Dev Log

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.09:

-- fixed: items intended to remove status effects were not working correctly.

-- added a new negating status effect to the game: Neutralized (removes Poisoned).

-- added negating status effects (like Thawed and Extinguished) to the Guide.

-- fixed: the custom menu subeditor within the cut scene editor had ceased to function correctly.

[CraigStern]

-- uploaded "The Vengeance of Emma Strider," the game's primary campaign, to Steam Workshop for players to download and modify (or just study).

-- got browsing and downloading of custom campaigns from Steam Workshop working in-game!

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: status effects tacked onto a skill via the ModSkillSFX tag could end up "stuck" on the skill, resulting in every other unit who uses the skill also having a chance to impart that status effect. (E.g. if you used the Crossbow skill with someone carrying a Poisoned Crossbow, every other crossbowman would suddenly, inexplicably be able to poison with their own Crossbow attacks.)

[CraigStern]

-- changed Poisoned status so that it stacks only in terms of duration, not per-turn damage.

-- fixed: the High Roller achievement was being awarded for winning much lower bets than intended.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: getting a character crushed by the drawbridge in the bandit fortress outer wall battle would result in the drawbridge not spawning due to the script being interrupted by a death monologue.

-- fixed: the drawbridge-spawning script was still using script actions from the original game that have since been deprecated, and thus would not despawn other objects that had been created or moved into the drawbridge's path.

-- split DamageCharAt off into its own script action distinct from DamageUnitAt, for situations where you want to only damage characters and not destructible objects on the battlefield.

-- the info bar no longer shows Together in Battle-specific information (food, food consumption, and salaries).

-- fixed vertical alignment on the female promoted swordsman Double Strike animation.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.10:

-- altered Louise's dialogue in camp to reflect Madeleine's death if she falls.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: when a character leveled up during an enemy turn, the game would only pause the AI upon popping up the level-up screen. This meant that the AI would sometimes manage to initiate an attack during the window where the experience-bar-filling animation was still playing, before the level-up screen appeared, leading to a freeze.

-- fixed: one could select a new character even with the character screen or level-up screen open using the space bar.

-- fixed: one could click or hit Escape before the level-up screen finished spawning during a level-up sequence to interrupt the level-up process.

-- added in several additional failure states when downloading custom campaigns to avoid the game breaking when Steam doesn't cooperate with querying or downloading workshop items. (Among other things, the game now warns you if you're not connected to Steam instead of failing silently.)

-- fixed: the page picker remained visible while downloading a custom campaign.

-- increased the maximum time the game will spend trying to download a campaign from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.

-- fixed: loading a cut scene, exiting, and then quick-loading another within the campaign editor would result in the cut scene editor loading the first cut scene in the preview pane instead of the second.

-- fixed: the internal Load Scene function within the cut scene editor had become broken.

-- you can now add a background of None (pure blackness) to a cut scene.

-- a CustomAssetInfo.xml file with instructions for creating the campaign thumbnail is now placed in the campaign's main folder when the game creates a new campaign.

-- fixed: certain weapons were being created with a "max uses" value of 0, causing their sale value to remain unaffected even as their uses left were worn down toward zero.

-- altered strength values for proc gen knives to better match the default values in The Vengeance of Emma Strider.

-- unit move speed setting 3 now behaves like the highest move speed setting from the original Telepath Tactics: characters jump from space to space on each frame of movement instead of overshooting the mark and juddering back to each space in their path.

-- fixed: unit move speed settings were affecting the speed at which movement and knockback effects from unit skills played, messing up the animation timings.

-- fixed: the game was clearing away move tiles after moving a character on unit move speed setting 4, resulting in the player needing to click the character again to move further.

-- fixed: click-to-move-and-use in exploration mode was broken when on unit move speed setting 4. The game checked for an auto-use target shortly after commencing movement, then proceeded to auto-use if there was such a target after finishing moving. However, because unit speed setting 4 is instantaneous, this would cause the game to finish movement before the game could actually set the auto-use target, resulting in auto-use never occurring.

-- the game now auto-fixes erroneous battle start save data.

-- fixed: opening up the game settings and changing only the display resolution would result in the game failing to recognize that changes had been made to the settings and that the new settings should be saved.

