Invasion Machine news & patch notes

A small UI update

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

Experimental changes

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.

How these independent patrols work

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.

How can you switch to the experimental branch

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".

I've just made a long overdue update active for all the players

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.

Full changelist:

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.

Next immediate plans

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.

Minor update

Before I continue working on the next updates to the high value targets system, I wanted to make some small fixes and very needed fixes to two areas of the game - the player vehicles and the AI responses in combat. Player Vehicles will now be driving noticeably faster - I've tuned their engines to increase the acceleration and responsiveness, cause I always was finding myself sending the helicopter everywhere instead of the ground vehicles in playtests, since I didn't want to wait for the sluggish cars to arrive where I sent them. Every player car will now be (a little) snappier, The enemy AI in combat was getting too confused in the latest builds, causing many of the enemy units not to shoot back at you at all, when engaged. This was caused by them trying to do multiple reactions too often, or eveb at once - trying to flank you, run away, shoot back, but find a better place for it, change their target (way too often), etc. This has now been reorganized a little, and should make the enemies much more reactive. Also, in the previous build way too many enemies were showing up with RPGs to battle - this is now curbed a little.

Full changelog:

version 0.13 (minor update): * BALANCING of the player vehicles - all player-controlled cars will now be driving faster, and have better acceleration. * BALANCING - reduced the number of RPGs that the enemy units deploy to the map. In the previous versions of the game, the enemy squads sometimes spawned on the map with nothing but the RPGs in hands, this will now be more balanced. * BALANCING - the enemy AI will now be more active - spawning more kinetic missions (patrols and foot patrols) and being more aggressive on the battlefield. In the previous versions of the game, the enemy units were trying to do too many things at once - flanking, looking for better positions, shifting their targets, and in the end - it caused them not to fire back at all, at times. In this build, more focus is placed on just shooting back at you, when engaged.

Foreword

The project hasn't had any updates for a long time, last year, so it's high time to explain what's going on. The delays were due to my health problems - I had been seriously ill in recent months, and it has completely halted any serious progress on the project for a while. Now, however, as my health is slowly returning to normal, I can start working again. The project's status has not changed - it is not canceled and new content will be introduced again, in the future.

Current update

I released a new build of the game to all branches (since the main one was already rather outdated) - the new version 0.12 includes the first version of the "case building" game loop - from now on, villages on the map will sometimes house high-value targets - special enemy units that can directly trigger and spawn AI missions against your forces. Your goal will be to identify and arrest these HVTs before the have a chance to gain more notoriety. For now, the HVTs focus solely on planting IEDs, but in the future I plan to add many more missions for them (and more ways to identify and unmask them).

Annoying problems

Some players reported that the game used to pause all AI actions after loading the savegames (which caused the player to get no more missions, no more traffic on the map), and I was able to identify a case of this happening and correct it - in the new version of the game this issue has been fixed.

What's next

I need to finish a round of more bug fixing and then update the game logic and optimization. Afterwards, I will finish working on the HVTs (make them more universal) and make some changes to the villages and the bazaar (which was supposed to be the center of legal and less than legal interactions in the province, but for now proves to be rather dead, most of the time).

Full changelog - version 0.12 (experimental):

* NEW: High Value Targets - from time to time, enemies of special importance - leaders - will appear in local villages. Hidden among civilians, they will work to organize attacks on your forces, gaining experience and higher positions in the organization with each successful operation. - your goal will of course be to find them and arrest them. An HVT poses as a civilian, and cannot be killed or arrested without first gathering evidence against him - you can gather clues and evidence in various ways - sometimes people will gossip in the town meetings, sometimes the locals will get fed up with the guerrillas and give and HVT up. You can also send your EOD/investigators to former IED blast sites and check them for evidence. - over time, you'll be able to locate the hideout of an HVT and raid the place. - most of the IEDs appearing on the map are now ordered by and planted by people working directly for specific HVTs. If you want the IEDs to stop, you have to find the person ordering their construction. - the HVTs gain notoriety for as long as they can keep eluding you - each one of them starts as an "ambitious amateur", and will keep gaining more experience with each successful op. - this build of the game is EXPERIMENTAL - meaning the HVT functionality isn't yet finished - in the next builds, the more experienced HVTs will start spawning more types of missions. For now, all HVTs focus on planting the IEDs. * FIX: for some of the players, the game would stop spawning traffic and new AI missions after the game loads. This is now corrected. * FIX: the AI would previously not be aggressive enough when fighting your troops - too many of them would waste time trying to find non-existent cover, instead of shooting at you. * FIX: mission spawning logic, where the game would try to send orders to units that have not appeared on the map, yet. * FIX: cars stopping in traffic for no good reasons (getting stuck) * FIX: multiple fixes for engagements logic (targetting something that is no longer there, running for cover and never stopping to shoot back, etc.) * FIX: multiple fixes for the IED system - spawning, triggering. Also, IEDs would sometimes explode twice in the past * FIX: units involved in IED facilitation are now marked by the game, and can later be arrested for it

Casevac - Bugs in the older versions

It turns out the older builds of the game have a bug that prevents you from successfully evacuating your wounded. In almost all cases the game will just declare them DOA as your vehicle leaves the map. In other cases, it will not register the wounded enemies or civilians evacuated from the map, and therefore will not reward you with Command Points, for your troubles.

