Welcome to The Blood Anniversary update for Brigador: Up-Armored Edition! Today we celebrate our fifth anniversary since our 1.0 launch with new visual effects, new content and a very special week-long sale of 66% off everything that ends June 14th 10:00 Pacific Time. Whether you only just discovered us in the past year, or have been following the game all the way since its closed alpha in 2014 - thank you.

Non-mechanical NPCs now meet a more obviously gruesome end



You may find that the first campaign level Awake On Foreign Shores will now feel a little different to play (this feature can be toggled on/off in SETTINGS).

Several weapons will now leave impact craters on the ground tiles in levels (this feature can be toggled on/off in SETTINGS).



But wait there's more

We spoke to our friends at Fractal Softworks and Consumer Softproducts, who have informed us that three new Brigadors are available for Freelance operations. Spoilers ahead, only click if you want to know before booting up.

[expand type=spoiler]
🦅ATTENTION CITIZENS🦅
Word of the Brigador contract has reached the Persean Sector. While their gates might not currently be functioning, the SNC has arranged... other means of transport for two pilots of note to fulfill their contractual duties.


The first is former logistics officer-turned-head of a powerful pirate dynasty, Warlord Kanta, while the second hails from the barren-bombarded world of Epiphany, Brother Livewell Cotton.

Also joining the Freelance roster...



MT Foxtrot has been given some downtime off-world by his handler in Cruelty Squad, but it seems this guy just doesn't want to take a break.

Each pilot exclusively encounters what we call "wildcard" spawns. Runs with these pilots are aimed at those looking for... variety.

Many thanks to the teams at Fractal Softworks & Consumer Softproducts for the cameos! Starsector is still in development and not on Steam, but can be bought at a discount from its own site.



Meanwhile Cruelty Squad has its own store page, is also running a discount, and will be turning 1.0 very soon.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1388770/Cruelty_Squad/

We see a lot of overlap in our respective fan bases, so if you've never heard of Starsector or Cruelty Squad - check them out!

[/expand]
These guest cameo pilots will all exclusively fight wildcard spawnlists if you choose them as your pilot in Freelance mode.

Four optional missions have been added to Campaign mode that are powersuit-focused (completion of these missions is not required to progress the campaign).



All runs in Freelance now have a chance to spawn a "wildcard" list of enemies during play. Previously, the game would pick a faction to spawn and choose a palette of enemy vehicles for that faction, while the difficulty of that palette would be according to both your run progress and pilot choice.

Wildcard spawnlists still pick a faction, but on a particular theme. For example, a Spacer wildcard spawnlist might be a couple of boss vehicles, with a swarm of kamikaze agravs in tow, while a Corvid wildcard spawnlist would be almost all fast vehicles like tread bikes and grav bikes.

With this change we hope to introduce more variety to Freelance runs and keep players on their toes.

The Zed Prime is now available for use in Freelance mode. It is an Ultra-class agrav with twin heavy hardpoints. Please be sure to keep an eye on your ammo count when using double Otomos.



Currently, eleven more vehicles are now available for play (we will be adding more playable vehicles to the roster in a follow-up patch later this month). Meanwhile, several vehicles - like the Corvid Rat King, the Loyalist Monarch and the Spacer Usul - now have additional auto-firing turrets.



Auto-firing weapons have a separate ammo count in green and do not affect your primary and secondary weapon choices. You can toggle the auto fire function on and off by pressing V on your keyboard, which can be rebound in SETTINGS.

The SNC Informatics Division notes the addition of new material, available for perusal in the INTEL section of ACQUISITIONS, pending the transfer of necessary funds.



Prior to 2017's Up-Armored Edition, the game had different lighting for Freelance levels. We have included the old lighting data for these levels which you can toggle to via the new USE OLD LIGHTING option in SETTINGS.



In order to apply old lighting, you will need to restart a level via the pause menu.

You can now activate various cheats via the SETTINGS menu. Please note that using these toggles will disable achievements. The Easter Eggs toggle you see in the Settings menu will become fully functional later this month in a follow up patch.

Two new achievements have been added, which will be bestowed upon you pending completion of the new campaign missions, as well as unlocking all the new additions to ACQUISITIONS. As of time of posting, the new achievements may not yet be fully functional - we are working on addressing this.

We have made some performance improvements to the engine that should hopefully impact lower-end machines. With the assistance of our community, we have also done a more thorough benchmarking of the game's hardware requirements on PC and Linux. The game's minimum specs to get an acceptable constant 60 fps at 720p (providing you turn off VSYNC, set NORMAL DETAILS to Low and turn off both POINT SHADOWS and DIRECTIONAL SHADOWS) on Windows are now:

OS: Windows 10
Processor: Dual core CPU with Passmark score of 2900 or more
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon 5770 / NVIDIA GTX 460 or better
Storage: 1 GB available space

on Linux:

OS: Debian 10 or Ubuntu 20.04
Processor: Dual core CPU with Passmark score of 2900 or more
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon 5770 / NVIDIA GTX 460 or better
Storage: 1 GB available space

Special thanks to Eschaton, Loki and Hara in particular for running benchmarking tests.

