Steam Marines (Now at Open Alpha v0.8.0a)

[getter77]

v0.7.3a

New Features

-Added lifted tiles which confers bonuses on units on them. Units gain +1 sight range and against lower units gain a 50% accuracy bonus. Targeting an elevated unit from a lower position gives a 25% accuracy penalty.
-Squad members will render in proper order when blocking units in the background on lifted tiles, but this is aesthetic only. Line-of-sight is not inhibited by friendly units.
-Getting knocked onto environmental effects triggers them (like traps).
-Support class talent Hail Mary changed to, “Increases accuracy by 10% and range by 2.”
-Smoothed out Follow Mode. You can no longer/target/fire/use items while the rest of the squad catches up. -Environmental effects such as traps now trigger after all squad members have moved per step.
-Elevators will no longer spawn close to the squad position (unless forced to by geometry/map layout), but a continuous path is still not guaranteed from the squad to the elevator (without breaking walls).
-Implemented Grenadier class talent “EMP”. Deals aoe electric damage to nearby robotic enemy units – no friendly fire (e.g. Support Turret).
-Deck generation is now more distinguishable in size and other features.
-Enemies spawn in groups more frequently. They can also more efficiently trigger other enemy groups.

Bug Fixes

-Fixed flashlight beam not always rendering pixel perfect when the camera moves.
-Fixed consoles rendering on top of barrels.
-Various dispenser bugs.
-Various door opening bugs with enemy AI.
-Fixed pixel perfect rendering for some widescreen, windowed resolutions.
-Enforced squad member size after moving between tiles.
-Fixed squad member readout having incorrect data during squad member death.
-Fixed Inventory Tab readout having incorrect data during squad member death.
-Fixed trap render order with regards to consoles and lifted floor tile shadows.
-Fixed white lines rendering on subpixel sprite edges.
-Prevented certain objects from spawning on top of one another.
-Fixed bug with the elevator tile (not the arrow animation) sometimes disappeared on game load.
-Reformatted some dialog text to fit properly in windows.
-Fixed damage and accuracy calculations against enemies with really high or really low evasion. Accuracy is now properly bounded between 0 and 100 percent.
-Fixed units rendering behind consoles and the mouse tile indicator animation.

Notes

-Increased camera shake for marine fire.
-Barrels (crates) shifted upward for aesthetic purposes.
-Increased base chance for marines to smash down wall tiles.

[Legend]

Did the system requirements go up in the last few versions?  I just tried out this recent release and the performance is much lower and choppier than before.

I haven't tried the previous two versions before this one either, but the last one I did try ran just fine. But this latest one is quite slow.

[Worthless_Bums]

The latest version has a few more sprites on screen because of the tile changes but nothing that should significantly impact performance. The two builds prior to the latest also put restrictions on how fast units can take actions. This was so Follow Mode didn't break in some edge cases and the player could more clearly see what each enemy unit was doing during their turn. This actually gives more time for things like AI so performance should potentially have been better! 

Can you be more specific about what's slower/choppier and your system specs?

[Legend]

Don't really know my full system specs. On a laptop with win xp sp3.

The over all animation and mouse cursor movement, and reaction time after issuing a command is what is slower/choppier. Basically the game as a whole seems to be running slower.

[Worthless_Bums]

Hrm. Well I have some suspicions then 

I put a dev build up if you'd like to give it a shot. I test on an old Samsgun N150 Plus running Win7. I actually stopped testing on WinXP a few months ago but I can dig up the old box again to see if something odd is happening.

[Legend]

Just tried the dev build and it does seem to run quite a bit smoother than the last official build.

[getter77]

v0.7.4a

New Features

-A gateway boss, the Hulk, has been added to the Command Deck.
-Updated fog of war to more smoothly trigger on unit movement, specifically enemy units moving in and out of fog. Fog of war should also be less of a CPU hog on lower end computers.
-More organized enemy AI. The AI will spawn in groups (more often), can form and break off into different groups dynamically, and can cooperate to hunt down and surround the player.
-Cut back on the frequency grating spawns occur between squad members. However, the enemy AI may now use them as conduits to flank your squad. There is some “hocus pocus” involved since enemies may move over long distances this way, more than their AP should allow them to if moving on the ground tiles.
-Elevator power. Elevators need power to operate. Sometimes they're already powered. Sometimes you need to do something to get them powered.
-Special target indicator animation when targets are at max weapon range to draw attention to the fact that accuracy has been boosted to 100%.

