Hey gang! As part of the ongoing development of [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1267210/Together_in_Battle/]Together in Battle[/url], the Telepath Tactics Liberated engine has received a slew of AI improvements, bug fixes, and campaign creator improvements! First, let's run through the AI buffs: - the AI now actively avoids wandering through non-player-created fire and traps. - AI-controlled characters who walk into pressure triggers and traps that do not freeze or stun them will now continue their turns afterwards if able. - the AI now inherently values any move that results in a character moving off of a damage-dealing space, even if the move provides no other benefit. (Previously, the only mechanism for this was triggered by the game detecting a character submerged in water or lava.) - reduced the weighting that the AI gives to ally-buffing moves by 80%. - fixed: the AI was not evaluating energy-draining skills correctly, checking the energy lost against total health instead of energy. - fixed: the AI was treating energy-draining skills as effective against inanimate objects. Next, we have a balance tweak and lots of bug fixes: - increased the energy cost of Fury and Stimulate from 5 to 6 and reduced the duration of Strengthened and Lucid from 4 rounds to 3. - fixed: clicking on an Immobilized character would not show the character's attack range. - fixed: Shield skills that didn't affect health or impart a status effect wouldn't grant experience unless the target was missing health. - fixed: OnTurn and BeforeTurn dialogue had stopped being repeatable. - fixed: level-ups and promotions produced by items used via a character screen from within reserve supplies menu would not "stick." - fixed: the mentalist headband portrait accessory was misaligned on one of the male human head variants. - fixed a range error produced when enemies applied a status effect under fog of war and were then revealed (manifesting primarily as fog tiles no longer being removed). - fixed: cosmetic bridge connections spawning below ground level on solid terrain could override the space's ordinary elevation with a lower one. - fixed: in situations where the AI evaluated potential knockback moves that would collide the target against a damaging object (e.g. a spiked barricade), the game would actually queue up the object's counterattack. - fixed: the CombineLists script action did not work properly when combining more than two lists at once. - fixed: the PICKFROMLIST{} special character would never pick the last entry in the list. - fixed: in some circumstances, the game would remove script actions queued after a Wait action in dialogue initiated via a LoadConv action. - fixed: the game's "check ahead for conversation-ending script actions within called scripts" functionality was not interacting correctly with conditional Run-type actions (e.g. IfValRun, IfStringRun, etc.) - fixed in 1.0.48a: a LoadConv call to dialogue that either does not exist or which had been removed due to being already used and non-repeatable would lock up the game. (The game now simply ends the current dialogue when this happens.) - fixed in 1.0.48a: campfire objects now lay flat. - fixed in 1.0.48a: smoke from non-flat-lying objects (such as braziers and stoves) was no longer emitting at the correct angle. - fixed in 1.0.48b: the "AI-controlled characters who walk into pressure triggers and traps that do not freeze or stun them will now continue their turns afterwards if able" change introduced a bug wherein in larger battles (i.e. those with more than 8 characters in the enemy army), if the first enemy to go wandered into a pressure trigger, it would cause the game to freeze. And finally, we have some goodies specifically benefiting campaign creators: - new skills supported: Fire Breath 3, Frost Breath 3, Dark Breath 3, and Light Breath 3. These all deal damage in a cone pattern. - the map editor now supports loading and saving a discrete defeatScene attribute for battles, allowing you to easily set a next scene dependent on the player's defeat without using conditions. - new script action: SetDefeatScene. Sets the defeatScene attribute to a different scene for the current battle. - new script action: PairToList. Winnows down an existing list of characters to two who meet distinct, specified sets of attribute requirements, then send their names to a new list. - new script action: WeaponBreakageRules. Changes the rules governing weapon breakage game-wide. If Rule Type is set to Destroy, broken weapons will disappear; if Rule Type is set to Reform, broken weapons will remain but will lose all stat benefits, status effects, tags, etc., will have a sell value of 0, and will impose Strength -4, but will allow the character to keep using weapon-dependent skills. - when Damage or Drain is affected by a SetStat action in a cut scene, the game now automatically looks for the character's portrait and--if it finds it--animates the character's health/energy bar. - when the GiveExp action is used in a cut scene, the game now automatically looks for the character's portrait and--if it finds it--animates the character's experience bar. - updated in-game documentation to more clearly explain what each level of the AIHandicap script action does. That's all for this month, folks. I hope you enjoy the improvements! Tactically yours, Craig