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Messages - CraigStern

#1
  • created a New Game+ mode that cranks the probability of custom characters showing up to 100%, allows up to 12 to show up at once, and allows recruitment of all species from Day 1.
  • wrote new background dialogue for former chefs, farmers, and lawyers, plus a unique background dialogue for former farmers.
  • fixed: getting counterattacked by an object (such as a spiked barricade or ice spikes) would cause it to become rotated in the game's logic, permitting it to be "backstabbed" from the opposite side.
#2
  • increased the Strength of Krodh a bit.
  • increased the Crush Resistance of Royal Mail to 60.
  • custom portrait assets can now appear in randomly generated character portraits, not just portraits for custom characters.
  • custom portrait assets can now be flagged on an individual basis so that they are used only for custom characters, and will not be chosen by the game when randomly creating portraits for proc gen characters.
  • if a second custom character shows up in recruitment, there is now a 10% of a third one appearing; and if that one shows up, a 5% chance of a fourth. (This change is not retroactive to existing playthroughs.)
  • fixed: under some circumstances, the game was not considering pure knockback skills (i.e. most of a kineticist's arsenal) as offensive skills, potentially leading to enemy kineticists being placed too close to the player's deployment spaces in proc gen fights.
  • fixed: if a unique custom character in the enemy army died, the game could throw a fatal error attempting to access the personality traits of generic allies when determining if they took a morale hit.
  • fixed: if a character's first name was just the letter 'A' and their last name began with a vowel, the game's text processing routine would display their first name as 'An' instead when they spoke in dialogue.
  • new script action: ClearCalendar. Wipes all events off the in-game calendar.
  • new script action: ClearCustomVariables. Wipes all custom variables; the names of any variables supplied as parameters will be exceptions.
  • new script action: ClearLoadedChars. Wipes the game's memory of all characters previously saved.
  • new script action: ClearReserveSupplies. Wipes all reserve supplies of any items.
  • you can now supply -1 as the roster number for ClearRoster to clear every roster.
  • changed how Custom Char % parameter of ShowRecruits works. It now sets the % chance of getting a custom character to show up. For more than one custom character, add additional Custom Char % parameters to the end, one for each possible character.
  • the game now permits using a custom string for a scene's next scene property.
#3
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 20, 2025, 10:53:48 AM
  • head layer graphics can now be customized for all species portraits.
  • if the player voluntarily reduces their deck to less than the tournament minimum of 12 cards prior to entering a card tournament, the game will now allow them a chance to edit their deck to correct the issue instead of summarily ejecting them (provided that they have enough inactive cards on hand to render their deck tournament legal).
  • if the player voluntarily reduces their deck to less than the tournament minimum of 12 cards during the "last chance to edit your deck" phase of a card tournament, the game will now catch that.
  • gave the arena manager a more tailored response if the player picks "How exciting!" prior to the penultimate match in Gharial or Snow Leopard Leagues.
  • fixed: lights could flicker excessively if too many Fire objects were near the edge of the arena shining on the battle background. (Unfortunately, due to Unity engine limitations, the fix for this entailed removing flickering lights from Fire objects entirely.)
  • fixed: there was a typo in one of the Miscellaneous Like dialogue variants for pessimistic characters.
  • fixed: there was a typo in one of the Make Weapon camp activity narrations.
  • fixed: the game was not displaying customized golem or spirit lines at the start of the summer palace escape map.
  • fixed: the game was not serializing the individual pages of a readable book item correctly under specific circumstances.
#4
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 19, 2025, 12:57:29 PM
Changes for hotfix v. 1.0.25e:

  • fixed: older proc gen character portraits weren't loading correctly if the save file loaded began with a cut scene where those portraits would be visible (i.e. not the calendar screen).


