Urban Strife News

[h3]Today we’ll reveal the scope of the main campaign and our progress towards the finish, with details about AI roles, ballistics & armor, zombification and RPG improvements. Next episode will detail additions to perks & learning, the stealth game, crafting changes, cars and travel, item durability & healing/pain.[/h3]


We have mentioned the possibility of adding more specific AI roles in the previous articles, thanks to the new AI systems. As the work on the main campaign has progressed and we’ve started to place the actual faction on the maps, the opportunity to use such roles has materialized.

[h2]Tough enemies know new tricks[/h2]
First, all bosses have received specialist bodyguards, assigned to protect them and protect them only. Most of the special “named” actors have also received medical supplies, such as bandages or boosters. And you’ll notice them making good use of them, painkillers in particular being the most effective in combat. In the example shown Court Administrator Jenkins, the right hand of the Courthouse boss, takes advantage of the decent cover and medicates on his turn after being previously injured.


[h2]Looking through the eyes of the AI[/h2]
Below you can take a sneak peek into the inner workings of the AI using our debug tool - it will show the actions the AI would take if in control of our pawn. In this particular case, Samuel is both gravely wounded and exposed so "Take Cover" has the maximum score and will be the preferred move. The following on the priority list are: Health Boost (since he's so low on HP the risk of dying is imminent), Stamina Boost (it will restore AP and remove Pain debuffs) and Bandage (to stop further HP losses). But all this is dynamic and the priorities will be shuffled once the actor is in a new position, considering the new factors.


[h2]Watch your flanks![/h2]
Beside bodyguards, snipers also now have areas assigned to defend so they will be impossible to lure down from their nests. In order to eliminate them, you will need to counter-snipe them or get up close and personal. But worry not, not all AI enemies will defend the fort. We also have flankers that will actively push your flanks, trying to negate your cover. You can see below how the enemy, while having three fighters pinned by Benny on the stairs, from great cover, immediately responded by flanking aggressively, negating our position.


[h2]Cultist Zombie Herders[/h2]
Finally, a very particular AI role is that of zombie herders. While the cultists do not boast much in terms of military gear, they have learned to train and manipulate the undead hordes. The herders can blend unharmed among zombies and direct them against you using noise makers, while themselves take pot shots at you from relatively safe range.



[h2]How environment resistance works[/h2]
Environment (cover) resistance in the game is divided into 5 levels from Very Low (with a value of 1) to Very High (with a value of 5). An unarmored body is considered 0 on the scale, same as cardboard or other fluff. Experience and wits is important when assessing the cover you choose, because a pile of trash will only protect you from the weakest of rounds. As a general rule, if things look flimsy and the enemy is holding a serious weapon (something better than a nailgun), you need to rethink your positioning.


Each projectile in the game has a Penetration level that is divided on a very similar scale. The graphs are subject to further balancing and changes, but they give you a rough image on what caliber goes through what type of cover. We didn’t add the sniper FMJ rounds on the chart, since they’re already off the scale (5 pen + 0.5 bonus). Sniper HP variants have a -1.5 penalty, so they’re rated 3.5, but still they have enough punch to go through a car door and do massive damage.


When hitting a vehicle, the .22LR FMJ won’t penetrate (the bullet gets stopped by anything above 2.5 resistance). In the case of a 9mm (as shown below), the 9mm Hollow Point will be stopped (1.5 penetration vs 3 resistance) while the 9mm Full Metal Jacket bullet will barely penetrate (3.5 penetration vs 3 resistance), while shedding a lot of speed and damage.


[h2]How Armor Levels Work[/h2]
Our body armor is modeled after the real life counterparts, with adjustments required for gameplay and fun. One thing you need to remember, besides all the math, is that once you start encountering better armored opponents the penetration factor of your rounds will be more important than actual damage. You can still KO an enemy just by shooting a lot of non-penetration bullets into his chest, but honestly we would recommend using a sledgehammer for the same result and better ammo economy. Urban Strife characters do not scale with the campaign progress, from a weakling to a bullet soaking monster. But they do start equipping better gear, as you get closer and closer to their HQ.


