Update 17: Escalate and Liberate
PATCH HIGHLIGHTS:
BRAVE NEW WORLD: A whole new system for liberating provinces!
ON THE MEND: A brand new resource for repairing mechs and barriers!
AND MORE!
Phantom Brigade is in Early Access, which means we are actively updating and adding new content based on our roadmap and your wonderful feedback. You can expect the next Tactical Tuesday update on May 17th, 2022 at 11:00AM PST. See the full patch notes below!
Changes in 0.18.0-b3698
🦾 indicates changes due to community feedback
A big thanks again to our experimental players – your feedback was essential in balancing this update and we are very grateful for your support!
World Reset: Due to the changes to the overworld, saves from 0.17.0 will be upgraded to the new overworld.
- Inventory, supplies, base upgrades, pilots, and units will be maintained
- The mobile base will be moved back to the tutorial province
- Any fully-captured provinces will remain captured. Partially captured provinces will be reverted to the enemy and every entity will be hostile again, hope removed entirely (it will be back later!)
- Any ongoing overworld actions (except for workshop builds) will be canceled
- It’s possible that other issues may occur if loading a save from a version older than 0.17.0
Alternatively, we recommend starting a new campaign at this point, as the progression and new features have changed gameplay significantly!
Overworld Overhaul Part 2!
We’re expanding even more on overworld gameplay! These are LONG patch notes so buckle in!
- Province Escalation (Enemy Activity)
- While the base is in a province, the Escalation level will rise (and fall when the base leaves a province)
- Liberating sites in a province will also increase escalation
- Escalation level determines how much attention the Enemy faction is paying attention to you. This affects:
- The rate at which Patrols spawn
- The types of Patrols and Convoys that spawn
- The enemy’s Threat Rating: enemies will pose a greater threat the higher the escalation level of the province
- The Brigade’s Threat Rating is based on the average level of your strongest units
- The larger the difference in Threat Rating, the more difficult combat will be. This can be easily seen in Combat Briefing:
- The first province and the Capital province do not have escalation and are won by liberating all overworld sites in those provinces
- Expect some pretty strong enemies at Escalation level 3!
- Escalation Levels are represented in UI as well as the province borders. At full escalation (threat levels of enemies are visible as well)
- Losing all mechs in combat will reset escalation in that province to level 0 under peaceful conditions or level 1 if the province is being contested
- Losing one mech on a defeat or retreat to defeat will drop the escalation level by 1
- Enemy Recapture
- In hostile provinces that are not currently being Contested by the Phantom Brigade, liberated sites will now be recaptured by the enemy
- After liberation, eventually a timer will start and begin counting down
- You can’t prevent recapture of liberated sites – the smartest move is to Contest the province and push the enemy out entirely!
- Contesting Provinces
- Provinces are no longer liberated by Hope (don’t worry, Hope will be back next update completely revamped!)
- Instead, if a province reaches Escalation Level 1, you can choose to Contest the Province to unite with the Home Guard and push the enemy back!
- When a province is being contested, Home Guard and Enemy Strength scores will be exposed
- Every time a site is liberated, the enemy Strength will decrease by an amount depending on the type of site liberated
- If the enemy’s strength falls to 0, the province is liberated and back under the control of the Home Guard!
- If your own strength falls to 0, the enemy regains control of the province and takes back all liberated sites. You must wait until the Home Guard strength is recovered to full before you can contest a province again.
- A province can only be contested if it is adjacent to a liberated province (the first province can’t be contested, but can be liberated by winning all sites)
- You can only contest a single province at a time
- Objectives and Battlesites
- Battlesites are special sites where the Home Guard will lose the battle unless the Phantom Brigade steps in to help out
- The Phantom Brigade has command access to 3 Home Guard tanks for the duration of the Battlesite combat
- These are timed sites, and if the site isn’t won in time, the Home Guard strength will decrease
- Even if you win, this will not damage the Enemy Strength, but it’s vital to resolve them in order to keep the Home Guard strength high
- Objectives are special targets that if taken out, will damage the Enemy’s Strength by a significant amount, more than regular sites. However, they are also much harder to win, so be careful!
- In the screenshot below, there is a battlesite on the left and an objective on the right. They are also displayed in the Strength Score UI as icons that can be clicked on to center the site in the overworld view
- Battlesites are special sites where the Home Guard will lose the battle unless the Phantom Brigade steps in to help out
- Resupplying, Repair Gel and Pilot Recruitment
- Mech repairs are no longer unlimited and require repair gel
- When you exit combat, your unit repairs will automatically subtract some repair gel from your pool (shown on the lower left hand side of the overworld HUD) and then repair as time passes on the overworld
- If you run out of repair gel, you will no longer be able to repair your units
- If you’d like to conserve repair gel, you can pause repairs of specific units by clicking in the bottom left roster UI
- Repair Gel in Battle:
- Your barrier units will take a tank of repair gel into battle with them
- Barrier recharges will drain your tank
- When the tank is empty, the barrier no longer recharges in combat
- Your units have enough gel to recharge their barriers only a few times. This applies to enemy units as well, so when facing barrier units try to exhaust their resources!
