Massive "game changer" update - 0.600

Hey everyone!👋

We have been silent for quite a long time. That wasn't intended. We have never stopped developing the game, but didn't have the time and capacity to update the demo as we originally planned. Nonetheless we think, this update is a game changer.

We added a few new features and a ton of new art, fixed hundreds of bugs, dozens of crash bugs, optimized the game and added necessary Gfx options to make it work on older PCs.  Let's look into all the new stuff we have to offer to you!

• Added a third tutorial map which explains a lot more features like moving build slots, research, base advantages etc.

• Added new movement system for formations, where a "path history" is saved, which leads to smooth looking movement.
• Added new navigations meshes on all map-tiles for all biomes, which leads to a much better and faster pathfinding.

• Added a powerful tornado spell for the Wizard and the corresponding research.
• Added storm resistance buff spell for the Wizard and corresponding research.

• Added a new result screen to the game with + special win/loose sounds and a text rating on how you did, from your advisor.
• Added reputation, score, experience to campaign menu (useable as soon as part of meta game is in place).

• Added an statistics screen to the result screen which has lots of interesting numbers to look at.

• Added a variety of graphics settings to the settings UI, which enables player with older PCs to have a smoother player experience.
  Added flee button to the send unit UI.

• Added new ice biome, including a big set of props and decals (1 map in the map pool of the demo campaign).
• Added a screen snow shader to improve ice biome maps and give grass maps a wider variety of looks.

• Added new desert biome, including a big set of props and decals (currently no map pool of the demo campaign).

• Added impact decals to fireball, ice-sphere, arcane missile, poison missile, arcane cannon, lightning strike and catapult projectiles.

• Replaced  2 maps and revamped and improved the remaining 3 maps.  
• Added specific map prefabs for campaign maps which improve the look of maps significantly as they can include special light setups etc.
• Added a POI called "The Tree of Life", which has a impressive size and plays an important role in one of the demo maps.
• Added ramps to reach the high-grounds in desert and ice biome, which opens up new base strategies.
• Added building upgrade research for Tower Cannons, Lightning Strike and Tower Claws.
• Added Mini-map interaction: formation can now be send via Right click on mini-map.
• Added Mini-map interaction: select a base via mini-map Shift Left Click.
• Added Load/Save functionality for the currently played map.
• Added Load/Save options to pause menu and "continue map" options in campaign menu.
• Created new water plane for smoother waves and an improved specular lighting.
• Added a new female Wizard (Emawen, sister of Necelion) to the game.
• Added a bunch of grass biome decals.

• Resources nodes now crumble into pieces when they are empty.
• Each biome has now a set of post processing volumes, light setups, fog profiles etc, this enables a lot of different moods for levels.
• Ranged units now have an easier time pathing towards and shooting their targets (there is still lots of room for improvements though).
• Frozen/burned units in formation which flee or are recalled die immediately.
• Portal now easier to research and not working as intended.
• Improved camera rectangle of mini-map ; now clipping instead of clamping it which looks way better.
• Tower Wizard Range is only shown when casting.
• All research options have been rebalanced in (resource costs).
• Most of the building have been rebalanced in (resource costs).
• Most of the units have been rebalanced  (resource costs, attack and defense values).
• Exception handling writes now a bak file when there is an old hom_exceptions.txt.
• Tooltips updating automatically every second now, when shown.
• Buildings now start burning on low health.
• Wizard UI icon now showing the wizard which your are currently playing.
• Time display in tooltips is now always in minutes (e.g 1:59).
•  Improved the lighting of the main menu scene, improved the camera path and added decals.
•  Improved the look of the UI in main-menu, Settings, Pause mad Campaign screens.

Performance

• Optimized how units scan their surroundings to find attack targets. This should have an significant speed increase on the CPU side.
• Optimized how props are loaded and spawned, this brings down loading times to 4-5 seconds on big maps. (Expect load times <1sec on new SSDs).
• Removed grass props from all campaign maps and replaced them with decals, this also speeds up rendering and loading times.
• Switched off light probe and gloss/normal use for decals to improve performance -> instancing would not work when light probes are on, normals are not used anyway currently.
• Due to the new Gfx settings, players can now reduce GPU loads via a multitude of different Gfx quality adjustments.

AI features and improvements

• The overall AI behaviour has gotten a lot smarter.
• AI defending and conquering bases now respects the AI personality parameters.
• AI can now have multiple preconfigured research and build list in their AI personality.
• AI now has some limits on when it makes sense to harass enemy bases.
• AI builds less workers overall.
• AI is only hiding workers in tents, when there is an overwhelming force attacking the node.
• AI got a better in defending their bases, due to having more stationary units and an improved AI Wizard.
• Fixed: AI wizards were stuck in a wrong state sometimes and would do nothing, even though their bases got attacked.
• Fixed: technologies would be sometimes researched event though they were locked in the editor.
• Fixed: under certain circumstances AI would not build Wizard Towers any more.
• Fixed: AI was not building supplies when the defense value of the base was too low.
• Fixed: not queueing the correct buildings sometimes, e.g. building multiple laboratories but no other research buildings.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the movement and the avoidance of the catapult unit, as they now have their own navigation mesh.
• Updating borders on resolution changes which fixes the mouse edge scrolling bug.
• Fixed issue where upgrades could sometimes not be cancelled while building, this.
• Fixed issue where tower wall can now be built and also attacked.
• Fixed issue where resetting time when cancelling units in build queue.
• Fixed a bug in attack position where sometimes buildings would not have the correct centre which lead to the building not being build by workers.
• Fixed a bug when loading a game and a worker was already at the building the active worker count was calculated wrong.
• Fixed issues where resource nodes would sometimes not be visible even though they should (Fog of War).
• Fixed issue where workers had sometimes avoidance enabled after spawning out of their tents.
• Fixed issue with ranged units getting stuck sometimes and not shooting their targets.
• Fixed issue where inactive tents would not switch off their colliders, which lead to light of sight checks fail and would skew archer to archer battles sometimes.
• Fixed issue with formations being too slow when leaving a base (in the case of very big formations)
• Fixed issue where catapults would not cause the correct amount of damage against buildings.
• Fixed issue not getting the correct height of the base position -> which could led to units finding no path to the base.
• Fixed issue where buildings would not get build by workers sometimes.
• Fixed issue where some projectiles would not hit flying units.
• Fixed repair assign slider for buildings, which would not work correctly most of the time.
• Fixed how workers get assigned to resources.
• Fixed hundreds of  smaller bugs and crashes which would be too long to list here.

• Snow, fog, post processing, sky box, light setup and biome is now changeable via map editor and is saved into map data.

• New decal placer which enables the creator to make much better looking maps.

• AI personality now selectable in editor per AI player.
• Creators can now damage building or units in the editor.
• The player wizards for the map can now be chosen in the map details.
• Fixed a lot of smaller bugs  and some crashes in the map editor.

Thanks again for all the feedback and patience. We are looking forward hearing from you. Join our discord to talk to us directly any time.