Turn-Based Tactics Mars Tactics - Fight for Martian freedom or suppress terrorists who hamper future of Mankind

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1727760/view/544470329026676505

Dev Update FY2024 Q4
Hi everyone! It's the end of the quarter, so let's take a look at how development is coming along.

The big news is the strategy layer playtest finally kicked off this month. I've been dying to get the iteration cycle going. As you guys know, I rely very heavily on the community to guide development. Your feedback is why the tactical layer has been a success. And that's why it's a big deal that the strategy layer playtest is finally underway.

As expected, the first few builds were very rough and the testers struggled a lot. However, their feedback was invaluable. Beyond just finding bugs and improving mechanics, they helped me understand and improve deeper structural problems with the game loop. Here's a summary of testing so far and the next steps.

• The playtest included the opening months of the Labor campaign and 70% of the core systems: squad movement and zone-of-control, recruitment and unit management, base-building, labor management, supply chains and logistics, and research. It also introduced a few big things to the tactical layer.
• On the whole, testers found the campaign to be buggy, sluggish and lacking direction. The strategy layer had too much "4X" resulting in long down-times between battles. However, most players agreed the systems promised depth and that the overall design was in-line with what they wanted from a strategy layer.
• On the tactical front, the feedback was much more positive. Players enjoyed the new melee weapons. Friendly AI units were very popular. And the new morale and surrender mechanics mostly fit in with the existing combat systems.

Development and playtesting is continuing with a focus on

1. Tightening the core game loop and reducing down-time between battles. For example, capture ice mine -> extract water -> construct algae farm -> support larger population -> boost soldier recruitment. On paper, this sounds reasonable. But in the game, it all felt slow and bloated. So I'm cutting fat and connecting campaign progress more directly with battle results.
2. The strategy layer will always be a sandbox, but my initial designs offered players too little direction. So I'm trying to give the campaign more structure, especially how missions are generated. This includes a new mechanic that lets you send operatives on covert ops behind enemy lines to gather intel and discover missions.
3. Finish adding remaining systems, especially unit and equipment progression. The most critical missing element is the Gunsmith mechanic, which enables players to homebrew custom Redox guns and bring them into battle. This feature drives Labor's campaign progression, creating that "one-more-turn" loop as the worker rebellion grows stronger and stronger.

Anyway, this is probably TMI for most readers since the game is not even out yet. But I know some of you are following development very closely, so I thought a transparent view of the design process would be interesting.

Overall, my goal for Q1 is to continue testing the hell out of the strategy layer. Once things are feeling good, I will release a demo for the public to get a taste. And then it's just push push push toward the release.

HUGE THANKS to the Discord community for all their incredible feedback! The playtest is managed on Discord so if you are interested in playtesting and have the patience for bugs and jank you can sign-up for access there. I am opening up access slowly over-time with each new build.

Thanks for sticking with me this year! Wishing you happy and safe holidays.

-Yuji

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From discord:

Here's a closer look at Gunsmith. It's pretty much exactly what you expect. Your engineers slowly generate Gunsmith Points (GP) and you spend them on designing gun blueprints.

However, as rewards for missions and events you'll sometimes receive Gunsmith Attachments which you can slot into your blueprints. Different attachments will both strengthen and weaken the blueprint in different ways, so it's up to you how to mix and match. And if you don't want to deal with it, you can always scrap them for partial GP value. But attachments are usually a good starting place for a new blueprint. Basically the idea is to nudge you away from repeating the same min/maxed designs every playthrough.

In the current build there are 2 types of attachments: scopes and stocks. In the video, you can see I just frankensteined them from existing guns. Once we test and finalize this system, I'd like to create original 3D models specifically for Gunsmith to expand the type of guns you can make. (ZOHEI's concepts have given me many ideas.)

BTW, the animated graphic at the bottom is my first attempt to visualize gun stats. People suggested a firing test range to try out blueprints before finalizing them, but it's a huge pain in the ass to jump between tactical<>strategy layers. So ideally this screen should offer all the info you need to design your guns.

Thanks for your patience guys. Next playtest will begin pretty soon. It will be narrowly focused on Gunsmith so you can really play around with this system. <@&1250607643345813645>

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From discord:

The next build adds armor plates to loadout management. Gives you more control to kit out your soldiers how you want. Heavy and well-protected, light and mobile, something in between...

And your decisions are visually represented on the units during battle. Here the front row is fully kitted with max armor plates, while back has zero plates. <@&1250607643345813645>

 

[GamerCat_]

The logistics element is super-interesting to me, and what makes this game promising rather than another faildev's doomed attempt at re-inventing one of gaming's many wheels.

X-Com Apocalypse never quite worked clean like it was supposed to. Julian Gollop's desired living and moving and interdependent world you fought within never quite came together right. Making that again, but a bit simpler and more robust, seems like a great idea for a new game. The little trucks and convoys moving between clustered buildings looks charming. Being able to participate in and direct such a system, and interfere with it on the ground, sounds very, very fun.

The idea of a war revolving around roads and movement reminds me of Johan Nagle's COIN games. Did anybody here enjoy Angola '86 as much as I did? I think Gollop's X-Com is pretty much a perfect game system, but that doesn't mean I don't want more strategy games to succeed or try to branch off of it. Working in finer overworld stuff definitely feels like the way to go if you dare attempt iterating on it.