Incline MENACE - sci-fi turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers devs - coming to Early Access in Q3 2025

[Reinhardt]

Dark Recon

black sleeves

 

[Hydro]

Knowing the current day level of writing I’d rather they keep characters procedurally generated. The best we would get is 90s sci-fi ripoff.

Still 2025 GOTY

 

[Ibn Sina]

New devblog about Squad leaders

Dev Diary #5: Squad Leaders and Stats
Meet the Squad Leaders of MENACE — they shape battles with unique perks, detailed stats, and distinct roles.
After getting into the details of how squad weapons and special weapons work, we are looking at the second important part: the soldiers wielding those weapons! We will also see what other types of equipment can be brought to the battlefield.

Squad Leaders
There are two fundamentally different character types in MENACE: Squad Leaders and Pilots. In today's diary, we look at the former and keep the latter for a future diary.

What are squad leaders in MENACE?​

Any unit you deploy in MENACE features a squad leader acting as its identification figure and its commander on the battlefield. Squad Leaders (short SLs) are handwritten characters with their own backstory and unique perk tree.

Furthermore, they have a set of specific stats reflecting their squad's capabilities. However, being unique doesn't automatically protect the SLs from harm. They can still be killed on the battlefield, so you have to take that into consideration when going for bold moves and suicide missions.

Squad Badges

When a squad loses all elements, the squad leader is “bleeding out.” Other SLs have a short time to head over there and stabilize them. This will make sure they are not dead, but they will still be out of action for a while and recover from their injuries.

Why Written Characters?​

From the very start of the project, we had a lot of discussions about whether characters or, in this case, squad leaders should be handwritten or procedurally generated (like in Battle Brothers).

Through procedural generation you can create an infinite amount of different characters, but the possibilities of meaningful dialogue or even character development are very limited or almost nonexistent. There is no persistence in relations or behaviour between the procedural individuals.

On top of that, after a while, the different components of the generation become apparent and recognizable to the player.

For MENACE, the interaction between characters and their reactions to the world is a very important tool for world-building and immersion, as are their opinions on certain topics.

In this regard MENACE takes a lot of influence from games like Jagged Alliance or the old Wing Commander. Characters are written personalities that can still permanently die.

Being able to give the squad leaders actual voices adds a lot of personality and attitude, which is especially important in the setting of MENACE, where a bunch of very different personalities with wildly different backgrounds have to get along.

Of course, the amount of written characters is limited, so if too many die, that means game over.

Squad Leader Stats​

Each squad leader has a variety of different skills and characteristics.

1. Action Points: Each character has a finite amount of Action Points, or AP, per turn. Any action, like moving a tile or using a skill, costs a certain amount of AP.
2. Hitpoints per Element: The amount of damage a unit can take until one of its elements is removed as a casualty. A squad with 10HP and five elements can take a total of 50 damage until it is completely out of action.
3. Armor Value: Depends on the armor the squad has equipped. The higher the value, the more penetration an attack needs to deal damage. Armors also have durability that is reduced every time the armor successfully stops a bullet.
4. Discipline: Reduces incoming suppression and increases suppression recovery. Moral tests are also done against the discipline of a unit. These have to be succeeded when losing elements, friendly units getting killed, or allies fleeing from the battle. The higher the discipline, the less likely a squad is to become wavering or retreat from the battlefield.
5. Accuracy: This determines the chances to hit for all attacks. Accuracy can be reduced by being suppressed by enemy fire and other effects. It can also be improved by deploying.
6. Detection: How well the squad can detect hidden/concealed enemy units. This value is subtracted from the enemy’s concealment value.
7. View Range: The distance in tiles the squad can see and reveal enemy units that have no concealment. Certain large objects can completely block lines of sight and allow for unrevealed approaches.
8. Concealment: How well the squad can stay hidden while in the field of view of enemy units. This is also increased by the environment like forests, buildings, or tall grass. A unit with some concealment that is deployed behind cover can ambush enemies very effectively.
9. Unique Starting Perk: Every squad leader starts with one unique perk already unlocked. These are very different between SLs and are designed in a way to make them feel unique and emphasize each individual's character.
10. Perk Tree: Each squad leader has their own perk tree that can be unlocked through “promotions.” Not all perks are unique to this character, but the selection and order of unlocks will be different for each.

Engage, Explore, and Stay Informed​

That's it for now. Let us know what you think about the Squad Leaders.

You can find us on Discord, BlueSky, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit for discussions, updates, and feedback. You can also subscribe to our monthly MENACE newsletter on our website — just scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

In next week's Dev Diary we'll talk about "Supplies and Equipment

Oh look. An angry sassy Shaniqua as a squad leader. how brave

 

[Tyranicon]

At least they added Chuck Norris.

 

[Abu Antar]

At least they added Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris added himself.

 

[Berengar]

What fucking hair color does this guy have lol

 

[Infinitron]

What fucking hair color does this guy have lol

Blonde with a red beard, apparently fairly common among Nordics.

 

[Beowulf]

What fucking hair color does this guy have lol

Blonde with a red beard, apparently fairly common among Nordics.

The same thing can be said about the black chick.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

What fucking hair color does this guy have lol

Blonde with a red beard, apparently fairly common among Nordics.

The same thing can be said about the black chick.

That she's fairly common among Nordics? Or that she's blonde with a red beard?