Fix #1 - a new "bleed out" logic for the wounded

The game will now tell you exactly how much time you have left for the evacuation of your wounded, before they perish. This should let you do proper triage, if you want to (leave those who'll never make it in time, and focus on those who still have a chance). In previous builds the "bleeding out" mechanic was hidden from the player, and rather unpredictable (the wounded could just randomly die at any point in time), making the whole medic/evacuation process a little too obscure. In most cases, your wounded have between 1 and 15 minutes before they bleed out. Units stabilized by a medic can wait for their evacuation as long as you need them to.

Fix #2 - you get rewarded for your efforts at all times

Even if the patients you ordered treatment for die in the process, you still get some Command Points for the effort. After all, it's not your fault they died. You should always try to help all your wounded, and get them off the map while still alive (as in this scenario the game will reward you with the most points), but you will not be punished for the failures, as long as your try to do _something_ for the wounded. As a bonus reward, any time you manage to evacuate a unit in time, the stress level of all your remaining units will get reduced by 5%.

Fix #3 - differences between "buddy aid" and medics

You can use any of your units to render help in desperate situations, but it will never be as effective as assigning a medic to help your wounded. Buddy aid - will spend one medikit (starting with the medikit of the fallen unit, if it has one in inventory). The unit performing the buddy aid has a chance of hurting the patient, especially if it has the "inexperienced medic" perk. The process takes a lot of time, and in the end has only a moderate chance of stabilizing the patient. In most cases, performing buddy aid on your wounded will simply buy them more time for a successful evacuation. Medic - will work faster, on any number of patients and with a much greater chance of fully stabilizing the patient.

Fix #4 - some patient just cannot be stabilized

Not all wounds are treatable in the field, and a certain percentage of your wounded will require swift evacuation, even after a medic tries to stabilize their condition. The game will tell you when it's the case.

Fix #5 - most vehicles are not suitable for transporting the wounded

If you decide to put your wounded in a regular vehicle, they will immediately become unstable again. At this point, not even your medic will be able to help stabilize them, and you need to evacuate them as soon as possible. This mechanic is meant to force you to use proper medical vehicles, whenever possible.

Fix #6 - you can casevac enemies and civilians

You can "farm" extra Command Points by evacuating wounded and dead enemies, as well as civilians. This will also improve your relations with the locals (because you're being respectful to their fallen).

tl;dr;

The older versions of the game had many issues related to how it treated the wounded units. All of these issues are now fixed in the newest build available on the test branches of the game. The fixes will be made public in the main branch next week.

The 0.10 update is now live

In this build, I've focused on fixing many of the small annoyances and long-standing bugs (engagements abruptly ending for no reason, units getting stuck in traffic, units being unable to leave the map), as well as merging the changes from the last two hotfixes (related mostly to the broken logic of arrests).

New features

I'm in the process of reworking the Command Missions - this part of the game consists mostly of the oldest code in the entire project, and has been written in a way that didn't allow me much flexibility. Some of you may remember that at some point I've decided to completely disable the allied patrols, because their units were constantly getting lost on the map. In the future builds, I will gradually re-create the code needed for making these missions work more reliably, and will soon be able to add these patrol missions back in. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/f4a2f17593e0e9aa1b55b5b3c5d025531f56d927.png

"Black Bird Down"

This game has largely been inspired by the movie "Black Hawn Down" and I'm always looking to add more helicopter-based events into it. Using the new Command AI, I've now been able to add friendly helicopters onto the map. As they spawn, their only goal is to travel through the map, carrying a bunch of allies, and (of course) get shot down by the enemy, occasionally. If a helicopter is downed, the Command will ask you to scramble the usual casevac mission, most likely in areas where you didn't plan on going. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/c9a08714a8286a57eea4235e2f598da0e9795161.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/dc966bed62f589dca7376e563d8788068210a2ee.png

The future upcoming changes

* I am now working on the previously mentioned "building the case" update. The idea is to create a new type of enemy in the game - insurgents who permanently reside on the map, live in the houses alongside the civilians, and plan and execute increasingly more complex attacks against you, becoming high value targets for your Command, in the process. Your goal will of course be to find them and destroy them.

