All Quiet in the Trenches News

We will be exhibiting All Quiet in the Trenches at the Indie Arena at Gamescom from next week. So with 0.7.3, we are now bringing a few improvements to the battle, as well as the first two tutorial levels, in addition to further bug fixes.

We wish you a continued good experience!

Improvements / Changes:

• Added a new UI element that shows the danger of rifle fire when changing troop actions or providing cover fire
  
• Improved system for determining whether a soldier is on an area or the open field
  
• New tasks are now slightly highlighted until you click on them
  
• Several balancing and display changes in the tutorial levels
  
  
• Removed the requirement to exceed a certain danger level for cover fire
  
• Allowed 'Tactical Movement' in addition to 'Retreat' when flanked
  
• Prevented 'panic' when troops are in melee or flank positions (too many sources of error for now)
  
• Increased aggressiveness of the French NPC troops in the 'Defence into Attack' battle
  
• Some minor NPC behaviour balancing in battles
  
• Some minor map adjustments regarding movement paths
  
  
• Improvements to highlight camera
  
• Increased turn rates for soldiers by a bit
  
• Increased fire rate for suppression and flanking
  
• Adjusted rifle fire target positions
  
• Added a small trail for rifle fire
  
  
• Changed professions for Kohn and Mencke (we went over the information of all the soldiers, as we are printing small cards with the soldiers for Gamescom)
  
• Increased Pedersen starting fitness
  

Bugfixes:

• Hotfix for the possibility of getting stuck when forced to move (we'll think of a better solution at some point)
  
• Fixed a rare occasion where NPC troops would get stuck in an area and never move
  
• Fixed inability to loot in a specific area
  
• Fixed problem where separated soldiers would sometimes be shown in wrong areas
  
• Fixed weird camera behaviour when all currently moving soldiers become separated or wounded
  
• Fixed display of wrong attributes when troop position changes due to having no active soldiers
  
• Fixed grenades sometimes rotate when still hold in hand
  
• Fixed new soldiers not appearing in project detail window when acquired via Karrsbruck favor
  
• Fixed wrong text when hovering over flanking action
  
• Fixed that the tutorial window overlaps the notification for a task
  
• Fixed soldier name not being displayed correctly in 'Eating Rats' story (EN)
  

The second patch for 0.7 comes with even more bug fixes. Many thanks for the detailed reports you send us!

Bugfixes:

• Fixed an error that could occur when an NPC troop tried to loot in an impassable area
  
• Fixed an error in the 'Friendly Fire' level that could occur, when enemy reinforcements arrive
  
• Fixed an error that occurred when there were not enough hospital beds available
  
• Fixed possibility of getting stuck when your last soldier panics and you are forced to move
  
• Fixed two phase changes triggering at the same time at the start of 'Home Leave' scenario
  
• Fixed soldiers staying MIA when they aren't anymore (e.g. when their death has been confirmed)
  
• Fixed collapse attribute claiming Nurse Elisabeth is grateful for it, when she's actually unhappy about it
  
• Fixed recovery attributes being added to MIA soldiers
  
• Added relevant attribute displays to Take Cover project in Mission (e.g. soldiers who are out of breath)
  
• Fixed tooltip for Lusitiana and added a missing translation
  

We're happy to announce that our second major update is now available!



It focusses on the battle phase in the game and has the following core features:

• Overhaul of all battle systems: Gunfire, melee and grenade throwing
  
• Improvements to NPC troop behaviour logic
  
• Improved balancing in the battle phase
  
• Better display of certain effects and more detailed tooltips
  
• Some new animations and improved battle camera cutscenes
  

If you would like to find out more about the individual features, you can take a look at our Dev Diaries, which we published in advance:

Dev Diary - Changes in the battle Dev Diary - Melee combat and grenade reworks Dev Diary - Visual improvements in battle

And here is the list of the full patchnotes:

Features:

• Added new close combat system: Melee combat will automatically occur when troops move within a certain threshold of an enemy troop, defeated troops will have to move out of the 'close combat zone'
  
• Added new suppression system: It's possible to target a single enemy troop, suppressed troops cannot give fire orders or throw grenades
  
• Added new flanking system: Flanked troops are forced to reposition
  
• Added new cover fire system: It's now possible to cover your own troops when they move
  
• Added the possibility of soldiers getting wounded in the field and a project to bring wounded soldiers into your cover
  
• Added two new game-over options: Losing all your soldiers on the battlefield, or having only one soldier when surrounded by enemies
  
• Added animations for close combat, throwing grenades and being wounded
  
• Added highlighted scenes to the cutscene camera in battle: The camera will pan to melee combat or grenade scenes when they are near
  
• Added three new journal illustrations
  

Improvements / Adjustments:

• Reworked NPC troop behaviour to adapt the new changes
  
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to have an aggression multiplier: The more turns played in a battle, the more aggressive they will be
  
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to look for more ways into a target trench (and therefore move horizontally more often)
  
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to adjust their strategy more on behalf of other troops (e.g. if only a few troops are firing, they are more likely to do so)
  
• Changed being able to wound the last remaining soldier of a troop
  
• Reworked impact system: Multiple impacts from different sources are now possible
  
• Reworked troop actions: ‘Hold position’ now includes all other troop actions that are not movements
  
• Reworked overwatch: Project is limited to two soldiers with higher efficiency
  
• Reworked throwing grenades: A distinction is made if the grenade hits, partially misses or completely misses
  