-- made the refresh rate visible in resolution display options.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.11:

-- fixed: the game was inappropriately applying ModSkill-type tags intended for specific skills to all skills in certain contexts.

-- fixed: returning to the title screen after promoting a character could result in the promotion music ("Awakening Power") playing on top of the title theme.

-- fixed: item data for The Vengeance of Emma Strider campaign had somehow been replaced with a version that did not have Fangiss Ka or Lyrio, producing errors when trying to loot the Lyrio chest in Crypt Diving.

-- fixed: DamageCharAt was damaging non-character units as well.

-- move tiles no longer appear on spaces covered by fog of war.

-- due to a subtle formatting mismatch, the game had ceased to correctly detect the current resolution when opening the settings screen with patch 1.0.10. This is now fixed.

-- fixed: the game was incorrectly parsing multiplayer battle maps as cut scenes.

-- fixed: the game was inappropriately displaying a defeat message for victory over another human player in multiplayer maps.

-- fixed: the game was inappropriately reloading the battle upon victory in multiplayer rather than moving to the next scene.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.12:

-- balance tweaks: made Gavrielle and Zimmer somewhat more likely to gain Strength with each level; increased Madeleine's base Heath slightly and base Energy substantially.

-- fixed: the cryokineticist had a Mind Blast counterattack in Multiplayer, alone among all psy users.

-- fixed: status effects for custom skills were not being saved within the skill editor.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: all-purpose RangeBonus tags (as on Binoculars and Lyrio) had ceased to function.

-- fixed: the game was not explicitly setting a custom integer value representing the state of the player's conversation with Fera to 0 at the start of the game. This meant that playing a save file where you had spoken to her and then loading a save file where you had not could result in the game inappropriately treating you has having spoken to Fera.

-- battle text overlay messages no longer remain visible onscreen during the appearance of the level-up screen, promotion screen, victory/defeat box, when opening the battle menu, while typing in the console, or when restarting a battle.

-- fixed the annoying tooltip "wiggle" when mousing over a throbbing "new skill" button on the level-up screen.

-- fixed: buttons for new skills were not being displayed in the Promotion screen.

-- cleaned up the promotion screen interface a bit in general.

-- fixed: using Escape to close the console in battle would simultaneously register as a cancel press for whatever else was open (and if nothing else was open, would open the battle menu).

-- added a "Not connected to Steam" warning when attempting to upload from the campaign editor and a Steam connection isn't successfully established.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.13:

-- the character creator now loads all available classes dynamically--including promoted and custom classes!

-- the character creator now handles promoted classes correctly, leveling stats and gaining abilities as though the character had reached the minimum required level for that class.

-- the character creator now displays a preview of the default rest sprite for each class while mousing over it.

-- apparently it is possible to defeat Fera in the bandit fortress entrance! Added an achievement for that, plus some dialogue acknowledging that you did it (while also preventing Fera from dropping her inventory there, as she'll still show up in the next battle).

-- the layout for Coria Dogs - Basement now scales in difficulty above Soldier level.

-- the layout for Battle with Tarion now scales in difficulty with the chosen difficulty level.

-- you can now select battle layout difficulty as part of custom difficulty options.

-- fixed: walls were inappropriately spawning inside the treasure rooms in Battle with Tarion.

-- fixed: if a terrain tile modified resistances for an element and a destructible object on the same space also modified resistances for that element (e.g. Heat resistance with an ice bridge over water), the game would recursively add those resistance modifiers together without end.

-- fixed: the Disarmed status effect didn't do anything. It now causes the target's equipped weapon (if any) to become unequipped.

-- added Disarmed status to in-game documentation.

-- updated class descriptions for the prestige assassin classes, as well as the short description for the Drake.

-- fixed: for destructible objects and classes without a description, the character screen would display the description of whatever the last class with a valid description was instead of leaving the description blank.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.14:

-- there is now an option to turn on VSync in the game settings. Doing so will reduce the framerate noticeably, but will also resolve screen tearing. (Setting the screen resolution to something with a refresh rate of 60 Hz, if available for your monitor, should also fix any screen tearing.)