Bug Fixes

-Fixed bug with consoles sometimes being rendered invisible when the wall tile north of them is destroyed.
-Traps on lifted tiles should now always render on top of the tile regardless of load order or any other funny stuff!
--Fixed floating health text for squad members updating slowly when enemies melee them.
-Fixed ambient music not always playing on the Medical Deck.

Notes

A lot of code was optimized for lower end machines. Performance should be significantly better.

[getter77]

v0.7.4.5a

New Features

-Wall tiles should be grouped together to indicate they can be broken through to reach new areas.
-Grenade damage lowered to 20 for the main tile target and 10 for aoe.

Bug Fixes

-Stasis animation on enemy units persists from save/load.
-Fixed floating sprite issue on enemy unit movement.
-Fixed experience gain from elevator spotting triggering properly.

Notes

-Optimized the holy hell out of fog-of-war. This may have been the cause of freezing/crashes in v0.7.4a for some computers.

[getter77]

v0.7.5a

New Features

-Balanced the Hulk encounter on the Command Deck. It's now highly unlikely you will end up with a Grenadier class marine with a weapon incapable of punching through the Hulk's armor.
-Flamejacks and Thopters adopt more group tactics when flanking the player's units.
-Added the Revenant as a non-unique enemy. Fast, aggressive, and will explode upon death.
-Player and enemy turns are split up more clearly.
-Added new squad death/game over screen.
-Sped up map generation and added some special wall tiles.
-Rebalanced ammunition availability and experience/level curve for marines. You will no longer end up with four sergeants after just two levels.

Bug Fixes

-Fixed facing not always checking for proper amount of Action Points.
-Fixed enemy units not always facing in the proper direction for certain actions.

Notes

-(More) game windows like quit game prompt can be closed with the escape key.
-Survivor marines have a lower and narrower range of health and ammo.
-Fixed some spelling errors.

[getter77]

v0.7.6a

New Features

-Added high score screen.
-(Physical) armor is always reduced by 1 from a direct enemy attack.
-Weapon stats no longer have a chance to be reduced on enemy attack.
-Marine class armor has a higher range of randomized armor rating stat.
-Base class armor rating rebalanced; Leader has 4, Scout has 2, Grenadier has 6, and Support has 3.
-Base melee and range damage for all enemy units reduced across the board.
-Tick health increased slightly.
-Thopter health decreased slightly.
-Rebalanced Buckets. Damage and armor values reduced.
-Treasure chests can now contain items other than armor and weapons. Chest spawn chance slightly increased depending on deck level.
-Special weapons now appear earlier in the game and with more frequency than normal weapons. To compensate randomized armor has a higher chance of being in chests instead of weapons.
-Weapons can now come with an “Acid” prefix which makes them reduce targets' armor ratings.
-Added Longsights and Shortsights, single use items that can permanently modify weapon range up and down, respectively.
-Added Armor Kits that permanently increase equipped armor by 1.
-Implemented chance for enemy AI to halt pursuit depending on line-of-sight, fog-of-war, distance between player and enemy units, and enemy unit communication.
-Added special one use item, the Lasershot. Deals an unmitigated 30 damage to all units and wall tiles and closed doors within 4 tiles ahead.

Bug Fixes

-Fixed closed doors sometimes being flagged as walls that didn't block line-of-sight.
-Fixed enemy unit door interactions not firing properly when other units were adjacent to the door.
-Fixed errant player input on end level screen.
-Fixed UI not always returning after clearing all enemies and ending the turn.
-Fixed some performance issues because fog of war was updating when it wasn't necessary.

Notes

-Reintroduced 1024x768 resolution support.
-Made fonts/font sizes more consistent and readable for smaller resolutions.
-Overhauled squad creation screen.
-Changed main menu save state preview to show character rank instead of internal level.
-Directly selecting a squad member will no longer shortcut out if that character is already selected. It will always manually switch to that target squad member.
-Fog of war fading has been turned off by default. I suspect this is the cause of the recent crash complaints.
-License file changed.

