CHANGELOG 15: NEW ABILITIES

Greetings Harvesters,

we hope you’ve had a great festive gaming season and welcome back to this, the 15th of our regular post-release updates. Over the break we’ve had time to plan how we’re going to develop during 2021 with our major priorities being Iron Harvest first big Add-on (with a new faction!) and the games console release. So that we can better focus on those milestones, we’re now moving to an updates schedule of every two weeks. Read on and gain the ability of knowledge.

New Abilities

Today sees the release of new abilities for two of our iconic heroes:

Prince Wilhelm: Lay Waste (active)

He can now fire from both arm-mounted weapons in a great uninterrupted, sweeping, outwards-in, arc. Devastating entrenched infantry.

Uncle Lech Kos: Vicious Tackle (active)

Pushing his mech to the limits, he’ll leap forward, trampling any infantry in his path and attacking the first mech he hits.

Uncle Lech Kos: Patriotic Frenzy (passive)

This stalwart of the Polanian resistance inflicts increasing damage in proportion to his health loss.

General changes:

- Added tutorial for dropzone
- Added tutorial for opening gates.
- Fixed a bug that resulted in a loss of 2SR when an opponent quit or surrendered.
- Added gold trim faceplate and portrait for all Backers and Rusviet Revolution DLC owners as a thank you for all your gaming with us in 2020

Balance changes:

As discussed last year, we’re continuing our assessment of the games balance with a view to creating systemic, long-term fixes to avoid an endless spiral of buffs and nerfs. The addition of this week’s new abilities will also affect the games balance. Therefore, we will assess their impact before making any significant changes as part of our overall evaluation. This evaluation is nearing completion and we hope to make changes towards the end of this month.

Starting 2021 as we mean to go on, trampling onto battlefields anew!

January’s end: a new 2v2 map!

- Today we release a hotfix that will prevent Lech Kos from using his new Vicious Tackle ability to pass through all map terrain.

New 2 vs 2 Map Jagged Peaks!

On the Saxony border lies a mountain range that has been steadily, and over the course of centuries, been carved away for raw materials. The region has become heavily contested by other factions seeking to feed their own, ravenous, war machine.

Info: ChangeLog 16

General Changes

We've also updated the game with various changes and improvements:

- Reduced collision height values for Barbed Wire and Flag Poles to minimize line-of-sight issues for infantry.
- Ensured that Lech Kos and the Polanian scout (Śmiały) mech’s charge ability would no longer allow them to bypass terrain.
- Fixed issues to prevent the custom lobby from freezing and/or crashing the game when the host changes game settings while other players click “Ready”.

Balance Changes

We are nearing completion of our balancing assessment and are now in the process of testing some of those changes. As discussed in previous DevBlogs, we concluded that constant tweaking of numbers and the endless spiral of buffs and nerfs is not desirable, nor does it fit with our long term goals. Future balancing improvements should come from systematic changes, rather than a game of number tweaks. We’re also mindful of the fact that, eventually, a 4th faction will enter the mix and so balancing will need to be reassessed again. Therefore, you can expect some changes with the next update in 2 weeks.

January is already done! Time is flying as we progress onwards.

Stay tuned for February’s Roadmap.

CHANGELOG 17: BETTER GAMEPLAY I

Greetings Harvesters,

today we’re happy to implement many improvements that respond directly to the community’s feedback. This month we’re focusing on gameplay with today’s update largely focusing on infantry and the early game and general improvements regarding responsiveness and gameplay feel.

Improved Response Time

One of the key piece of feedback we received from you is that you wanted faster response times between you issuing orders and the units undertaking them. Thanks, and now we have done just that. Responses time has been roughly halved, so your orders should feel slicker.

Game Core Changes

This involved hundreds of behind the scenes fixes and improvements. All the interesting and relevant changes are listed in “General Changes”.

Importantly, with all of today’s changes it is inevitable that your previous in-mission saved game files will be invalidated. However, your general game progress will be unaffected.