Full changelog:

version 0.10: * NEW: the friendly AI will now spawn it's own helicopters into your airspace. For now, their only goal is to pass through the map, transporting it's own units. My idea is that it will create some "black hawk down" scenarios, any time the enemy AI manages to shoot one down. A downed helicopter will spawn the usual critical mission from your Command, demanding help and evacuation of all the wounded. Any survivors of these crashes will leave the map on their own. * NEW: continued the re-work of the remaining AI missions from the old, rigid system into the new tree-based logic. This will fix a lot of the weird AI behaviors (like getting stuck on the map, ignoring everything around them), because it's now much easier for me to re-trigger the mission logic when something unexpected happens on the map. The old system would only wait for specific events once, and in just one scenario (like: a car reached it's destination, so it better be around the house I was trying to send it to, or else it's gonna get lost). This is the reason why for now all ground-based allied patrols are still disabled in the game - their missions are not yet completely rewritten to the new system, and they were getting stuck on the map all the time, because of this. * (again) fixed the issue with insurgent units only getting a single type of weapon * NEW: you can now ignore _some_ of the missions issued to you by the Command, if you want to do something else, instead. Any mission that isn't critical and doesn't have any of it's own actors assigned, can now be ignored (just click on the button in the mission details window) at a tiny cost to your relations with the Command. * disabled the small extra window (the mission helper assistant) that used to pop up alongside the main command mission window (every single time you clicked it). You can still open it with the dedicated button, if you want to * FIX: fixed the logic used to unspawn units that left the map. Now any unit that wanders too far from the bounds of the game map will reliably get unspawned. * FIX: found and fixed another scenario where cars would be permanently waiting in traffic, for no good reason (getting stuck on the map) * FIX: fixed the automatic camera movement (the script that's supposed to show you points of interest on the map, but instead was yanking your camera away from you violently) * FIX: sometimes actors would prematurely get removed from their engagements, causing others to constantly enter and leave their "combat mode" * added some FX for showing hits on vehicles (if a bullet damages a vehicle, some sparks will show up), cause it was never clear if the enemy was actually doing any damage. Will probably add something even more visible in the future.

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.

Version 0.8.4 is now live

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.

Full changelog

* 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) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/fea0e2c5c33676cb7d63d1a9da4743243320fe52.jpg

Sidenote - the preview branch contained a serious issue affecting the game's performance

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.

There's a new update in the test branch - adding radio communication to AI units

As I said the last time, I always wanted to add some sort of communication devices to the game, where the unfriendly civilians and the enemy teams could start using their radios to organize bigger attacks, share the locations of your troops, etc. This is what I started working on with this update of the game. As usual, I'm first releasing the update into the test branch of the game. I plan on pushing it into the main release channel next week. From now on, (almost) all the enemy patrols and ambush missions will have units carrying a radio. In various situations, they're gonna use it to request reinforcements and coordinate with other teams. In most cases this means that if you attack an enemy patrol, you may soon find yourself defending from multiple enemy teams, coming to their help. I've also rebuilt the AI driving the mortar teams. They were previously a bit too powerful, often able to attack you from the other side of the map, with no way for you to even attempt to find where they fired from. With that in mind, I've - reduced their accuracy, made their response radius much smaller, and also added radio comms to them (if they don't get a cry for help over the radio, they will not respond to firefights happening far away).

You get a new vehicle for intercepting the radio comms

I'm adding a "transmissions interceptor" vehicle. If you place it on the map, it's gonna give you a lot of insight into what the enemy units are doing, helping you uncover their mortar teams, find the ambushes, and in general - see what the AI might be planning to do next. To make full use of this unit, you're gonna have to man it with a translator (or make one stand near it, at least). If you don't have a translator available, all you'll see is that _some transmission_ took place, without any details. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/714bb2f0347b1ae1dbf0a18e0c0313c0a766ef66.jpg

In other news - I will slowly be exchanging all the gun sounds

The weapon sounds in the game have always been rather weak and anemic, especially the vehicle turrets. I started replacing them in this update, and will continue doing so for all the weapons in the future releases.

Full changelog for this test release

version 0.8.4: * 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 {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/fea0e2c5c33676cb7d63d1a9da4743243320fe52.jpg

I've released all the changes mentioned in the previous update to the public branch. The simulation of the towns is now rebuilt, and supports much more extensive changes for the features I have planned for the future. I have also added the water wells, as promised before. Each house on the map will now expect to have access to water from a well. You can select to build the wells from the "Build Structures" menu. Full changelog: * NEW: rebuilt the civilian life simulation. The villages will be becoming much more important in the future versions of the game, with the locals doing many more activities, and their attitudes to you affecting the game more. * step one of this rebuild is making the locals care about their food and money levels, and allowing them to work in the stores in villages. * Civilians will now buy food in the markets located in their villages * Civilians might now start working in the markets located in their village * There's a new map area, called the food market, confisting of many small food stalls. In the future, this will become a very active spot where new interactions will happen (gunrunners, trafficking, criminals meeting, etc.) * fixed the bug where civilians would never be able to finish their AI assignment of going to work * fixed the way village stats are calculated * NEW: each house on the map now expects to have access to fresh water from a well. If you don't build the wells, the locals will complain about no access to water. Each well can supply the buildings in it's nearest vicinity (the affected houses will be marked with icons while the structure build menu is active). * added more information to the house details UI (the menu showing up when you hover over a building) * fixed multiple issues with loading the game * started to rethink the cost of units in the game, would over time like to make it very cheap to acquire the basic transports and riflemen, but much harder to get any greater numbers of specialists on the map * NEW: added an option for the medics to carry all available wounded to a single vehicle, without having the player issue the order more than once. Just use the "put this any any other wounded in this car" order for this. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/e02a2447bd9f781f84c9c8a354b7672133d6decf.jpg