[getter77]

v0.7.7a

New Features

-The game now automatically saves before the player turn/after the enemy turn.
-Added more Leader and Scout class weapons.
-Reduced grenade main target damage to 15. Aoe damage remains at 10 damage.
-Stripped weapon/armor information and placed them in the Promotions Panel.
-Stripped Deck information/mission objectives and placed them in the Promotions Panel.
-Cleaned up the main UI HUD to only present really necessary information.
-Event log has been extended in size and is less verbose.
-Added a text ammo counter that scrolls when a marine fires.

Bug Fixes

-Fixed crashing issues.
-Fixed potential infinite loop in deck generator.
-Fixed various sprite loading issues.
-Fixed a potential memory leak with weapon attachment sprites.
-Fixed music not properly playing when loading a save game with the Hulk encounter in progress.
-Fixed miscellaneous display bugs with the Promotion and Inventory DUI.
-Fixed ammunition not loading properly on some generated weapons.
-Fixed Guard Mode not triggering on the very last action of the enemy turn.
-Fixed marines being able to enter Guard Mode without action points.
-Can no longer enter Squad Follow Mode while any marine is in Guard Mode.

Notes

-Game text font sizes more consistent. Game option large/small font sizes not yet re-enabled.
-Fog of war reveal and level generation code is faster.

[getter77]

v0.7.8a

New/Changed Features

-Added a context sensitive Grab button that appears when the current character is on an item or chest.
-Added a context sensitive Interact button that appears when the current character is facing an environment object that can be used.
-Added an auto save indicator to the upper right hand corner of the screen.
-Added basic geomorph functionality to level generation. Eventually this will be extended to special rooms and encounters, locations for hidden gear, cross level connections (e.g. a small Medical Deck room on the Engineering Deck), and other uses.
-Gratings now appear on walls and can spawn monsters on floor tiles below them.
-Monsters cannot use gratings to travel on the first level of the Command Deck.
-Added more randomized marine names for character creation.
-Added more marine dialogue when spotting/killing enemies.
-Added more starting marine dialogue on new game.
-The camera mounts to the first valid target when toggling fire controls.
-Added new Support class passive talent icons.
-Changed Scout class passive talent “Biohazard” to affect all organics.
-Increased Scout class active talent “Stasis” to require 4 Action Points per use instead of 3.
-Added new enemy targeting panel on the bottom center of the screen. It pops up when a valid enemy has been targeted and shows a portrait, current/max health, current/max action points, and the approximate damage and accuracy of the shot if taken.
-Added Grenadier class weapon variants.
-Updated weapon/armor swap panel to use the consistent HUD theme.
-Stripped device names (e.g. “keyboard”, “joystick”) from keybind tooltips.
-Added a small delay when firing. This is to prevent accidental firing and to lock the camera onto valid targets throughout the firing sequence.
-AI downgrade; enemies will not alert quite so many nearby enemies upon spotting the player's units. This reduces the likelihood you will be surrounded and smashed to pieces in the early game.

Bug Fixes

-Fixed the grab action deducting an action point even when no items/treasure is on the active character's tile.
-Marines can now only have a single dialogue popup at any given time to avoid text overlapping.
-Fixed nasty keybinding/input.cs.dso bug that could cause crashing on startup for players first installing the game or using a non-installed version.

[getter77]

