Wasteland Wasteland 3 + Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation Expansions Thread

[TheEntitledOne]

Just finished, liked it quite a bit.

But what the flying fuck was the ending segment?

Spoiler

Patriarch vs Angela Deth
The dude is basically a saint by post-apocalyptic standards.

Hurr durr, let's replace a tyrant with a myriad petty wasteland psicos, allying ourselves with slavers and causing a Ranger civil war in the process.

Bitch didn't even get to her first turn in my playthrough. No doubt she was a synth impostor.

 

[blessed king of longing]

Couldn't make myself care enough about the game to actually finish it. It's amazing that the Fallout series (objectively superior) were the spinoff simply because they weren't allowed to make Wasteland 2 at the time (which was also shit).

 

[Grotesque]

ELEX!

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

Here we gooo:



https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/post/patch-1-3-3-new-features

Patch 1.3.3: New Features
Do you remember that time we offered a new difficulty mode that was easier than easy, and it caused everyone in the community to think we’d lost our minds? We remember. We remember it so hard that we’ve been tossing and turning in our beds thinking of a way to show you we hadn’t lost our minds. Because we haven’t lost our minds. We haven’t, so stop saying we have, Mother! Next month, we’re targeting the release of Patch 1.3.3, lovingly titled “Death & Taxes.” You can tell that we’re not messing around here. This is exactly the sort of update that those among you who chided the idea of a story mode are going to love. And we get it, because pain is fun. In this update we’re adding a few new features, including Permanent Death (aka “Permadeath”), an optional Difficult Skill Checks Mode, and Respeccing. Read on for the gory details.

“Permadeath” Mode
No matter how many bullets fly past you or how many enemies you’re assaulting at one time, you’re never really going to feel the threat of despair until you’re able to lose a character. And by lose, we don’t mean misplace, we mean lose to death. With permadeath, you’re going to get exactly that because it works exactly how you think it should. When activated at a game’s start, it turns your nearly immortal-ish digital characters into something more or less mortal (for a video game), and means they’ll croak when their health reaches zero.

One other important note here is that we’ve made the decision to keep Permadeath as a single player-only feature which cannot be enabled in multiplayer. As much fun as is to watch your friends subjected to painful and horrific video game deaths, co-op splits the team down the middle, and one player losing everyone and then watching for (potentially) hours until the other can make it back to Ranger HQ just isn’t a good time.

The Permanent Death feature also cannot be disabled once you have opted in at the start of your game. So choose, and choose wisely. If you have the Permanent Death feature enabled:

• Instead of becoming Incapacitated when life runs out, party members permanently DIE. This is really going to bum someone out who didn’t read the fine print.
  
  
• When a party member dies, they will dump their equipment to the local party’s shared inventory. Though they may not still be with you in your journey, at least you've robbed their corpse of their worldly belongings.
  
  
• Once a party member shuffles off their mortal coil, their Party Portrait is removed from the HUD and other game interfaces, and they can no longer be selected or used. This is because they are dead.
  
  
• Lest you thought that you would be able to commune with the dead via the Party Screen back at HQ, you cannot. Much as necromancers would have you believe otherwise, you cannot add the dead back into your party.
  
  
• God forbid, if all Rangers in your party are killed permanently at any one time, you will earn a non-negotiable, do-not-pass-go, Game Over death screen. This is because the light of life has been extinguished from the party and the forces of evil have triumphed. Unless you were the forces of evil, in which case perhaps the forces of light and good prevailed when they killed you.

As an additional note, permanent death enabled games will be noted as such in the save game directory menu – that way you’ll have a good idea at a glance at which of your sessions are more prone to give you indigestion and make your heart palpitate wildly from time to time.

Spoiler

Difficult Skill Checks
Perhaps the idea of permanently dead Rangers isn’t your speed? Or maybe you’re looking for the ultimate challenge with Supreme Jerk, Permadeath, AND something that’ll put your point-spending prowess to the test. Introducing Difficult Skill Checks Mode.