New update in the public test branch

I will be focusing more on making the villages (and the villagers) more important in the game. Their simulation is still very basic, and in the future having control over them should be the main focus of the game. Your goal should be to control the villages, build support in them, and to try and make the life better for the locals. So far it's not really working. I've released the first update trying to address this in the test branch. The villages now have proper resources management, with the civilians buying food (and consuming it, which wasn't the case before), going to work more regularly (if they have work), and in general - being much more active. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/b3ea1c46213ac2d72ce4dfa52387f2aa7d3b1071.jpg In the future updates, I will also add basic utilities - water, electricity and telecommunications. The player will be responsible for reconnecting and maintaining them. The update will go public in the main Steam branch after this week. I would just like to test it a bit more, first. The logic that manages how households and civilians living in the AO behave has been rebuilt, and I again used a decision tree-like system for it. It will let me modify the AI reactions very easily in the future, and make the interactions more nuanced. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/924d0309cef549a37ae35d2e659b03e94884ae35.png The villages now have a basic economy system, with the locals more actively looking for jobs. For now, they can only work in the stores (there's at least one new store in each village, now) or in drug farming, but this will be extended in the future updates of the game. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/c2cd9bd6c539e2a5c8cb6ba250880b278e5ae340.png Because so many people asked for this feature, you can now order your units to automatically load all available killed/wounded units into a car, without having to issue the order manually, over and over. You just need to order the unit to carry all other wounded to the highlighted car. Note: only the units from the same faction will be picked up, so you can easily focus on helping your own men, first. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/ccb83463a200d5432aebe52dcc72b133c41f96a3.jpg Changelog: version 0.8.3: * NEW: rebuilt the civilian life simulation. The villages will be becoming much more important in the future versions of the game, with the locals doing many more activities, and their attitudes to you affecting the game more. * step one of this rebuild is making the locals care about their food and money levels, and allowing them to work in the stores in villages. * Civilians will now buy food in the markets located in their villages * Civilians might now start working in the markets located in their village * There's a new map area, called the food market, confisting of many small food stalls. In the future, this will become a very active spot where new interactions will happen (gunrunners, trafficking, criminals meeting, etc.) * fixed the bug where civilians would never be able to finish their AI assignment of going to work * fixed the way village stats are calculated * fixed multiple issues with loading the game * started to rethink the cost of units in the game, would over time like to make it very cheap to acquire the basic transports and riflemen, but much harder to get any greater numbers of specialists on the map * NEW: added an option for the medics to carry all available wounded to a single vehicle, without having the player issue the order more than once. Just use the "put this any any other wounded in this car" order for this. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/f690ba67507a2027d6aea29a0bc8ba4a7ab026e9.jpg

General Plans for the rest of this year

1. A complete overhaul of the unit dispatch window - nothing about the current one works as it should. The window is way too large, selecting the vehicles too slow and there's no templates (like - letting you dispatch a transporter with a simple rifle squad quickly) 2. Extending the Squads - each squad should have a team leader with special actions available. This is also related to the overhaul of the unit dispatch, because currently it's impossible to send a certain squad to the map in any easy way 3. Adding the buildable civilian structures, like wells and power generators 4. Adding telecommunications and I-Com - the civilians and your enemy should be using some sort of communication devices. This would let them organize attacks over the map, call for reinforcements, and in case of the civilians - telling the enemy about locations of your units. The player would get a special I-Com vehicle for listening in on these communications (with the help of a translator). 5. Adding a proper main game menu, and letting the player select options for the new game (Fow/ No Fow, enemy weapons, amount of enemies, etc.). This one is kind of obvious, but always took a back seat to more pressing developments. 6. "Building the case" - slowly gathering intel against more prominent criminal leaders living in your AO, as well as small-time guerrillas becoming more notorious over time, until you manage to stop them. I'd like to introduce some sort of a "kingpin" system, where a guerrilla would hide on your map, keep organizing ever-greater attacks against you, as long as you're not able to uncover him.

Released version 0.8.2 - including fixes and new content

The fog of war The biggest and most noticeable change, if you weren't playing on one of the test branches - is the fog of war. From now on, you will not be able to see enemy or civilian units, unless you have your own men positioned nearby. You can still see the details of the houses, events in the villages, and so on, but all the cars and men will remain hidden. Enemy mortar teams The enemy AI is now able to call in mortar strikes on your units. The way this works, is if the AI spotter (some enemies on the map have a "spot any player units and report back to the AI commander" tasks assigned) finds your men, he'll now most likely call in a mortar strike on you. That is, a new (or an already pre-positioned) mortar team will head your way and open fire. Mortar teams will remain firing for a set amount of time (or until engaged), and then try to change their position. They will keep attacking the known locations of your units, until found and destroyed.