Lastly the game is now a stable 64 bit version for Windows, Mac and Linux.

We warned in our news post last week that modders should back up their copy of the game if they wished to preserve any changes. If you have not yet done so, the simplest way to back up a modded version of the game is to make a copy of your Brigador folder somewhere else on your computer. By default on PC this is usually
Due to the update we are still in the process of updating the community compilation to work with the new version of the game. In the next few weeks the Modkit & Map Editor DLC will be updated, along with a new community compilation in it after our follow up patch (many thanks to SCOREGOBLIN and our Discord Modding Experts for their feedback and work).

However, that won't prevent you from modding your copy of Brigador. If you are new to modding, we have a guide on how to get started (check out Section 4). You will still be able to tinker via the debug panel and change weapon damage values or fool around with other data in the game.

This update will be the last update for Mac OS platforms. This is for - but not limited to - two big reasons:

• Apple declared in mid-2018 that it has stopped supporting OpenGL which is the graphics library that Brigador relies on
  
• In 2020, Apple announced it was making a major shift from Intel processors to ARM-M1 CPUs

Both of these together mark a fundamental change in how Mac machines function. From this point on it is only a matter of time until OpenGL itself disappears from Apple's operating systems, and with it the ability to run Brigador. Though projects like MoltenGL exist, the amount of work that would be required to make Brigador functional on a modern Apple machine will be unjustifiable. That said, we don't expect any major updates to Brigador after this update, but from this point on we will no longer continue to support Mac devices. If you are a Mac user reading this in the future, please contact us at team(at)stellarjockeys(dot)com✉ about your store purchase.

[expand type=details]

• Updated to version 1.6 The Blood Anniversary
  
• Non-mechanical NPCs now leave a bloody mess on death
  
• Several weapons now leave impact craters on ground tiles
  
• Three new unlockable pilots added to Freelance: MT Foxtrot, Warlord Kanta and Brother Livewell Cotton
  
• Four new powersuit-focused missions operations added to Campaign mode: WE USED TO WAIT, IRIAN JAYA, SCANDAL NIGHT and SURF SOLAR
  
• Eleven vehicles are now available for purchase to play in Freelance mode: Monarch, Pellinore, Leviathan, Blackjack, Coffin, Usul, Widow, Zed Prime, Longboard, Brunhilde, and Fafnir
  
• Twelve vehicles now have auto-firing turrets installed: Monarch, Leviathan, Citadel, Rat King, Julius, Blackjack, Dragon, Usul, Aetos, Widow, Brunhilde, and Fafnir.
  
• "Brigadors" unlockable lore entry added to ACQUISITIONS
  
• Several balance changes (please refer to change log thread for full list)

• XNA Framework Redistributable 4.0 added to address launch issues with Windows 10 computers
  
• 64 bit builds for Windows, Mac & Linux
  
• Increased performance now that prop sprites update to only update props on screen (instead of whole level)
  
• Increased performance now that mech AI collision avoidance upper bound has been lowered

• Splash screen on startup changed
  
• In-game UI should now scale with the UI scale setting
  
• A new method to add long text strings to the game has been added (this will be detailed in our modding guide later)
  
• New welcome screen text and three new loading screen messages added
  
• All new interface texts localized into all 11 additional locales
  
• Credits updated

• New AUTO FIRE TOGGLE bind available in SETTINGS > BINDS
  
• EASTER EGGS, DISABLE GRAPHIC CONTENT, DISABLE DAMAGE EFFECTS and USE OLD LIGHTING toggles added to SETTINGS
  
• INVINCIBILITY, INVISIBILITY, REDUCED ENEMY AGGRO and INFINITE AMMO cheat toggles added to SETTINGS

• Audio levels of particular horn noises have been tweaked

• Modkit & Map Editor DLC is temporarily not functional - it will be updated to work with version 1.6 in a follow up patch in the coming weeks
  
• Packfile memory allocation increased by at least 40 MB
  
• Added various spatial overrides for gib data

For a detailed history of all change logs to the game, please refer to this thread on our discussion forums.

[/expand]

We hope you enjoy the update and thank you for reading! If you experience technical difficulties, please:

• Start a thread on our Technical Issues subforum (please read this pinned thread for the specific details to include in your message)
  
• Check out our #bug-reports channel on our Discord server.

- Stellar Jockeys

Heya adventurers! This week is gonna be an epic week full of daily rewards and improvements! Yes, the improvements from last week’s pre-announcement goes live this week! So, go ahead, test ‘em out, and let us know what you think! And as always, don’t forget to also check out the Item Mall for all the amazing goodies we have this week!