This option is toggleable when starting a new game on the Select Difficulty Window, within the Customize Difficulty sub-menu. When turned on, this will increase all skill checks in the game by +2, up to a maximum of 10.

• World interactions (Ex: locked doors)
  
  
• Conversation interactions (Ex: kiss-ass checks in conversations)
  
  
• Hacking and Taming checks on animals and robots
  
  
• Item skill requirements on gear (ex: weapons have skill requirements)
  
  
• Attribute requirements on gear (ex: heavy armor requires strength)

(Look. We know. We know it's not just skills. But we wanted to go the extra mile for you. Yes, you, reading this, right now. You're worth it.)

This optional mode was designed to force your Ranger team to hyper-specialize to be successful, making your jack-of-all-trades 'master-of-all' party no longer possible. This is great for a 2nd run-through if you want to be forced into some hard character build decisions.

Respec Feature
Also coming in 1.3.3, you’re going to be able to re-specialize your characters, with a caveat or two. Firstly, this can only happen back at Ranger HQ, within the Manage Squad screen. HQ is a relatively warm and comfortable place, so naturally it makes sense that we’d offer such a posh option there. Secondly, there will be a cost for respeccing or recruiting Rangers beyond the first two at HQ. No one teaches for free (except maybe those folks on YouTube) so expect to eventually shell out some in-game coin to be able to do so.

If you are loading a pre-1.3.3 save beyond the initial recruitment point at Ranger HQ, we’re still going to offer you two more free recruit customizations. Beyond that, the cost for respeccing increases by 1.75x (rounded to the nearest $50), up to a maximum of $3000, each time you use it. Additionally, Hiring and Retraining fees increase across the entire squad, not per-character.

Character Customization Additions
When you’re digging into that new Permadeath run you’re going to be able to do so in style. It’s not like a cool helmet design is necessarily going to save the day, but it might just make you feel badass enough to do the thing that makes the thing happen that blows up the thing. In Patch 1.3.3 we’re baking in 23 new character customization options (tattoos, scars, and helmets) that were born of another partnership with renown post-apoc costume designers. We’ll share more specific details about those in an upcoming article. Stay tuned.

Colorado’s just getting warmed up.
Well heck! We’re not even into the meat of the year and Colorado is already looking 100% finer than it did at the close of 2020. Did we mention 1.3.3 is getting a heck-ton* of improvements and fixes as well? Well it is! Full patch notes will be delivered when the patch goes live next month.

Thanks all for your continued badassery and general attention to helping us improve Wasteland 3. You rock, and we salute you for that. *Actual unit of measurement recognized in some countries.

 

[Acrux]

Looks good to me. I wonder what they mean by "next month", though. They were talking about this release last week, so maybe they still mean March and just didn't update the text.

Update: Just checked the Steam forum update and it specifies early March.

 

[Roguey]

This optional mode was designed to force your Ranger team to hyper-specialize to be successful, making your jack-of-all-trades 'master-of-all' party no longer possible.

 

[Ivan]

Meh, I keep returning expecting news about the planned expansions, not hats. Regardless, thanks for updating with news.

 

[Infinitron]

Looks good to me. I wonder what they mean by "next month", though. They were talking about this release last week, so maybe they still mean March and just didn't update the text.

Update: Just checked the Steam forum update and it specifies early March.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Oh hey, Difficult Skillchecks options sounds good. My biggest issue with WL3, heck, with WL2 too, is how builds basically don't matter, because there's no real tradeoffs. It's way too easy to make a party that can do nearly everything.

 

[Alienman]

Permadeath with the big fluctuating damage is going to be interesting.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/post/patch-1-3-3-new-post-apocalyptic-fashion

Patch 1.3.3: New Post-Apocalyptic Fashion

The harsh and unrelenting tundra of a perpetually frozen Colorado calls for harsh and unrelenting fashion statements, and we’re continuing the character customization cornucopia in Patch 1.3.3 "Death & Taxes" with just shy of two-dozen new options. With Permadeath coming as a feature that you have to enable when starting a new game, there’s no time like the near future to dress up your dolls of doom’s destruction.