General changes:

- Infantry can now fire at targets that were initially blocked by resource and production buildings, aid stations and bunkers. This should improve combat close to buildings and in bases considerably.
- Smaller mechs can now crash through smaller gate structures.
- Mech with indirect weapons (that ignore line of sight) can no longer fire at targets when they disappear into the Fog of War.
- Resolved an issue that could lead to online connection issues after an hour of continuous gameplay.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Wilhelm from aborting his “Lay Waste” ability correctly.
- Improved the animation for Zubov’s “Death from Above” ability.
- “Jagged Peaks” 2v2 minimap updated to correct inaccuracies.
- Fixed an issue whereby weapon systems would not abort their retreat if all paths to base were blocked.
- “Isegrim” cannons no longer twitch and behave oddly while the mech is idle.
- Fixed an issue that prevent the Rusviet Revolution bonus campaign missions from loading properly.
- Fixed an issue preventing mouse scrolling unless cursor placed directly over menu window.
- General volumetric effects improved.
- Prevented the strategic positions indicator from appearing at the start of Dominance mode games.
- Prevented Anna, when playing on easy difficulty, in the 1st Polanian Mission “Anna’s Shot” from being able to target and attack the first boy she encounters after he’s been defeated. Who’s the bully now huh?!
- The boys in the 1st Polanian Mission “Anna’s Shot” now correctly become invisible when running into the Fog of War.

Balance changes:

We’ve completed our assessment of the games balance based on your feedback and the recent tournaments. This week largely focuses on the infantry gameplay experience. We’ll then monitor things over the next two weeks and make adjustments and more mech focused changes in the next update.

Headquarter units: The meta of building your Rifleman, Stormtrooper, or Vanguards until a player reach pop cap has stolen much of the attention that other infantry units deserve. Removing them from the HQ puts them in line with the other infantry to choose from when the barracks are built. Therefore:

- Removed Rifleman, Stormtrooper, and Vanguards from being built at the HQ.

Starting squads: To accommodate for the loss and to speed up the very similar first minutes of gameplayer we added another squad to the starting units. Therefore:

- Added one extra Riflemen/Vanguard/Stormtrooper squad to all skirmish and multiplayer maps.

General infantry cost rebalanced: due to their dying so quickly to advanced mechs, infantry can be a sunken cost during the mid and late game. We also want to give players more reason to upgrade their barracks and better reflect the units relative power levels.

Therefore in the basic barracks:

- Riflemen/Stormtrooper/Vanguard cost increased from 200 to 225 Iron.
- Grenadiers (all factions) cost increased from 5 to 10 Oil.
- Saxony medic cost decreased from 150 to 100 Iron.
- Rusviet flamethrowers cost decreased from 275 to 225 Iron.
- Polanian machine gunners cost decreased from 300 to 275 Iron.

Therefore, all tier 1 infantry units become cheaper to build in the Advanced Barracks:

- Engineers cost decreased from 150 to 100 Iron.
- Riflemen/Stormtrooper/Vanguard cost reduced from 225 to 125 Iron.
- Grenadiers (all factions) cost reduced from 250 to 150 Iron and 10 to 5 Oil.
- Saxony medic cost decreased from 100 to 75 Iron.
- Rusviet flamethrowers cost decreased from 225 to 150 Iron
- Gunner cost decreased from 275 to 175 Iron and 20 to 15 Oil.

POLANIA

Anna and Wojtek: Anna’s damage against armoured targets felt too high and Wojtek just wouldn’t die even after Anna was defeated. Therefore:

- Anna’s damage against light armored targets reduced from 30 to 20.
- Wojtek’s HP Reduced HP from 500 to 400.

Lech Kos: with the new abilities, Lech Kos has become a power house that now deservers the reserve cost of 2 coins.

- Riflemen suppression: Rifleman were able to suppress more effective than other quick firing weapons. Reducing this effect should feel more intuitive now:
- Reduced suppression per bullet from 6 to 3.