Facial hair does tend to be darker than regular hair for blondes. It's the case for me as well. Though, the bright blonde hair and fiery orange beard at the same time seems exaggerated.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

What fucking hair color does this guy have lol

Blonde with a red beard, apparently fairly common among Nordics.

my hair does that combination, although I don't usually let my beard grow out very much, because food gets all caught up in it and other reasons, but it is reddish and my hair blondish

 

[Takamori]

Hope the squad leader shit don't fuck up with the flow of the random nature of each run, because every time I booted a run in BB it was new characters I was with and their stories were built accordingly to what was happening in game.
So they need a fuckton of options as Squad leaders so we don't end up being stuck with the same guys over and over. If the pool is limited this will ruin the replayability regardless who those characters are.
Also kinda concerned the fact they wanna make them voiced, where this VA Budget is coming from and how much toll is taking from other game aspects?

 

[Takamori]

What has been living rent free in my mind is this fetish that every developer has for voiced media. Seems like everyone has this brainworm once they get some extra cash.

 

[Tyranicon]

What has been living rent free in my mind is this fetish that every developer has for voiced media. Seems like everyone has this brainworm once they get some extra cash.

Because there's always some asshole who wants to make "cinematic experiences" out of video games.

 

[Harthwain]

What has been living rent free in my mind is this fetish that every developer has for voiced media. Seems like everyone has this brainworm once they get some extra cash.

Because there's always some asshole who wants to make "cinematic experiences" out of video games.

It is also more attractive to modern audience.

 

[Tyranicon]

It is also more attractive to modern audience.

If anything, 2024 proved:

1. The modern audience doesn't exist in the way that people in media thinks it does.

2. The real modern audience just consumes whatever slop their specific circle finds to be popular.

 

[Takamori]

From what I notice is basically if the game provide some sort of fun social interaction besides of the trendy aspect of it. This would be the so called actual"modern audience"
They are forgiving with the bad sides of a game as long its popular and provide a place to interact with their friends.
Now what corpo calls the modern audience is basically a caricature of a white liberal retard that spend way too much time in social media and with culture wars.

 

[Elttharion]

Mods will fix it

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From discord:

Squadleaders and pilots dont accumulate individual XP. The player earns promotion points depending on their mission performance. These points can then be spent to promote any leader, even those who did not take part in that battle. We wanted to get rid of the XP-feeding for individual characters as well as making it easier to level up a new character later in the game. having to babysit a level 1 Bro on day 200 can be a real chore while feeding them XP as well. Also, it fits with the world and the military structure that the player, as the commander, decides who gets a promotion.

Regarding pilot deaths: There are lots of different cases for this in reality. It might just be a mobility kill, a fire starting or the main gun being destroyed that can cause a crew to bail out of a tank or other vehicle. On the other end of the spectrum there are instant ammo explosions that leave just some smoking crumbs of a tank. We decided that we dont want to get overly complicated with having different survival chances depending on how the vehicle was destroyed. Instead, the player will always have a chance to stabilize the pilot. It will still totally happen that a character dies as it is not always easy to get to them in time during a battle but it feels more "fair" and gives the player a chance to remedy a tactical mistake and get away with a black eye.

This one is from sser :

A short word about the tone – Jagged Alliance, Aliens, etc. are still the main influences, though ultimately I would always want it to be unique in its own right. In Menace: the spear tip of your fighting forces are from a professional military outfit (the Marines), while the rest are local riffraff, and between these two groups you’ll have to cobble together an adhoc unit to fight a much larger threat. In the tone there is a touch of realism mixed with levity and black humor, not dissimilar from Battle Brothers. Being a sci-fi setting, I’m surprised at the snap reactions to person of this or that gender or race, but I also get it. A lot of games and movies of late are very superficial with their characters, and have a tendency to launder personal politics or values through media, jamming things in your face about xyz-pet issues. It makes people increasingly paranoid that they’re being lectured to, which becomes collateral damage to artists who aren’t even doing that. But I can assure you, there is no DEI or government entity forcing my hand, and my #1 goal with any given character is only that they are interesting and drive interesting events.

 

[Brickfrog]

I really like the idea of xp being a pooled resource that the player can distribute as they please in the strategic layer.

 

[Takamori]

Squadleaders and pilots dont accumulate individual XP. The player earns promotion points depending on their mission performance. These points can then be spent to promote any leader, even those who did not take part in that battle. We wanted to get rid of the XP-feeding for individual characters as well as making it easier to level up a new character later in the game. having to babysit a level 1 Bro on day 200 can be a real chore while feeding them XP as well. Also, it fits with the world and the military structure that the player, as the commander, decides who gets a promotion.

They should do splits, if you field the squad leader and pilot he should receive a base exp from being there, while you get the "saved" to feed whatever you want. Don't make sense the guy shoving the thumb up his arse out of nowhere become a distinct official.

 

[Zombra]

I really like the idea of xp being a pooled resource that the player can distribute as they please in the strategic layer.

Depends how they frame it. I really wish they would not call it xp (experience points) for example, that's obviously dumb. Call them promotion points. Now if promotions means you get more resources or command abilities that makes sense; these are the kinds of things that higher rank (earned or otherwise) can get you. If it means you're a super tough veteran with lots of cool combat tricks learned through experience, then no. Experience should go to soldiers who have experienced things. A level 1 recruit shouldn't become as seasoned as an actual seasoned fighter through player fiat. I don't want to recruit random level 1s and have them suddenly be as good as the soldiers I've been nurturing for 30 hours.

 

[Hydro]

The more I think of this new experience system the more I like it

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The more I think of this new experience system the more I like it

It is not a bad idea but Zombra's misgivings about it have merit. On the other hand you could use up some of them as cannon fodder and not have the experience go to waste.
Maybe if they split promotion and veterancy as two distinct advancements it might be more impactful.

 

[Bastardchops]

What fucking hair color does this guy have lol

I have this hair and beard colour.

 

[Bastardchops]

Stop with the black women. Black women aren't good at things. Almost without exception they're overweight, aggressive, and incompetent.