Other fixes:

There has always been an annoying issue with preselecting the units (you had to very strategically place your cursor in order for the blue preselection icon to appear). This is now greatly improved and should work much easier, and much faster. There has been a pathfinding issue, where some of the units kept calling for new paths on every single frame, causing FPS dropouts. There has been an issue, where for some players all enemy units only got equipped with the Dragunovs, in every single case. Issue found and fixed. The full changelog: * NEW: added enemy Mortar Teams to the game. They act similarly to foot patrols, but with some notable differences. 1) they will only target areas where other enemy spotters already found your units before. So, if an enemy spotter passes by your units undetected and manages to leave the map - the game creates a "known player locations" list, and might decide to send a mortar team your way. 2) they will stick to one area of attack for 2-3 minutes and later run away, if you can't find them. They can attack you from afar, usually they try to find the most concealed part of the map to post the mortar at 3) if no player units are known to the AI, the mortar team will just wait somewhere on the map. * FIX: greatly improved the unit preselection system (the blue icon that shows up when you hover over a game unit). This makes it much easier and faster to target the units you actually wanted to. * FIX: the Fog of War UI should be a little less overwhelming - it now takes much less space on the screen * FIX: in some cases, after you loaded the game that included your wounded units on the map, it might have been causing errors with trying to carry them into vehicles * FIX: fixed an annoying camera behavior, which made it change rotation when you requested it to move near one of the units (usually by pressing the space bar). From now on, the camera's rotation will always be preserved. * OPTIMIZATION: fixed a bug where in some cases the paths for your units would get recalculated each frame, causing a huge and unnecessary CPU spike, especially when your camera has been pointed at a large section of the map (visible units got a repathing instruction on each frame. A bigger visible section of the map meant more visible units to update). * fixed the areas near the main roads on the map, where units would sometimes get stuck when trying to cross the road

Testing a new feature - the fog of war

The test branches of the game now feature the fog of war system. From now on, you'll only be able to see the enemy and civilian units on the map if you have your own men positioned near them. How the system works: If the camera is moved too far away from your nearest unit, the neutral and enemy units will disappear from the map. I've also added a slight visual effect to make this more obvious when it happens. Any enemies that have already been confirmed (those with the red enemy icon active) will clear the fow the same way your units do (because otherwise it would be hard to target them). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/7cdad8bbb44eea53523c34cfd8a14f909e2dd6b7.jpg Why: I don't want the players to be able to find and destroy every single enemy unit on the map, as soon as it appears. The AI is always trying to issue some missions to it's units (like finding out where your units are, working on their relations with the locals in villages, and so on), and if you destroy every enemy on sight - none of their missions will ever affect the game. For now I'm only keeping this update in the test branch. So far I've only seen it working exactly as expected, but I'd rather test it more before it goes fully public. How to switch to a test branch: In your Steam application, you can right-click on the game title to reveal the Preferences panel. Inside it, it's possible to switch the current game branch that you use. The public-testing branch of the game will always include the newest (but sometimes still incomplete) features, first. In other news: There's still some (sligher?) issues with the pathfinding, so I'll be hunting the issues related to it. The one issue I know is that some units tend to run in circles in more "complicated" parts of the map. This happens when they're unable to path to the exact point they were trying to reach, and will require some more patching. In terms of new content, here's my nearest plans: 1. Mortars for the enemy, to again make them a little more dangerous 2. More buildable civilian structures, like wells (promised earlier, and I will finally add them) 3. Communications (cellphones for the civilians and enemies) 4. Making the traffic stops system less annoying.

Some of the players reported an issue where the vehicle dispatch would stop working for them, after the game's been left running for a longer while. This was due to the dispatch script trying to find unit that should no longer actually be there (dead or otherwise gone from the map). Fixed now. I will also push the fog of war update soon, but at first - I will only release it the test branches - I'm afraid it might still need some more testing, before it's safe to deliver it to the general public.

Small hotfix

In same cases, the units were indefinitely getting stuck in front of buildings, when trying to stack up. This was caused due to a way too rigorous check for their current locations, making the game think they were always too far away from the building's entry. This is now fixed. Also, there was still a single type of decorations on map, unknown to the pathfinding system and also, in some rare cases, causing the units to get stuck. This is now fixed, as well.

What's coming in the next version

I will soon be releasing a content update - adding the fog of war to the game. You will no longer be able to see and target units from the other side of the map, unless you have your own men prepositioned in the strategic areas. The fog of war will work the same way for your own men, as it does for the enemy AI. This is my attempt at letting more enemies sneak by you, and have them be able to complete some of their goals, before you find and kill them all. I plan on releasing this update in the coming days (but I'm still testing it, for now. It touches a lot of game systems).

