Mar 7

Nightmares & Visions - Early Balance Look - Dev Blog Pt. 3

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - FatsharkStrawHat

Hey Everyone,

Welcome back to part THREE of our Early Balance Look for our upcoming release, Nightmares & Visions (coming out March 25, 2025).

In case you missed our previous parts or you want to go back and check:

Part 1 (Ogryn Talent Tree Rework)
Part 2 (Ogryn Weaponry Balancing)
Part 3 (Additional Weapon Changes and Tweaks)

Let's dive into the rest of the changes.

Other Weapon Changes and Tweaks

Catachan "Devil's Claw" Swords

We performed some tweaks on the Devil’s Claw swords to improve their overall gameplay experience and enhance their niche as safe, reliable weapons.

We aligned the Block duration (the period of time in which the player is still considered blocking) for the Push action and the Riposte attack, but also the Stamina profile between the three marks.

For the Mk I, we lowered the windup timing for the Heavy 1 attack and added a chain opportunity from the Riposte attack to the Special Parry.

For the Mk VII, we lowered the windup timing for the Heavy 1 attack and slightly increased the speed of the Light 2 attack, improving its base horde clear combo.

Detailed Changes - Catachan "Devil's Claw" Swords

All Marks

Aligned Stamina profiles

Block cost (inner) from (1.5,0.5) to (1.0,0.5).
Sprint cost per second from (1.5,0.5) to (1.25,0.75).

Mk I

Heavy 1 windup from 0.75 to 0.65.
Block duration for the Riposte attack from 0.2 to 0.5.
Added chain from Riposte attack to Special Parry (0.45 timing).

Dev Note: The chain from Riposte attack to Special Parry is already present on the other two marks.
Mk IV

Block duration for Push action from 0.2 to 0.5.

Mk VII

Heavy 1 windup from 0.75 to 0.65.
Added time scale 1.1 to Light 2 (sped up).
Block duration for the Riposte attack from 0.2 to 0.5.

Ius Mk IV Shredder Autopistol

After the power of the Pinning Fire blessing was decreased, the Autopistol lost most of its attractiveness, being often outgunned by alternatives and feeling overall very underwhelming.

To reinforce the weapon’s niche as an assault, “spray n pray” SMG, we tweaked the movement speed curve when shooting in Hipfire mode: the move speed will be slightly slower when starting to fire, but will be significantly faster on prolonged shooting compared to before.

Additionally, we increased the damage and the Finesse multiplier in both Hipfire and Braced fire modes to bring up the baseline performance of the weapon.

Detailed Changes - Ius Mk IV Shredder Autopistol

Hipfire Mode

Adjusted the movement speed curve to be slightly slower when starting to shoot, but significantly faster on prolonged shooting.

Hipfire & Braced Fire Modes

Attack power distribution from (40,80) to (50,95).
Finesse multiplier from (0.3,0.9) to (0.5,1.5).

Force Staves Quell Canceling

When using Psyker Force Staves, the Quell action could be immediately ended by tapping and releasing its input.

However, this meant that the Quell action could be used to bypass the default chain times of other actions, and particularly allowed to chain the Primary fire action into another Primary fire action at a speed that was not intended.

We added a short minimum hold time period for the Quell action, meaning that the action will be performed for the specified amount of time even if the input is released earlier. This change will also guarantee that the first “tick” of Peril quelling will be reached by the Quell action, even when the action is interrupted at the earliest possible timing.

Alongside this, we slightly raised the chain time from Primary fire to the Quell action.

These two changes together will mean that it won’t be possible anymore to fire Primary shots faster than the intended chain timing.

Detailed Changes - Force Staves Quell Canceling

Equinox Mk III Voidblast / Equinox Mk IV Voidstrike / Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic

Added minimum hold time 0.26 to the Quell action.
Chain time from Primary fire to Quell from 0.2 to 0.29.

Rifthaven Mk II Inferno

Added minimum hold time 0.3 to the Quell action.
Chain time Primary fire to Quell from 0.3 to 0.4.

Special Activations Reset By Stun

Several weapons which have a Special action activation could have their activation state reset after being stunned (including when hit by a melee attack).

While the behavior was originally intended to balance the always-available nature of these powerful Special actions, player feedback indicated that this mechanic was not perceived as engaging, leading often to frustrating moments.

Given also the increased intensity of fights and enemy spawns in harder difficulties, we decided to allow for the affected weapons to keep the Special active after being stunned, as being hit is usually enough punishment by itself.

Dev Note:The change will not affect situations where the player fully stops wielding the weapon, such as stuns and dislocations from explosions or specific Monstrosity attacks.