- You’ll also notice that there are now Resupply Points in the overworld (the Mountain Base, as well as any Base site in a liberated province)
- If you drive over these sites, you will have the option to recruit new pilots or Rest and Resupply, which has the following effects:
- Repair all units
- Refill repair gel
- Refill battery
- Reset fatigue
- Add pilots to your squad if you have under 2
- Add units to your squad if you have under 2
- Emergency Retreat
- Instead of always retreating back to Felheim, retreat will now take you to the closest liberated province base
- The amount of time you spend retreating is dependent on how far you were from the base when you initiated retreat
- Retreat button is available whenever the base is in hostile territory and there is a resupply point somewhere on the map
- Note that retreating no longer automatically gives you additional units or pilots – you must choose to Rest and Resupply from the UI in order to regain your resources
New Post-Combat UI
- The Salvage screen now has new UI. This explains
- Changes to Escalation due to the combat outcome
- Changes to Strength on both the PB and Enemy sides due to the combat outcome
Other Changes
- 🦾 Each overworld site now has a unique illustration when selected to help differentiate between all the different types of sites
- All overworld sites now have adorable new models to help distinguish them (they look like the actual maps!)
- 🦾 Mechs now have idle animations in the Briefing Menu
- Added new pre-combat, defeat and liberation events
- New types of mobile enemies:
- Repair Convoy: attacking and winning this Convoy will net you some Repair Resources without having to return to safety!
- Hunter Squad: only spawns at the highest escalation level, these patrol squads have increased detection range and are incredibly strong, but will net you some hefty rewards should you take them on
- 🦾 Added an extra UI element to selected patrols or convoys that indicate when their position data is expired and they are no longer at the last viewed location
- 🦾 Reordered the socket list in Unit editing so that arms come before parts
- Readjusted where and how events can occur, depending on the state of the province
- 🦾 All movement modes are now unlocked from the start of the campaign
- Max number of pilots is now 8
- Increased the chance of higher rarity loot drops by 10% across the board
- Workshop now produces equipment +2 levels above the last captured province, which will hopefully make workshopping gear useful again instead of being a downgrade or similar level to current equipment
- Added a tutorial event explaining escalation and contesting provinces (occurs the first time you leave Hedmark, the starting tutorial province)
- Added a nice colour glow behind events
And for those playing on Experimental…
- Analytics Opt-Out
- We’ve made changes to how we collect data from the game. We use analytics to make decisions on how to best balance and further develop the game. We do not collect any personal information in our analytics, only what happens within the game, i.e. popular graphic settings, narrative events encountered, battle data etc
- To Opt-Out enter the “game” menu under settings and disable analytics
- Added audio to new Overworld UI (such as Contest Province, changing Escalation Levels, Pilot/Unit Roster, and Repair & Resupply)
- Contesting Provinces
- Changing Escalation Levels
- Repair & Resupply
- New Battlesites & Objectives appearing on the map
- Added musical stingers to Province Capture outcomes
- Updated the Roadmap
Fixed in 0.18.0-b3698
- Pause menu now actually pauses the game if opened during the tutorial
- Retreat zones no longer overlap with the edges of certain maps
- Fixed actions being allowed to overlap on the timeline
- Holograms now accurately predict the direction units will face at the end of their movement
- Fixed autosaves not occurring after combat with a patrol squad
- Fixed unit pose not being refreshed if exiting unit editing with esc
- Fixed a bunch of typos in various event
- Units are now pre-selected in briefing after starting a new game with tutorial
- Fixed Salvage Menu model preview not clearing when leaving Salvage Menu
- Fixed thruster effects and weapon trail persisting when a melee equipped arm is destroyed mid-attack
- Fixed an issue where comparing beam weapons “equipped” doesn’t change to “compared”
- Fixed a visual issue when an arm is removed from a unit while it’s holding a weapon
- Cluster missile launchers no longer spray missiles sideways
- Tab buttons above timeline refresh in more cases and don’t go stale/broken/unsorted when units die or arrive
- A unit firing a beam weapon no longer has its weapon VFX visible indefinitely if concussed while firing
- Disengage from the first tutorial patrol is now possible
- Fixed an exception
- Fixed time scrubbing SFX on the combat timeline
- Adjusted the volume of combat outcome stingers
And for those playing on Experimental…
- Muted tank rotation sounds which continue to play over multiple turns
- Fixed an issue where multiple objectives spawn with a single objective marker while contesting a province