Changelog v24-03-15

This update finishes up a lot of what I consider to be the "main ingredients" that I want in the game, like Sentries, Commanders, and the first few Perks. It also includes a bunch of UI polish, several new items, and the third level of the game.

Saved data from previous versions are incompatible; if you have a mid-stage save, restart it from stage select instead of continuing it.

Campaign

• New level: Nightclub
• The Sword Cultist at the end of Metro is now a Sentry
• New Shotgun Commanders have been peppered throughout the Apartments
• Other minor adjustments to Metro and Apartments
• Minor adjustments to dialogue
• If there are no more threats in a level, it'll automatically end
• Future stages are no longer shown in stage select until you've progressed to that point (there is an option to reveal them all)
• After completing the final level, the main menu will show "New Game" to start over instead of "Continue Game" to replay the final level
• Beginning with this update, loadout options that are intended for unreleased stages will only become available if the setting to unlock all loadout items is enabled; currently these are the Thunder Gloves secondary, Provoke focus ability, and the Defense and Mobility perk groups

Units

• Added new unit types
  • Sentry: Not as easily distracted, becomes alert at the first sign of trouble, and holds position instead of investigating. Identifiable by their trench coat.
  • Commander: Makes other enemies around them hold position instead of investigating. Identifiable by their hat and shoulder pad.
  • Denizen: Tries to escape the level at the first sign of trouble, but otherwise doesn't care about you. Although they pose no threat to you directly, they're likely to get in your way and alert other people to your presence.
• The option to overlap NPC movement now has three values: all, distant (default), and none
• More accurate checks are performed to reduce redundant work during NPC movement
• NPCs with multiple abilities are better at picking the right one for their situation
• NPCs no longer lose vigilance for one turn when entering one vigilant state from another
• NPCs in "Hold" state show their attention marker when hovered
• Attention markers have a line connecting them to their NPC, making them much easier to find
• NPCs now look directly at their focus point when in "Look" state before switching to "Search" state
• NPCs will immediately lose track of you if you move very quickly during combat (e.g. if you teleport away)
• When first entering "Hold" state, NPCs try to look in a more relevant direction
• Standard NPCs enter "Search" state (or, if a Commander is nearby, return to their patrol) after 3 turns of "Hold" state
• Fixed NPCs occasionally ignoring allies who enter "Hold" state
• Fixed instances of units being able to move so close to each other or to walls that they intersect very slightly, resulting in unexpected behavior for shoves
• Fixed enemies who want to enter "Hold" state staying in combat when they lose sight of Omen
• Fixed an extremely rare issue with units refusing to move across the seam between two floor segments
• Fixed an issue that would cause units to look directly rightwards for one frame when beginning movement
• Fixed units being able to walk through obstacles when cornered
• Increased the Sword Thug's MOV per turn to 5.0 (previously 2.5)
• Reduced Omen's crouched movement sound radius to 1.0 (previously 2.0)
• Drastically reduced the popularity of hair dye among the cultists

Items & Abilities

• Fixed an issue where abilities that hit multiple targets at once would arbitrarily not hit some of them
• Fixed an issue where abilities with more than one kind of target (eg first target an entity, then target a position) would not let you pick the correct kind of target after the first
• Fixed the remote mine's behavior when being killed during the resolution phase
• Fixed Provoke and made its effect more intuitive when hovering over targets
• Fixed Focus abilities getting more charges than they were meant to at lower levels
• Adjusted distance calculations for abilities that target entities directly so they behave consistently with ray-based abilities (i.e. the edge of a target has to be in range, not the center of the target)
• Added range indicator circles for Maneuver and Sword Guard
• Tweaked explosion and concussion visual effects
• Paladin Eject and Coin Toss now visually create projectiles
• Pick Up, Drop, and TK Pick Up now use the swipe animation
• Added animations for reload and block abilities
• Several ability animations now work properly while crouched
• MOV Suppression no longer works through walls
• Increased LENC throw range to 10.0 (previously 8.5)
• Reduced mine throw range to 3.0 (previously 5.0)
• Increased Ground Pound sound radius to 7.5 (previously 6.0)
• Units are now alarmed if they suddenly find themselves being teleported
• Reduced Remote Mine to just 1 charge per mission
• Bastion Shotgun
  • Reduced DMG of buckshot to 3 (previously 4)
  • Reduced DMG of slug to 6 (previously 8)
  • Reduced DMG of blast to 8 (previoulsy 10)
  • Fixed slug bullet-beam visually piercing its target
• [New Primary] Adjudicator Submachine Gun
  • Burst: Fire 3 shots, each dealing less DMG and having a more restrictive firing angle
  • Spread: Hurt the front units in a cone for a small amount of DMG; doesn't stance-lock, so it can be used while crouched behind cover
• [New Secondary] Concussion Pistol
  • 3 different abilities that are used to knock back enemies and yourself: Wide, Narrow, and Single
  • Each ability has different cooldowns, but only one can be used each turn
• [New Secondary] Thunder Gloves
  • Ground Pound: Moved to this item from Focus
  • Thunder Sunder: Basically a linear version of Ground Pound
  • Capacitive Shielding: Gain Block equal to half of the currently incoming DMG
  • Ground Pound & Thunder Sunder become more powerful as you take Block DMG
• [New Ability] LENCs now get the Swap ability, allowing you to force two Targets to swap places (targeting yourself is valid)
• [New System] Perks
  • After certain stages, you'll unlock a new perk group
  • Pick 1 perk from each group
  • The current groups are Defense (Block), Mobility (MOV), and Momentum (AP)

