Invasion Machine News

[h2]Small Fixes and a QoL update[/h2]
The community has reported a bug related to the last update - in some cases it was possible for a single troop to soak up all ammo from a stockpile for themselves, exceeding their allowed max carried ammo count. This has now been fixed.

Also, there's been consistent issues with troops getting stuck on the edges of the main road. That was caused by the road's collider mesh being too chunky at the edges. I've now replaced the whole collider with a smoother, simpler mesh, and the issue should now be finally fixed for good. As far as I know, this only happened around the main road, but please keep letting me know if there's another spot where it might occur.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
version 0.15 hotfix #1:
* FIXED: there was a bug in the game, where a unit could stock up on more ammo than theoretically allowed, causing a single unit to soak up all available ammo from stockpiles, sometimes. This is now fixed.
* FIXED: the sharp edges among the main road on the map are gone, replaced with a better collider mesh. This will prevent your units from getting stuck on the collider while trying to cross the road. This also serves as an optimization, as the new collider is much simpler.
* NEW: the Unit Dispatch window will now remember the list of last assigned passengers for each vehicle you send out to the game map. This lets you more quickly send out cars with same crews, back and forth. Seems useful for quick patrols or using the same driver for the wrecker or other supporting vehicles each time.

I have also updated the Unit Dispatch Window - it will now always remember the last crew you sent out a car with, and will reselect it automatically on the next dispatch. This should make it faster and easier to send your body-collecting trucks or your wreckers with the same crews back and forth, without having to find crews for them in the unit list, each time. You can still de-select the auto-assigned units from the car at any point.

[h2]A small UI update[/h2]
I've re-designed the Unit Dispatch window to make it a bit more usable - it will now be permanently glued to the left side of the screen, like most of the other UI elements I've been adding recently.

This gives me much more screen space for displaying more units at a time, which should reduce scrolling. I'm now also grouping the available units by type, and sorting them in a repeatable and more understandable way. Previously, the units could show up in this window pretty much in any order they wanted to, making it impossible to find what you wanted quickly.

In the next update I will also introduce permanent assignments for passengers in the cars - the cars will remember who their last assigned driver was, and will let you skip finding a new driver each time you want to dispatch the car back to the map.

I'm still here and kicking, as well as the game is. As some of you already know, I've been having some major health issues, and it completely ruined my (admittedly patchy) schedule of pushing updates to the game. I haven't been vocal about it recently, but I have been working to upgrade anything I could, nonetheless, in my recluse. Also, I've recently got better and if everything goes well, I should again be able to get back to more regular and meaningful updates.

For now, I present you the summary update of all the things that I have been able to fix since the last major version got released.

1. the biggest change will probably be the newly added ammo management - I've always wanted to have more management elements in the game (if you leave your units deployed on the map, I'd want them to eventually get tired, hungry and run out of ammunition, forcing you to run ressuply convoys to them), so consider this step one of this plan. Units that are low on ammo will try to resupply automatically, either from a car nearby (if you added the "ammo" cargo to it, when dispatching) or Ammo Stockpiles that you create (by unloading cargo from your cars into the ground).

2. I've added an Active Pause, probably the most commonly requested feature in the game. You can now slow down the game time whenever your want, making it much easier to manage chaotic situations. The pause function is now by default assigned to the SPACEBAR key.

3. I've also added the second-most requested feature - you can now hire Militia Members during meetings with the locals. Militia are just a simple replacement security, patrolling the villages automatically and slightly improving your relations with the locals. As a bonus, if a militia gets killed - that doesn't hurt your relations with the locals or your own command - as would probably happen in the real world, nobody cares about these people or their fate, in the end, so their deaths are meaningless to your gameplay - these are not soldiers your responsible for.

4. An untold number of gamecode lines have been touched, rearranged, optimized and re-thought. Anything from traffic to unit icons, from shooting, firing RPGs, helicopters flying, cars finding their destinations, random issues and many other little details that are hard to list. Basically a result of me playing the game, getting annoyed and fixing whatever bad I noticed.

More to come soon.


