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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #15 on: September 26, 2020, 02:46:50 AM »
Invasion Machine | Live Stream #1
25 September 2020



Join Invasion Machine Staff for an official live stream.




The Network Moderation Team & Network Development Team will be live streaming Invasion Machine #1 on the 25th 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.

Happy Commanding!
¬ Game Moderation Team


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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2020, 02:34:50 AM »
Update 0.5 Progression
Thu, 10 December 2020

Hello,

The Invasion Machine Team understands that some players would like updates and announcements on steam, as a result, we will be providing more announcements on the steam forums in the future.

Currently, update 0.5 is in the closed testing phase and the Game Development Team is working extremely well in fixing the issues (bugs) our beta testers are providing us. In the near future, we will be releasing an open testing branch for everyone to test the saves and provide feedback on the forums. The Game Development Team has not yet provided any dates for update 0.5 release or the open testing branch.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #17 on: December 17, 2020, 12:14:32 AM »
Plans for the rest of 2020. When are saves coming to the game.
Wed, 16 December 2020



There's been a long radio silence on my side, it's time I gave you an official update on the further plans

The game's still moving forward as before (just behind the scenes, for now)

Once again I went radio-silent on you all (at least all of you who haven't joined the Discord). From my perspective, it always seems like it's better to wait till I have some more major news, but after such a long break - I do understand that the game might look a little bit abandoned. So, to say in two words - it's not.

Why isn't there an update up, yet?
I'm finishing work on the saves. It's about 95% done at this point, but the nature of this update is - so far, when testing with some of the players, we realized that sometimes the game doesn't save correctly and all the player's progress gets lost. There's been no public updates to the game in the past months, but internally - we've tested about four different builds with the community, making progressive changes.

So, until all the little but disastrous bugs are taken care of - I cannot go public with the build. I understand there's nothing more infuriating than saving your game, just to realize later that the save got corrupted and all your progress lost for good.

Why so long?
This was the absolute worst part to develop in the project. The amount of interactions between the actors on the map, their plans and intentions, their state, ... All of these just kept on mounting up, and having them figured out, one by one, just took an enormous amount of time.
The good thing about it, is - it only had to be done once, so there's no reason for the future updates of the game to take this long.

tl;dr;
So - when will the update finally go live?
Before Christmas. It's literally in the last stages of testing right now.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #18 on: December 26, 2020, 01:38:00 AM »
Saves will remain as an optional beta branch till the second week of January
Fri, December 25, 2020

Some players were having issues with the saves, so until January the update will remain as an optional beta branch

Saves will only be available as an optional update until January
It turns out some of the testers have experienced issues with their savegames, and some of those issues I wasn't yet able to reproduce. Because of this, I need to delay the official launch of the game-saving update, and for now keep them as an optional branch, only available to those of you who would like to test it and maybe help me find any remaining issues there.

If you want to get involved, you can switch to a beta branch of the game to enable saves.
All the issues will get resolved soon, but the more people join in and help me - the sooner this will happen. The update was scheduled to go live today, because I wasn't able to find any major problems in my own tests anymore, until some of the testers started reporting them to me.

...and if you find any issues, please report them
If the game crashes for you, or you save file no longer works - please report it, either in the forum or by emailing me at pixelmachinegames+bugs@gmail.com, including the player log from the game and the save file itself.

The log files can be found under C:\Users\[your user name in windows]\AppData\LocalLow\Pixel Machine\Invasion Machine\[any logs that you have here].log

The save file is in the same folder, and has a filename that ends with the extension .sav (for example, 1_12309.sav).

How to switch the game to a beta branch in Steam?
1. Right-click on Invasion Machine in your steam library page.
2. Select "Properties..." from the dropdown menu.
3. In the Properties window that will show up, select "BETAS" in the menu on the left.
4. Switch to the branch named "public-testing - Open testing for the saves feature".
5. That's it. Wait till Steam downloads the new branch and switches to it.
6. Now, when you open the game for the next time - it will be in version 0.5.1, and the load/save buttons will be enabled.

tl;dr; Saves are delayed till the second week of January, and will for now remain in a test branch, available for any of you who'd like to try it out and maybe help report any bugs. I'm sorry for the delay, but I was made aware of some major issues that slipped through and would corrupt your save files, if left unfixed.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #19 on: January 17, 2021, 01:06:06 AM »
Your gameplay can now be saved.
Sat, 16 January 2021



The saves are in.

Finally. The saves are in the game.
I'm releasing a new build of the game to the default, public branch. From now on you'll be able to save your progress. With the help of community's testing I'm now reasonably sure the mechanisms work as intended. So - you can save the entire state of your gameplay, as long as you don't have any CAS deployed on the map, or the units on map are not engaged.

