Templar Battleforce - Squad level tactical RPG in an universe heavily influenced by W40K

[Mr. Pink]

It really does feel more like a board game than a video game. despite the shitloads of customization available to you, the actual combat is pretty simple compared to most squad based turn tactic games out there. I'm enjoying it more after unlocking half the skill tree.

I wonder how fudged the numbers are though. I never seem to miss anything over 90% which makes me suspect that the game uses some kind of psuedo random formula that fudges the outliers off, like xcom easy mode

 

[Makabb]

Space Hulk rip off for 6$ ? sign me up

 

[Baptismbyfire]

I never finished it, but it's actually a pretty good game as long as you're not expecting anything too complex. It should especially be good for those looking for something to play on the road, but something that is not mindnumbingly simple.

 

[thesheeep]

Started this game and there is one thing that confuses me:

How do you gain requisition points?
I have done ~8-10 levels so far and have not gained a single RP. My level 3-4 soldiers cannot learn anything useful and I just seem to be hoarding those talent points.
Did some secondary objectives for bonus xp. But it doesn't seem like bonus objectives ever yield rp.

So... what is up with that?
First I thought they might come later as the story progresses but ... doesn't seem to be true.
It just seems weird considering the tutorial after the first mission tells you what to do with them - what's the point if you don't gain any?

 

[Aothan]

you select the .. let me check

okay when you are in the Battleforce HQ screen, which is the screen you are usually looking at between missions, there are four tabs at the bottom of the screen, selecting the one titled "Requisition" will lead to the skill tree. This is where you unlock skills, equipment, and classes

the skill progression design is a good incorporation of level advancement being partly player controlled so that you can determine what type of army composition and specialised units you can have across levels

I've been thinking of this game a lot lately, it is fun and creative and the developers are unusually focused on their creation

 

[thesheeep]

you select the .. let me check

okay when you are in the Battleforce HQ screen, which is the screen you are usually looking at between missions, there are four tabs at the bottom of the screen, selecting the one titled "Requisition" will lead to the skill tree. This is where you unlock skills, equipment, and classes

No shit, man.

But you can only unlock things there if you have the points to do so. I know where the screen is, but never received any RP to unlock stuff with.

The in-game wiki pretty clearly states this:
"Each victory in a combat deployment grants your Battleforce new RP to spend..."

Honestly, I think I simply hit a bug here.

 

[Zdzisiu]

you select the .. let me check

okay when you are in the Battleforce HQ screen, which is the screen you are usually looking at between missions, there are four tabs at the bottom of the screen, selecting the one titled "Requisition" will lead to the skill tree. This is where you unlock skills, equipment, and classes

No shit, man.

But you can only unlock things there if you have the points to do so. I know where the screen is, but never received any RP to unlock stuff with.

The in-game wiki pretty clearly states this:
"Each victory in a combat deployment grants your Battleforce new RP to spend..."

Honestly, I think I simply hit a bug here.

Nah, you are simply not worth it in the eyes of the Emperor.

 

[thesheeep]

Or maybe my victories haven't been victories after all. Maybe I am being lead astray by the vile forces of FTL transmissions.

 

[Aothan]

have you found a solution, do you have requisition being registered ?

 

[thesheeep]

No solution. Posted on the Steam forums, they seem to be active there.
For now I just wait.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

This is OT, but does anyone know anything about their kickstarted project Star Traders 2?
Is it anywhere near to be released?

 

[vonAchdorf]

This is OT, but does anyone know anything about their kickstarted project Star Traders 2?
Is it anywhere near to be released?

not sure which updates you are reading, but the last 3 updates were posted in August, September, October and each includes a status update on our progress toward alpha, listing task counts and % complete. We are working on our end of November update now. It will include a similar status update on progress and % complete toward Alpha. As Alpha has not been released yet, the game launch is months after alpha goes live, so that gives some idea of where we are at -- definitely 2017.

 

[almondblight]

This is OT, but does anyone know anything about their kickstarted project Star Traders 2?
Is it anywhere near to be released?

They just had an update today:

To summarize our current Alpha status, we can say this -- we have a lot of work to do, but we are now marshalling ourselves to release the game to our backers. We are cleaning up and finalizing everything we can in the coming weeks, and will release the game soon. We are targeting January 2017 to release the first phase of the Alpha, which will focus on Captain Creation, Ship Combat, and Missions.

 

[GarfunkeL]

This is a really good game. Well, bit simplistic but quite fun.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Picked this up during steam sale and its incredibly fun and addictive.

Its far from being as simplistic as I thought it would be, looking like mobile trash on first glance.

I particularly love how extremely well designed and varied the battles have been so far. I like that you have primary and secondary objectives but also sometimes hidden secondary objectives and then frequent surprises and surprise changes of the objectives. So far there always seems to be something new - kill a specific xeno, hold a tactical position for a certain amount of time, just survive for a certain amount of time, escort a scientist to an airlock while the ship is exploding around you, activite a terminal by rerouting energy via nodes - but beware, some nodes may not work!, reconquer a base and close all its gates .. there is always something different going on during the battles and there may be all sorts of surprises.