The armor model uses a sigmoid function with a smoothed curve where an armor is designed to “filter out” bullets with penetration levels lower than its protection factor. The curve had to be smoothed/gamified because real-life values are quite drastic and do not make for much fun when put into a game. Factions come with their own flavor of body armor, but we used as reference the military set: three tiers of armor. from Level I to Level IIIA. None of them will completely protect you. We consider a good protection a damage absorption of 50-60% for the reference round, but FMJ/HP bonuses will alter the armor resistance quite significantly.

• Level I - Basic flak jacket, designed to protect against .22 LR
  
• Level IIa - Light body armor, designed to protect against 9mm
  
• Level IIIa - Soft body armor, designed to protect against 5.56
  

[h2]Why is there no CTH percentage?[/h2]
We have been asked a number of times why we do not use the classic Chance to Hit percentage indicator. That is because we opted for a more realistic and advanced indicator that colors each targeted body part according to the Potential Damage. The targeting gizmo will show you a gray color when there’s no chance for damage, red for a small, yellow for medium and green for full damage potential. The Potential Damage factors in both LOS and attenuation after penetrating the environment.
This is important because with true ballistics every piece of the environment matters. The shape and the strength of the materials must be accounted for - even the animation of the targeted characters. While they wait for you to take your shot the NPCs breathe and move slightly in their idle stances and this makes some body parts harder to shoot than others. An generic CTH would be, in our case, imprecise at best.


[h2]How many maps will there be in the game?[/h2]
You will play through about 15 major locations, scattered throughout the city of Urban and inhabited by various survivor groups, affiliated with one of the three major factions (cultists, bikers and remnants of the government, led by the army). On the initial run you’ll play the “vanilla” version of the map/scenario, then, once the faction war starts, the maps will change to a new setup to make the new playthrough just as interesting (details below). There will also be story and random encounters on transit maps - highways, railway tracks or forest roads. And finally, each faction will have their HQ, a major hub where combat is not allowed, but if you’re allied with them, you can make use of their facilities and workshops as you would at home.


[h2]How will replaying old maps not be boring?[/h2]
Once you’ve helped one of the factions achieve control of the town, they'll become your allies and you will try to prepare the town and your shelter for the inevitable arrival of the huge undead horde coming from Atlanta. This means going back through Urban and witnessing the fallout of your actions, be it good or bad. Our maps are split into sublevels that load once certain conditions in the script are met, so while the destination might seem familiar, the site will not.

Say you did the leader of the Gas Station biker gang - your pal Snitch - a favor, and helped him fulfill his American dream of owning the California Motel. You’ll be thrilled to know that he has big plans for the place and you’ll come back to a thriving five star brothel that has replaced the mundane refugee hospital the cultists had used the place for. Actually the rating guy might’ve been drunk when giving out the stars, but you get the idea.


[h2]Good-bye Legion, here come the true zombie worshipers[/h2]
Speaking of the demo, the infamous Legion has gone back to Arizona. The suburbs are now divided between cultists, bikers and the army, with a side-dish of bandits, moonshiners and zombies. Father Joseph is finally free to lead his flock of faithful followers and, unlike Caesar’s fake arena, his zombie pit is real and you’ll have a chance for a personal test. The new suburb will play differently from the demo scenario and will fit in the overall story and timeline of the game.


[h2]How much of the game campaign is ready?[/h2]
So far we have completed the initial setup of level design, RPG, factions and loot for 9 of these major locations and their corresponding story encounters. That’s not counting the intro/tutorial map and your shelter that have been completely redesigned since the days of the demo. Six more locations are in the works, in various stages of design.




[h2]Dialogue checks[/h2]
We continually improve the story and the RPG design of the game to make sure we give the player as much agency as possible and provide a non-linear experience. We do not aim to compete with full-on CRPGs in terms of micromanagement of the characters and their progression. But we feel like a base set of storytelling tools are a must for a proper immersion. In this respect we have added dialogue checks for faction affinity, Intelligence for outsmarting and Strength for bullying the encountered NPCs into revealing their secrets.

