Invasion Machine News

[h2]Helicopters[/h2]
I took a little detour before working on the features described previously (more social projects and interactions with the locals), and decided to add a feature that's been steadily requested ever since the game first appeared - the helicopters. This (as usual) took a while, because I first had to actually teach the game what a helicopter is (a flying car, basically), and figure out all the quirks around the mechanic.

[h2]Helicopters in Invasion Machine - what to expect?[/h2]
First of all, they're always gonna have a lot of limitations. I don't want this to be a helicopter game, I want you to be thinking of them as an extra, emergency unit (quick medevac, quick reaction forces, etc.), which you can use once every while, but not as a complete replacement for the ground vehicles.
This means, among other things, that:
* helicopters use fuel constantly, when spawned on the map, even if you order them to land. If you let your helicopter run out of fuel, it will immediately RTB (if in air), or will only accept the RTB order from you.
* the only helicopter in the game is a "transport only" variant, and is unarmed.
* they're very vulnerable to RPGs and enemy rockets
* there's a hefty timeout (refuel time) applied to them any time they return to the base, so you can only use the helicopter transport occasionally
* there's a hard limit of only a single operational helicopter you can have at any time. I might increase this in the future, but haven't yet decided. Again - think of this as a "special" asset, not your main method of transporting troops
* they cannot be towed away with the wrecker. If your helicopter gets downed, only the EOD unit will be able to clear out ("neutralize") it's wreckage.
* there's not many places where they can safely land (the terrain must be flat, with no vehicles around). The cursor will change to a "you can land here" icon, any time you hover over a valid landing spot. If a car gets in the way, the landing may still get aborted.

[h2]Future plans[/h2]
I'd really like to add PJs to the game, in some form, so in the future I'll probably add an AI-controlled medevac helicopter. I'm thinking of something similar to how you call in CAS - select a landing zone, keep it safe, wait for the medevac bird to arrive, and load up your wounded into it.

[h2]Other future plans[/h2]
I'll now get back to working on new interactions with the locals, and making the hearts and minds part of the game more interesting.
More social projects to work on, managing the local politics, civilian VIPs, and so on. More news soon.




[h2]Update:[/h2]
Ok, this was stupid. If I want you to test the helicopters, I should make them more available at the start of a new game. From now on, you'll get a free helicopter when you first start the game in the test build.

[h2]The player can now place his own structures on the map.[/h2]
Among the first ones I'm making available is the bunker, a better traffic checkpoint and guard towers. For now this is just a basic set of buildings that will help give your units better shelter on the map. In a future update, I will also add different, more specialized structures. The goal is for the player to eventually be able to build some sort of a FOB on the map, with resources management (food, ammo), and being able to run patrol missions from it.



[h2]So what changed, exactly?[/h2]
You have a new menu in the top left corner of the screen, allowing you to select a structure to build (or rather plan) on the map. Once you have a layout planned, you can order your units to start construction.
Hint: to actually be able to build anything, your units need to have access to a stockpile containing Construction Materials. You deliver those from your HQ, as selectable cargo for any of your vehicles.
Once constructed, the buildings can be used the same way any other structures on the map are (as shelter/ firing positions), and may also get overran and used by the enemy the same way.

[h2]Other important news[/h2]
There's been a bunch of long-running bugs that some of you reported to me. Most annoying of those, was some of the vehicles getting stuck at the edge of the map, and corrupted save games. Those are now fixed.
You can now also rotate the camera by holding the right mouse button, instead of having to hold left alt on your keyboard. A small change, but feels much more natural to use.

[h2]What's next[/h2]
I'd like to focus on a couple of things, next.
First of all, it's time to add more interactions between your units and the locals. The goal would be for you to be able to build lasting relations with the people living in the area, and implementing some sort of "local leaders" (be it aligned with you, or actually working against you).
The other thing would be to make the enemy think more globally - if you attack one group, they should be able to call for reinforcements. This means adding communication devices to the units, as well as some sort of I-Com equipment for you.
Finally, I'm thinking of adding proper resource management, with ammo count and rations your units would be using up.

