Steam Marines v0.8.6a is here with the Gunship boss, moddable files, and more! news

Hi, everyone!

The big stuff this build includes the data.mod and dialogue.mod files that exposes a lot of in-game data to be modded. Game too hard? Make it easier - your way. Too easy? Be masochistic like me and make enemies far more punishing, or marines far weaker.

The Armory Deck gets a boss - and he's an asshole. Marines beware! As with every other boss in the game, it does not have immunities or subvert your hard earned tactical knowledge. But it does have a trick or two up its sleeve. Learn fast or die fast.

What is that? Is that a... thing?

One of the complaints I get is that some people find it hard to pick out units - readability can be an issue with such a sprite-filled screen. I endeavored to fix this with some tileset changes. My process:

There was a lot of back and forth regarding hue, brightness/contrast, saturation, et cetera. But the gist is that a lighter background (floor tiles essentially) helps pick out units due to dark outlines. Bouncing AND contrast!

Online Scores?

I added an opt-in feature that sends non-identifiable game play data to a server. This will help me better balance and design Steam Marines. It also has a very prototype-y online high score (disabled by default) - maybe an online leaderboard is in the cards? We'll see!

Thanks for reading, and happy robot hunting!
Mister Bums

The full changelog follows:

v0.8.6a

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New/Changed Features
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• Added a server data toggle on the bottom left of the main menu. By default Steam Marines will never "phone home." If you wish, you can click to toggle the server data flag on/off. When it is on, Steam Marines will send data on game over to a Steam Marines server for analytics purposes. No personally identifiable information is stored (IP, computer name, et cetera), just play statistics like number of walls smashed, squad member deaths, et cetera. To be very clear this is an Opt-In, not an Opt-Out. Every time Steam Marines starts up the flag is toggled OFF and no data will be sent anywhere.
• Exposed a lot of game data to data.mod and dialogue.mod files. These files can be edited/saved prior to game launch to take effect. The file is invalidated via the version number on the first line of the file. Make backups so Steam Marine updates don't wipe out your modding efforts!
• Added profiling tool. Open the console and type "startProfiler();" and hit enter to start the profiler. Typing "stopProfiler();" and hitting enter will stop the profiler and dump to the file "_profile.txt" located in the Steam Marines directory. The text file shouldn't take up more than a few kilobytes of space on disk.
• Gunship implemented as the Armory Deck boss. Beware!
• Re-implemented squad panel. Shifted UI elements to accomodate.
• Added keyboard controls to navigate, use, and drop items in inventory.
• Added Xbox controller trigger maps for navigating inventory - Windows only at the moment. Cannot rebind triggers (yet?)
• Added unit hit slow motion effect.
• Hit units now shrink and grow instead of sliding along the x-axis.
• Added slowdown and screen shake for unit knock back.
• Mouse cursor now disappears after a few seconds of inactivity. Default time to wait is 3000 milliseconds; this is moddable in the data.mod file.
• Added indicator animation for all visible units standing on lifted tiles.
• Increased treasure chest spawn chance.
• Cut trap spawn chance by about half.
• Grenade items now have a 25% chance to destroy doors.
• Added new Engineer laser weapon sound effect.
• Added new set plastic explosive on door sound effect.

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Bug Fixes
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• Fixed "Sweeper" perk from only working for Leader class marines.
• Fixed Hulk Suit flamethrower not firing if the marine's main weapon doesn't have enough ammunition.
• Fixed load level issue interfering with item spawning.
• Fixed porthole comments not triggering properly.
• Refactored fog-of-war code - should be faster; possible cause of cursor-over-unit FPS drops?
• Fixed fog of war memory leak.
• Fixed infinite auto-grabbing if standing on a treasure chest with full inventory.
• Crates on the elevator tile can now be properly smashed.
• Stripped tabs from custom keybinds and replaced them with spaces; should also fix tooltip extent issue.
• Fixed Firearm UI always showing flashlight on the attachment when loading a saved game.
• Fixed render order issue between Alien Merchant and wall paintings.
• When recruiting survivors the game will attempt to place the survivor close to the squad spawn point instead of moving the entire squad (possibly on top of enemies!)
• Fixed being able to go to the main menu from the recruit survivor screen which breaks the game.
• Optimized rendering between large/small units.
• Batched some sprites.
• Optimized texture loading/unloading.
• Fixed units being able to be knocked back onto porthole tiles.
• Squad AP gets refilled on New Game Plus.
• Fixed survivor screen not properly showing Engineer class name in description.
• Fixed boss units being killed by Lasershots not dropping loot or stopping boss music.
• Fixed marines in Hulk Suits from using non-Hulk Suit reload weapon animations when using Ammo Crates.
• Fixed marines sometimes staying too large when their Hulk Suits are destroyed.
• Sorted various render order issues.
• Fixed "Close Combat" perk error when firing at out of range enemy units.
• Fixed scrolling event log from interfering with mouse events.
• Fixed Engineer class bullet impact sound effects not playing when striking walls.
• Properly resets to correct zoom level after changing game resolution.
• Fixed enemy non-idle animations being written to and from save file.
• Wall pumps now properly persist through save/load file.
• Fixed Support class talent "Bulwark" not showing on lifted tiles.

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Notes
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• Changed mouse/cursor updates. Should be less CPU bottleneck for lower end computers when moving marines.
• Large performance gain on level generation and saving/loading.
• Level sprites used cut by... a lot.
• Optimized fog of war a tiny bit more.
• Shifted "saving..." message to the upper right corner of the screen for all resolutions.
• Updated Engineer Firearm UI schematic.