The secrets revealed can either help you find alternative ways to solve a mission, point you on the recruitment path for certain actors or simply reveal hidden information about the faction warlords you befriend or eliminate. In the end it’s you who is going to live with the choices you’ve made so it’s advisable you make them by being as informed as you can.


[h2]Story Encounters[/h2]
Beside the main story plot we have added secondary stand-alone encounters (with multiple episodes), that will add a plot twist or a bit of shade to the main campaign, but without being a game stopper. They have rewards if you play them through, some moral consequences but you can also plow through them as you would do through a normal random encounter, nothing will break.


As already announced, we have added fast zombie turning, right during combat. The condition is simple: when an actor is downed by zombies, they will go for a “finish” move - the bite. The bite does not do a lot of damage by itself, but if it is enough to kill the actor, then he/she turns into a zombie and raises the next turn.


If your recruits are bitten but survive the attack, they will be able to carry the infection for a couple of days, giving you time to pay the base doctor a visit. Letting the infection develop will result in a very nasty death. This also leads to interesting choices when faced with saving infected refugees - letting them “live” will result in a small herd of undead, while saving them will put a serious dent in the medical reserves back home. The only immune character is your avatar. That doesn’t mean you cannot be killed by a zombie, just means that you will die and not turn. Your special immunity means you’ll forfeit everyone’s chance for a cure if you die, so please do not do that.


The interface is undergoing a permanent improvement, as new mechanics and features get added and also as tests reveal the need for QoL improvements. We added a lot of context actions to right click menu, the stacks now split 50/50 by default, looted ammo doesn’t fly directly into the quick pockets (that 1 arrow that always occupied the pocket now behaves properly), we have new location and NPC tags (both above the heads/spot and on the screen edges - with a directional arrow that makes locating them easier).


We finally have a proper radio system to both tune in to the chatter on the Urban airwaves and get updates/orders from base. Last but not least, we have about 200+ new NPC portraits, painted over faces generated using AI tools. There are major improvements scheduled for the Journal, especially on the Roster (to allow easier away team management) and Faction Information sections, but more on that when they’ll be ready.


The ballistic calculator has also received some love. Weapons now display the SHOCK value which in turn translates into pain (attribute penalties) and stamina loss and the fire modes will also be easier to access - with button layouts designed specifically for ranged/melee weapons. Finally, the quick pockets have received proper hover boxes that display extended information about the item equipped.


[h3]Thank you for patiently reading this far and see you next time. And do not forget to spread the word about Urban Strife - your help counts more than can you imagine![/h3]

[h2]Experiments with the zombie virus![/h2]
We have been experimenting with a faster effect of the zombie attacks - direct turning during combat or shortly after. The results need some tuning but they certainly add an interesting twist to any battle versus the undead. Here’s a capture of a test scenario where a boxing match between some FBI agents and a bunch of zombies ended up with a few KOs on the agent side and one of them turning over to the red team.



As more communities fall victim to the zombie horde, you might even encounter some undead wearing body armor. The goofs in the above scenario are (were) simple drunkards who managed to shoot themselves trying to see if kevlar can really withstand a bullet. They have no extra magical powers, but the mere fact that they can’t be killed with a single headshot makes them extremely dangerous.

[h2]Main campaign (responsive map changes)[/h2]
Your deeds along the way will determine the fate of the survivor groups camped out around Urban. Some will become your friends and later allies, opening up their base and storages for your party, others will decide to go a different route and make it on their own when the horde comes. The local firefighters are a good example - if you fail to get them on your side they’ll go into “Alamo” mode, fortifying their station roof for a last stand. How well that works for them remains to be seen when you’ll get there yourself.



[h2]RPG upgrades: dialogue checks (faction, attributes)[/h2]
We have been re-writing, optimizing, native proofreading and enhancing our RPG constantly. One of the new implements that was on the to-do list and we badly wanted to have was checks in dialogue - with relevant consequences.

