Invasion Machine News

In the previous post, I've promised to focus on a couple of game issues and start working on the next content updates for the game. The updates were supposed to start coming out before the end of (last) year, and clearly - that didn't happen.
I'm sorry about this delay. Because of a bunch of health issues, I've been unable to work on the game at all for the past couple of weeks, so no real progress has really been made recently.
The good news is, it seems that I'm now back to normal and was able to resume the development. I know this shouldn't be an excuse, but this game is a solo development project - when I'm down, the development plans always suffer.

For now, I've made two fixes that a lot of players complained about, and made them public in the default branch:
0.9 HOTFIX 2:
* FIX: it was previously no longer possible to manually control any cars (the input was being registered wrong)
* FIX: previously it _seemed_ like the process of building of the water wells could never finish - this was actually just an issue of a misleading icon, but it's now fixed either way

The more substantial updates should start becoming public again in the coming week, starting with another hotfix addressing issues some of you had with garrisonning the buildings.

I've been made aware that some players (maybe even most players?) had issues with loading their newest game saves, as well as issues with searching houses in the villages (where the game wouldn't let you finish a search or remove your units from houses at the end).

There's now a hotfix build in the main branch, addressing these problems.

Full changelog (version 0.9 HOTFIX 1):
* FIX: the game couldn't be loaded in some cases, when saved in the previous build 0.9. Thix is now fixed.
* FIX: the game previously wouldn't let you finish the searches for contraband and get your units out of the searched houses, sometimes
* FIX: sometimes too many Command Mission windows buttons would show up, obscuring other parts of UI
* FIX: the game would previously calculate your Command Points wrong

Some people have been reporting an issue with vehicles assigned to transporting vehicles getting... corrupted (with the body of the vehicles getting dislocated). I haven't so far been able to reproduce this issue even once, but I'm aware of it and will keep on looking.

The 0.9 update is now live in the main branch. This patch introduces a slightly improved main menu, various small bug fixes and the basic configuration for keyboard bindings.

Some of the fixes are related to optimization of the pathfinding system, and the game should now run noticeably smoother.

Full change log:
* NEW: a different main menu, along with an initial version of the "new game" screen, allowing you to customize some basic settings for new campaigns.
* the "new game" window will be extended in the future, the idea is to let the player tailor the style of the game to his needs
* NEW: you can now customize the key bindings (or reset them back to the default settings)
* optimizations - removed the traces of the old navigation system (which was still slowing the game down slightly, even though it was no longer used by the AI), updated the new navigation system for some performance improvement

If you're playing the game using one of the experimental branches, you'll now see an updated main game menu.

I started working some more on the customizability of the game, starting with a rudimentary "new game" window. You'll from now on be able to select a number of basic settings for your new campaigns - the placement of pre-positioned enemy units on the map, the amount of command points earned for your actions, and so on.
In the future updates I will gradually be adding more settings and customizations here, with the idea being to eventually allow you to adjust the style of the gameplay to the way you like to play.
The game will now also boot into the main menu instead of going directly to a pre-populated game map.

In other news, the experimental build has some additional optimizations - I've removed traces of the old pathfinding system (which, though no longer used, slowed the game down slightly) and updated the current pathfinding logic to make it faster as well.

[h2]Version 0.8.4 is now live[/h2]
The new patch adds a few new features, as well as a lot of very important fixes to the game.
The thing you might notice right away is that the enemies will now call for reinforcements, and in many cases - coordinate their attacks better. This is because the game now simulates radio communications for them.
Enemy radio calls can be intercepted with the new I-Com vehicle (as long as you have an interpreter to pair it with). It should help a lot with locating the mortar teams, and in general tell you a little more about what the AI is planning.
The other thing I focused on was the balancing. All the basic units now cost less CP, the menu for buying new units will now actually show up even if you have less than 50 points.
The enemy mortars have been nerfed - they will no longer respond to calls from the opposite side of the map, and their accuracy will be much, much worse than before.

[h2]Full changelog[/h2]
* NEW: radio communications - the AI will now send radio messages between it's units. This allows them to coordinate their attacks, request reinforcements from other squads, inform the AI commander about the locations of your troops, etc.
* NEW: a new vehicle - transmissions interceptor (I-Com) - allows you to see where and when an enemy radio transmission happens. For this unit to be doing anything useful, it has to be coupled with a translator (it's enough if one is standing near it). Without one, you won't be able to see the contents of any of the messages it intercepts.
* all the radio messages your translators are able to intercept will be displayed on the left side of the screen.
* NEW: the patrol, ambush and mortar missions have been changed to be able to respond to radio calls, especially the requests for reinforcements.
* FIX: completely rebuilt the enemy mounted patrols script, allowing them to respond to many more things on the map
* NEW: the enemy recon missions (enemy spotter with a radio, hidden on the map) will also generate these radio messages whenever your units are uncovered.
* FIX: changed most of those anemic gun sounds in the game. This is still an ongoing process, but already a big improvement over the old, mushy sfx.
* rebalanced the cost of units (again), to make it easier to buy larger amounts of basic troops and transports
* nerfed the mortar teams, because it was pretty much impossible to find them once they started firing at you from the other side of the map
* the mortar teams will now be much less accurate, and will only respond to firefights close to their location. The longer range engagements can only start if a radio-equipped unit requests their support
* the mortar teams will now be sending a lot of radio messages when firing, so the transmissions interceptor can help a lot with locating them
* enemy spotters on the map now have radios, and will direct patrols to any of your units they're able to spot
* FIX: the units' loadouts sometimes got mixed up, leading to a few random issues
* new unit - MRAP with no turret
* FIX: in some cases the game started lagging when civilians in villages tried farming drugs - the scripts were unable to find the correct origin object for them, causing a very slow bug report to get created over and over...
* the unit buying menu will now show up even if you have less than 50 command points available (because most units now cost much less than that)



[h2]Sidenote - the preview branch contained a serious issue affecting the game's performance[/h2]
If you played the experimental branch recently, you surely noticed a huge FPS degradation after the first half an hour of gameplay. This was caused by the simulation of civilians farming opium (one of the scripts was failing to find an object it was looking for).
The issue is now fixed and will no longer happen in any build of the game.