I just uploaded another small hotfix, fixing an issue with the units getting stuck on the edges of buildings, in some cases. It was caused by some of the small decorations placed around the buildings, having their own colliders, by mistake. Additionally, the units will now be allowed to pass through buildings freely, in case they still get stuck on them. This will not, however, cause them to try to walk directly through any structures, unless already stuck on them for some strange reason. The same thing goes for vehicles. This should finally fix the remaining pathfinding issues, and let me move on to other developments. Among other fixes, the next new feature that will appear in the game next week, will be the fog of war.

So, for a patch that was only supposed to improve the quality and make the gameplay smoother, the previous one didn't end up being much of a success. Because I changed so much in the pathfinding system under the hood, I didn't realize how many new problems it caused as a side-effect. I've just released a hotfix, addressing the issues I've been warned about since version 0.8 became active, and will continue releasing new ones (sooner, this time), if some other new bugs appear. The fixes include: 1. Units getting stuck next to houses This was caused by holes in the navigation mesh, next to some buildings. The units weren't stuck in the doors, but rather were trying to walk an impassable path, and were getting stuck. This unfortunately is sometimes happening on new navigation meshes, because there's a bunch of manual fixing required on them. 2. Units unable to walk into houses That was because the new navmesh didn't extend as far as needed, and the unit was never able to get close enough to the entry. Fixed and will not happen again. 3. Units turning in circles, when carrying wounded In some cases, the navmesh agent was getting activated on wounded troops, causing those carrying them, to continuously try to avoid the person they were actually holding. Fixed and will not happen again this way. 4. Wreckers can now pick up cars with passengers inside, as long as all the passengers are dead or wounded. This should help with picking wrecks off the map. The passengers will simply get dumped, in this case. I will also add more fixes to this in the future update, allowing you to check for wounded in cars and clear them out. 5. There was an issue with the game spamming you with too many humaid missions at once. This should not be happening again. 6. The villages tend to get empty over time (where most or all villagers would leave their houses all at once, either to go to work, or trying to visit someone else). I've greatly increased the timouts between these events, to keep more people in houses. Note: the villages will still get vacated if you kill civilians. The game tries to repopulate them from time to time, but the new villagers actually have to get to the houses, somehow). 7. Fixed all the places on the map, where the actors would get stuck at the edges of the road (and walk in place). This is also mostly a manual process, so I'm not yet sure if the entire map is now fixed. Will continue doing this, if I find more broken parts of the map. 8. Civilian traffic will resume driving much faster after engagements ahead of it end. This was previously taking too long, and was really confusing. 9. Your units should now have less trouble entering larger cars. For now that's it. I will continue working on improving the quality and smoothness of the gameplay and the UI for a while (more hotfixes possibly coming soon), before moving on to adding new features. As for the new features planned - I'd first like to add proper fog of war and more buildable structures related to the humaid efforts.

There's a new patch out in the main branch

Over time, I've received a bunch of requests from the community, most often related to the quality of life and game breaking issues, along with a lot of useful feedback. I'll be focusing on addressing these, in the coming weeks. I'm releasing the first (of a number of) quality-improvements-only patch today, containing a collection of assorted fixes.

Pathfinding

I've decided to replace the pathfinding system the game originally shipped with (which is the one built into the game engine), because it never let me optimize it enough, or expand it for all the special cases I needed. In this patch, all units are now using the new system. It should fix a bunch of the problems the old one had, at one: * actors should no longer try to walk into each other * actors will no longer wait a couple of seconds before reacting to your "move" orders (the old system was too slow to calculate their path, and was forcing the unit to wait for the calculation to complete, first) * actors will no longer be walking into parked cars

Traffic

* following the feedback I got from some of you, I've decided to disable all unnecessary collisions between vehicles and parts of the environment. The cars will still try to avoid their surroundings, but in case they fail - they'll just be able to pass through any decorations on the map, freely. This might sometimes look silly, but at least allows for smoother gameplay. As a bonus - it's faster on the CPU, because that's fewer layers to test collisions on. * cars will now be able to turn more aggressively, letting them avoid more obstacles in narrow areas * cars will now take more direct paths to their destinations

UI

* added the "Order of Battle" window (can be toggled with the TAB key or a button in the top left corner of the screen), showing you the entire roster of the units in your possession. You can see which units are on the map, ordered by their distance from the current camera position, as well as some basic status of each soldier (wounded, in combat, in transport, etc.). * added the Minimap - the minimap will show you the locations of all your units on the map, as well as the locations of all _already identified_ enemies. You can zoom it in (using the small button with the magnifying glass icon). * more fixes to be added in the next patch... {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/6a7f2d432588481550a0134e57817949d4ffbe0b.jpg

Fixes

Along with dozens of assorted fixes in the UI and the behavior of all the units, we have: * fixed the stupid behavior of enemy soldiers trying to run right in front of your riflemen, when looking for a house to hide in. * fixed the "Possible IED Location" markers. Previously it was sometimes impossible to remove them with your EOD unit, once placed. * pathfinding now runs on multiple threads, and supports calculations for many more agents at once * optimizations to physics {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/8142abc03e6280dd6ac02420a25a8942f0d77f12.jpg

