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

[Reinhardt]

wypepo will earn exp, laquanda will spend it. pretty realistic.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2432860/view/535466136352850184

Dev Diary #6 - Supplies and Equipment
This week, it is time to delve deeper into MENACE's item and supply cost system.
We will explain more of the infantry squad’s equipment options and show some example items that could be equipped. Each piece of equipment also comes with supply costs, which we explain below.

Let’s jump into it!

Supplies and Equipment Costs​

There are two basic limitations to what you can bring on a mission: The items and squad leaders you have collected as well as the supply limit of that particular mission. Each piece of equipment, be it armor, weapon, or accessory, has a supply point cost attached to it. The total of all equipment you bring on a mission must not exceed that mission's supply point limit.

Of course, there are ways to manipulate both the supply costs and the available supplies, so there is some room to find your personal play style. This system is very similar to what many well-known tabletop games use for army building.

Also, the enemy uses the same system to buy its troops from a list of available units. Please note that the amount of supplies for you and the enemy is not necessarily the same, and a difference in points will make missions easier or harder.

Why have a supply system?​

When designing MENACE we were looking for a way to both have players' power and abilities increase throughout the game as well as enable as many equipment choices and army setups as possible.

The main issue when not having supply costs is that it is virtually never worthwhile not to use a best-in-slot item on all units unless you just don't own enough of them. There is no reason to use a low-tier armor or weapon later in the game, effectively reducing equipment choices by a lot.

With a supply system, more powerful weapons will cost more supplies while usually still having a better power/supply ratio than low-tier items. This makes equipping squads with cheap armor or weapons a viable choice in order to save points to put into other units.

For example, a mortar-equipped squad that fires from the backlines could just wear fatigues and sport basic rifles, saving points to invest in heavy breach armor for an assault unit. Players might also bring few well-equipped units, many poorly equipped units, or any mix thereof. Through this system, we enable a wide variety of playstyles while making actual army building a core system of the game.

Having a supply system also makes a lot of sense from a lore perspective. The limiting factor of fielding high-tech equipment on a modern battlefield is mostly supply and maintenance. A simple rifle may not be a powerful tool, but it also needs zero maintenance. At the same time, a futuristic combat mech with a multi-laser cannon will keep a whole team of mechanics busy while also gobbling up spare parts, ammo, and all kinds of resources (so-called “supplies”).

Armor​

In a previous diary, we already talked about squad weapons and special weapons: Dev Diary #4 - Weapon Types and Stats. Of course, the most basic part of any soldier's equipment is their armor.

In MENACE, there is a wide variety of armor types that not only offer protection but might add additional skills and abilities.

• Armor Value: The armor value determines the % chance to stop a projectile that hits this squad. It is matched against the attack's penetration value after considering dropoffs from distance to target.
• Armor Durability: If a hit does not penetrate the armor, it reduces the armor's durability. A penetrating hit does not damage the armor. The lower the armor durability, the lower the effective armor value. This means most armors will be good at taking a few hits but might lose effectiveness quickly. There might also be weapons with very low penetration but high armor damage. These might be good to “shred armor” before finally punching through.
• Accessory Slots: The armor determines how many accessories a squad can carry into battle. Usually, light armors will sport more accessory slots than heavier ones.
• Equipment Costs: Of course, armor comes with its own supply costs that have to be paid per element of a squad. Bigger squads will cost more supplies than smaller ones as they have more elements to be equipped.
• Special Skills, Modifiers, or Abilities: Some very heavy armors might reduce movement speed or view range, while others have gimmicks installed, like smoke launchers, laser designators, or thermal imaging devices.

Accessories​

The term accessories spread over a very wide range of items, and in MENACE, the variety to pick from will be massive. Most squads will usually be able to equip two accessories, but depending on armor or perks, this might be up to 4.

These items usually bring additional utility, like an ammo pack that increases the ammunition for special weapons or a camouflage kit that makes the squad harder to detect enemies. However, many accessories grant additional skills.

Most notable in this category are grenades that come in all types and flavors. Other types of active accessories like combat drugs instantly reduce suppression or single-use rocket launchers that give ad-hoc AT capability to a squad.

Each accessory, of course, comes with its own supply costs as well, so choose carefully which to bring on a mission.

For active accessories, there is no limit to how many of a certain type you want to bring on a mission, as they come with a certain amount of uses. Want to cover the enemy with grenades? Pick the grenadier perk to increase throwing range and bring 3 Frag Grenades, each granting three skill uses.

Some accessories will be limited to one per squad as adding them to each other does not make sense within the game world, for example, target designators or night vision equipment.

Engage, Explore, and Stay Informed​

That's it for now. Let us know what you think about Supplies and Equipment.

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 "Pilots & Vehicles".

 

[Ibn Sina]

Shit game.

 

[Hydro]

Duno, looks gold

 

[Takamori]

Looks like the BB inventory but this time Armour will dictate how many slots available you will have to use accessories like nades and such makes sense given how many pockets the battle armor has compared to the basic poor fuck uniform. I guess expensive armour or whatever their iteration of named/legendary items will bring special effects at cost of something.
Hope it applies to weapons also.

 

[itsme]

The troll faggot who removed the latest posts would you come out and tell us who you are?

Anyway the game is called MENACE. MEN ACE. Men do ace.

 

[Vincente]

the game is called MENACE

MENA CE. Only playable characters should be Middle Easterners and North Africans in Common Era.

 

[Reinhardt]

ME NACE. it's game for illiterate white supremacists.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Interesting that those messages seem to be gone gone, rather than moved into retardo-laaaaand.

 

[Reinhardt]

Interesting that those messages seem to be gone gone, rather than moved into retardo-laaaaand.

even better - they are moved to politics. just jooish things.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/realism-of-women-participating-in-wars.152392/

 

[Sarissofoi]

Honestly I am more worried about female voices being annoying than anything else(don't mind female troopers or warriors in general, especially in fantasy or sf). But considering how they sound in Steam trailer - I am not impressed at all.

Also I am worried about starting options. Have some questions.
Do you always start with the same crew?(would go old pretty fast).
Do you can unlock some other starts or customize it?
How many characters can you get in one run?
How rare will be some characters? I mean if we are limited to dozen guaranteed chars and rest are rare or extra rare spawns/drop then again - it will get old fast.

 

[skeletonmeister]

Interested since they don't seem to go full carbon-copy of X-COM like all the others clones.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I am cautiously optimistic. This is looking more and more like a wargame with heavy RPG elements. That's generally a positive indicator these days.

 

[Space Satan]

BB were famous for super RNG rage moments, like, top bro simming 7 times or hitting a shield 5 times. I hope they will mitigate it

 

[Space Satan]

Dev Diary #7 - Combat Mechanics: Suppression

In this week's diary, we want to mix it up a bit and take a look at one of the core combat mechanics in MENACE: Suppression. We will continue to jump between various topics to keep things fresh and offer something new every time.

What is Suppression in real life?​

When modeling the tactical combat in MENACE, we took a step back and looked at real-life firefights and small unit tactics. Throughout history, there has been a predominant aspect of winning these engagements, and that is suppression.

The fundamental idea is when someone gets shot at, they will try to avoid getting hit.
Ducking down and taking cover will reduce the effect of incoming fire, but also leads to not being able to see what is going on and more importantly not being able to effectively return fire. Additionally, suppressive fire is hindering any movement, effectively fixing a squad in its position.

To sum up, a heavily suppressed or pinned down enemy can't see what's going on, is not shooting back, and can not evade or leave its position. This is the perfect setup for an assault element to move in and clear the enemy position in close-quarters fights with grenades or flanking fire.

The above approach is embodied in the four Fs that were established in WW2 and are well known: Find the enemy (we will talk about detection and concealment later), Fix the enemy (by suppressing them with fire), Flank the enemy (move an element around their cover or in close range) and Finish them. Only now is this approach somewhat challenged by excessive drone warfare, but we take a bit of leeway to keep things more straightforward in MENACE.

Find, Fix, Flank, and Finish

How does MENACE model Suppression?​

Suppression represents a unit’s performance degrading both physically and mentally due to being attacked, be it directly or indirectly.

A unit is harder to suppress the more discipline (character stat) it has. When a unit accumulates suppression, it will move from unaffected to suppressed and finally to pinned down.

There are several ways to apply suppression to a unit:

• Suppression Effect: Upon dealing damage and especially when killing elements, suppression is applied to the enemy unit.
• Suppression Application: Suppression is applied per shot, so a weapon with a high rate of fire tends to apply more suppression. Also different weapons deliver different amounts of suppression.
• Cover and Suppression: Suppression gets REDUCED when the target is in cover or wears heavy armor.
• Discipline Impact: Suppression gets REDUCED depending on the discipline stat of the target (pirates are easier to suppress than marines).
• Neighboring Tile Suppression: A portion of the suppression also gets applied to neighbouring tiles, not only the targeted tile.

Modeling the Effects of Suppression: A Three-Stage Approach​

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Stage One - Unaffected
As long as the amount of suppression is within the first bar no debuffs are in effect.

Stage Two - Suppressed
The amount of suppression lies within the second bar. The target unit is forced to kneel down (“deploy”), which makes them stationary.

Debuffs due to being suppressed:

• - 30 Action Points
• - 50% accuracy

Buffs due to being deployed

• +15% Accuracy
• +15% Defense
• -15% Damage taken
• +1 Concealment

Stage Three - Pinned Down
The amount of suppression lies within the third bar. The target unit is forced to lie down. It loses all action points and its view range is reduced to one tile.

The Defensive Role of Suppression​

---

Even though it loses its ability to act freely, a unit gets more resilient while being suppressed because its combatants are forced to kneel or even lie flat on the floor when receiving a lot of fire.
That means the more suppressed an enemy unit is, the less damage it takes.
So when attacking a unit, it might make sense first to shoot to deal damage, THEN shoot to suppress.

Recovering from suppression happens automatically. It gets reduced by 1/3 at the end of a unit's turn.

Note that changing stances due to getting suppressed or pinned down happens instantly during the actual attack. This is not a player or AI choice but forced on the unit.

How to Effectively Play Around Suppression​

---

Facing suppressive fire can be overwhelming at times, but there are a lot of countermeasures you can take.

Countering Suppressive Fire
The easiest solution would be to simply suppress the suppressing enemy. This is best achieved with units that are not affected by suppression themselves while being highly mobile, like vehicles. To this end, it is important to plan ahead and identify avenues of approach that you can cover with your own suppressive fire to make sure your lead units do not get pinned down.

Ideally, you suppress all enemies before they can suppress you.

Concealment and Speed
Using smoke to break up sightlines and conceal your troops from the enemy would also be possible. Regular squads can carry smoke grenades, but the smoke can also be deployed by vehicles in a large screen or even by mortars and the like.

Combat Drugs and Off-Map Abilities
Another possibility would be to equip an accessory called “combat drugs” that instantly reduces suppression and grants a discipline bonus as well. These are somewhat rare and expensive, though.

Thirdly, it’s possible to disrupt suppressing units with so-called off-map abilities like dropship strafing runs or orbital rocket strikes. This is especially effective against unarmored, immobile enemy units like heavy weapon teams.

Engage, Explore, and Stay Informed​

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That's it for now. Let us know what you think about Supplies and Equipment.

 

[Tyranicon]

I have faith in this game being good.

Mostly because I don't really have anything else RPG-wise to look forward to this year or in the immediate future besides my own stuff.

 

[Harthwain]

Mostly because I don't really have anything else RPG-wise to look forward to this year or in the immediate future besides my own stuff.

Will this game be an RPG though?

 

[Hydro]

Mostly because I don't really have anything else RPG-wise to look forward to this year or in the immediate future besides my own stuff.

Will this game be an RPG though?

Depends on how they’ll handle the predefined characters, they are yet to elaborate on this. Not expecting much tbh

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2432860/view/535466769966436074?l=english

Dev Diary #8 - OCIs (Operational Capability Improvements) and Off-Map Abilities
In this week's diary we will talk about the role of your strike cruiser in MENACE and the possibilities and upgrades it offers over the course of the game. Making use of these not only helps in your struggle against the MENACE, but also defines your playstyle.

The TCRN Impetus​

---

“A marine company is a self-contained operational unit consisting of an interstellar ship (usually a light strike cruiser) with medical facilities, several infantry squads, light vehicles or mechs, and one or more dropships and aerial support craft. Due to the vast distances in space, a marine company is expected to operate autonomously in responding to any distress calls, and either resolving any conflict or holding the line until reinforcements arrive.”

The player enters the Wayback system aboard the strike cruiser “TCRN Impetus” - TCRN meaning Terran Congressional Republic Navy. It serves as a base of operations where you rest, refit, and customize your troops. The ship itself can be upgraded in various ways, where the OCI system comes into play.

The OCI System​

---

OCI meaning “Operational Capability Improvement” are upgrades and ad hoc installations that are executed while the ship is in active service.

These OCIs come in three types: Armament, Electronics, and Hull. The Impetus has 10 available slots for installing OCIs (this number may still vary). 3 for Electronics, 3 for Armament and 4 for Hull upgrades.

While upgrades of a certain type have to be built into the corresponding slot, each upgrade can be installed multiple times and the effects will stack. We currently have around 50 OCIs planned and will be adding more during Early Access. This allows for an almost unlimited build variety and each player will end up with their very own configuration of the TCRN Impetus.

Typical OCIs are things like a med bay to heal infantry squads between missions or a sensor array to provide more detailed information on enemy units before a deployment. Stacking up these OCIs will heal squads even faster or provide even more detailed information respectively.

How to acquire OCIs​

---

Acquiring OCIs in MENACE comes with two prerequisites. First of all an OCI has to be unlocked and made available for installation. Then the actual installation of the upgrade requires a resource called “components” (this name is not final).

Although a few very basic OCIs are permanently unlocked right from the start of the game (unguided missile strike, medical bay, sensor array, vehicle repair bay and dropship strafing run) things will get a lot more interesting once you gain trust with the local factions and get access to more specific and advanced upgrade options for the Impetus.

Increasing trust with a faction happens mainly through accomplishing operations in their favor. Each new level of trust will unlock a new OCI and make it available for installation.

Bear in mind though that losing trust with a faction might also reduce your OCI options again.
The “components” needed to install OCIs are gathered by completing operations in the Wayback. The amount of components earned depends on the length of the operation and your overall operation rating.

Individual missions do not earn components, the whole operation (a series of missions) has to be completed successfully in order to gain components for OCIs.

Offmap Abilities​

---

OCIs can have a wide variety of effects ranging from passive boni to active skills - so called offmap abilities.

Passive effects are pretty straight forward and usually will affect the game outside of the tactical combat layer.

Offmap abilities on the other hand can be used during the tactical combat. A basic offmap ability would be a dropship strafing run, where a gunship performs a close air support mission and hits enemies with its board weapons.

Usually these abilities target an area and the time it takes from calling in a strike to the weapon hitting its target is about one turn. Getting the most out of them requires some planning and preparation - like suppressing enemy units so they can't leave the targeted area of effect.

Of course there is a whole range of abilities that can be called in, for example smoke curtains, supply drops, area scans or air dropped mines. Each offmap ability can be used once per installed OCI, so as mentioned earlier it is possible to install the same OCI in multiple slots for multiple uses.

Engage, Explore, and Stay Informed​

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That's it for now! We'll see you next Friday.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2432860/view/512950040394727467

Dev Diary #9 - Perks and Promotions
The goal of this Dev Diary is to explain how the performance of Squadleaders and Pilots improves over the course of the game. Instead of the classic experience point system, MENACE works with deliberate promotions to unlock perks.

Promotion Points and Mission Rating​

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Promotion Points are earned through completing missions, fulfilling bonus objectives, exceeding mission requirements, or completing events. Unlike OCI components, Promotion Points are rewarded for each individual mission, so even if you fail an operation, you will gain Promotion Points.

Mission Rating Factors:

• Persistent Factors: Logistics (supply points used), casualties (lost elements), and mission difficulty.
• Optional Factors: Speed of completion, civilian casualties, collateral damage, and destroyed enemy elements.

Higher ratings yield more points. Promotion Points accumulate like other resources and can be spent after each mission.

Promotion and Demotion​

---

Unlike a classic experience system, promoting a character is a deliberate decision by the player and does not happen automatically.

• Ranks: Promotions range from 1 (Lance Corporal) to 8 (Master Gunnery Sergeant).
• Cost Scaling: Each consecutive promotion for the same character is more expensive than the previous one, making it costlier to focus on a single character rather than distributing Promotion Points among multiple leaders.
• Strategic Choices: Players must decide when and whom to promote, rather than funneling kills and experience into favored units.
• Comeback Mechanic: High-ranking promotions are costly, but new characters can be hired and ranked up, allowing them to catch up to veterans over time.

Demotion
Demoting a character is possible, with a small portion of Promotion Points refunded, though the affected leader will not be pleased.

A promotion-based system aligns with the game's military setting, giving the player, as commander of the Impetus, full control over who deserves a promotion.

The Perk Tree​

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Each Squadleader and Pilot has an individual Perk Tree.

Perk Structure

• Unique Perks: Automatically unlocked and exclusive to each character.
• Regular Perks: Shared across multiple trees, but with unique combinations per character.
• Four Tiers: Unlocking higher tiers requires a specific number of total perks, regardless of their tier level.

Perks do not necessarily become more powerful with each tier, but some require deeper investment. While some characters lean toward certain roles, perks allow flexible builds and varied playstyles without locking characters into rigid roles.

Perks can be passive or active, unlocking tactical combat abilities.

Currently, there are over 40 perks in the game, alongside unique character perks, with more planned. This system gives players ample room for experimentation, supporting diverse builds and strategies. The ultimate goal is maximum replayability and build freedom.

Engage, Explore, and Stay Informed​

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That's it for now! We'll see you next Friday.

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.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm not seeing anything about hand-to-hand/melee combat?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

There are probably going to be some alien-style monsters, so maybe they will have melee attacks. It is not 40K though, and I would say you can have a sci-fi strategy game without melee combat.

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm not seeing anything about hand-to-hand/melee combat?

There are probably going to be some alien-style monsters, so maybe they will have melee attacks. It is not 40K though, and I would say you can have a sci-fi strategy game without melee combat.

This seems more realistic* so I wouldn't expect any serious melee. There are very few serious scenarios where an advanced lasersword beats even the most outdated bolt-action rifle. The exception may be some specialized stuff to fight the "totally dangerous melee only space monsters that don't get fucking chewed up by high caliber machine guns."


*It's not even close to current hard scifi/speculation, but models of future warfare (especially ASI assisted/controlled) are confusing as shit, so....

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Everything I am seeing from these devs has been positive for me. It's not really my preferred setting, but the mechanics seem good enough to where I keep checking up on this. It's reminding me strongly of Ground Control, but far more involved. I really liked both GC 1&2, so this is peaking my interest.