Faction affinities of your recruitables will allow you to discover hidden dialogue options with relevant information about ongoing scenarios because. A friendly face tends to loosen up the tension so the NPCs encountered might be more willing to divulge their secrets to someone with a common background. If that doesn’t work, you can always try bribing them with a few gold molars you’ve delicately pulled off the zombies you’ve just killed, but that might make things worse i(f you’re dealing with a certain cult that worships the undead for sure it will).

Combine the above with the new skills checks for intelligence and/or strength that will allow you to use either the sharpest mind or the biggest fists in your group to persuade the locals. Do a good job at that and you might get access to new quests and alternative solutions to solving conflicts. Killing everyone is no longer necessary and that comes with the added bonus of sparring the ammo for the fights that matter. Just be ready to feed the new batch of refugees you’ve saved and sent home (they tend to forget easily you’re their hero if you keep them on an empty stomach for too long; then it’s game over).

[h2]Multi-layered encounter setups[/h2]
We have added a new layer of experiences for those traveling around Urban. These dynamic encounters might seem trivial, but instead of being one-off events, your actions will actually leave a mark. True, these will not be stuff that will make or break your campaign, but they will reveal and underline the consequences of your choices: kill a few smugglers, you’ll later encounter their hungry family looking for help. Let these wander off and die, next time you’ll find them turned into a pack of zombies.




In the previous post we have revealed a few of the details regarding the progression system. We mentioned letting our brave sheriff, Billy Bo, take a few punches in the head if you want to grow his Endurance. Since people requested more details about the progression system, lets take a new scenario, improving Strength. If you want to beef up Billy, there's a classic solution everyone used in JA2, aka making sure he's the de facto mule of the group. Yes, he will be in pain and probably moan about it a lot, but just tell him pain is your friend. Eventually he’ll grow the muscles to carry all that weight around and you can start training him to wield a real man’s weapon - the giant sledgehammer, without worrying he’ll faint when he tries to lift it. You can already guess where this system is going with the rest of the skills. Want to level up his Dexterity? Use that screwdriver to assemble a lot of contraptions or just shank a lot of undeads.

When an attribute reaches a certain threshold considered internally as “expert” level (we mentioned 75 in the previous post, but that number is of course subject to balancing), the game will start assessing your playstyle in more detail. That is when you’ll want to specialize. You want to have a rooftop sniper in the team? Whenever it is possible, send him or her to fight from an elevated position (at least 2 meters off ground level) and the experience will add up to a nice bonus. Of course, you can snipe from rooftops when you suck at aiming too, but it will only improve your base attribute because calling yourself a specialist implies you first acquired some actual expertise.

[h2]New armor permutations[/h2]
Since some of our buddies in Urban were not exactly standard fit when it came to clothing and armor, we had to go through all the armor pieces and make them tailored to extreme sizes too. Even those built like a bear, like our pal Novak, can now sport a nice set of protective gear. Shown here in both army and makeshift pieces of armor.



[h2]Until next time, merry holidays and a Happy New Year![/h2]
From the bottom of our heart, thank you all for coming all for this incredibly exciting ride. Just know that we read all your posts, discuss your feedback, understand your worries and work as hard as we can to deliver the most awesome Urban Strife we can make (and as soon as that is possible). Let's hope 2024 will be the year when everyone’s best wishes become true!

Long time no see. It has been a long hot summer and a busy one. We had planned initially to release the game in July, but by the time Q2 ended it became obvious the game was not where we wanted it to be and we’ll be releasing it in a very noisy marketplace, with a lot of games competing for attention. So we decided to reassess the development timeline since it was clear we will be postponing the release and look for a new window, later this year. The extra development time was and will be put to good use - and here’s a list of features and QoL improvements that have already made it into the game since the NextFest demo.