I'm testing a new pathfinding system

If you switch your game to the testing branch (you can do it in the "properties" tab of the game in your Steam client app), you'll be able to play with a _completely_ rebuilt pathfinding system. The original pathfinding in the game had numerous issues, with the most annoying of them - being the units walking directly into parked cars, and failing to see many other obstacles on the map. The system I've been using was a closed library, built into the game engine, and was very cumbersome to work with and try to extend. This meant I had to basically live how it worked, and very little I could change when it didn't. In the new build, I'm using a different, custom solution. All the human units in the game now use it, and from what I was able to test so far - it makes them much smoother, and they generally choose their paths in a much smarter way.

What changed:

* you'll no longer have to wait for a few seconds on a crowded map, before your unit decides on a path to take (before, there was often a lag in between your move order, and the unit starting to move. this was because the pathdinging system was calculating the path for your unit, first) * the system is multithreaded, and can handle hundreds of units * local avoidance is much better, the human units should no longer walk right into parked cars, like they often used to do, before

Changes for vehicle units:

The new system also supports the cars (to some degree), and it means they should also get improved pathfinding as well, but there's still a bunch of issues with them. The main thing that got improved already, is that the cars now are able to navigate crowded spaces better. It's still not a perfect solution, though. Cars are harder to tune than people, because of the turning radius they need, and generally much more awareness around them because of the higher speed they move at. So - it's still a work in progress, but it's gonna get better.

What's next

After the new pathfinding is finished and moved to the main build of the game, I will continue making other quality improvements. I'd like to take the nearest month and make as many fixes to the existing gameplay as I can, before continuing with adding more, original content.

What's happening with the next update?

My current big development task in the game is adding politics and more interactions with the civilians. This is a long and somewhat tedious development, so far this is proving to drag on for much longer than I thought it would. Which is why: 1) the most recent update to the game has been released silently a week ago. It includes a new feature where you can set up meetings with the locals ("shuras") in the villages. I chose not to advertise the change publicly, because for now it's just a single part of a much bigger, still not finished feature. The meetings do already work, and you can get a nice boost in relations with the civilians if you organize them, but I plan for them to be of much more consequence in the game world once I'm done with the rest of the changes around them. 2) the rest of this "project" will keep on coming in parts as well, with the immediate next one being the addition of politicians ("local leaders") to the game. The politicians will travel the map, observe your actions and possibly make your life more complicated if they don't like what they see. The civilian relations will now depend on them as well. Later, I will also add new buildable structures (and probably change the build menu a bit), so you can start creating your own infrastructure projects in the villages. But for this entire feature to make some sense, I need to finish adding a lot of new systems and interactions. For example, you cannot have a local politician struck with CAS, and the locals ignoring the incident. You shouldn't also be able to stop and arrest a politician for no reason, either. And the people should listen to what a leader thinks of you, maybe he should be able to rouse them against you... and so on, and son on. All these small details keep on adding up, so in the end - I'm still not yet close to being able to release the feature. Currently, I plan to have all this finished and tested in the next 2-3 weeks.

And afterwards?

After the politicians are added to the game and the new build released, I will dedicate some time solely to improving quality, with no new features at all. I will (again) look into pathfinding, quality of life changes and performance. All in all, I probably keep doing the same mistake - I try not to post news here until I have something big to share, but at the same time I'm probably creating the impression that the game is dying. Let me say this clearly, then - the project is not dead and not abandoned. It's just that I'm trying to add an ambitious feature, and the time needed to finish it keeps mounting up. pixel

What is happening with the development this month?

The last time I wrote an update, I said there were major changes being made to the AI. That's still the case, the development is still in progress, and the first batch of these changes is already live in the current game build (some of you noticed that the enemy became more aggressive - this is because the enemy can actually see you better now, in some cases). The update in AI will be noticeable in your engagements with the enemy units, but I also need it to finally start building more interesting interactions with the civilians. Why don't the locals remember the troops you post in front of their houses? Why don't they expect compensation when you damage their property? Why don't they have leaders? These are examples of things I'd like to start simulating a little better in the future, starting with the nearest update.

Planned new features

In other words, I will soon be adding various new interactions with the civilians and villages. The idea is to let you work on a longer term hearts and minds campaign, and be able to see how the locals are affected by your actions. Some of the new things that will soon appear in the game: * a proper statistics window for the entire villages (as opposed to specific houses) - showing you all the major events, what the people think of you, and what their leaders think of you. * a new UI section, letting you track the requests and promises you've made to the locals (similar to the missions you get from your command). If you work with the civilians, you'll eventually gain their trust * a new order (and lots of new UI) for the interpreters, allowing you to organize meetings (you might know them as "shuras") with the locals. Here's where grievances and issues will be solved, and maybe new relations built. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/5a835926f77d84ff58c6606e80865de0f5e5b37a.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/513e546bfa2c1e77f773a583583582f1474e2ee9.jpg This is just a start, this entire "nation building" aspect of the game should eventually become a big part of what you do in Invasion (talk to locals, find out what they need, provide security, build infrastructure) in the future. However, since this entire new feature will take a lot of dev time, I plan on rolling it out in phases. First, the new stats windows and the shuras. Then, new social projects. Then, political leaders. Then, something else, and so on.