UI

• If there's a save available for a stage, that stage's button has a save icon in the stage selection menu; otherwise, a symbol indicates which stage would be started if you click "Continue Game" from the main menu
• Reworked the Focus screen to show all levels of a given ability (instead of just the current and next ones) and to highlight the changes between the levels in blue (the color is configurable)
• Non-detailed NPC hover readouts will now tell you the unit's current state (Patrol, Hold, Look, Search, Combat) if they don't have an ability selected
• NPC ability lists have been turned into selectable icons, making the information both clearer and more condensed
• NPC-only ability upgrades are no longer shown in their ability list
• NPC hover readouts include a label indicating the NPC's type (Standard, Sentry, Commander) and weapon
• Entity hover readouts will now show tooltips when you hover over specific labels
• UI elements that freely move around the screen (badges, entity readouts) will now try to avoid overlapping with the HUD
• Damage Previews now show an indicator if any of the damage has been reduced by cover
• Unfocused Damage Previews now become transparent, making it easier to discern which ones are related to your current action (the alpha is configurable)
• Damage Previews now show you how both the focused DMG and the remaining incoming DMG as separate values (there is an option that allows you to show the total incoming DMG as one number or to show only the focused DMG)
• Damage Pop-ups now more accurately depict DMG inflicted by attacks that also cause additional DMG due to knockback (to be clear, Damage Previews still don't show additional knockback damage because knockback is unpredictable)
• The ability description in the lower-right no longer consumes mouse inputs
• Fixed ability readouts sometimes being extremely tall
• New border for icons of abilities that are currently selected
• Minor adjustments to button styles
• The UI will ignore all attempts to navigate with the keyboard until after the first time TAB (key configurable) is pressed in each menu; this is reset as soon as a click is detected

Misc

• Apartments objective progress is properly restored when loading a mid-stage save
• End-of-mission stats are properly saved when quitting mid-stage
• Non-enemy entities (such as mines, dropped knives, grenades, etc) no longer qualify as kills for the end-of-mission stats
• Added option to make Alerted enemies count as Vigilant (defaults to off)
• Added option for FSR 2.2 upscaling
• Most abilities that inflict DMG will cause their targets to visually bleed if the DMG isn't blocked (the blood can be disabled)
• Entity rings for dead or unkillable entities are darker and rendered below other entity rings (the color can be changed in the options)
• Reduced the thickness of the navigation preview line significantly
• Auto-crouching now defaults to off, as it's very unintuitive for players who aren't aware of it
• Default music volume is slightly increased
• Moved several options from "General" to "UI"; these options will be reset to default if you have changed them in a previous version
• Adjusted several of the labels in the options menu to improve clarity and consistency
• Small and dead entities will now have a significantly smaller hitbox for mouse hover/selection
• Your footstep sounds no longer instantly alert enemies, and instead will only distract them
• Replaced sound for mission completion
• Cleaned up a click from the Paladin Eject sound
• Adjusted pump-action sounds so they all have roughly the same cadence
• Dying will apply a filter to the music
• Added option to disable audio effects on music (other than dying, Nightclub is the only map that applies effects to music)
• Completely reworked the way maps are imported; the new system has more accurate collisions with better performance and a smaller file size (it's also much easier for me to work with)
• Took some steps to reduce the size of the save file (by about 15-20%); some of these changes have made save data from previous versions incompatible
• Particles are now included in the shader-building step of loading screens as intended; this should prevent the significant hitches from the first time a given particle effect is shown on the screen
• Upgraded to Godot v4.2.1
• Plenty of behind-the-scenes refactoring