Hello everyone! It took me couple of weeks, but im back with another update, bringing game much closer to the state i want i to be before introducing it to the wider audience. Opening Highlands was important step towards my current goal, leaving Tundra as a last location on "to do" list for planned storyline campaign. Even Highland Riders are important milestone for me personaly, this project is still nowhere near finished and its still nothing more than a "shell" that still have to be filled with features and content before beign enjoyable experience.
For now, highland missions started appearing on the aviable missions list and can be picked up any time you want. All mission modes you knew from wasteland are present including patrol missions and yes, you can finaly farm SUPPLIES currency to improve the base further.
Riders showcase
Highland is home of "RIDERS". Insane and brutal madmen who dont hesitate to use captured nomads as human shield. Relying on light armor, speed and dodging your attacks. I wanted them to be bit more than just reskined Bandits from the wasteland and from my personal playtests i am quite happy with the ressult. You need to utilize new tactics and different weapon loadouts to defeat them with ease. Lets have a look at Rider vehicles individualy.
Bikers are fast, low HP annoying insect. However their high dodge chance can ruin the day of the lone vehicle armed with high alpha, but slow firing weapon as they can dodge the fire really well. These are best dealt using fast firing weapons or mines and damage auras as these can not be dodged. In addition, they can be ran over if you have fast interceptor in your squad like Falcon or Mustang.
Hog is the only vehicle with high armor Riders use. Armed with twin linked machine guns with fixed angle limits this foe to always attack your caravan from behind. Again, use of vehicles with minelayer ability yeld best ressults.
Stinger is light vehicle armed with light flamer. There is nothing special about this one, however you have to remember flamer weapons ignores armor, so dont leave your interceptors tanking these alone for too long.
Rocketeer is Riders long range support vehicle. There is nothing too special about them. All of their attacks can be dodged, however when combined with other attacking vehicles it can hurt your vehicles really bad. Should be dealt asap, thx the engine gods, they dont carry any armor and even lone interceptor can handle these pretty fast.
Shredder carries intimidating buzsaw and have quite a HP pool. Fortunately it does not have the armor of Bandits Killer Van and it rellies on HPs and increased fury shield only. This can be threatening when cought unprepared but focused fire can stop them before their saw can even scratch your vehicles.
Crushers are heaviest vehicles Riders can throw at you. Twin linked 50cal machine guns can deliver quite bit of damage to even your interceptors if not dodged and in addition each crusher carries ligh flamer to repel any vehicle trying to distract its fire from up close.
Tinkerer
Tinkering service is finaly aviable! This little window serves as an enchanting table for your armor items. You can improve your bumpers, suspension or ornaments, sinking your materials while gaining small advantage in battle with each upgrade you make. Use is pretty straightforward, just dont forget your items there as once you ll return from mission, tinkerer will prettend he never saw you before and your item will be gone.
Download:
Near future
Main direction is obvious as adding Tundra location as a last location for main storyline is crucial before introducing non enemy factions and reputation system, but what will happen in between? Well, the "to do" list is still pretty long. For next week i want to go back and revise all the code as there is some unnecessary mess i want to clean up beofre moving forward, and to be honest that was the main reason why i did not added any new items in this update as i need to sort out few things before moving forward in this department. After that i can start adding new weapons and more vehicles to finish the initial set before implementing faction and reputation rewards and finaly move on to interesting stuff like enahncing patrol missions with sub quests, more interesting locations(like abandoned tunels, devastated cities, swamplands etc.) and unexpected events.
Thans for reading & with regards!
Tryzna