The only thing that bugs me is that so far the xenos have been very samey. You frequently engage the same enemy type who does the same thing, but maybe this will get better as the game goes on. The enemy AI also isn't good, enemies just rush at you and bash away and so far don't seem to have any special abilities;, their behavior is very predictable. The tension arises through sheer force of their numbers which constantly threaten to overwhelm you from all sides, usually via some mean spawn points. Difficutly in general is well designed. There are several different difficulty levels (I think about 6 or 8?) but you can not change them during the campaign, so choose wisely. There are also additional optional challenges like finishing a mission in a certain amount of turns to get extra xp.

There are lot of different classes to choose from, though I am not too far into the game to really judge how the character system ultimately holds up. It doesn't seem to be deep, usually there is a pretty obvious attribute for every class that you wanna raise, and if you don't like it, you can always re-spec, at any time, without penality. Talent choice is a bit more interesting for some classes but can be re-speced at any time as well. I suppose it invites experimentation but it also takes consequences away. Resource management is also simple but a bit more interesting. You aquire requisition points and spend those on a huge tree to unlock new skills and equipment. While simple, there is strategy involved in how you want to spend your reqs. Since the tree is large you have to think about in which direction you wanna go. Certain classes may also profit from equipment you unlock for another class, for example. As far as I can tell, you can not re-req.

The setting is derivative and the writing minimal and on occasion awkward - but fake space marines are better than no space marines (though, I bought this over space hulk ascension). With regard to missions however, the story is well presented. You may get little conversations how important it is to hold a position, your captain trying to get into contact with a comm officer to no avail, while your engineer reports that there is an issue with the energy flow, and so on. This alleviates the story somewhat and offers an engaging context to go on with the missions. Giving Templars names of people you know and fitting portraits and then playing in permadeath mode adds a great deal to this experience.

It even seems to have C&C by giving you branches how to approach certain missions and then giving you different maps - not sure yet how far these choices affect anything further on.

In some instances you can tell that this is low budget and particularly the UI is an obvious low effort mobile port but then in other instances the presentation is surprisingly good (like the briefing drawings for the current mission, space ships landing on the battlefield and stuff like that) .. The devs are very communicative and frequently engage with the community and react to feedback.

Only about ten hours in, so my opinion might be subject to change, but so far, I am very pleasantly surprised and pretty hooked by the game and can only suggest that people who like squad-based tactics check this out as its pretty cheap on the sale right now.

I wonder if the two other games by these guys are any good? They look a little less polished and more like mobile stuff but maybe they are fun? I particularly wonder how Heroes of Steel holds up compared to Templars, is the combat as varied or is just 'kill-all-enemies' ?

 

[Zetor]

Yea, this game is pretty solid. I finished the android version a while ago -- the campaign is quite long (plus they seem to be adding to it constantly) and gets rather challenging at the end with some new objective types showing up even in the late-game. There are several kinds of non-xeno foes, though I wasn't a fan of endgame enemy types (too exploitable).

My only significant problem is that much of the difficulty from each level comes from map knowledge... this isn't really unique to this game (cf Laser Squad for an easy parallel), but it does hurt replayability and NG+ a bit. Basically, all enemy spawnpoints and various things you'd expect to change between playthroughs - like the energy nodes in that early mission - are fixed. Have they changed anything about this with recent patches?

 

[xxxCatholicKillahxxx]

I wonder if the two other games by these guys are any good? They look a little less polished and more like mobile stuff but maybe they are fun? I particularly wonder how Heroes of Steel holds up compared to Templars, is the combat as varied or is just 'kill-all-enemies' ?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/heroes-of-steel-turn-based-tactical-rpg.97941/

Might prove helpful to you.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Arr, I was looking for it but didn't find it cause I have the OP on ignore, my bad.

 

[GarfunkeL]

There are actually too many classes. Since your squad is limited in all mission and you hardly ever get to go above 9 to the hard limit of 12, plus your research points are limited as well, there isn't much point in having all classes represented since you can't really improve all of them at the same time. Though I guess it does offer replayability. I currently run the Commander, 3 Soldiers, an Engineer, 2 Scouts, a Pyro and a Paladin.

As for enemies, they are largely same though some ranged Xenos will come up eventually, though I haven't seen any with special abilities. I do like that the missions vary between ships and planets.

 

[almondblight]

Basically, all enemy spawnpoints and various things you'd expect to change between playthroughs - like the energy nodes in that early mission - are fixed. Have they changed anything about this with recent patches?

Ask them about it on the Steam forums, they're pretty good about responding to suggestions.

 

[Tolias]

This came to my attention after I got Star Traders: Frontiers, as I checked the devs' other games. 620 reviews were overwhelmingly positive (lolwut).

So I watched a bit of some LP and picked it up in a recent sale for $5 and all I have to say is... holy fuck where have you been all my life.

