Update 21: Trial By Fire
PATCH HIGHLIGHTS:
LEARN YOUR LESSON: Revamped tutorial, tooltips, and UI for the FTUE!
SOUND THE ALARM: New structures to destroy in combat scenarios!
SUPER EFFECTIVE: New passive effects from liberated entities when traversing the overworld!
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. As a reminder, we’ve shifted to a more irregular update cadence in the lead-up to our 1.0 launch, but we’ll be sure to keep you informed on the content and release date of the next Tactical Tuesday update. See the full patch notes below!
New Features
🦾 indicates changes due to community feedback!
- All new tutorial!
- Modified the existing tutorial battle to better fit in with the story and new tutorial flow
- The entire first province now functions as a tutorial, explaining the game’s various mechanics.
- World Reset: Due to the changes to the overworld, saves from before this update will be upgraded to account for the new tutorial.
- 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.
- Any ongoing overworld actions (except for workshop builds) will be canceled
- First Time Boot Sequence
- The first time you ever boot up the game, important options can be set immediately with no distractions, and then you get into the game as quickly as possible.
- Loads if the game detects your save folder is empty upon booting the game up.
- The first time you ever boot up the game, important options can be set immediately with no distractions, and then you get into the game as quickly as possible.
- New Game Options
- For returning players, there are now two new game options
- New Campaign – This option will let you play through the tutorial, starting at the prequel battle
- Quick Start – This option skips the tutorial, and starts you with the first province liberated, ready to jump right into the game.
- This option starts you with some extra supplies and two level 2 mechs to account for skipping the tutorial.
- For returning players, there are now two new game options
- Alarm Towers
- Buildings in scenarios that will call in enemy reinforcements if not destroyed within a certain number of turns
- Pilot Upkeep
- Each pilot you have in your crawler will use up one unit of supplies every day.
- Events
- Camaraderie Event – Bonding between your pilots is a great way to raise morale and help them unwind before the next battle.
- New option in the Bomb Event
- Disarm the bomb with 100% consistency for a cost of supplies.
- Passive Entity Effects
- Moving near certain liberated entities will give passive effects to the mobile base as long as it is within range
- Increased Unit Repair Speed near Repair Bays
- Decreased Unit Repair Cost near Factories
- Increased Workshop Speed near Mines and Lumbermills
- Passive Repair Juice Recovery near Logistics Centers
- Increased Energy Recovery Speed near Power Plants
- Moving near certain liberated entities will give passive effects to the mobile base as long as it is within range
- Stealth and Overdrive modes are now unlockables in the upgrades menu. Starting from quick start will already have these unlocked.
- New autofill button during briefing – fills your squad with the most optimal units/pilots.
- New Pilot Customization options
- Minor graphics and map optimizations
Changes
- Entity recapturing changes
- The recapturing of liberated entities in provinces not at war has been changed
- Enemy patrols will be dispatched to liberated locations if you haven’t contested the province
- Locations will be recaptured when the patrol reaches the location
- Reduced brightness of non-selected units
- Added Hope and Home Guard Reputation to the resource bar
- Moved the province war UI down to avoid overlap with the resource bar
- Changed the latest you can start an action to 4.5 seconds into the turn
- Improved visibility for comms messages in combat
- Comms can now be skipped as well (using spacebar)
- Improved readability for cutscene subtitles
- Attack and Defend combat objectives are now visually distinct from each other
- Most cutscenes have been changed to video files
- Allied units in battle now display as green to differentiate them from player units
- Lists can no longer be scrolled when they are not long enough to need scrolling
Fixes
- Fixed the total combat time seconds overlapping the decimals when the seconds hit 3 digits
- Fixed enemy units continuing to overheat after they are destroyed by heat damage
- Fixed long entity names overlapping with the lines on the combat establishing shot UI
- 🦾 Fixed enemy reinforcements not getting a tab above the timeline if all other enemy units are destroyed before they arrive
- Fixed hovering UI not showing up on enemy holograms while in targeting mode
- Fixed unit heat being visible on the timeline during replay
- Fixed enemy patrols not chasing the crawler if they recover from being stunned while the crawler is in its vision range
- Fixed unit projection paths becoming visible during replay if you toggle the UI off and on again
- 🦾 Fixed units clipping into tall buildings if they dash on top of them
- 🦾 Fixed melee weapons not displaying damage output stats when equipped
- 🦾 Fixed unit integrity discrepancies between units screen and the unit editing screen
- Fixed the dash path off of tall buildings looking unrealistic
- Fixed damage values disappearing as soon as units are destroyed
- 🦾 Fixed weapons not being synced to the hands during the tutorial (prequel) battle
- Fixed beam attacks not visually appearing if done as late in the turn as possible and replay is entered before the next turn
- Fixed the black market event flow breaking if the player is defeated in a raid
- Fixed pilots’ eyes having a bright white outline
- Fixed the camera being unable to focus on a unit through the UI button if another unit was selected via double-click
- 🦾 Fixed the Attack Base action being unable to clear if you liberate a province without clearing it
- 🦾 Fixed the options for the Dog Owner event options running off the screen
- Fixed the overworld clock running in a bizarre pattern
- Typo fixes/minor text changes
And for modders:
- Fixed the default armor colors showing up when custom livery R values are below 0.13
Fixes since the Experimental:
- Overworld Flyover cutscene is now completed
- Fixed cutscenes playing at full volume regardless of audio settings
- Fixed UI Scaling option not working during the first time boot flow
- 🦾 Fixed first time boot flow occurring every time if saves are only in the ‘Saves (Experimental)’ folder
- Removed language options in the first time boot flow for now
- Fixed workshop event always triggering immediately upon loading an older save
- Fixed the workshop event triggering when you have 200 resources instead of 300
- Fixed an exception occurring by loading a save made on the tutorial battlesite event
- Fixed being able to place actions past the 4.5 second mark by overlapping them with another action