Changes for the next full update:

  • head layer graphics can now be customized for human portraits.
  • AI improvement: enemies now won't use self-buffing skills that either a) end their turn or b) apply Move Bonus unless one or more enemies are within a single turn's move-and-attack range of them.
#5
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 18, 2025, 10:14:21 AM
Changes for hotfix v. 1.0.25d:

  • you can now supply the number of a specific roster for the Character Name parameter in InvToList to get the items in a specific roster's reserve supplies as a list.
  • fixed: at a few spots in the code, the game was decapitalizing only the first letter of a string instead of the entire string, causing certain inventory-related script actions to affect the reserve supplies if they were accessed as "reserve supplies" or "Reserve supplies", but not "Reserve Supplies".
#6
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 17, 2025, 09:48:42 AM
Changes for hotfix v. 1.0.25d:

  • the mask and hat accessory layers now support a new portrait data attribute called forceMaskType. If a custom asset for one of these accessory types has forceMaskType="Body", the game will use hair, skin, and eye-color hue values for any associated mask (instead of army color hue values).
  • fixed: selecting the last eye for lissit and golems in the custom character creator would throw a range error.
  • fixed: custom lissit portraits were not loading external, custom assets properly.
  • item descriptions (and most tooltips in general) now support special characters.

Changes for the next full update:

  • drew a new "star eyes" eye variant for lissit portraits.
  • wrote a new defeat response line for Disciplined characters.
#7
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 16, 2025, 12:27:40 PM
Hotfixes v. 1.0.25c:

  • AI improvement: when the AI handicap level is set to less than 3, if there are a large number of enemies on the battlefield, the AI will now order the turns of all units making long-term moves by ascending distance to the enemy, lessening the likelihood of "traffic jams."
  • reinforcements in the blacksmith rescue mission will now pause while there are 19 or more enemies already on the map.
  • fixed: when generating a battlefield, the game could position enemies such that AOE from one of their skills could partially overlap a character's deployment spot.
  • fixed: when calculating a character's move bonus for purposes of setting up battlefields, the game was only accounting for the default 40% move bonus effect and not greater move bonus effects produced by skills like Engine Boost.
  • fixed: in rare cases, the AI could execute buffing skills targeting the space that an allied unit had just vacated.
  • fixed: the Hair 2 selector was no longer cycling through shadowling horns in the custom character creator.
  • fixed: a mask could sometimes inappropriately load for certain assets on certain portrait layers (e.g. shadowling horns).

Changes for the next full update:

  • Psy Clash cards can now be created and edited as part of a custom campaign.
  • heads now support img, folder, and override attributes in PortraitData, allowing people to override the game's default portrait head images.
#8
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 13, 2025, 06:00:33 PM
Hotfixes v. 1.0.25b:

  • fixed: tooltips for units with a bespoke class description (like Dhatuu Dil) were getting their data offset incorrectly due to a delimiting error.
  • fixed: the background layer of character hair for older proc gen human and spirit portraits was not loading.
  • fixed: the game was assigning older proc gen spriggat portraits an incorrect "useBody" parameter, leading to these portraits simply not showing up.
  • fixed: newly recruited characters could be assigned a prior relationship with a golem or spirit.
  • fixed: changes to the game's sprite palette-swapping logic to support player-created palettes had broken palette-swapping for minions in Psy Clash.
  • fixed: the male swordsman's Double Strike animation's compression settings had somehow changed, causing the game to display the animation with a blur and no palette swapping.
#9
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 12, 2025, 10:05:45 AM
- the game will now dynamically load custom portrait asset data from every single XML file containing the term "PortraitData" that it can find in Documents > My Games > Together in Battle > Mods > _Common > Portraits, allowing players to more easily amass custom portrait assets from multiple sources.

- added an alternative way to uncover the Wailling quest line, making it less difficult to unlock.

- updated some of the dialogue in the initial thief attack battle to make it clear that the reinforcements in the south will move and attack as soon as they spawn.

- added character screen class descriptions for bespoke classes specific to enemies and NPCs.

- updated the Bowmaster extended class description.

- when creating a bespoke class in a character not present in Classes.xml, you can now add a short tooltip description to it by adding a vertical bar and then writing out the description in the unit's charClass attribute in PremadeUnits.xml.

- fixed: a character's class name could get cut off in the character screen mouseover tooltip if it was too long.

- fixed: impact damage against the edge of the map was still using the old formula, resulting in inappropriately high damage amounts compared to collisions with other characters or terrain.

- fixed: it was possible to learn about the summer palace without having the relevant variable set to let the player actually recall it during the scene evidence-recounting scene.
#10
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 11, 2025, 08:29:23 AM
- when characters die, all of the items in their inventory (except for personal items) are now automatically transferred to the reserve supplies.

