We're happy to announce that our second major update is now available!



It focusses on the battle phase in the game and has the following core features:

• Overhaul of all battle systems: Gunfire, melee and grenade throwing
  
• Improvements to NPC troop behaviour logic
  
• Improved balancing in the battle phase
  
• Better display of certain effects and more detailed tooltips
  
• Some new animations and improved battle camera cutscenes
  

If you would like to find out more about the individual features, you can take a look at our Dev Diaries, which we published in advance:

Dev Diary - Changes in the battle
Dev Diary - Melee combat and grenade reworks
Dev Diary - Visual improvements in battle

And here is the list of the full patchnotes:

Features:

• Added new close combat system: Melee combat will automatically occur when troops move within a certain threshold of an enemy troop, defeated troops will have to move out of the 'close combat zone'
  
• Added new suppression system: It's possible to target a single enemy troop, suppressed troops cannot give fire orders or throw grenades
  
• Added new flanking system: Flanked troops are forced to reposition
  
• Added new cover fire system: It's now possible to cover your own troops when they move
  
• Added the possibility of soldiers getting wounded in the field and a project to bring wounded soldiers into your cover
  
• Added two new game-over options: Losing all your soldiers on the battlefield, or having only one soldier when surrounded by enemies
  
• Added animations for close combat, throwing grenades and being wounded
  
• Added highlighted scenes to the cutscene camera in battle: The camera will pan to melee combat or grenade scenes when they are near
  
• Added three new journal illustrations
  

Improvements / Adjustments:

• Reworked NPC troop behaviour to adapt the new changes
  
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to have an aggression multiplier: The more turns played in a battle, the more aggressive they will be
  
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to look for more ways into a target trench (and therefore move horizontally more often)
  
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to adjust their strategy more on behalf of other troops (e.g. if only a few troops are firing, they are more likely to do so)
  
• Changed being able to wound the last remaining soldier of a troop
  
• Reworked impact system: Multiple impacts from different sources are now possible
  
• Reworked troop actions: ‘Hold position’ now includes all other troop actions that are not movements
  
• Reworked overwatch: Project is limited to two soldiers with higher efficiency
  
• Reworked throwing grenades: A distinction is made if the grenade hits, partially misses or completely misses
  
• Added several projects in battles to be displayed in 3D space
  
• Changed displays in 3D space to be a bit smaller
  
• Changed effect displays for projects to be easier to understand
  
• Added new attribute tooltips: they now highlight the primary effects
  
• Reworked danger display: The danger from gunfire is now better displayed in the troop action info window, removed all other danger sources
  
• Reworked UI troop info displays: They only show the most important attribute, and now also show the current fire actions instead of the last troop action
  
• Changed UI troop info displays, so that they don't appear when the corresponding troop is out of sight
  
• Improved UI troop info displays, so they don't overlap anymore
  
• Adjusted some project and attribute icons
  
• Improved soldier movement slightly
  
• Improved cutscene camera in general
  
• Adjusted tutorial slightly to cover the new changes
  

Balancing:

• Rebalanced every battle level to adapt to the new changes
  
• Increased the number of turns it takes to decide whether a battle is lost or won
  
• Increased the playable distance in each level and the distance to get 'Outside the formation' or 'Too far forward'
  
• Increased movement distance slightly, but limited the distance being able to advance
  
• Increased cover impact on firepower
  
• Changed attribute 'Narrow cover' so that suppression is impossible from there
  
• Changed attribute 'Bushes' so there can be no suppression there.
  
• Rebalanced ammunition usage
  
• Rebalanced stress gain / reduction to be less dependent on danger and more on attributes
  
• Rebalanced the decisive soldier traits for specific projects in combat
  
• Rebalanced all chances of impact from danger sources
  
• Increased wound intensity for non-player soldiers: they will take slightly more serious wounds and bleed faster
  
• Increased morale penalty for running out of provisions
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a number of bugs and errors when reworking the Battle Phase, which may have resulted in other bugs and errors ...
  
• Fixed scattered soldiers sometimes moving in advance direction
  
• Fixed being able to move onto an area with a troop with zero active soldiers
  
• Changed troops without remaining active soldiers to be moved to retreat territory
  
• Fixed 'Bunker panic' story being able to trigger for every soldier
  
• Fixed 'Bad work' dialogue adding fear directly when choosing the topic
  
• Fixed typo in Camp_Cherries story (EN)
  

Please note that saves from the 0.6.X version will no longer work. However, we will continue to make version 0.6.2 available in the Steam Beta Branch for quite some time.

We wish you all a good time with the new update!
Your Totally Not Aliens Team