[h2]New Smoke Spreading Mechanic[/h2]
Our dynamic fire system has been unanimously appreciated so we’re adding now a new one that will pleasantly tingle your inner tactician senses: dynamic smoke/gas. The cloud will grow and decrease over time and - most important - it will spread through open spaces only. That means a closed room will contain the smoke while breaking windows and opening doors will dissipate it. The uses for the smoke/gas will be plenty and will come in the shape of new grenades (starting with the most obvious, a smoke grenade that will break LOS).



[h2]Refined NightOps Mechanics[/h2]
Night ops will now benefit from a refined light system, with each individual game tile having its own light intensity, instead of a generic light setting that affects the entire map. What this improvement brings is the ability to implement light generating gadgets (flares and all other illumination devices) that will make night combat quite interesting.



The LOS mechanic has been overhauled too and we added an option to manually finetune the ranges. We found out that the old automatic system was generating ridiculously small visual detection distances when the player was using stealth at night. Speaking of detection ranges, we added much needed UI helpers for zombie spawners so you will no longer bump inadvertently into one.



[h2]Perks & Attributes[/h2]
A much awaited development was that of the attribute progression of your characters. As promised we have implemented a system of “grow by use” that will naturally develop your team members according to the actions they perform most often. If for example you will use a certain sheriff to block punches with his face and get KO’ed a lot, that will improve his Endurance (assuming he makes it alive through the process). Successfully dodging melee attacks on the other hand will improve his Agility. And so will sneaking. These are just a few examples, but there are a lot of ways to improve your squad for you to discover.

Another essential system is that of individual Perks. The concept behind them is that they define your team members specialization and provide them with significant bonuses in their expertise area. Some of the perks will be related to the character's background, others will be gained by performing activities your fighter is already good at. For example, once your Dexterity is above 75 you will be able to earn a specialization perk. Constantly using knives for attacks, you will slowly unlock the Bladed Weapons perk/specialization.

[h2]Enemy AI Improvements[/h2]
A major shift in AI mechanics has been going on behind the hood. Initially the game used an implementation based on the Behaviour Tree system. That system was based on priorities and was up to a point predictable and repetitive. Based on it, if throwing a Molotov would have the highest priority, a NPC would always use it. We have switched gradually (and now completed that switch) to an Utility AI. This system assigns scores for each possible action and the AI NPC constantly goes through a decision process and picks the action with the highest score dynamically. An example would be a NPC bleeding. A “normal” behavior would be for the NPC to bandage itself as a high priority default action, ignoring the fact that it has an enemy 3 meters away lined up for a perfect shot. With the new AI system it will dynamically weigh its chances and pick the best option according to specific circumstances and roles.



The Utility AI also brings an interesting new upgrade to the table. Simply boosting the score of the Healing behavior for a specific group of AI will turn them from basic grunts into field medics. And with the addition of new behaviors, such as reviving fallen teammates with stamina boosters, the new enemy medics will make the tactical field a lot richer. As a matter of fact there are so many cool new things that happened and will happen in the AI department we’ll reserve the next devblog just for it!

[h2]Inventory & QoL improvements[/h2]
Inventory management was the area where we received and processed the largest chunk of demo feedback. A lot of the fixes and improvements come from demo players' suggestions and for that we can only say a huge Thank You! Examples include the ability to donate shelter resources directly from the base stash, the ability to craft directly from stash/loot containers, content filters that stay selected when switching between inventories and make locating those elusive bullets much easier, etc.
Another long-awaited feature is the overhaul of the corpse looting. Now when a character dies, it will drop a backpack with all the loot, easy to see and open. More than that, the loot from the same tile will be compacted into a single container so gone is the annoying game of trying to click through a pile of 100 dead zombies to claim your drops. We also decided to keep the “Drop All” system. We feel that we should rather find solutions to balance the inflation of items/weapons than “magically” disintegrate the items NPCs use against you. And speaking of looting too much, we added the option to drop items onto the ground.