- added custom asset support for proc gen golem portraits.

- added custom clothing asset support for proc gen portraits.

- upon starting up, the game now checks for a Portraits subfolder within the Mods folder--if none is found, the game creates one and copies a new file called PortraitDataExplainer.xml to the folder with a detailed explanation of how to create and format custom portrait assets.

- added a new optional parameter to the StripItemsFromUnit action: include personal items. (If not set to true, personal items will remain with the unit even as all other items are stripped.)

- fixed: changing a golem from one type to another (stone to bronze, or vice versa) in the custom character creator would mess up the portrait's stored body data for that character.

- fixed: golem portraits in the custom character creator could cover up some of the buttons used to change portrait elements.

- fixed: the page selector buttons for the clothing selection subwindow in the custom character creator weren't working.
#11
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 10, 2025, 08:29:40 AM
- added portrait hats, glasses, and masks to the accessories window in the custom character creator in the campaign creation suite.

- added custom hair asset support for proc gen human portraits.

- added custom asset support for proc gen lissit portraits.

- added custom asset support for proc gen spriggat portraits.

- added custom asset support for proc gen shadowling portraits.

- fixed: if the altar puzzle wasn't solved but a character had the Strangely Cut Gem in their inventory, the Strangely Cut Gem would get permanently stuck in that character's inventory. (Under these circumstances, the game now pulls it into the reserve supplies so it can be sold.)

- fixed: shadowlings--who do not have legs--could get a cavosphere camp activity narration that described them as dashing and kicking.

- new script action: StoreItem. Will find the named item for a specific character (or among all characters in a specified army or roster) and store it in a specified roster's reserve supplies.
#12
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 06, 2025, 10:06:27 AM
- the game can now dynamically load custom portrait assets located in Documents > My Games > Together in Battle > Mods > _Common > Portraits!

- fixed: using Levitate Other on a character submerged in water or lava would change their move type to Flying but would not actually lift them out of the liquid, making them impossible to move.

- fixed some inconsistent spelling of Dayaan's name during the earliest stages of the investigation plotline.

- fixed: the enemy in the recruitment duel event was being leveled twice--once during the event dialogue, and then again at the start of the subsequent battle--leading to the inspection option showing incorrect information prior to accepting the duel.
#13
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 05, 2025, 11:13:08 AM
- spent more time laying the groundwork for fully supporting custom assets for proc gen character portraits.

- more enemies now appear in the first random bandit battle if it occurs at or after midway through Duomensis.

- wrote new, distinct defeat reaction lines for arrogant, blunt, friendly, loyal, narcissistic, religious, and vindictive characters.

- clarified the tooltip descriptions for Kinetic Gust, Kinetic Pull, and Grapple Pull.

- fixed: non-hot-tempered characters could be generated with the hot-tempered defeat reaction line.
#14
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 04, 2025, 08:34:43 AM
Back to changes for the next major update:

- added two new mask accessories for human portraits: pleague doctor and venetian masque.

- added two new glasses accessories: glasses and bifocals alt.

- gasul are now sturdier to make them better serve their hybrid role as front-liner. The gasul class's base health has been increased by 5; they now get an extra Strength or Health stat proficiency in their early skill progression; and protector and prophet bonus health has been increased by 5 and 6, respectively.

- fixed: the Pyro Hail sound effect was too loud by about 6 decibels.
#15
Together in Battle / Re: Together in Battle Dev Log
June 03, 2025, 09:44:52 AM
For the next major update:

- custom characters can now be exported and imported as text, allowing easy sharing between players!

Changes for hotfix version 1.0.10c:

- added +3 to starting Health for assassins to make them a bit more survivable in the early game, reduced assassin salaries to make them a bit more competitive with other classes on a cost basis.

- fixed: after the blacksmith rescue mission, the game was skipping straight to the calendar screen, ensuring both that payday could not occur and that characters scheduled to return to camp that evening would not return.

- fixed: under certain circumstances, the game could still get locked up if a MoveUnit script action was unable to complete successfully.

- fixed: certain script actions were still missing checks to ensure that they possessed the minimum number of required parameters.

- fixed: a handful of events were still missing animations where a character visibly walks up to the player from offscreen.