Any other changes?
Beacuse this development took so long, I've also added countless small fixes to the game. Most of them related to scripts and AI getting lost in it's little plans, but also a bunch of optimizations to game behavior and physics calculations.

version 0.5.1:
* NEW: the game can now be saved/ loaded. You can have any number of saves you want.
* NEW: a summary window for all the people you arrest and transport off the map in your cars. You'll gain/lose relations points depending on if your arrests are legitimate.
* the screen resolution and other display settings were all moved to the settings menu of the game. No more launcher screen.
* optimizations: much less calculations needed for the cars' pathfinding (with exactly the same results as before, wether that's good or bad)
* optimizations: a huge reduction in CPU usage for the actors' actions and the way the actors on map scan their surroundings.
* fixes to the UI windows, sometimes ignoring the ESC key
* fixes to unnecessarily huge memory usage of some of the objects on the map
* switched to a more effective physics calculations solution
* optimizations of the objects' physics calculations
* updated to a more recent game engine version, which will translate into multiple fixes and optimizations under the hood

So what is next and will it take a year to materialize?
Next - I'm gonna add a first batch of persistent, player-buildable structures. I'm thinking of some MG nests, sandbags, watch towers, some better traffic control checkpoints.
No other development in this project should ever take _this_ long to materialize. Saves were horrible to do, but they're now in. I will be adding new features to them every time I update the game in the future, but the bedrock of saving is now here, and thankfully will never have to be re-done again.

Also, some other changes I will work on
The AI is very disappointing, oftentimes. Trying to fight almost face to face, and too weak to really be a threat to your units. I will work on various ways of fixing this, from giving your enemies better weapons, to make sure they hide from you a bit more effectively.

Other priority will be adding political elements to the village management. Local leaders, both aligned or opposed to you, and some more interesting interactions there.

tl;dr; You can now save the game.

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Offline Asid

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #20 on: January 31, 2021, 04:24:16 AM »
The AI enemies will get new weapons soon, to make them more challenging
Sat, 30 January 2021

I'm testing smaller improvements in the development branch, before moving on to the next major update. Currently in testing - RPGs

I'm pushing a small intermediary update to the dev branch ("public testing", you can switch to this branch whenever you want in Steam client settings page for the game, but you need to be aware it's sometimes gonna be broken, more or less. this branch is always updated first) - adding RPG launchers for the enemy units.

The game has a long-standing issue - your units are overpowered in comparison to the enemy's. The 50cal armored transporters, the generally better quality of your weapons, and the CAS - it all adds up and often makes it way too easy to completely dominate the map.

I will keep on implementing ways of mitigating this, from making the enemy setup ambushes and IEDs more often, to giving them some new toys.
Note: weapons are assigned at random, so you might sometimes not get too many enemies equipped with the specific one you wanted to see.

So - meet the new RPG launcher. A couple of thing to know about the RPG, is:
* they are not especially effective at disabling infantry, save for a direct (or almost direct) hit, but are very effective at suppressing them.
* they are very deadly against any of your vehicles, but again - will need to score a direct hit to actually cause damage.
* they damage buildings
* they are notoriously inaccurate, especially against moving targets.
* the game will simulate the basic mechanics of a rocket, as in - arming the rocket at a certain distance
away from the shooter, it's max range, and also - whatever it hits on it's way to the target (which could be an innocent civilan vehicle, or a house on the other side of the map, if the shooter misses badly)





tl;dr; RPGs are coming to the game soon, to make the enemy units more dangerous. For now the update will only be available in the test branch of the game ("public testing"), until it's somewhat sufficiently tested.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #21 on: March 02, 2021, 12:53:21 AM »
About the next update - when can you expect it, what's in it
Mon, 1 March 2021



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

What am I working on currently?
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.

When will all this be released?
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.

And what comes after that?
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.

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

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #22 on: May 03, 2021, 11:52:43 PM »
Buildable structures are now in the game
Mon, 3 May 2021

You can now place some of the first buildable structures on the map

The player can now place his own structures on the map.
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.



So what changed, exactly?
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.

Other important news
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.

What's next
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.

Changelog
* 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




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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #23 on: July 24, 2021, 11:18:41 PM »
What's happening these days? What about the next update
Sat, July 24, 2021



I'm working on some major technical changes in the game, that's why there's no content updates these days

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



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.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #24 on: September 20, 2021, 11:34:09 PM »
What's in the next update, and when?
Mon, 20 September 2021



I'm currently working on adding more interactions with the civilians to the game. Progress ongoing.

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.





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).




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.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #25 on: November 21, 2021, 04:10:32 PM »
Plans for the upcoming month, what will be added in the next update
Sun, 21 November 2021



The nearest update for the game will add more complicated mechanics for interacting with civilians

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.

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #26 on: February 06, 2022, 04:38:08 PM »
Testing a new pathfinding system in an experimental build of the game
Sun, 6 February 2022

There's a new game build available in the test branches, featuring a completely new pathfinding system for all the units 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.


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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2022, 04:38:47 PM »
New patch - dedicated to addressing the gameplay and QoL issues
Sun, 13 March 2022

I'll be focusing on improving the gameplay for the next few weeks, addressing the issues the community raises

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...



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

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Offline Asid

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #28 on: April 17, 2022, 07:51:22 PM »
A small hotifx - fixing the issue with units stacking up in front of the houses
Sun, April 17, 2022


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).

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Offline Asid

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Re: Invasion Machine : Counter-insurgency RTS game
« Reply #29 on: May 02, 2022, 01:30:49 PM »
Fog of war added to the test branches of the game
Mon, 2 May 2022



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).



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.

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