Good mood, smiles and gifts are perfectly combined with it. By the way, this is for you!
1) Copy this promotional code into a special window in the "Gifts" section of the game store 2) Grab something good in GXP storage 👀 3) Done! You are gorgeous!
DINO MERCS will be part of Steam's Strategy Fest! Check out the game, along with a number of incredible games, including some friends of DINO MERCS.
I'm working really hard on Early Access update v3.0.0 and plan to release that in the next couple of days, assuming I can get everything at least slightly smoothed out by then. I've reworked every single card in the game, added a new stats system, given enemies their own unique decks of cards, a new unlock system, and lots more. There's now over 150 cards in the game! All of this also means that I have to do a ton of work to make sure everything is balanced and playable.
Possibly tomorrow or the day after that, I'll be releasing a playable beta via Steam. So if you'd like to help with playtesting, keep an eye out for that!
Lobsters have been taught to not fire when it would be redundant, making Lobster balls much easier to manage. Overkill prevention in general has a tweak, and some APIs were extended to make modding easier. The Artefact Control game mode which saw some testing about a month ago is now live. In terms of balance, Redback has a bit of a nerf and some of the least used units - Skuttle, Phoenix and Emissary - have small buffs.
Balance
Duck can now be dodged by a Glaive trying as hard as it can to run away.
Missile fuel time 2s -> 1.5s
Redback is worse at taking map control and assaulting defenses.
Cost 230 -> 240
Speed 1.85 -> 1.75
Skuttle can see enemies before they break its cloak.
Line of sight 280 -> 330
Emissary aims faster and no longer benefits from manually turning.
Body turn rate reduced 105 -> 84 degrees/second
Gun aim rate increased 40 -> 70 degrees/second
Resets its gun between shots (as much as possible) in case it has to move.
Phoenix moves faster and hits its target sooner.
Speed 8 -> 8.1
Projectile gravity 0.7 -> 0.72
Unit AI
Overkill prevention, the system that prevents ten Scalpels firing at a single Glaive, is now available for Lobster, and is suspended for units set to hold fire. It is controlled by a state toggle that is hidden by default because there is very little reason to touch it. The state toggle can be enabled under Settings/Interface/Commands, and per-unit defaults to be set in Settings/Unit Behaviour/Default States, or by holding Space and clicking on a unit, then pressing Edit Behaviour.
Lobster is smarter, no longer firing unless there is a visible valid target.
This prevents it from firing when it would do absolutely nothing, provided there are no invisible enemies nearby.
As a result, telling a tight clump of Lobsters to fire causes only two to shoot.
This behaviour can be configured with the hidden Overkill Prevention state.
Removed the Force Fire command by default. This can be configured via another hidden state toggle.
Overkill prevention is now suspended by default when units are set to Hold Fire.
Added the "Enable for Fire at Will" and "Enable for auto targeting" states. Previously it just had enabled/disabled.
Most units default to "Enable for Fire at Will". The theory being that if you set a unit to hold fire you care more about its target dying than about overkill.
Nothing defaults to "Enable for auto targeting", but it may be useful to try out.
Impaler now has an even stronger preference for targeting structures over units.
Interface
Added a minimum wind icon and number to the left column of the wind generator tooltip during placement (thanks Porkchop)
Cleaned up some inconsistent unit highlighting and selection. Units under interface panels cannot be clicked on by default, tooltips do not appear, and units are not highlighted.
Selecting through the panel at the bottom of the screen can be configured under Settings/HUD Panels/Selected Units Panel.
Drag selection can still terminate over a UI panel.
Add some translations for the commander selector.
Updated Global Build AI with some fixes and documentation (thanks esainane).
Added username team colour in chat and removed white outlines for dark names (thanks Birdulon)
Local widgets are no longer disabled for spectators on rooms with local widgets disabled.
Added Italian translations for the main menu (thanks fvasco)
Campaign
Tweaked campaign text and replaced some Artefacts with more suitable structures (thanks Thorneel)
Maps
Added boxes for Onyx Cauldron 2.0
Improved lighting on Skulduggery (thanks Shaman)
Improved water on Cull, Lost v2 and Lowland Crossing Revised v2.
Fixed an issue with void water with new shaders on some graphics cards.
Artefact Control
Added a control point game mode called Artefact Control under Experimental.
Several artefacts are spawned on each side of the map.
Each team controls half at the start of the game.
Artefacts have 11k health and heal at 100 hp/second.
Artefacts respawned with switched allegeance when destroyed.
If a team controlls all the artefacts, they win.
Modding
Changed some keys in unit def files to match the lua UnitDefs table. Mods with the old keys are still supported.
buildCostMetal -> metalCost
buildCostEnergy -> energyCost
energyUse -> energyUpkeep
metalUse -> metalUpkeep (vanilla ZK doesn't use this)
maxDamage -> health
maxVelocity -> speed
Other changes.
Unit defs no longer require unitname since it must match the table key, so it is redundant.
Unit defs are now also read from subfolders of 'units'.
Set undefined burst rates to 0 (rather than 0.1) as it can interfere with weapon modding.
The game exits to menu when unit defs fail to load, rather than crashing.
Added game-side GG.UnitModelRescale(unitID, scale) from Unit Level Ups.
Added backwards compatibility for Spring.GetUnitIsBeingBuilt.
Fixed backwards compatibility for Spring.GetPlayerRulesParams.
Added customparams.buggeroff_angle for factories, in radians.
Added customparams.metal_extractor_mult to support the creation of higher tier metal extractors.
Fixed modding away the Sniper reload move penalty breaking the script.
Cleaned up the build icon generator gadget.
Napalm effects now contain an example of sin (replaces taylor series).
Improved modded energy generator tooltips.
Mexes suport morphing.
Fixes
Fixed commshare sometimes preventing resign or causing a crash when the game ends.
War music no longer counts morph as violence.
Fixed missing vote resign button.
Marginal turret overshoot can no longer be circumvented with command insert.
Fixed a few build icons incorrectly implying that a floating structure is built underwater.
Fixed commander selector button image.
Fixed backwards 'motion blur' on ejected shells.
Fixed some large structure wreckages having much too large collision volumes.
- Added FPS counter - Various code refactoring - Implemented various environmental interactor systems
There is a demo "secret room" for areas that will be proc generated in the future that will feature random elements to diversify the gameplay loop. I had noticed some complaints for performance issues during certain situations so I added an FPS counter as an additional item to help improve the stability of the game.