[h2]Campaign & Time Management[/h2]
Many demo players have voiced concerns regarding the time pressure when exploring sectors in real-time. Although the day/night succession was a cool effect, the speed at which it happened had players make rushed decisions, instead of focusing on tactical planning. You do not want to make a great night attack plan then find out it’s already morning because you had to take a phone call or you took too long surveying the enemy routes. In addition, each hour spent planning and generally having fun in combat carried a huge cost in resources back home. A cost that most players felt was too aggressive so we switched off the game time acceleration (time flows but it’s a real 24h clock).
Of course, time and resource management is a must-have. We do not plan to throw away this component. We are just migrating separating it from actual combat so you can enjoy both aspects. When moving between locations, time will flow normally so there will be day/night combat and your base will consume resources while you travel. But we still have more work to do on this meta layer for a proper survival experience and this will be a major focus on the remaining time until release.

[h2]So, release, when?[/h2]
When we’ll be happy with our metagame and the balance between all the economy and gameplay systems (looting, crafting, industry, traders, scavenging teams, time passing, incoming horde, etc) we’ll be ready to put the dot on the i and announce a proper date for release. Until then, our release is still set in 2023. On the updates front, in addition to the extended blog post about the new AI features, expect a devblog regarding the RPG campaign, which has also progressed a lot. Until next time!

Zemalf knows his turn-based strategy. He's so good, PC Gamer wrote an entire article about his feats in XCOM ( https://www.pcgamer.com/worlds-best-xcom-player-how-zemalf-beat-enemy-within-on-impossible-ironman-with-zero-deaths/ ).

Did he manage to survive the zombie hordes in Urban Strife? You can check his first encounter with the undead in this re-run of the 6 hours stream he did back in December. We know it's an older build, but the combat is as visceral as ever.

You can check out other Zemalf exploits on his twitch channel below:

https://www.twitch.tv/Zemalf

After a much too short appearance in December, we promised you an improved Prologue Demo, one that embeds most of your feedback and adds more of the economy/survival layer to the mix. The time has come to reveal the new build, so we welcome you to come and try it. Below are a couple of the main features you might want to check out.


The inventory/backpack has been completely redesigned, with a new player equipment and health chart that dynamically shows you the body parts that are bleeding/bandaged, the stats affected by the wounds and the debuffs you might carry. While here you might also notice the item filters present on all inventories, including a nice new SORT button to order those massive loot hauls. And we’ve begun to add new hover windows to items and HUD, showing shortcuts and other useful information. Crafting was overhauled too, but the good stuff there (attachments, armor, throwables, etc) is still in the works.



Exploring the Shelter you should be aware that all the economy NPCs now also have a quest for you to build them a specific base upgrade. Ask them to show you the blueprints and you’ll see what they can build and what the costs in materials are and get to it! And speaking of materials, seek out Mr. Fulton-Vine in the courtyard, he will gladly take any recyclable parts, old guns, tools, spare gas. Then he will kindly stash those into the base meters, from where you can deduct them to build your upgrades (and in the future, other useful stuff, such as bullets, armor, optical kits, etc).



You might also see a couple of references to “scavenger teams”. If you check out the new map you will see that there’s a WIP mode called SCOUT/SUPPLY. These are teams of refugees that you will able to send out to discover new locations for you and, once you’ve cleared them of enemies, basically haul home everything that’s not bolted down. So no more meals for free, everyone’s contributing to the common good soon! Speaking of travel, by building the Garage upgrade, you will be able to salvage certain cars and use them as squad transport, starting with Sheriff Rogers’ old police cruiser. For this to happen you would need to get rid of Lino Cesare and his thugs first though, so no, you won’t (yet) show off your new old car in the demo, but it’s coming.



We’ve given you more leeway with the impending resource crisis, compared to December build, so now you have a bit more time before any real drama happens. But this is for demo purposes only – in the main game you will have to get those refugees to work and start scavenging and building or you will have them hungry, sick and rioting ASAP. Now with all that loot, you can try visiting the traders (Honest Joe in Little Italy or Private Benny in Old Port) and check out their updated interface, showing numerical info about how they smile and rob you in clear daylight. But hey, if you don’t like what’s on offer, you can always pull out a gun and try robbing them back. If you can hold you own against bikers or soldiers armed to the teeth that is…


ENJOY!