All right maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I haven't had this much fun with a game for a long while. I am 46 hours in, closing to the end (first playthrough on Brutal difficulty) and already planning my next game on IRONMAN.

That's right, there's an ironman mode, where you can't even restart or abort a mission, if you lose your precious high level dude, he's gone forever and you have to recruit some scrub 4 levels lower.

The gameplay is fast and simple on the surface, but deceptively deep. There's a huge amount of customization for each of the 8 classes, depending on the gear you pick and talents/stats your raise. Although you can respecc your templars' talents at any time (and thus re-try a non-ironman mission with a different skill set), your requsition tech tree (with which unlocks talents, gear and new classes) choices are final. That means your req choices have a real impact and must be made carefully.

One of the best things about the game is the amount of updates the devs push out and how responsive they are to feedback. Game is already up to update #85 that came out in June and more are coming. Plus there's always discussion going on, both on the game's official forums and on the steam forums -- and as I said, the devs are quick to respond to suggestions, questions and (especially) bug fixing.

I invite you to watch a couple episodes of this LP. It's on ironman and the dude skips most of the story, so you won't be spoiled, but it showcases the game well, I thought.

My one complaint is, I would have liked some more long missions.

All in all, a great way to scratch the tactical turn-based combat itch.

 

[Galdred]

The game is great, but I think it would really have benefited from randomized maps, because time limit + set maps makes scouting with a non ironman playthrough necessary.
Actually, the game destroys the Space Hulk TB games IMO.

 

[someone else]

I bought this ages ago and still waiting for a final update before playing.

 

[Dickie]

One of the best things about the game is the amount of updates the devs push out and how responsive they are to feedback. Game is already up to update #85 that came out in June and more are coming. Plus there's always discussion going on, both on the game's official forums and on the steam forums -- and as I said, the devs are quick to respond to suggestions, questions and (especially) bug fixing.

I saw that they updated it as recently as two days ago. It's kind of nice that they're adding new stuff still. I wonder if they'll ever stop updating it.

Neptune Relics
Two new high power and high Gear Level Relics have been added to the RQ tree, each with their own new Requisition node. These newest Repeaters can only be carried by a single Templar but they make up for their rarity in sheer and raw power. The Mk21 drops the mightiest damage while Vright's Mk23 will punch through any enemy deflection!

Engineer Options
The new Engineering Requisition level adds the Burning Cutter, a gauntlet that drops flame damage, capable of leaving spitting and burning napalm in its wake. In addition it includes the Coolant X-Kit, a new Ordnance that packs both Flame Res and ax Heat Buff.

Finally, we've further balanced a few levels based on player feedback -- Southbound Trail is harder, Mok Prime: Drop Zone and Starport Breach both start with more Supply Points for your first Ordnance purchases or immediate swapping.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/370020/announcements/detail/1698322243590819754

Update #88: Major Milestone "CLAYMORE"
28 Jan @ 11:45pm - Trese Brothers

The major milestone CLAYMORE introduces a new style of play for Templar Engineers who can now drop landmines onto the field of battle to bait, slow and detonate oncoming enemies. This new style of defensive play is best matched with other Engineering abilities like Sentry Turrets and can be used by both Flame Engineers and standard Engineer Templars. They can be useful to both hold a defensive perimeter or slow down pursuing enemy forces as your elite strike force of mechs powers forward to an objective.

Two turrets and two landmines form a defensive perimeter around the first Tact Point at Tundeer

Self Destruct Initiated!
Unlike a conventional landmines, the Templar landmine is remote detonated by the command of its Engineer to ensure the most devastating effect. If the landmine's internal systems are compromised beyond a point, it will automatically self-destruct to attempt to take out its attacker as its final action.

Access to the Landmines and their Talents and resupply Ordnance are controlled through a new branch of the Requisition Tree from the Engineer's main trunk. Each level of the Deploy Landmine Talent will increase the total number that can be dropped as well as better their explosive weapon and armor.

The landmines' greatest weakness is those xeno and enemy that can hurl ranged attacks, standing out of their explosive radius and raining down attacks until they self destruct. For these situations, a Landmine's last defense is its Bolt-Seal Talent, a buff that increases its armor and ability to survive hits in trade for some of its Penetration % when it does explode.

Landmines will be most effective when they can survive a few hits and allow a crowd of melee enemies to get in close enough for one big detonation.

The battlefield awaits, captain!

v2.7.1 - 1/28/2018
- Engineers can now drop landmines as a defense perimeter -- boom boom!
- Added 5 new levels to the Requisition Tree for Engineers
- Control your landmines to bait and self-destruct against incoming enemy
- Use Landmine's Self-Destruct Talents to inflict devastating damage to nearby enemies
- Used Landmine's Bolt-Seal Talent to lock the mine down and weather the storm from ranged enemies
- If destroyed, landmines self-destructs into the attacking enemy's face
- Added Ordnance for Landmine Resupply
- Grenades now prevent you from throwing them at empty space with no targets