PZM-9 "Strażnik" (spider mech): the use of this mech was far too flexible for its reserve cost when compared to its Saxony counterpart. Therefore:

- Increase reserve cost from 2 to 3 coins.

PZM-16 "Żółw" (troop transport): Walking and firing is great, but it is still very hard for players come up with counterplay even when prepared. Therefore:

- Reduced HP from 900 to 800.

PZM-24 "Tur" (mega mech): One part of making infantry more viable for the whole match is to reduce the Tur’s ability to wipe them out in one shot. Therefore the Tur’s splash damage against unarmoured & splash radius has been reduced:

- Damage decreased from 80 to 45.
- Splash Radius reduced from 7 to 5.5.

RUSVIET

Zubov: Jump time adjusted to better fit the animation:

- Air time increased from 3.19 to 3.6 seconds.

Season 3 Begins

We hope you had fun unlocking all the collectables in Season Two. It ends Thursday at 16:00 CET. Congrats to NOAH, our season 2 winner, and all those who made our competitive scene more lively and interesting this season with tournaments etc. It’s great to see our mech vets helping out newer players in our Discord and subReddit communities.

All ranked players will receive an in-game title reflecting your achievement.

Everyone who ranked gold or higher has now just unlocked the “Wrought Iron” skin for the Rusviet Nagan (Revolver) mech. You should receive it in the next 48 hours. Nagan lie, it looks even sexier in black. Congrats all.

A new season begins with more rewards for you to unlock. Unlock everything and you’ll receive the Fire Truck “Tur” skin seen here on the right.

The ranked race to the top has also begun. Today’s changes means new metas are waiting to be established and so there is everything to play for.

With early gameplay now improved, the mechs are getting ready for a tune up!

In 2 weeks: Revive allied Heroes, reduced Heroes Fog of war reveal and more Gameplay improvements.


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Hotfix now live

Thanks to the community's speedy feedback, we've been able to identify and fix an issue relating to reserves not being available to deploy in multiplayer due to insufficient population capacity. Thanks for helping us resolve this and we hope you have a great weekend of gaming.


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Hey guys, another Hotfix just went live:

Today we've fixed:
- We fixed two sources for "Fatal Simulation Errors"
- We fixed the sliding of SHM-60 "Groza" that could happen when using their "Rocket Jump" ability.
- We fixed the credits screen staying black when English language was selected.
- We fixed a problem that could crash the client, when loading the user profile.

AI reserve balancing issue will fixed be in next weeks Patch. Thank you to everyone who helped us home in on these issues.

We Continued To Improve Gameplay With Adjustments To Heroes And A Reworked Reserve System!

News: Heroes’ FOW and Revival!

These are another two key community suggestions that we are happy to now implement.

You can now use infantry and foot Heroes to revive Heroes from allied teams who have valiantly fallen unconscious in battle.

Furthermore, the Fog of War revealed by unconscious heroes has now been reduced to prevent them from being used to spy on enemies while still allowing you to easily find them on screen and the mini-map.

Reserves Rework!

Thanks to all your recent feedback we are ready to rework the Reserve System. This update aims to increase the variety of viable loadouts and encourage players to opt for having units in both Reserve I and II. From the data it is clear that Reserves have a huge impact on the game and are often the deciding factor. We want to reduce this on the games while maintaining the wow factor once it hits. Here’s how:

- The cost of a Reserve ingame now depends on which specific units it contains. This cost is still cheaper than building them normally through the Barracks or Workshop.

- Reserve Slots have been reduced from 3 to 2 per tier.

- Reserve Coins have been reduced from 6 to 5 per total.

- Exo-suits, Straznik, Grimbart and Ognivos can now only be picked for Reserve II.

- Instead of at least one advanced building and a basic building, deploying Reserve II now requires one advanced building, or two basic buildings.

- Deploying an empty Reserve costs 100 iron. It will still grant the player plus 25% maximum population capacity.