Detailed Changes - Special Activations Reset by Stun

Special Action

Allowed the following weapons to remain active after a stun:
- Scandar Mk III Power Sword
- Achlys Mk VI Power Sword
- Crucis Mk II Thunder Hammer
- Ironhelm Mk IV Thunder Hammer
- Indignatus Mk IVe Crusher
- Achlys Mk I Power Maul
- Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword
- Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword.
- Tigrus Mk III Heavy Eviscerator.

Dev Note: The Tigrus Mk XV Heavy Eviscerator was already not affected by the behavior.

Special Activations Reset by Vaulting

All weapons which have a Special action activation will no longer have their activation state reset after vaulting over tall terrain or railings.

Detailed Changes - Special Activations Reset by Vaulting

Special Action

Allowed the following weapons to remain active after vaulting:
- Scandar Mk III Power Sword
- Achlys Mk VI Power Sword
- Crucis Mk II Thunder Hammer
- Ironhelm Mk IV Thunder Hammer
- Cadia Mk IV Assault Chainsword
- Cadia Mk XIIIg Assault Chainsword
- Orestes Mk IV Assault Chainaxe
- Orestes Mk XII Assault Chainaxe
- Tigrus Mk III Heavy Eviscerator
- Tigrus Mk XV Heavy Eviscerator
- Indignatus Mk IVe Crusher
- Obscurus Mk II Blaze Force Sword
- Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword
- Illisi Mk V Blaze Force Sword
- Achlys Mk I Power Maul.

Attack Speed Buffs for Melee Attacks on Secondary Weapons

Attack speed and melee attack speed buffs were not applied to most melee attacks performed with Secondary weapons (e.g. bash Special attacks), making their use often very niche.

To incentivize experimenting with them, we changed so that attack speed buffs will now affect these Special melee attacks.

Specifically for the MK IIIa and MK V Helbore Lasguns, we slightly increased the chain timings for the Special bayonet Light stab, as the attack was already very fast to repeat.

Detailed Changes - Attack Speed Buffs for Melee Attacks on Secondary Weapons

All Secondary Weapons

Allowed for Attack Speed buffs to affect melee attacks.

Lucius MK IIIa Helbore Lasgun / Lucius MK V Helbore Lasgun

Minimum windup time from Start Special attack to Special Light Stab from 0 to 0.1.
Chain time from Special Light Stab to Start Special attack from 0.575 to 0.635.

Almost forty pages later….and we’ve gotten through the upcoming Ogryn Talent Tree rework and some upcoming balancing changes for our next patch, Nightmares and Visions. It’s a lot!

Give this a read and let us know your thoughts in the comments below! We’ll be reading the comments and feedback to our plans.

See you on the Mourningstar.

– The Darktide Team

Mar 7

The UNSS Drop is here!

Heroes of Science and Fiction - Oxymoron Games

Hi everybody, the biggest update of Silence of the Siren so far has just dropped! Say hello to the UNSS faction coming all the way from the distant Solar System and enjoy the second campaign that the team has worked hard on in the last few months.

The update also contains a new skirmish map and quite a few small improvements and changes, feel free to have a look at the details below.

And, as the game is still in Early Access, we'll appreciate any bug reports, feedback regarding game balance, possible exploits and all the good stuff.

Also, to accompany the release, we're running a custom sale, so the game is now discounted by 35%.
Feel free to tell your friends - and have fun! :)

Content

UNSS - the United Nations of the Solar System!
Commanders, base, 7 units x 2 tiers
Campaign with 4 levels, and we somehow ended up with about 25% more dialog than in the Fossorian campaign :)
Faction skill: Squad Leader allows you to split unit stacks during combat
Faction buildings: Resting place restores movement, Holodeck allows you to hire commanders with higher attribute values, Corporate Lair gives various discounts when hiring expensive units
New skirmish map: Chaos

Features and improvements - version 117c9dab

Difficulty settings are now also available for campaign levels (experimental)
Increased visible inventory space in commander panel (3 columns instead of 2)
Added an option to reduce the visual impact/transitions between different times of day
Added info about unit special attack cooldowns to the unit info panels
Added a custom icon and tooltip for all limited range (run and gun) units to the unit info panels
Commanders that originated in a different faction than the one they are in now have faction skills matching their origin (for example Pick is Sovereign but has the Fossorian skill)
Added more versions of the garrison/ungarrison buttons at the base to make it more clear what happens in which situation (a single commander, commander and a base with an army etc.)
Implemented automatic garrisoning system at the end of each turn: if you leave a commander "at the gates" and they get attacked during one of next players turns, they will be automatically defending behind the walls. If not, everything returns to the original state at the start of next turn
Good progress in the optimization of AI turn times
Sovereign Antimat (7th tier) unit's special attack now only allows horizontal direction
Added outline around affected range of builder-skill objects when being placed on the map
Added a highlight behind the outpost button in negotiator panel in case some units won't fit into the commander's army, but there's an outpost that can accept them