Like the Wizard and Knight pieces, we’re again working with renowned post-apocalyptic costume artists to help us design and bring these pieces to digital-life. This patch features new pieces from Dimitry Zaitsev, as well as Oliver Bindel of Aesthetic-Apocalypse.com fame—where they sell post-apoc pieces you can own! In real life! In honor of bringing these new pieces from Oliver into the Wasteland 3 experience, we asked if he’d be amenable to a short interview, and amenable he was!

Oliver Bindel
Q: How did you get into post-apocalyptic costume work?

It all started in 2015 at a large fantasy convention right around the corner in our hometown. There was always a small group of post-apocalyptic larpers who showed their costumes and cars. I was not very familiar with the genre at the time, but I was stunned. It wasn’t something you see every day; the idea was fresh. The first year my wife and I were just visitors, but on the 2nd event I said to my wife this time we will go in costume! People liked our costumes; this was a magical moment and I was addicted. So we started our label "Aesthetic Apocalypse" to make more and better costumes. Now we don't make costumes only for ourselves, but sell accessories, weapons, helmets and full costumes for private people as well as for video shoots and now also video games . We want to do high class costumes which look like they were right out of a movie.

Crafting in the workshop is also a good counterpart to my full-time work as a software developer.

“Painfreak”

Spoiler

Q: For these helmets, or for any pieces you create, where do you begin? Is it with a specific item you want to incorporate or a more holistic idea?

Usually, I have just a rough idea how it should look at the beginning. I often have one piece I want to use, for example a lamp shade as helmet, the rest is like a puzzle. I have tons of stuff I’ve collected from flea markets and junkyards and I try different parts in various angles and look what fits the best. Sometimes I completely discard a build I was sitting at for hours. I also have lot of unfinished works which wait for the missing piece.

Q: Post-apoc can be approached in a lot of ways, do you have a prevailing theme or story you think about while designing your pieces?

I normally don't think of existing franchises. I have my own post-apoc setting in mind where the costumes and characters I create begin to live in my imagination. Sometimes I have to do commissioned items that have to fit in a franchise, in this case I have to be close to a theme.

“Dust Phantom”

Q: Anything else you want to share with readers?

Crafting post-apoc costumes is not all about “take old clothes, bust it and add some dirt.” Things we normally don’t even notice can be turned into art. It is a wonderful hobby I can recommend to anyone who has a liking for fantasy stuff. Especially if your partner also has fun with it. You can even start in your living room, but be careful, you will become a messy person who collects piles of trash. And also your friends and family will bring you trash. I remember the day my father gave me a rusty bear trap as a birthday gift or friends who throw sawblades into a gift basket.

We would be happy if you visit us at our website www.aesthetic-apocalypse.com or on Facebook. We have also an online store where you can buy post-apocalyptic gear like the helmets used in Wasteland 3 as well as some vintage military stuff that can be used as crafting supplies: http://darkfuture.shop/

“Desert Lurker”

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions Oliver, we hope everyone loves donning your creations in-game!

check out here) and he returns this patch with some exceptional new mask options. Each of the items below are his concepts, and then the final high-res model and texture which we use to create the in-game items.

Wasteland 3 Dev Team
Not to be outdone, we put our hands to the grindstone and came away with some of our own customization creations (and bloody stumps where our hands used to be). We focused on adding hats from the character portrait art to allow you sync them up closer if you so choose, as well as adding some more scar and tattoo options.

Take it away, HTML!

Thanks for checking out the new character creation cosmetics coming in Patch 1.3.3 “Death and Taxes” releasing… soon! Stay tuned to our social channels for the latest updates.

 

[Fedora Master]

Too bad the faces still look like Oblivion NPCs.

 

[Infinitron]

Got my badge.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[HighCalibreWizard]

how playable is this now. heard it was buggy at release.

Also, does it run well on toasters?

 

[Latelistener]

Also, does it run well on toasters?

 

[Abu Antar]

how playable is this now. heard it was buggy at release.

