Invasion Machine News

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The Network Moderation Team & Network Development Team will be live streaming Invasion Machine #1 on the 26th September 2020 at 15:00 EST/20:00 BST. The Live stream will share some insight into the development of Invasion Machine and future updates including building update, vehicle update and the Invasion Machine community outreach programs. There will be several discussions happening and you can ask any questions to the EN Manager of Invasion Machine Game.

Happy Commanding!
¬ Game Moderation Team

[h2]What's in the newest update[/h2]
The units on the map will now use buildings for cover. This is both for the AI (you can now never be sure how much opposition awaits you in the village you're about to roll into) and your own.
Units can shoot out of houses, but only if there's a shot line from any of the house's opening to their target. More powerful weapons, like the .50cal, can shoot into the houses through walls, but doing so will not be very effective (except for damaging the house itself).

Here's the changelog:
version 0.4:
* NEW: both your units and the enemy can now garrison in the buildings. This provides extra protection (it's not fast or easy to take down a determined shooter hiding in the structures)
* NEW: before your units can garrison in an unknown building, they'll first breach and clear it. This is similar to the "house searches", but will not reveal any weapons or drugs caches. Immediately after the breach is over, the units will take firing positions inside.
* NEW: you can now shoot at houses, and out of them. Shooting at enemies hiding in structures will also engage any civilians stuck there along with the enemy.
* NEW: the units inside structures now observe the world outside, which lets the AI engage your units from within structures, or try to lure your men closer (wait with opening their fire until your units are within range).
* NEW: each building on the map got hand-placed firing positions, more or less aligned to it's windows. There may be less positions than actual windows (due to optimization concerns), but in general - the units inside will only be able to shoot from the side of the building which isn't solid wall.
* NEW: heavy weapons, like te 50cal, can still fire at buildings through solid walls, but the effectiveness of this fire will be rather low.
* NEW: snipers are a bit more effective at picking off targets in houses, but they need to be placed in a position that gives them clear view into one of the building's windows.
* NEW: you can now select houses, the same way you select your units.
* NEW: CEASE FIRE order for all your units. You can now tell your men to stop firing and don't try to engage new targets in their current engagement.
* NEW: additional UI for the selected houses, showing you the lines of fire / line of sight from the closest window to the point under your pointer. This should help you realize which sectors of the map are covered by your garrisoned troops.
* NEW: AI will try to hide in buildings, if engaged by overwhelming force
* NEW: AI will garrison in villages you have no presence in
* fix: the "house details" window is now much more mouse-friendly - you no longer need to have the camera focused entirely on the house to get it to open
* changes the max passenger count for all the troop carriers to 5
* optimization to the actions splash menu - will now be opened faster

[h2]Why it took so long?[/h2]
No part of my game scripts was ready for this change - in the previous versions, the houses were completely ignored in engagements, and the game had no idea how to target them or use them for cover.
I had to rebuild all that, step by step.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
Save games. Pretty much everyone's asking about saves these days, so I'm making them my immediate next priority.

[h2]What is happening[/h2]
I've pretty much finished the garrisoning update - in the new build, which I'm about to release in a couple of days, both your units and the enemy will be able to use the houses for shelter and ambushes.
Before I release it, however, I still need to do a lot more testing - it's gonna take me a couple of days, so I don't have the specific release date, yet.

[h2]Why it took so long?[/h2]
The previous versions of the game had no concept of targetting buildings, or shooting out of them. The only valid targets used to be the game "actors" - cars and people, and changing this was a rather complicated process. Actors generally only do one thing at once - either they are engaged, or are doing anything else. For the buildings - you can have both civilians and enemies inside, with player units trying to breach at the same time, and other units shooting at them. In other words - it's not as easy to develop.

[h2]So when do you release it?[/h2]
This week. But I don't know the exact day, yet - I'm still testing.

[h2]What will you work on next?[/h2]
Due to popular demand, the next update will be the game saves. I have a lot of updates planned for the gameplay itself, but people are invariably disappointed when they realize the saves don't yet work in the game, and this is the feedback I get the most often. So, here we go - once the garrisoning is out, I'm beginning work on the saves.

[h2]tl;dr; there will be a new build of the game out this week. once it's out, I'm starting to work on game saves.[/h2]

[h2]The nearest update in the game will be garrisoning, but it's not yet ready.[/h2]
Though it's usually a very basic concept in strategy games, a few things in Invasion make it a bit more involving than they otherwise would.

In your classic rts, this would just be a "hide the unit model on the map, change the skin on a building, add more healthpoints, all good" scenario.

In Invasion Machine, it's more complicated.
* A unit wants to enter a building and take cover there. Ok, but are there enemies inside? If so, the building needs to be breached and cleared, first. Are there civilians inside? Well, then they won't be happy about it.
* An enemy AI hiding inside buildings will shoot at your men. Ok, but are they close enough? If not, maybe it's better to come out and chase them? If they are, is there a window or door in the building facing the enemy? If so, what weapon do I have in the house to shoot at the enemy with?
* What should the neighbors be doing when a firefight starts in their village? Run away? Join in? Can the houses cooperate to lure your units in and only _then_ open fire simultaneously?
* Firing at houses damages them, lowering your relations with the locals.

This is just a few issues I need to work through.

[h2]So why is it not ready yet?[/h2]
Basically, there's two separate mechanics that need to be added to the game. The first one is simply shooting from and into the houses. Before, the game couldn't even recognize buildings as valid targets for engagements (because the only actors in the game able to shoot at each other were people and the armored cars). Now I need to change this, and also take into account that a house can have multiple shooters at the same time.

The other is the garrisoning itself, and a bit of new UI that goes with it. Entering buildings. Leaving the buildings, one at a time, or all your units. The consequences in relations. How it affects combat stress.

[h2]So - when is the update?[/h2]
Not this week. Probably not the next week, either. So far I successfully completed the shooting into/ out of houses mechanic. Now I need to make the AI use it, then I need to let your men garrison in the buildings.
In other words - there's progress being made, but the whole feature is a big one and it still requires more effort on my part.


[h2]tl;dr; In the coming weeks I'll add garrisoning to the game, where both your units and the enemy AI will start actively using buildings for cover. After this is done, I'll start work on game saves.[/h2]

[h2]Hotfix release[/h2]
I just released a new build of the game, fixing all of the most common errors I got reports for,
There's no new features here, just a bunch of fixes.

As new reports continue to flow in, I will keep on patching any of the reoccuring issues.

[h2]Release Notes[/h2]
* optimization of smaller on-map object physics settings
* optimization of the terrain renderer
* fixes to the foliage rendering system
* fix: previously it was impossible to reset the map with stockpiles present.
* fix: exception when using the same unit to inspect traffic for the second time in a row
* fix: in various cases, enemy AI was getting confused when some of it's actors died after getting shot in the vehicles
* fix: AI ambush mission getting stuck
* fix: AI patrol mission getting stuck
* fix: game crash when trying to cancel a breach of a building
* fix: exception when delivering enemy prisoners to HQ
* fix: SSE4 requirement, coming from an external library mistakenly trying to run SSE4 code on a SSE2 processor.
* fix: the game was trying to update inactive command missions, causing excessive error logging
* fix: sniper trying to rotate to non-existent enemy, causing exceptions
* fix: exception when AI was trying to confirm locations of no longer existing actors
* fix: error when trying to find the drivers of certain cars
* fix: error when trying to unpack a car that's no longer around
* fix: intel window being visible for a AI mission that no longer exists

[h2]What's next[/h2]
The nearest big step in the update roadmap is the garisonning. Right after it - saving the game.