Info: ChangeLog 18

General Changes

- The A.I. now spends the same amount of coins as those available to the player.
- The Rusviet’s Nagan and Polania’s Tur mechs chrome skins have returned to the cosmetics screen as intended.
- Prevented Destroyer Cannons from firing at targets that have disappeared into the Fog of War.
- Fixed a few instances where larger mechs would fall through the terrain. We’ll be keep an eye out for more of these.
- Enemy buildings within the campaign are correctly described in their tool tip.
- Fixed an issue that caused game freezes to occur in both single player skirmishes and multiplayer matches at around 10 minutes.
- Fixed an issue that would cause checksum errors on older machines.
- Fixed an issue that prevented resource display from correctly updating when building a HQ in campaign missions.

Balance Changes

Since the last update we’ve observed that the infantry changes had a lot of impact on the games progression. Mechs are closer to the state we want them to be and so we’ve decided to refrain from modifying them all and tuned back the infantry buff.

Gunners: have now been moved from the Barracks to the Advanced Barracks in order to make the counter of early mechs more difficult.

Advanced Barracks unit cost reduction has been readjusted: Engineers, riflemen, stormtroopers, vanguards, grenadiers, medics, and flamethrowers are cheaper when built through Advanced Barracks compared to the normal Barracks.

- Engineers cost increased from 100 to 125 Iron.
- Riflemen/Stormtrooper/Vanguard cost increased from 125 to 175 Iron.
- Grenadier cost increased from 150 to 200 Iron.
- Flamethrower cost increased from 150 to 200 Iron.

Mortar systems: Compared to Polania's and Saxony’s artilleries, the mortar weapon system couldn't hold their ground or find a role to fill. By comparison, their inferior range is now compensated for by more damage potential, especially against larger groups of enemies.

- Damage against unarmored increased from 50 to 65.
- Damage against Light armor increased from 93 to 100.
- Damage against Medium armor increased from 80 to 100.
- Damage against Heavy armor increased from 67 to 100.
- Mortar system’s explosion radius increased from 1.5 to 4.
- Mortar system’s outer explosion radius increased from 4 to 6.
- Mortar system’s outer explosion radius damage modifier increased from 0.2 to 0.4.

RUSVIET

The Serp (Sickle mech): Against high skilled players, this monstrosity would not effectively reach their targets. Increased HP should help it survive long enough to inflict damage.

- HP increased from 1150 to 1400.

SAXONY

Prince Wilhelm: His Lay Waste ability now has a good portion of its former glory restored (#Bringbackthebrr), while still using an appropriate fire rate.

To make him more worthy of the Kaiser and better able to survive long enough to menace other mechs we have increased his resilience. Also, don't be mistaken by the flat damage values below, the increased Area of Effect of each bullet also contributes to more damage output.

- HP increased from 650 to 700.
- Armor class adjusted from Medium to Heavy.
- “Lay Waste” ability Splash radius increased from 1.5 to 2.5.
- Damage vs. unarmored increased from 40 to 50.
- Damage vs. light armor increased from 20 to 30.
- Damage vs. medium armor increased from 15 to 30.
- Damage vs. heavy armor increased from 10 to 20.
- Damage vs. structure increased from 7 to 15.

The Grimbart (Gatling Mech): This chonky boy now suppresses targets and is more effective against groups of enemies.

- Suppression added to its main weapon.
- Its “Sweep” ability suppression value and area has been increased.

Mechs and exo-suit Reserve coin costs have been adjusted as well:

Saxony

- The Grimbart and Eisenhans now cost 1 coin each.
- The Isegrim and Erlkönig now cost 2 coins each.
- The Wotan and Stiefmutter now cost 3 coins each.

Polania

- The Łowca and Żółw cost 3 coins.
- Śmiały and Mocny cost 2 coins.
- Straznik and Exosuits cost 1 coin.

Rusviet

- Nagan and Serp cost 3 coins.
- Kolokol and Nakovalnya cost 2 coins.
- Groza and Ognivo cost 1 coin.