Also, does it run well on toasters?

It runs well for me. Some loading times are long, but other than that, I hsve hade no issues (yet). I don't even have Windows 10, which it supposedly requires.

 

[Haplo]

Very playable. Best game from InXile so far, IMO.
No idea about specific comp requirements.

 

[HighCalibreWizard]

very nice

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/post/wasteland3-patch1-3-3-now-live

Wasteland 3 Patch 1.3.3 "Death & Taxes" Now Live

3/9 Update: The release of Patch 1.3.3 on PlayStation is now expected to be slightly delayed behind the deployment of all the other platforms by up to 48 hours. Apologies to our PS4/5 players. Thank you for your patience!

Behold... a pale rider in the distance and it tolls a bell, but for whom doth it tolleth its bell for? Forsooth! It tolleth its bell for thee...

You sick bastards. From day one you've been clamoring for us to bring permadeath back to Wasteland, and well, here you go. Have fun watching your Rangers squirm in the snow choking on their own digital blood... reaching up to you through the screen, asking for help. But you can't help them. Or you could but you choose not to. Maybe their evasion was just a little too low a little too often. Maybe if you hadn't thought they couldn't possibly take that much damage in a single turn. Or maybe you kept them standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever, pour one out and say a little prayer. They're dead.

Of course, permadead Rangers aren't the only thing we cooked up in this patch. Scope the highlights below for the meatiest chunks of info in our newest iteration of Wasteland 3, Patch 1.3.3 "Death & Taxes." P.S. Hang onto yer butts, plenty more to come this year! Colorado is just getting warmed up.

Highlights
Permadeath

• Permanent Death (aka Permadeath) is here to challenge your sanity. This is an optional mode that can only be enabled when starting a new game.
  
• If enabled, your squad members will be permanently killed if their Downed timer during combat expires. Once they’re dead, they’re dead forever. How death normally works.
  
• Permadeath is a single player-only mode.

Difficult Skill Checks

• Difficult Skill Checks is here to challenge your squad-building prowess. This is an optional mode that can only be enabled when starting a new game.
  
• If enabled when starting a new game, all Skill, Attribute, and Perception checks are increased by +2 over their base value (up to a max of 10). This applies to in-world interactions, conversations, and equipment requirements.
  
• We recommend this only for veteran players who want an extra challenge that puts their squad optimization to the test.

Retraining

• You can now respec your squad members to reallocate their Attributes, Skills, and Perks!
  
• While at Ranger HQ, a new “Retrain” option is available in the Manage Squad screen, which refunds all points to be spent again. This excludes unique gameplay bonuses such as Cyborg Tech and the Tarjan Machine perks, and any Quirks chosen at character creation.
  
• Retraining characters has a cost which is shared with Recruiting new Rangers.

Recruitment Cost

• Recruiting at Ranger HQ now incurs a cost that is shared with Retraining.
  
• The cost is waived for the first two Rangers recruited from Ranger HQ.
  
• The Recruitment/Retrain cost starts at $200 and increases 1.75x (rounded to the nearest $50) with each use, up to a maximum of $3000.

New Character Customization Options

• Since you’ll need to start a new game to turn on permadeath and difficult skill checks, we have 23 new character customization options to use including helmets, masks, makeup, scars, and tattoos are available.
  
• Multiple helmets were designed alongside renowned post-apocalyptic costume designers for this update. Check inXile-entertainment.com for photos and info.

Additional Crash and Performance Fixes

• We’ve been continually working to improve stability on systems with low amounts of memory (older consoles, primarily) and this update resolves one of our most impactful issues. For those of you experiencing crashes after longer play sessions, we’d love for you to give this update a try and let us know if it resolved your issue. If not, we’d also like to hear from you on the inXile forums so we can continue to make improvements.
  
• We’ve taken a pass at textures across the game to either reduce or increase texture sizes to create a more consistent memory footprint. This should result in slightly more even performance.
  
• Additional misc. changes and fixes that should result in overall improved stability.

