v1.1 released!

v1.1 released!

February 12, 2024
Itch Devlog, Celestial Bodies

Hi there! v1.1 is here! It brings a few major changes:

Formatting

  • Increased page size slightly.
  • Various typo-fixes.
  • Tightening up of layout.

Combat Rules

  • Missiles.
    • Deploy now states the deployment range for missiles (0-1).
    • Direct now lets you move 8 missiles by default instead of 5.
    • Direct now states clearly when missiles count as “armed” (i.e. when they automatically attack if their target gets within range 0).
    • Missiles are now slightly easier to shoot down by default (3+ instead of 4+).
  • Disabled is now a called out thing that Electronic Warfare weaponry does (alongside Damaged and Destroyed), and explicitly states its interaction with crits.
  • The interaction between armor and crits is now explicitly stated.
  • Electric is now Shock, because while Electronic and Electric are in fact different words, we have been hard pressed to convince anyone of this.
  • By default average encounter difficulty is stated, and Scavengers and INFINITY now have a 1-6 roll-table from which to construct encounters with them.
  • Added a little more clarification about Zones/Ranges and added a second note in the Combat section to make all grids public information.
  • Tackle lost its +/- for size difference but has a crit effect now.

Frames/Builds

Mechs

Just about everything except Light//Nerve had some kind of Frame or Build tweak. This is because Light//Nerve was born perfect and doesn’t need anything changed about her.

  • Light//Flash: Streamlined as written distorted effective ranges greatly and warped the sense of how big maps should be, which is not ideal for one trait. In its updated version, it achieves the same defensive effect but with less range-distortion.
  • Medium//Flash: Armored now covers slightly more surface area (matching the covers-internal-squares pattern of Heavy/Ultra armor). MF-BANDIT was changed to account for S Missiles changing size (more on that later).
  • Medium//Nerve: MN-FORTUNE was changed to make a little more sense, losing one pistol but having a smarter layout. MN-VECTOR was changed to remove missiles (again, because of the missile size change), making it more of a dedicated railgunner.
  • Heavy//Flash: Grid was changed from 5x5 to 6x4 (and HF-CARNAGE was changed to match this). Armor covers about twice as much of its surface area now.
  • Heavy//Nerve: Armor covers about twice as much of its surface area now. I’m In got a slight change to account for increased-duration abilities existing.
  • Ultra//Flash: Armor covers about twice as much of its surface area now. Stable Fire Platform got adjusted to be a little more flexible and add an extra defensive bonus for staying put to account for rarely ever having evasion or being in an ideal range if attempting to use its trait.
  • Ultra//Nerve: Armor covers about twice as much of its surface area now. Superior Guidance didn’t feel substantial enough as written. With other changes to shooting down missiles and the MC processor, space was freed up to give it a unique advantage, but one that doesn’t feel overwhelmingly necessary for missile operations.

Non-mech enemies

  • These have explicitly called out traits now to make customizing them for factions/etc easier.
  • Hovertank was made 5x5 and got changed to match.
  • Turrets are now 4x5 and have been rebuilt to have missiles so they can threaten enemies outside of gun range.

Parts

  • Shields now vary their capacity slightly (+/- 20%, specifically 1/2/3/4 for L/M/H/U) depending on reactor size relative to Frame size.
  • H Reactor now provides reliability (does not depower squares until 3 or more are damaged)
  • H Thrusters and H Shields have two shapes available now, straight or angled.
  • MC Processor now does something else entirely (allows you to modulate missile speed when Directing) because it was too essential to missile builds, and as a result, too easy to make a single point of failure. (Half of its old effect is now Ultra//Nerve’s trait.)
  • EW Processor now specifically calls out what it doesn’t apply to.
  • L/M/H thrusters no longer stack with each other. U thrusters, however, now stack as many times as you can fit them. Go wild.

Weapons

Lots of ‘em so I’m breaking down by category.

Ranged

  • Shotgun is entirely different now: a short-range (but not AS short range!) armor-and-shield-puncher that inflicts adjacent damage on crits.
  • BFG got a slight accuracy buff, but only when used by Ultras.
  • EBFG got a range and ROF decrease, because it was way too good pound-for-pound. (It’s still plenty good though, especially in the hands of a Heavy//Flash.)

Explosive

  • Grenade Launcher now hits adjacent squares even on a miss or armor-hit.
  • Rocket Launcher now does 4 DMG (previously 3).

Melee

  • Dagger now does 3 DMG (previously 2).
  • Lance now deals 6 DMG (previously 5) before Kinetic and has a built-in move-when-attacking that stacks with MO.
  • Pilebunker has +1 accuracy (previously 0) and ignores Evasion.

Electronic Warfare

  • Shock does not ignore armor anymore (affects Stun Needle, Stun Baton, Voltaic Missiles).
  • Stun Baton now has both Strong Melee and Shock designations rather than an in-between category that doesn’t really mean anything.
  • ECM Generator now does not operate when damaged, and is more specific as to how long the effects last (effects stick on targets for 1 round, cloud stays in that location for DUR rounds).
  • EMP Missiles are now Voltaic Missiles, because they basically operated by Shock rules already so it made more sense to unify the concepts (and also because we want to save EMP as a concept for later). They have a default speed of 4. S Voltaic Missiles now have a QTY of 3 instead of 2.

Missiles

  • Damaged missiles now halve their QTY (round down).
  • “Normal”/“Quantity” missiles are now called Swarm Missiles. They have a default Speed of 4.
  • S Swarm Missiles now have a QTY of 4, M Swarm Missiles now have a QTY of 6. This makes it more likely that anyone would take them on purpose.
  • S Swarm Missiles are now 1x3 instead of 1x2 so we don’t have to think about what that means on a Light//Flash.
  • S Prox Missiles now have a QTY of 3.
  • Guided missiles now do 4 DMG but launch at higher quantities (2 for S, 3 for H). They’re also a bit harder to shoot down. Clarified how they operate when any enemy enters range 0 of them.

(v1.1.1 is now up, fixes a few tiny goof-ups.)

(Read the original on itch here!)


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