June Adventurer Support Event What’s that? You want more rewards? Say no more, fam! Just login for 20 minutes daily to get your rewards! Get items like: Spectral Amethysts, Sage’s Magic Stones, Imprint Stones and so much more! It’s super simple!


Item Mall GoodiesStrut your stuff in the library but do it quietly! Grace ye olde library with ye olde classy ensemble! Dress up in Antique Library Costume Set and go read your books!




The ultimate room setup is yours! Retro and engaging and very cool! You and your friends will never want to leave when you’ve got DIY El House: City Pop Gaming Room!




Noah’s ready to chill and freeze – the battlefield that is! With the Glacial Ice Burner Noah’s cold demeanor is intensified! Chilling to the bone! Complete the set when it comes out!



That’s all for now, folks~

See y’all in-game!

Hello everyone!

Today we have added a portion of new content and memes to the game, and also fixed a couple of bugs. Enjoy! :)

Watch influencers play Conqueror 940 AD on this stream!

Hey all !

I learn creating models in Blender - So we have a donut hat from now...




Thanks and greetings to Blender Guru :-)
https://youtu.be/TPrnSACiTJ4

The Ghostbat Games team will stream a live play through of our nifty new demo! We’ve been practicing our streaming technique, so you can watch both sides of the battle as the developers demonstrate their strategic skills in a head-to-head match. We’ll run through the basic mechanics of the game, as well as more advanced strategies required to build a victorious empire!

The stream will start Wednesday 16th June 8pm EST. Set a reminder to get an alert when we kick off.

In the meantime, come say hello in our Discord, or follow our progress on Twitter!

The third Winter War End of Season tournament will take place on July 10th-11th and will be hosted in collaboration with 983 Media. With plenty of QP for the 2021 World Championships and $1000 in cash on the line, do you have what it takes to take home the title this season?

The tournament is open to all players in Silver rank or above and will take place in 2 parts. Day 1 will be a Swiss Best of 3 Conquest tournament on July 10th. Day 1 will be broadcast by Noah and a rotating cast of co-hosts. The top 8 players from Day 1 will move on to a Day 2 tournament on July 11th.

Day 2 will be a single elimination Best of 3 Conquest tournament and will be broadcast on the official Mythgard Twitch channel.

For more information on tournament formats, read this post.

July 10th:
11:00 AM EDT/15:00 UTC
Silver Rank or Above
Bo3 Swiss Conquest
https://www.twitch.tv/mythgard_game

July 11th:
11:00 AM EDT/15:00 UTC
Top 8 players from Day 1
Bo3 Single Elim Conquest
https://www.twitch.tv/mythgard_game

Please note that the broadcast will be on a 15 minute delay. Any players in the tournament who are streaming their own matches are advised to also stream on a delay and/or otherwise conceal their hand on their own broadcast to avoid potential problems with stream sniping.

Payment will be distributed by 983 Media.
Winners must have a verified Paypal account to claim winnings.
Players qualified for the Top 8 must check-in with a tournament Admin in the official Mythgard Discord within 12 hours of the day one conclusion.
All Top 8 players need access to the Mythgard Discord during the top 8 for event coordination purposes.
Players not in the Discord will be disqualified and will NOT be eligible for prizes.
Rulings made by tournament admins and organizers are final. This includes, but is not limited to, restarting/delaying tournament games to fit the production schedule.

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Finalizing_Multiplayer#3.101_Buffs.2C_Fixes.2C_And_Quickstarts

This one is primarily to fix quickstarts being broken in the prior build (for people without DLC1 or DLC2) -- that was an unfortunate regression from some seemingly-unrelated xml parsing improvements, but it's fixed now. Sorry about that!

In this version there are a number of buffs to a few turrets, and most notably the Orbital Mass Driver and Ion Cannon. More tooltip refinements and fixes are in place, the AMU mod and several others have updates, and there's a new experimental change with how enemies pop out of wormholes when traveling in large groups.

More to come soon. Enjoy!

-Fixed a bug with spells not destroying
-Fixed a bug with quest completion
-Fixed a typo
-Minor balance
Saves should be compatible with the previous version.

It's finally time! You'll be able to play the Shutter Stroll Demo this Next Fest! 📸

The demo build will let you visit three islands, generated specifically for you! Plus, come back each day to find another new island ready to be photographed, and grab some snaps before it disappears into the aether forever. 🌙

The demo launches June 14th! I know some of you can't wait for it, so it'll unlock a few days ahead of Next Fest!

You can play the demo right here on Steam, and share your photos in the Steam Community — or on our Discord! I'm looking forward to seeing your snapshots!

Make sure to wishlist the game for when it comes out on Steam later this year, with all new features such as:

• A vastly expanded island generator.
  
• Even more camera options, to make each shot your own.
  
• Upgraded visuals.
  
• And as always, a near infinite amount of islands to discover and explore.

Want to see more? Here are some photos our Discord beta testers have taken: