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Phantom Brigade to Launch as Early Access on the Epic Games Store
10th June 2019
Today we’re announcing that our upcoming title Phantom Brigade will launch as Early Access first on the Epic Games Store.
As with our previous announcement for Industries of Titan, Phantom Brigade will be on the Epic Store for one year as Early Access. After that, we’ll launch a full 1.0 release on both the Epic Games Store and Steam.
Launching this way with two stages gives us the opportunity to spend more time perfecting the details of the game, and making sure that we can do the full launch with the strongest product possible. We really love how Phantom Brigade is looking right now, and we can’t wait to show you more in the coming months. And if you’re excited to see it, don’t worry! We’ll have a new game play video for you in the coming days.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but reading the announcement, it sounds like it'll be in Early Access on EGS for a year before releasing on Steam and EGS. That means no forums while it's in EA, hence me being quite baffled.
It would be a bit of an ingenious financial move if developers treated EGS releases as 'early access' in all but name - gaining that Epic cash and whatever piddly sales come their way, only to save their full release for Steam/gog/whatever with the additional development time provided by the EGS exclusivity pumped into improving the game for it's real release.
I'm sure I'm not the first grifter-minded person to think along these lines, and I expect a few shops have even used EGS exclusivity money as such. But, how do they deal with the reviewers treating it as a final game, and not EA?
Maybe I'm mistaken, but reading the announcement, it sounds like it'll be in Early Access on EGS for a year before releasing on Steam and EGS. That means no forums while it's in EA, hence me being quite baffled.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but reading the announcement, it sounds like it'll be in Early Access on EGS for a year before releasing on Steam and EGS. That means no forums while it's in EA, hence me being quite baffled.
Phantom Brigade Progress Update
04-29-2020, 09:24 AM
Hello everyone,
We know you want to see what we've been up to, so we wanted to give you an update on what we're working on. There will be more to come soon, so hang tight!
During the last four weeks, we have been hard at work on the campaign, overworld, melee, and customization. We have also added new SFX and ambient soundtracks across the entire game and expanded many of our developer tools.
In the campaign, all cities, bases, and units are generated and placed semi-procedurally. Their decisions are also controlled by an AI commander. Furthermore, some of the interactions that used to be instantaneous are now done over time. For example, salvaging, rescuing pilots, and repairing mechs.
When it comes to combat, we have added melee with seven new melee weapons, and significantly improved overheating animations and many of the battle SFX. Additionally, to test all of those things, we have added lots of new maps with elevation changes and indestructible cover.
The customization has also been significantly improved. Stats are now collated into easy to parse summaries, UI has been made more readable, and more filtering options have been added. Also, just like with overworld and combat, the entire mobile base received a substantial SFX and ambient soundtrack update.
Last but not least, we have developed many tools, some of which will be very handy for modders. Those tools will allow us to speed up the development of new equipment, scenarios, animations, and content for the overworld and the campaign at large.
All of these additions and upgrades play a significant role in making the game more complete, enjoyable, and easier to develop.
Thank you!
Phantom Brigade Team
New Features and Notable Changes
Overworld
Added AI and behavior tree systems
Added support for mobile base deployment
Added support for timed interactions
Implemented threat level and level display for overworld events
Updated movement and path rendering systems
Updated sensor range to be more visible
Updated the overworld movement system
Updated overworld entity selection prioritization
This is used by a new AI Faction commander system, to dispatch orders and provide war level tactical reasoning (first pass)
Added new AI behaviors, non-hostile units will attempt to flee from the phantom brigade
Added hostile AI that will attempt to hunt the player, and if they lose track of them, they will attempt to navigate to the last know location
Updated patrolling behavior
New Behavior Nodes: Delay, FleeEntityMoveToEntity, NotifyCommander, SelectDestinationAroundPoint
New Behavior trees: Patrol, Move To Destination, Attack Player, Flee player
Updated AI Faction commander, it can now command units to the site of a battle to investigate if it occurred in friendly territory
Added support for military bases launching investigations and rescue parties for lost units in their own territory. This will spawn a new unit and command it to search the last know location of the player
Added AI Awareness System, which allows agents to respond dynamically with new orders while executing a behavior tree.
Added AI Intel reports, and commander notifications
Added Overworld Alert system, which creates AI intel of battles that have occurred
Added a system to control how quickly a military base can respawn units ReinforcementCooldownSystem
Added unit group, city, base and site spawn, and generation systems
Improved Overworld input handling
Added Overworld ambient and menu SFX
Mobile Base
Added a deployment to combat warning
Added Crawler ambient and menu SFX
Combat
Updated combat entry and exit logic
Added running animations for top speed mechs
Added basic intro system that focuses the camera on the first unit when combat is entered
Updated combat interface and mech SFX
Added a linear soundtrack for the planning phase
Customization
Added displays and comparison views for processed stats
Added sorting by archetype for parts and subsystems
Expanded the right side part and subsystems selection interface
Added basic inventory subsystem preview
Added debriefing UI along with combat stats system that can be used for tracking various combat events and surfacing them.
Reworked how event view, combat end view and base/world nav switch are displayed
Added minimum and maximum range stats to melee weapons
Added animations, blends, and transition for new melee weapons
Added dash animations for melee weapons
Updated melee distance check to be performed on the first part of the melee trajectory
Improved melee's trajectory rendering
Added support for per-weapon cancellation threshold
Added various melee balance changes
Added placeholder melee SFX
Heat
Added idle overheating animations
Added overheating warning and mech shut down SFX
NPCs
Added male face rig
Updated female face and body rigs
Armor Sets
Added armor sets - Knox (light, medium, heavy)
Designed armor sets - Arrow (light, medium)
Scenarios
Updated custom scenarios with new maps
Updated all unit presets in the scenario database
Maps
Updated map names
Added map features: elevation changes, ramps for tank navigation , platforms for shooting over the cover and indestructible natural cover
Updated greybox test maps: map_1_town,map_2 city base, map_3_village, map_4_base, map_5_rural_industry, map_6_metropolis, map_7_village_industry, map_10_rural_base and map_11_forest
Fixes
Fixed mobile base's rotation constraint while being deployed
Fixed overworld event detection
Fixed melee archetypes to use correct impact time keys
Fixed melee action duration
Fixed unit selection on melee confirmation
Fixed unit instantiation
Fixed numerous UI issues
Fixed path linking
Fixed timeline scrubbing
Fixed localization-related issues
Fixed game startup/bootstrap logic
Fixed saving data formatting and processing
Fixed unit part instantiation and data formatting
Fixed calls for equipment cleanup systems
Fixed subsystem archetypes
Fixed blueprints
Fixed critical issues in targeted stat calculation
Fixed issues with inspectors
Fixed issues with config data
Fixed target widget audio
Fixed squad configuration
Fixes customization navigation UI
Fixes for UI audio
Fixes for AI replanning
Fixed action/unit hotkeys
Fixed triggered exit of all combat UI on outcome resolution
Fixed blueprints and loading process
Fixed navigation bar being hidden by default
Fixed the Entitas Visual debugging systems in the editor
Fixed tooltip depth
Fixed part dependencies in mechs
Fixes a bug with already destroyed entities being collected on AddedOrRemoved filtered systems.
Fixed villages not being capturable
Fixed incorrect interaction checks on a single frame after the battle
Fixes interaction popups not being destroyed on cleanup
Fixed units skipping full destruction if some parts still survived
Fixed a warning if no tag is found that matches the generation criteria
Fixed action/unit hotkeys
DEV Oriented
Dev Wiki Updates
Added new information about manufactures, parts, subsystems, military branches, military sub-branches
Outlined the core structure and progression of the campaign and overworld
Added a level design guide and the scenario design guide
Inspector Improvements
Made equipment editor UI more consistent between part and subsystem tabs
Updated Odin to a custom 2.1.11 build with fixed HashSet drawers
Added a robust key replacement system to every data multilinker
Added new equipment editor that displays part archetypes, part blueprints, subsystem archetypes, and subsystem blueprints
Improved the projectile inspector.
Added a stat distribution system that can auto-fill multipliers on blueprints
Added inspector utilities like auto-fill based on hardpoint filter
Improved save data inspector with key dropdowns
Updated AreaManager tools with a nav graph/override generation buttons
Added an ability to set the level of spawned units easily
Added a subsystem section to part information view
Added analytics to part presets
Overworld Tools
Added a basic visual editor for saved overworld entities
Added overworld entity factory utilities
Added virtual unit group system
Added overworld AI behavior trees debugging system
Added a compressed object system that can be used to populate a world map with props without serializing and instantiating any game objects.
Visuals
Modified ECS batcher to allow directly requesting batches without game objects using just meshes, materials, and transformation data.
Updated billboard shader to support instancing.
Animation Tools
Added cine tools for procedural locomotion
Added cine crawler rig, motion path, and steering
Expanded NPC tools to handle motion path locomotion to work with mechs
Added locomotion banking
UI Tools
Added better options for button audio
Added a flexible way to bind buttons and other UI elements to audio events
Data Model
Expanded reflection utilities
Refactored the entire equipment database
Moved all the old equipment data to the refactored data model
Standardized naming of equipment across the entire data model
Removed redundant parts of equipment data
Refactored save format
Moved all data to a sorted dictionary
Moved all the equipment data out of persistent context
Cleaned up stats on the equipment
Made unit presets more flexible
Added support for non-uniform per stat distribution
Phantom Brigade is a single-player tactical RPG that blends turn-based and real-time gameplay as you command a squad of mech pilots and they attempt to literate their war-torn homeland.
Previously featured on Alpha Beta Gamer way back in 2016, Phantom Brigade is a tactical RPG game where huge mechs blow the crap out of each other in fully destructible environments. In the game you take control of the last surviving squad of mech pilots in a war-ravaged country. You will lead them as they sabotage enemy weapons, recapture equipment and infiltrate facilities as they attempt to recapture their country.
Phantom Brigade blends real-time and turn-based gameplay to make for a very cinematic take on the genre. You’ll be able to predict enemy movement and orchestrate well timed countermeasures and watch as the carnage unfolds on the battlefield. On the world map you’ll also be able to make high level decisions, such as resource management and base building.
It’s a fantastic looking game that promises epic mech battles with a nice mixture of strategy and spectacle. Sign up for the Alpha to be one of the first enlisted into the Phantom Brigade.