can now all be accessed via keyboard shortcuts.
Auto-resolving battles now runs asynchronously, so the game can communicate that it's busy calculating the outcome instead of freezing until it's done.
In sector assault, enemy ships guarding wormholes will now start closer to the center of the battle area, so players have more time to deploy their fleet.

Resources don't reset when a mission is restarted more than once.
Build menu doesn't work properly during tactical pause.
Tactical pause ends when escape menu is toggled.
Tactical pause doesn't work after escape menu is used during tactical pause.
Can give tactical orders if tactical pause is enabled before opening escape menu.
Building a ship with an unpopulated turret slot causes the turn update to run endlessly.
Can capture Braddock's ship on last mission.
Tokaras unable to move after being captured on some missions.
Repair ships can keep a ship alive even if the hull reaches zero.
Ship loadout name persists in shipyard even after changed in loadout editor.
Ships continue being attacked after being captured.
Capturing a station that has fighters can cause errors on subsequent turns.
Some mission-provided ships show incorrect loadout information during battles.
Fighters sometimes cancel their orders when the lead fighter in a squadron is destroyed.
Braddock's fighters do not fire on Antilia in the final mission.
Camera position judder when following fast-moving ships such as fighters.
Flak-equipped ships close distance to the range of their flak guns when attacking capital ships, which is closer than necessary.
Some ships temporarily stop moving during a battle if an order is given with an exploding ship selected.
Extremely slow turn processing speeds on large sector assault maps.
Game sometimes fails to complete turn processing on large sector assault maps.

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As always, I am excited to see what suggestions come out of these updates and will use them to continue to improve the plan and direction of Dust Fleet. Don't forget to join our community Discord and share your experiences!

I would also love to see your honest thoughts of the game through a Steam review. Steam reviews can have a massive impact on indie games like Dust Fleet and I love reading your experiences in reviews.

That’s all for now, Commander - see you in space!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/406160/Dust_Fleet/