Fixes

Fixed units sometimes getting slowly pushed outside of their hexes in combat
Fixed random units appearing at bases recently taken over from AI players
Fixed Earthshaker MK2 doesn't shoot twice against army consisting only of buried upgraded worms
Fixed hazard indicated at threatened tile shows real threat even when the threatening neutral army is only discovered and the hazard should be unknown
Fixed disabled teleport not automatically enabled when passing through.
Fixed buried worm can get morale extra turn when skipping turn
Fixed the game not always correctly detecting 16:10 aspect ratio for UI and combat camera fov, this was causing buttons on top of commander portraits to overlap stack number of bottom stack
Fixed AI UPG mortar plays shoot animation only once sometimes
Fixed orbital light preset stuck on when switching from a hero in orbit to a hero on the ground using the next hero button
Fixed Bolts and Crowd Suppressors/Crushers didn't damage walls
Fixed a couple of rare cases of AI players getting stuck
Fixed object outlines in exploration rendered over other UI
Fixed 'don't show again' options not saved when clicking the icon in dialog panel
Fixed boosted mining probe could collect resources above limit

Thanks and enjoy!

Mar 7

Dev Diary #12 - Mission Types in MENACE

MENACE - Matt (Hooded Horse)

In MENACE, tactical battles go beyond destroying all enemies. There is a wide variety of mission goals, many of which do not require you to dispatch all opposition.

Let’s take a closer look at the challenges that await you.

Missions in MENACE

A mission is a single turn-based tactical battle deployment that is fought on a procedurally generated 3D map. Each mission has a certain mission goal that needs to be completed in order to win the battle.

If a battle is won, the player’s performance will be rated depending on certain factors like losses suffered, speed, and others. Each mission grants new items to loot and promotion points to promote squad leaders and pilots and unlock new perks for them.

A mission in MENACE is not an isolated fight but will always be part of an “Operation,” which is a cascade of connected missions. The player will always have some choices on what mission to take on next to complete the operation, but more on that in a later diary.

Now let’s look at the individual mission types:

Note: More mission types are in the works.

Capture Area

One of the most common tasks for a strike force is to enter a contested area and gain control of certain important assets like supply depots, infrastructure, factories, and others. The opposing force will, of course, try to rush in its own forces and contest control of these areas.

The player will deploy in a decently sized deployment zone at the southern map border while all enemy forces deploy at the northern map border. In the center of the map, one or two “capture areas” are placed.

Both forces rush to the areas as quickly as possible.

Each capture area is usually around nine tiles large and has a certain number of capture tickets attached to it. Each unit within the area will capture one ticket per turn, so having multiple units in the area allows for fast capture.

Enemy units within the area will prevent the player from capturing it, so clearing the enemy out before taking over is essential. Ideally, the player reaches the capture areas first and suppresses the approaching enemy before they can reach covered positions from which they can mount an assault.

Once all capture areas are secured, the mission will automatically end as a success, no matter how many enemy units remain on the field.

In this mission, speed is absolutely essential, so it's crucial to use transport vehicles, perks that allow extra movement, like “sprint,” or drugs that grant additional movement or actions.

Hold Ground

Once important objects are captured, enemy forces will attack them and try to take them over. This can also be a civilian settlement that has to be protected from a pirate raid or a military arms depot that Rogue Army forces want to take over to bolster their arsenal.

This is a passive mission in which the player must hold out for a finite amount of rounds while the enemy keeps pressing the attack. The map will have a rather large area in the middle that has to be defended for the duration of the mission. The area will usually be placed in the center of a settlement or other structure.

The player has to deploy their forces around the target area while the enemies advance from all four map edges. This is also one of the few missions with unlimited enemy reinforcements that keep rushing in.

The hold ground area has a certain number of tickets. Each enemy unit that stays in this area will reduce the tickets by one per turn, so it is crucial to stop them from entering the area or flush them out quickly once they are in.

Once the tickets are reduced to zero, the mission is lost.

Often, the battle will take place in built-up areas like settlements that offer lots of cover for advancing enemies. One of the most important parts of winning this mission is to spread out your forces in the capture area so that they can instantly react to an advancing enemy and bog them down with suppressive fire before they can get to cover and dig in.