v0.7.9a

New/Changed Features

-“Hard” difficulty mode added.
-New Game Plus implemented. Reaching the elevator on the fifth level of the Medical Deck wins the game demo/alpha. This allows you to start the game over from the beginning with your current squad, all gear, talents, stats, et cetera. Score is not entered on the high score table until you actually lose the game!
-High Score table now records the game difficulty and game version of that run.
-Completion of the alpha is the first three decks; Command, Engineering, and Medical. Each New Game Plus adds 1000 points to that run.
-Difficulty now affects score. Easy has a multiplier of 0.75, Normal of 1.0, and Hard of 1.25. Bonuses and penalties are scaled separately then aggregated because scores can be negative.
-A New Game Plus counter was added to the high scores screen next to the final deck/level.
-New Game Plus counter appears on the center/middle of the main menu screen while a game is in-progress or for a save state preview.
-You cannot adjust game difficulty in New Game Plus.
-On Normal difficulty subsequent New Game Plus runs are harder due to enemy stat gains.
-The Revenant is now the boss of the Engineering Deck. Health, armor, and action points were increased and base melee damage decreased.
-Revenions can spawn on any adjacent tile from Revenants. On Normal difficulty and up they can also spawn from Revenions.
-Easy difficulty monster stats buffed across the board.
-All weapons now have a flat 1 AP cost to fire.
-When Guard Mode is triggered all available AP is placed in a separate AP pool used for Guard Mode shots. No more infinite enemy turn shooting!
-Base trap damage reduced to 4.
-Traps are now really easy to see. I will feel zero sympathy if you step on them!
-Added new art backgrounds.
-The New Game Button now clears any old save file and prompts you whenever there is a save file detected or a game is currently in progress.
-Enemy spawn chance from grating tiles has been toned down to 10%.
-The escape key now skips the introductory text sequence.
-Dispensers potentially give more ammunition.
-Increased dispenser spawn chance on open levels. Cramped levels have less chance to spawn dispensers.
-Significantly decreased starting ammo for all classes.
-Added steam vent animation to grating tiles.
-Added wall pipes for environment aesthetics.
-Added portholes which allow sight through the wall tiles they reside on.
-Reduced firing delay for marines.
-Increased the number of traps that can spawn per level.
-You may hear tapping noises...
-The Medical Deck gets a new ranged enemy unit. Beware!
-Enemies are a lot more aggressive when searching out marines on Normal difficulty.
-Amputators and Ripsaws are now more aggressive.
-Amputators and Ripsaws are more watchful of marines on the player's turn.
-Removed primary and secondary mission objectives on deck levels.
-Added context sensitive button for using an elevator.
-Added more armor variants/names that affect random stats.
-Added more context sensitive marine dialogue and banter.
-Fixed Grenadier class weapon “Howler” sprite and inventory icon bitmaps.
-Escape exits the New Game Button prompt from the main menu when there is a game in progress.
-Implemented a credits screen at the end of the game.

Bug Fixes

-Dispensers again spawn in proper positions next to horizontal walls.
-Fixed some walls being able to be seen through.
-Fixed mouse cursor sometimes not appearing on the death screen.
-Fixed trap positions on lifted tiles.
-Fixed fog of war not always covering to the very edge of the map.
-Fixed not being able to click on a marine's talent buttons on the bottom of the icon.
-Adjusted potential long armor names and shifted swap/keep buttons to avoid text overlap on the armor swap screen.
-The weapon swap screen can be cleared (current weapon kept) with the escape key.
-Marine health overlay updates properly after environmental damage.
-Fixed main menu scrolling starfield from freezing if escape key is pressed after game loss.
-Centered and aligned certain UI elements on stat and end level screens.
-Fixed squad creation screen not always properly synchronizing class portraits.
-Fixed spelling errors.
-Mouse move/face actions now properly short-circuit unit auto-switching.
-Fixed being able to fire with non-fire keys with fire control toggled on.
-Fixed close sync issue with layered GUI menus.
-Fixed some enemy units spawning with mismatched current and maximum health.
-Centered “I.S.S. Orion” on the main menu after game loss.
-Fixed random key pressing sometimes breaking menu order (e.g. on the end level screen).

[dungeonmans]

I just spun this up today and had a pretty good time. I love Space Hulk! Great to see the flavor coming through, like the chatter between the units. Didn't really feel like there was a lot of variety in the units, but that's probably a sign of hidden depth that I'm just missing. Right now it felt like you have a shotgun guy, and all the other guys.

Very cool game, heading over to greenlight it now!

[Worthless_Bums]

I just spun this up today and had a pretty good time. I love Space Hulk! Great to see the flavor coming through, like the chatter between the units. Didn't really feel like there was a lot of variety in the units, but that's probably a sign of hidden depth that I'm just missing. Right now it felt like you have a shotgun guy, and all the other guys.

Very cool game, heading over to greenlight it now!

Thanks for the vote!

There's not a whole lot of enemy variety off the bat, no. Early enemy units are melee only (except the Flamejack) and that's intended so new squads/new players don't get overwhelmed when they're all Privates without any shot at items/gear. The difficulty ramps up fairly quickly with ranged units, melee knockback, flanking AI, and other fun stuff.