Changelog:
* NEW: Active Pause - since so many players have requested this feature, you can now slow down the game time to 10% whenever you want. This actions is by default mapped to
the SPACEBAR key. With the time slowed down, the game continues to operate normally, so you can issue any order you normally would to your units.
* NEW: Ammo Management - your units and vehicles will now use ammo and will need to reload their weapons. I'm trying to add some more management elements to the game, where eventually the player would be forced to either rotate the units actively deployed on the map, or run supply missions with food and ammo.
Your units automatically seek sources of ammo when they have no other tasks - it could either be cars with the proper cargo added to them during dispatch, or ammo dumps (cargo from cars can be unloaded into stockpiles, including the newly added Ammo Dumps). Squads will also share ammo between the members.
* NEW: Militia - also a feature many players have requested - you can now recruit militia members during the village meetings. These are troops that will fight on your side (although they never leave the village they got recruited in), and will constantly improve your relations with the locals. If a militia member gets killed, it doesn't incure any cost in your relations with the locals or the command, and you can always recruit more of them during the next meeting.
* FIX: fixed the unit pre-selection logic. It should now be much easier to preselect/ select the exact unit your mouse is pointing at. Previously, it was often trying to select the unit closest to the camera, instead, which often made it very sketchy and confusing.
* FIX: re-scaled some gigantic UI elements, like the Progress Summary Window
* FIX: re-scaled the Unit Dispatch Window
* FIX: many ridiculous behaviors of cars in traffic, like trying to avoid things that don't actually block their path, have now been tamed. This is a never-ending process, but some of the most annoying issues should now no longer be happening.
* OPTIMIZATION: car driving logic, car pathfinding, car acceleration - everything related to cars have been updated and optimized
* OPTIMIZATION: game physics and time settings have been optimized
* FIX: the issue with cars randomly going through the desert has been fixed
* OPTIMIZATION: unnecessary calculations and extra textures on the terrain have been removed, which should make the terrain rendering faster
* FIX: the HVT window was not being updated correctly with stats and open missions
* FIX: enemies will not use RPGs to execute anyone, or fire them from within buildings, anymore
* OPTIMIZATION: removed random stutters related to units beginning to plan their next course of action. This was related to unnecessary memory allocations in the AI planning process.
* OPTIMIZATION: updated the way the game renders icons for the units on map, reducing unnecessary calculations
* SECURITY FIX - the game was built with the new version of the engine, patching an ongoing security issue

[h2]Experimental changes[/h2]
I've been working on re-adding the Allied Patrols feature to the game - the independent patrols that are spawned and controlled directly by your Command.
This this used to be a feature very early in the game, and later had to be temporarily disabled because of some major issues with AI. Basically, the patrols ran on a very primitive script, that couldn't do much more than take them from point A to point B on the map.
Now, I've ported the code to the new AI behavior tree system that the rest of the game uses. This should allow them to react properly to any unexpected situations on the map.

I'm still in the process of testing this change, and some support scripts might work improperly at times, hence - for now the update will remain in the Public Testing branch.

[h2]How these independent patrols work[/h2]
They are supposed to ease the burden of doing some of the more tedious things, like running the humaid convoys to villages, looking for informants to recruit and simply patrolling the roads. You will still be able to do these things whenever they want, but alongside your units - the Command will periodically send out their own patrols.

These units will also require your support in some cases - you'll need to evacuate their wounded, and the damaged vehicles. Whenever that's needed, the Command will spawn a special mission for you.

[h2]How can you switch to the experimental branch[/h2]
If you want to play with the experimental features enabled, you need to right-click on the game in your Steam client, select "properties" and go to the branch selection page. The experimental branch is named "public-testing".

[h2]I've just made a long overdue update active for all the players[/h2]
To start off with an explanation - due to multiple health and personal issues mounting up, I was unable to make any serious progress with the game for the past months, and the project was pretty much stuck.
Fortunately, this seems to be behind me now, and I've just made a new patch public, collecting all the bigger and smaller fixes that were waiting for their finishing touches and publication.

The most important change some of you will notice, is that the longer gameplays will now feel less "dead" - the game will continue to spawn more AI activity, than before. Previously, for some of you at least, the game would continue to activate less and less AI missions the longer you played.

[h2]Full changelist:[/h2]
version 0.14:
* FIX: the game previously featured a very restrictive limit on the number of AI missions running at the same time. This sometimes caused the game world to feel too dead, any time the limit got exceeded, especially on longer play sessions. This is now reworked and the issue will not happen again.
* FIX: the foot patrol missions and the mounted patrol missions spawned by the enemy will now much more actively look for your units. They will also engage more actively. Previously, it was quite likely that some of your enemies would just stare at the ground, instead of returning fire, when attacked.
* HVTs will now have unique names, and will be able to spawn more types of missions (including having their own units patrol the map)
* HVTs had a tendency to occupy the same houses every time, when spawned. This is now changed, and much better randomized.
* the more experienced HVTs will order their subordinates to create tunnel networks, so the game will now spawn tunnel entrances on the map.
- enemy units will sometimes start their foot patrols at these new tunnel entrances, instead of the edges of the map. This makes them less predictable.
- a tunnel can appear pretty much anywhere on the map
- each HVT can create multiple tunnels
- the entrance can be destroyed (caved in) by your EOD unit. CAS might also do the job.
* BALANCING - even more enemy patrols can now be active at the same time
* BALANCING - at the start of every new game, some of the stores and businesses will now immediately get activated, giving the villages a little bit more life. Previously, you'd have to rebuild every single business yourself, when starting a new game.

[h2]Next immediate plans[/h2]
Now that the patch is out, I will continue working on making the HVTs more dangerous, the village life more active (more action in the marketplace, with some possible recon gathering there) and reworking the more annoying missions you get from the Command (those humaid convoys that nobody likes). Friendly AI patrols will soon be back in the game as well.