• Added several projects in battles to be displayed in 3D space
  
• Changed displays in 3D space to be a bit smaller
  
• Changed effect displays for projects to be easier to understand
  
• Added new attribute tooltips: they now highlight the primary effects
  
• Reworked danger display: The danger from gunfire is now better displayed in the troop action info window, removed all other danger sources
  
• Reworked UI troop info displays: They only show the most important attribute, and now also show the current fire actions instead of the last troop action
  
• Changed UI troop info displays, so that they don't appear when the corresponding troop is out of sight
  
• Improved UI troop info displays, so they don't overlap anymore
  
• Adjusted some project and attribute icons
  
• Improved soldier movement slightly
  
• Improved cutscene camera in general
  
• Adjusted tutorial slightly to cover the new changes
  

Balancing:

• Rebalanced every battle level to adapt to the new changes
  
• Increased the number of turns it takes to decide whether a battle is lost or won
  
• Increased the playable distance in each level and the distance to get 'Outside the formation' or 'Too far forward'
  
• Increased movement distance slightly, but limited the distance being able to advance
  
• Increased cover impact on firepower
  
• Changed attribute 'Narrow cover' so that suppression is impossible from there
  
• Changed attribute 'Bushes' so there can be no suppression there.
  
• Rebalanced ammunition usage
  
• Rebalanced stress gain / reduction to be less dependent on danger and more on attributes
  
• Rebalanced the decisive soldier traits for specific projects in combat
  
• Rebalanced all chances of impact from danger sources
  
• Increased wound intensity for non-player soldiers: they will take slightly more serious wounds and bleed faster
  
• Increased morale penalty for running out of provisions
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a number of bugs and errors when reworking the Battle Phase, which may have resulted in other bugs and errors ...
  
• Fixed scattered soldiers sometimes moving in advance direction
  
• Fixed being able to move onto an area with a troop with zero active soldiers
  
• Changed troops without remaining active soldiers to be moved to retreat territory
  
• Fixed 'Bunker panic' story being able to trigger for every soldier
  
• Fixed 'Bad work' dialogue adding fear directly when choosing the topic
  
• Fixed typo in Camp_Cherries story (EN)
  

Please note that saves from the 0.6.X version will no longer work. However, we will continue to make version 0.6.2 available in the Steam Beta Branch for quite some time.

We wish you all a good time with the new update!
Your Totally Not Aliens Team

Hello everyone!

In today's Dev Diary we write about the visual features that shall come with version 0.7. We plan to release the 0.7 Battle Update on Wednesday, 31 July.


We have slightly revised the display of projects. In future, a red arrow (for negative changes) or a green arrow (for positive changes) in different intensity levels will communicate the changes in the completion of a project. A die indicates that there is only a chance of an impact or that the intensity is variable.



In addition, the tooltips of the attributes show which other attributes or values are primarily affected.




A few new animations have been added. We've also improved the movement of the soldiers in battle, so hopefully they'll get stuck less often.




Last but not least, we have reworked the camera settings in battle so that they show a little more of the action. When certain actions take place in the immediate vicinity of the troops (initially only melee combat and grenades), the camera now also captures these.

Hello everyone!

We are nearing the end of the development phase for the Battle Update. We're doing our best to release it by the end of this month. But before that, we'd like to introduce you to a few selected changes we've been working on over the last few weeks:



Commands such as cut barbed wire, loot crates and a few more are now displayed in the 3D view. This not only helps to keep the bar on the left-hand side clearer, but above all allows us to improve the future map design:

For example, we always had to make sure that only one barbed wire was available to cut per area, otherwise it wasn't clear which barbed wire it was.

The areas where you can search for ammunition are now also highlighted with a button.



It was a bit complicated to find a suitable system that simulates close combat. We wanted to avoid situations in which enemy troops face each other in close proximity for several rounds. A direct attack should be possible by surprise. Nevertheless, we needed certain signs to indicate the dangers in advance. On the one hand, close combat should be as brutal and unpredictable as possible, but on the other hand the risks should remain manageable. If more than half of the troops lie injured on the ground after a single action, frustration is inevitable. We hope that we have struck the right balance with the current system!

As before, if you are within a certain range of an enemy troop, you will be shown that you are now in melee range. This means that melee combat can break out at any time. The big difference to before is that the range is now much greater (about the same as the range at which you could throw grenades before).

If a troop moves too close to an enemy troop, close combat is automatically triggered. The result is simulated, whereby the number of possible wounds is limited. However, the "loser" is forced to retreat, similar to the flanking we discussed in the last Dev Diary. This means that the lost position must be recaptured in the following rounds, in order to save the missing soldiers.

In the process, however, we have built in the fact that soldiers can now be wounded anywhere on the map and can therefore sometimes lie without cover in no man's land. Previously, a soldier could only be located in a specific area.

This move will automatically result in close combat.



In these situations, it is now possible to have wounded soldiers brought into your own cover on the open field. However, this can be quite dangerous, as the soldier can also be shot on the open field.

Pedersen was critically wounded in close combat and can now be taken into your own cover.



The grenades now have a slightly longer range. We have also revised the underlying system. Instead of more or less just simulating the number of wounded, a distinction is now made as to whether a grenade hits directly, explodes near the target or misses the target completely. You are now also informed about the outcome of a grenade throw.

"Don't worry, Mayel. It was only our last grenade..."



As some of you may have noticed, there is currently a restriction: the last soldier in a squad is invulnerable. This will no longer be the case with the new update. However, this also means that a sudden game over can occur as soon as all soldiers in a squad are incapacitated. We have written two new stories for this purpose.