Sunday, May 12, 2013

1.1.22 Released!

Kind of a drastic update, and rather random in nature.  I needed something fun to code in a couple hours. :)

Changes since 1.1.21:

  • Added a new terrain type, Treacherous Dunes!
    • This spawns on random maps about half as often as regular Dunes
    • It is completely impassible by any ground unit (due to sinkholes, water traps, worms, etc)
    • It looks like a high contrast version of regular Dunes and shows up slightly lighter colored than sand on the minimap
  • Doubled the cost of Refineries and increased build time
    • Hear me out on this one... I realized after much thought that somehow down through time I had allowed Refineries to get much too cheap.  In the original game they were 400 Credits and while the first Harvester was free, every additional one was 300 credits more.  Now in that context, 800 credits for unlimited harvesters (albeit one at a time) doesn't seem so unreasonable.  And the simple fact is that it is just too easy to rush to a massive economical advantage.  Yes, this change will slow down the early game, but I think the change to the meta game will be fantastic in that nearly every game should make it to mid-game (especially with the recent defensive buffs), and making good building decisions will have a greater effect toward the late-game.  Battles will be smaller and more interesting.  There will be more time to build strategies and counters.  I'm very interested to see the ripples this will make through the community!
  • Added graphical icons showing when units are receiving a defensive bonus (from Dunes or Crags)
  • Fixed more bugs associated with new queues being created in odd circumstances for Flyers at the HTF