It has been a while since the last post, and not because nothing happened. The last few weeks in Tactics were busy: bodies now remember where they were shot, the TitBoy replays your best kills, toxic barrels melt whoever stands too close, the squad got a bag of new toys, and the whole game got a new face. Here is what landed.

Where the bullet hits now matters

Every merc and every enemy now has six body zones: head, torso, both arms and both legs. The game reads the zone from where the round actually struck, so a hit to the knee is a hit to the leg, no dice roll involved. Damage stays the same; what changes is what the body can still do afterwards.

• Take enough hits to one limb, 40 % of the merc’s max HP, and it is crippled.
• A crippled leg costs 2 movement points every turn, and the merc limps: slower walk, slower run, a different gait.
• A crippled arm cuts ranged weapon range by 20 %. Two bad arms and a suppressed merc will struggle to hit anything that isn’t close.
• Injuries last for the whole mission. Winning a fight doesn’t heal them, but a medkit does. It clears every zone, so it is worth using even on a merc at full health.

The TitBoy’s STATUS screen now shows a body silhouette with each zone coloured by its state, and the combat log tells you the moment it happens.

Kevlar helmets join the kit in a new head slot. The first bullet to the head does no damage: the helmet takes it, cracks and flies off, and the next one goes through. Some enemies wear them too, and sometimes they leave one behind.

The killcam

When one of your mercs pulls off something special, the TitBoy’s CRT plays it back: the camera chases the bullet, rocket or grenade into the victim, pulls up just short of the impact and watches them fall. It kicks in for headshots, long shots, rocket kills, blasts that take out two at once and the last enemy of a fight. Melee kills get a slow-motion side view, and a death by fire gets a follow camera riding the burning body’s last steps. The fight carries on while it plays, and the killcam works in the Arena too, each player seeing their own kills.

Toxic barrels

Some barrels hold something worse than fuel. Shoot one and it bursts, spilling a glowing green puddle across the ground. Anyone who stands in it gets hurt and poisoned, and the poison keeps eating at them round after round. Whoever the toxin finishes off does not simply fall down: the body melts away into a pile of sludge.

The puddle also burns. Any fire that touches it (a flamethrower, a Molotov, a burning body, any explosion) sets it off in a flash that scorches everyone standing in it, and the spill keeps burning where it lay.

New gear

• Nailgun. A two-handed tool that fires long nails. They stick in walls and bodies, and a kill can pin the body to the wall behind it.
• Nail bomb. A throwable that sprays forty small nails in a fan. The blast itself is harmless; the nails are not.
• Flashbang. Stuns and suppresses everyone within five metres, friend, foe and the thrower included, so throw it well.
• Stimpack. +4 action points right away, even above the maximum, and it clears suppression. The crash comes two turns later and takes 3 HP.
• Fire blanket. Puts a burning merc out.

Fire got meaner too: a burning unit now keeps burning until someone puts the fire out, either with a blanket or by spending their own turn on it. Enemies have learned to do the same. The Molotov now shatters on impact and flies as a burning bottle, and a unit that dies in flames can set alight whatever it stumbles into.

Loot

Enemies now drop what they carried, from ammo and medkits to their own weapon, tuned mission by mission. A fallen merc spills their kit on the ground around them, and picked-up items stack in your utility slots.

A new face

The game has its new ED:TACTICS logo, a night-sky main menu, heavy metal buttons, a loading screen with a dripping progress bar and new cursors. The in-game HUD was rebuilt around the TitBoy: a bigger CRT with STATUS, EQUIP and SCARS tabs, a weapon block and a squad column with each merc’s movement and action points. Double-click a portrait to jump the camera to that merc.

In the Arena

Besides fighting another player, the Arena can now field a third side: enemy squads run by the AI, driven by the host.

What’s next

We are working on a guided training mission that walks new players through their first fights, one step at a time. More on that when it is ready to play.