-- fixed: the reinforcements code in Battle with Tarion was using outdated coordinates, resulting in 3 of 4 tunnels not behaving as intended with respect to reinforcements.

-- reserve supplies collected while playing with alternate character rosters (e.g. in the bandit fortress or during Moonless Hunt) now transfer over to the main roster's reserve supplies when the player returns to the main roster.

-- new script action: TransferReserveSupplies. This lets you transfer one roster's reserve supplies over to a different roster, combining them.

-- fixed: Enthralled status could be applied to members of the player's own army (or to enemies who were already Enthralled) to effectively grant them a bonus turn.

-- fixed: Heavy status could be applied to destructible objects to change their passability to characters.

-- fixed: calling the WinBattle action would not trigger dialogue with an OnVictory trigger.

-- fixed: the dialogue editor was not showing dialogue not possessing a Conv ID. (Now, the editor displays such dialogue with its trigger and trigger parameters where the Conv ID would ordinarily be.)

-- failing to specify a facing direction when using SpawnUnit or GenerateUnit could produce a fatal range error; now, the game simply defaults to spawning the character facing downwards.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.15:

-- the AI now takes into account the presence of "on death" attacks when scoring attack targets, discouraging it from attacking explosive charges from within Explode range.

-- new AI handicap level 9: the AI does not account for damage it will take from counterattacks or from "on death" attacks.

-- fixed an error in the counterattack damage calculation used by the AI to score potential attacks against opponent who can counterattack.

-- updated the Guide descriptions of Accuracy and the Res. stats to mention that these affect the likelihood of status effects taking hold.

-- the AI now grants a target value bonus to its own units that will die without intervention due to poison or burning, prioritizing them for healing. (This is turned off on AI handicap level 4 or higher.)

-- scaled the difficulty up a bit for Five Guardians and the bandit fortress outer wall battle on Veteran and Tactician difficulties.

-- fixed: changes to the way the game values destructible objects as attack targets led to the AI never considering Camp a viable target. This has now been fixed by massively increasing the multiplier in Camp's TargetValue tag to counteract those changes.

-- fixed: if an AI-controlled character had a skill without a valid, recognized after-attack type, it would cause a fatal "key not found" exception in the AI's algorithms.

[CraigStern]

-- halved the rate of enemy reinforcements in Battle with Tarion to make the fight less of a slog.

-- boosted Energy gain for promoted cavaliers.

-- fixed: in rare circumstances, the game could end up with multiple "wait and execute next move" coroutines running at once, producing weird and unexpected enemy behaviors.

-- fixed: the game's method for choosing skin, eye, and hair palettes for portraits of procedurally generated unique spriggats did not correctly account for promoted spriggat classes.

-- fixed: it was possible to use Books of Power in shop cut scenes, wasting the item.

-- new cut scene-only condition: Item Use. If set to false, items cannot be used in this cut scene.

-- fixed: the script action granting Meridian art supplies in Merchant 2 was using outdated syntax, causing the supplies not to be auto-equipped upon receipt.

[CraigStern]

Improvements for 1.0.16:

-- fixed: on rare occasions, the game's internal AI timer could get ahead of the "end combat sequence" timer, resulting in the AI not being informed that a non-turn-ending attack had been completed, which would lead the AI to treat the attacker as not having used an attack yet, leading to one or more extra attacks. (The fix was pushed as a hotfix in version 1.0.15a.)

-- before the start of the player's turn, the game now performs a check to ensure that no essential characters are going to immediately die from burning, poison, drowning, etc.--if they are, the game will not let the player save the game.

-- the skill editor now changes the appearance of some of its input fields for Create skills to make it easier for users.

-- the skill editor now has a Units submenu you can browse for the creates attribute of your Create skills.

-- fixed: upon loading a generic character in the character creator, the game would try to procedurally generate a unique portrait for the character.

-- fixed: upon loading a character with an empty inventory in the character creator, the game would mistakenly detect the nothingness in the character's inventory as an item.

-- fixed: the game was treating items without a valid template as equippable.

-- fixed: the skill editor was not correctly saving sound and visual effects.

-- fixed: after creating a new campaign in the campaign editor, the description would not "stick" in the UI until the campaign was reloaded.