[PC] Added voice chat options to enable Push to Talk, show microphone input source, manage volume, or disable it entirely. The Push to Talk key can be customized in keyboard bindings.

Spoiler

Gameplay

• Game options now have descriptive text in case our very intelligently named options weren’t clear enough.
  
  
• Fixed the Poindexter quirk for Rangers recruited from HQ. They’ll now correctly receive their bonus skill points as intended… NERDS.
  
  
• Resolved an issue with the bonus Hit Chance from Leadership not increasing correctly as it’s leveled up.
  
  
• We just made the Hoon Homestead always available from the world map regardless of choices and progression. So that better fix it.
  
  
• We screwed up the intercom before Vic and now we have unscrewed it.
  
  
• Resolved a softlock that could occur while arresting Vic.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where you sometimes couldn’t save the game after a combat where you hacked a robot or tamed an animal. How does that even happen? Who knows. Well, someone does, just not me. Making games sounds hard.
  
  
• Fixed an issue with the Pyromaniac Quirk catching you on fire with elemental damage types other than Fire and Explosive.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the pre-order bonus Colorado Survival Gear items could disappear from the inventory. Did you really pre-order, though? Maybe not. Feels like that was 20 years ago. It’s hard to remember.
  
  
• Rally will now properly apply to squad members that are at a different elevation.
  
  
• Double-dipping into two containers at the same time, where one requires a skill check to open, will no longer cause loot to disappear.
  
  
• Fixed a quest progression issue with “King Cordite,” reported by Ralph. Thanks Ralph!
  
  
• The quest “One of Us” can now be correctly completed if you have Ironclad Cordite in your party.
  
  
• Fixed a quest progression issue during "Heads or Tails" when a creature is tamed during combat and then runs away. Story of my life.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the last character in combat killing themselves would make it so you couldn’t end your turn.
  
  
• Using the Brainwave Destabilizer on enemies in the Clown Museum no longer breaks their animations. Maybe though just shoot the horrifying clown people before they get too close?
  
  
• Fixed a quest progression issue with “Hard Knox Life” when loading specific saves.
  
  
• Llewellyn’s shit had gone missing and was un-interactable. We found the shit and have re-added the shit so you can interact with the shit again now.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the Optilaser 9000 couldn’t be used if your weapon was out of ammo or you had melee equipped.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where getting Vic to join the Rangers and then cancelling out of the Manage Squad screen would make it impossible to add him later. But why would you do that? Add him immediately, it’s hilarious and terrible.
  
  
• Fixed an issue with Close Call perk causing nitrogen, oil, and explosive tanks to sometimes not explode when attacked.
  
  
• The “Call to Action” mission is no longer able to be completed more than once.
  
  
• Mortar Blast now uses the correct amount of AP.
  
  
• Rangers at max level (35) no longer “level up” when receiving the requisite XP. Can you imagine if life stopped at 35? Like a Logan’s Run Carousel situation and you’re running around with a gem in your hand and a robot is shouting about sea greens. I need to watch that again.
  
  
• Fixed a possible softlock when taming a Glow Hopper during a combat.
  
  
• The Minesweeper perk now correctly applies to gas mines, as god intended.

UI & Controls

• Fixed some wonkiness with removing and re-adding custom characters in Squad Manager.
  
  
• Making lots of custom Rangers no longer blocks the ability to scroll down to the Companion section.
  
  
• [LOC] DEV: "<color=>104%"’ removed from Shockwave mortar description. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
  
  
• Fixed a display issue with the Mechanics skill showing an incorrect effectiveness value at level 5.
  
  
• Changed the icon for Big Guns to not be a rocket launcher, which are explosive weapons. They’re also Big, but we had to pick one.
  
  
• Fixed some mpre typos.
  
  
• [Controller] Revive now shows the correct AP cost.

Co-op

• Fixed another issue where the host could drive the Kodiak around like a Ranger after their squad had been killed. Cool? Yes. But still a bug.
  
  
• Misc. co-op bug fixes and improvements.