Those will most likely get divided into smaller, or much smaller updates, this time.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
* NEW: This is the big new thing: the player can now build permanent structures on the map. Stuctures can be placed pretty much anywhere outside of main roads. Any structure ordered by the player has to actually be built by the units on the map, using construction materials delivered from HQ.
* NEW: enemy units will now get equipped with RPGs sometimes
* NEW: MLRS technical
* NEW: revised the engagement ranges again, all weapons can now be fired from farther away
* NEW: the camera can now be rotated with right mouse button (hold, instead of clicking). This is much more natural than the previous system, and just feels better.
* FIX: more than one shooter can now engage from a given building at once, if there's multiple occupants inside
* FIX: shooters in houses would previously share the same burst/ cooldown timer, causing them to only shoot one bullet and then stop firing for a long time
* fix: the player vehicles will no longer get completely stuck at the edge of the map
* fix: when you deliver prisoners to your HQ, the prisoner processing window will now show up, again
* fix: save/load fixes for the civilian farming actions (previously they sometimes failed)
* fixed the readability of some of the transparent UI icons. Much more will be done to this, soon
* fix: the player units will no longer get stuck at the edge of the map

The community has found a bunch of game-breaking bugs related to the buildable structures update, most of them related to saving the game. This is what's still blocking me from releasing this big update to the main, public branch.

I have just patched all known issues up, released a new build to the test branch, but the official release of this update still has to be postponed a couple of days. Still working on it, and it's gonna finally come out, really soon.

The buildable structures have now been added to the test branches (public testing), and soon will also find their way to the main build of the game.
For now the most basic set of buildings is available (walls and bunkers), mostly for testing purposes. In the next updates I will also add something more interesting, like the traffic control points.

This update is for now only available to you if you chose to switch the game to a test branch. The default build will get updated once the feature is tested more thoroughly.

Full changes:
version 0.6:
* NEW: This is the big new thing: the player can now build permanent structures on the map. Stuctures can be placed pretty much anywhere outside of main roads. Any structure ordered by the player has to actually be built by the units on the map, using construction materials delivered from HQ.
* NEW: enemy units will now get equipped with RPGs sometimes
* NEW: MLRS technical
* NEW: revised the engagement ranges again, all weapons can now be fired from farther away
* NEW: the camera can now be rotated with right mouse button (hold, instead of clicking). This is much more natural than the previous system, and just feels better.
* FIX: more than one shooter can now engage from a given building at once, if there's multiple occupants inside
* FIX: shooters in houses would previously share the same burst/ cooldown timer, causing them to only shoot one bullet and then stop firing for a long time
* fix: the player vehicles will no longer get completely stuck at the edge of the map
* fix: when you deliver prisoners to your HQ, the prisoner processing window will now show up, again
* fix: save/load fixes for the civilian farming actions (previously they sometimes failed)
* fixed the readability of some of the transparent UI icons. Much more will be done to this, soon

It's been a while since the last public announcement, so here comes.

[h3]What am I working on currently?[/h3]
I'm still in the process of adding the player-buildable structures. This involves making the UI for selecting them, making the UI tools for placement/rotation, adding the "build this structure" orders to your units, allowing you to later cancel or destroy existing structures, making the AI see them as threat, saving/loading the changes on the map, etc.
At the moment, I have the system fully working with the first sample structure (a guard tower), and I'm finishing work on the saving/loading part. Once this is ready, the feature will go public in the test branch.

Other than that, the test branch also contains a first draft of the RPGs and a MLRS technical, as described in the previous update. Those still need a lot of balancing and for now exist as a preview only.

[h3]When will all this be released?[/h3]
The plan is to release all these in about 2-3 weeks. Once I'm done with the updates to the buildable structures save system, I'll get back to more intensive testing. In three weeks at most all this should be done, ready and playable.

[h3]And what comes after that?[/h3]
More buildable structure selection. More units for you. More options for interactions with the population (this system is way too basic for now, and all the updates so far were mostly concentrated around combat). When? TBA.

[h2]tl;dr; the next update, containing new features (RPGs, buildable structures), is planned to go public in about 2-3 weeks.[/h2]