Bonus - the MRAP is now in the game

I know many of you asked for the MRAPs, so finally - I added one to the game. Just a note, though - you don't get to have it in your default roster, when starting a new game, because this is the most powerful land unit you can get. If you want one - you'll have to spend Command Points on it (it's available from the unit buy menu). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/32736685c6a5137328d258a3e246722dd8c1f153.jpg

tl;dr;

There will be a new update in about two weeks, adding new interactions with civilians. You'll be able to better track the progress of your hearts and minds efforts. You'll also be able to organize meetings ("shuras") with the locals.

What's with the updates

The last time I spoke here, I promised to focus on developing a more fleshed out hearts and minds interaction for the game (more social projects, political leaders, more lasting consequences to how you interact with the villages). This hasn't changed, and will still remain the main task for the nearest future. I have, however, reached a limitation in how the AI brain works. I initially made a somewhat simple system, where each actor senses the events around him, and tries to pick the most suitable action for his current mission. This works fine, but the problem is - the more complicated a mission is, the more unreadable the code that manages it becomes. For example, if the enemy units are doing a foot patrol, their goal is to move from point to point, looking for anything interesting they might wanna check out. So far, so good. But, what if they should check out a village, instead of a random map point? What if they stumble upon and unguarded enemy car? What if they get enegaged in an unexpected place? What if their allies need help? What if they're in cars themselves? They then need to stop, exit them and continue the mission. All these things are being tracked by the mission script, making it more and more hellish to manage and read. I cannot continue writing the AI this way, cause it completely discourages me from making any more complex interactions (whenever actors leave their cars, I need to remember why - is it the location they were going to, are they stopped in traffic, is it something else), and in general - if at any point the AI gets engaged by your troops - it has to abandon the original mission completely, because it has no way of remembering what it was trying to do. The solution I'm currently working on, is switching to a more modern and robust way of writing this code - a node based system, similar to a behavior tree. The AI will now always remember at which stage of it's mission it is, and after I'm done writing the "nodes" for various interactions, I can start making really complicated plans for it. The same system will be used for other parts of the game, starting with behavior in combat, to the in-game politics.

How will the AI be different when I'm done

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/1e845e8e19fa4dbe96c3adfd3eb6a69a790aa413.png This is a sample view of an AI mission, where instead of a single monolith of unreadable code, I now have a structure I can track, and think of as "point to point" interactions for the AI. This lets me plan entire behaviors, like: 1) go to an area 2) exit cars 3) enter a building 4) if engaged, abort and return to this plan later 5) etc.

What does this mean for the game

The AI will get smarter, and I will again start making new interactions for it. The first thing I'll do will be adding political leaders to the game. The leaders would be moving from village to village, changing the civilian sentiment in favor or against you, promoting their local allies, maybe organizing protests. As the player, you'll be getting new missions related to them, new demands to meet, and so on. This sort of complicated interaction would be impossible to make with the old system.

What's coming next

The next big update will add politics and more hearts and minds strategies for the player, like new social projects for you to develop, and more interesting interactions with the locals.

When is it coming

With the summer season in full swing, I'll take two weeks off by the end of August (gonna be my first time getting any downtime since 2019). Before I leave, I plan on finishing the switch to the new system for all existing AI missions. This might not be immediately visible for the players (after all you rarely see what the AI is planning to do, and why), so I also plan on implementing smaller, unrelated changes as well. Expect new units, as well as some QOL improvements. Planned release date - end of September.

Second development update of the helicopters release

The helicopters update is still in public testing, and I've just released an update for it. The update addresses a bunch of issues related to broken saves, a bug introduced in the previous patch (where you could no longer take anything from the cars, because the game thought the vehicles were never parked) and other smaller stuff (like the stupid issue of cars rolling down hill, any time you loaded the game). Also, upgraded the underlying game engine, so there is a bunch of noticeable performance upgrades under the hood.

When will this be in the public branch?

I'd like to take the next couple of days to continue gathering any further issues people can find, related to the helis (or not). By the end of this week, the helicopters should go public.

And after that?

The next update will address the almost non-existent interactions with the locals. It's always been one of the promised features of the game, and is supposed to be a major part of what you do in the game. I want to add local leaders for you to deal with, more social projects, more stats for you to review on how your dealings with a village go, etc. This is gonna be fun.

Helicopters

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.

Helicopters in Invasion Machine - what to expect?

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.

Future plans

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.

Other future plans

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. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/3599a1defb5c76ea2263c1735d6f81ff1cca3c17.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33863263/5480136ff583cf06d3e8b919285790aac7903a04.jpg

Update:

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.