The Battlefield Is Refreshed and Waiting For The Newest Strategies From A Versatile Commander

Stay tuned for the release of March’s Roadmap soon.

CHANGELOG 19: CAMPAIGN & OPTIONS

Greetings Harvesters,

As you may have seen from this month’s roadmap, we’re focusing on players experience during the campaign missions and custom game options for those of you who like to do your own thing. This begins with today’s update and we've also fixed many bugs.

Campaign Difficulty

Following feedback from a range of campaign players, we have investigated and adjusted the difficulty curve of the single player experience. In particular, sudden difficulty spikes experienced in Polania’s 4th (Railroad Robbery), Polania’s 5th (“A Path to Hope”) and 7th (“Showdown”) campaign missions.

Not everyone is a veteran RTS gamer, and so we’re sensitive to Polania campaign feedback because we know for many it’s their first dive into RTS gaming. For example, to smooth out the challenge curve we want players to experience, we’ve added more health packs and weapons, as well as increased the time between enemy attack waves.

We also worked on later missions players pointed out to us. Unfortunately, these changes are significant enough that saved game files on Polania’s 2nd through to 7th campaign missions, Rusviet’s 2nd, 3rd and 7th missions, as well as Saxony’s 1st and 4th missions, have been invalidated.

Faction A.I. In Custom Games

Just as you can in single player Skirmish mode, you can now choose the A.I. faction and difficulty in multiplayer custom matches. If you like surprises, you can now even set the A.I. faction to random in both skirmish and custom game mode. We’re happy to add this as part of our continued efforts to promote game replay-ability via increased game set-up options.

Now it’s easier for you and your mates to enjoy a weekend of comp stomping!

Stay tune, because in 2 weeks we’ll have another major step towards great game customisation.

General changes:

We continue to respond to your feedback with general improvements and bug fixes:

- U.I. Icon added above allied heroes to highlight when they are unconscious, same as for your own heroes.
- Units that are interacting now properly retreat when ordered, even if a different unit is already retreating to the same target.
- Infantry that are interacting with an object no longer to stop what they are doing after being ordered to retreat.
- Exo-suits now no longer get stuck during retreat because the retreat order ends as soon as one of the unit models reaches it’s target building. Same as with normal infantry.
- Related to this bug, we fixed various issues that occurred when engineers were ordered to repair exo-suits, one of these was engineers splitting up.
- Fixed issues that caused units and resource points to not be displayed on the mini-map.
- Players can now open the ingame menu via the Esc key even if they have toggled the U.I. off (F10).
- Suppression improvements that now consider where the fired projectile actually hits and influence units along its flight path. Structures and mechs no longer explicitly block suppression in the same way, but suppression now stops at the location where the projectile actually impacts.
- Fixed a bug whereby mechs sometimes continued to walk in the direction of their previous target.
- Fixed a cause of fatal simulation errors in Polania’s 7th mission “Showdown”.
- Fixed old skirmish setting values that got broken if the games language was changed.
- Fixed a bug to improved how splash damage is allocated.
- Fixed the U.I. from flickering when collecting achievements.
- Fixed lobby chat not showing recent fading messages when closed.
- Adjusted the unit presets that the A.I. can choose for their reserves to make them more effective.
- Fixed a bug that caused issues when garrisoned squads were healed after cutscenes.
- Fixed a bug that resulted in units that were garrisoned from being duplicated after the cutscene in the middle of Saxony’s 1st mission “Welcome to the mud”.
- Fixed invisible walls. This will invalidate saved games on Oil Spill, Urban Paradise, Harbor City, Restless Woods (Multiplayer maps) and Hold The Line (Challenge Map). Rusviet’s 1st , 4th , 5th, 6th and Saxony’s 6th campaign missions, as well as the 3rd Rusviet Revolution mission have also been affected.

Balance changes:

As always we continue to assess game data and talk with the community to gather feedback to inform changes. Our next updated in 2 weeks will implement adjustments we conclude necessary.