Sabotage

Unlike the open battles of other mission types the Sabotage missions can be done more covertly. The goal is to reach one or more target areas and execute a “sabotage” skill while being next to them. After all targets have been sabotaged the player has to move all units to a designated evac zone and exfil to complete the mission successfully.

The player deploys at the southern map border while the extremely numerous enemy forces deploy all over the map.

The big twist in this setup is that enemy units start in “patrol mode,” where they do not share vision with other units. Once the fighting starts, only units in the vicinity that see what's going on join the fight. Often, many enemy units can be outmaneuvered and passed by without having to eliminate them.

The key to success in this mission type is making the most of cover and concealment, scouting out enemy patrols and positions ahead of time, and being fast once the fighting starts.

Rescue Civilians

Not only military units take part in the fighting in MENACE. Sometimes, civilians get caught up in the fighting and become targets themselves.

In the Rescue mission, your goal is to find and rescue civilians or VIPs from enemy holding cells.

In this setup, there will usually be one or more bases with holding cells on the map. The player will deploy at the southern map border while enemy forces surround the civilians. Once the player moves a unit close to the civilians, you gain control of them and have to move them back to the southern map border for extraction.

The enemy forces guarding the prisoners are relatively weak, but once the action kicks off, strong reinforcements will come from the northern half of the map to try to stop the civilian extraction. The civs have no armor and can quickly perish if caught in the crossfire. If that happens, the mission is, of course, lost.

The key to winning this mission is to approach all civilians at the same time to ensure that the enemy reinforcements do not prevent your access to a second or third civilian position and slow you down.
Once you are moving the civilians out, it makes sense to deploy elements with machine guns and other suppressive weapons to delay and hold off the reinforcements trying to catch up to you. Then, it is a matter of effectively leapfrogging backward to your extraction zone without leaving a friendly unit behind and in danger of getting overrun on retreat.

You can also load civilians into transport vehicles, which is usually the fastest and safest way to transport them to the extraction zone.

Base Assault

Finally, we have the most brutal mission in which your goal is to eliminate as many enemy units as possible. The setup is usually an enemy base, stronghold, or other defensive position prepared to defend itself in the upper half of the map. The player can deploy all along the southern border and start the assault there.

The enemy is placed in heavily fortified positions, and they might have bunkers, barricades, guard towers, automated sentry guns, or minefields to aid their defense. The mission is won once a certain percentage of enemy forces are destroyed or dispersed.

This mission will require players to consider where to attack the fortified positions and how to take out structures, walls, and bunkers. Bringing rocket launchers, grenades, and other weapons that are effective against objects is key. Also, it might help to focus on a single vector of attack and overwhelm the defenders with a massive force instead of attacking from all sides with weak forces.

Good reconnaissance is crucial in this mission, as a single sentry turret armed with an EMP cannon can stop your armored assault dead in its tracks. Similarly, a heavy machine gun position can easily suppress your infantry on approach if you are not prepared for it.

In Summary

Mission

Key Challenges

Winning Strategy

Capture Area: Seize control of contested zones by capturing key locations.

Enemy forces rush in to contest control; capturing is blocked until enemies are cleared.

Move quickly, suppress enemies before they reach cover, and use transport vehicles or movement-enhancing perks.

Hold Ground: Defend a strategic area against waves of attackers for a set number of turns.

Enemies advance from all four directions with unlimited reinforcements.

Spread forces to cover all approaches, use suppressive fire, and prevent enemies from entering the objective area.

Sabotage: Reach and destroy key targets before extracting to the evac zone.

Enemy units start in patrol mode but will engage once alerted; heavy resistance if spotted.

Use cover, avoid detection when possible, and plan an efficient exfil route.

Rescue Civilians: Extract civilians or VIPs from enemy-controlled holding cells.

Weak initial guards, but strong enemy reinforcements will attempt to cut off extraction.

Rescue all civilians at once, use suppressive weapons to delay pursuers, and load civilians into transport vehicles for faster extraction.

Base Assault: Destroy or rout a significant percentage of enemy forces in a fortified base.

Defensive positions include bunkers, automated turrets, and minefields.

Use explosives to breach defenses, focus attacks on a single front, and scout enemy positions before committing to the assault.

Engage, Explore, and Stay Informed

That's it for now! We'll see you next Friday.

You can find us on Discord, BlueSky, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit for discussions, updates, and feedback. You can also subscribe to our monthly MENACE newsletter on our website — just scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2432860/MENACE/

And here are the recent prior Dev Diaries in case you've missed them:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2432860/announcements/detail/515203109058773566
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2432860/announcements/detail/534342772300185779
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2432860/announcements/detail/512950040394727468