Now you can comp stomp, further A.I. improvements and game options are on the horizon!

In 2 weeks:

- Open Slots in Skirmish/Custom matches, making 1v2, 2v1, 1v3, 3v1, 2v3, 3v2 and 2v2 on a 3v3 map possible. You can also 1v1 or 2v1 on our 2v2 maps.
This is not “Free for All” because that requires extensive map reworks & new maps.
- A.I. improvements based on your feedback.
- More balance and gameplay improvements.

Hey @everyone, we've got a HotFix for you:

Following last Thursday's update (Changelog 19), your feedback highlighted two issues which we have fixed:

• On the Rusviet Revolution's 1st mission, attack waves no longer spawn twice. The mission should be easier to complete now
• On the Rusviet Revolution's 4th mission, the game no longer crashes if you encounter the enemy base before capturing the radio tower

If you ran into these bugs, please validate your game files and begin the mission again to be sure that the problems are fixed.
Thank you again for your feedback and we hope you can now enjoy and complete these missions as intended.

CHANGELOG 20: OPEN PLAYER SLOTS

Greetings Harvesters,

With the precision of Anna’s shot, let’s get straight into it with all the improvements and greater game options this update brings.

Open Player Slots

Player slots are now open in Skirmish/Custom matches!

So, weather you’re playing against the A.I. or other players, this means that you can set-up players into two teams on any map however you like.

So on our 4 player maps you can play:

- 1 vs. 1
- 2 vs. 1
- 1 vs. 2
- And of course still 2 vs. 2

While on our 6 player maps you can play:

- 1 vs. 1
- 2 vs. 1
- 1 vs. 2
- 1 vs. 3
- 3 vs. 1
- 2 vs. 3
- 3 vs. 2
- And of course still 3 vs. 3

Go crazy experimenting with different team set ups, we’re sure you’ll have fun with this!

Just a note, because of the way the maps are designed, the maximum team size for that map cannot be changed, i.e., no 4 vs. 2. Also this is not Free for All because that requires extensive map reworks and/or new maps. We’re investigating this feature, however, right now we have other priorities and it would be a large undertaking. But, never say never.

AI Improvements

Recently, we pooled together all the feedback we could find from you about our A.I. because we see many of you love a good comp stomp with your friends. We thank you for telling us about odd little A.I. behaviors and quirks. We’ve rigorously investigated these. This led us down a complex rabbit hole that requires improvements to fundamental game systems.

Unfortunately, we’ve not completed as many A.I. improvements in this week’s update as we intended. We would rather not disappoint and take the time to polish and make adjustments to our proposed fixes with the aim to implementing them in a near-future. Once we are satisfied with their quality you’ll be hearing more about this. Thanks for your understanding.

Fortunately, we were able to fix:

- Occasions whereby all the A.I. selects the same reserves have been prevented.
- Skirmish A.I. can no longer build all infantry unit types regardless of faction. i.e. If the A.I. is Polanian, they can no longer build flamers.

General changes

This updates has many fixes and improvements which directly relate to your feedback:

- All players have to signal they are ready and then, to begin a multiplayer match or coop mode, the host must confirm the game’s start.
- An exclamation mark (!) now appears on a unit’s portrait and unit’s overhead U.I. to indicate when it has been suppressed.
- Anna’s piercing shot now fires more consistently and is a priority for her over all other actions/animations.
- Wojtek now heals allied infantry while Anna is in cover.
- Gunter von Duisburg “Iron Fist” ability no longer causes him to wait 3 or 4 seconds before responding to new commands after landing the hit.
- Unit abilities no longer trigger on mouse up click if not hovering over the button.
- Keyboard shortcuts for Abilities (and everything in the skill grid), group assignment, group selection and direct structure selection are now triggered on down-press events instead of up-press events. This will improve perceived response times.
- The cavalry commander Michal Sikorski can no longer pick up weapon and victory point crates.
- Numerous balance and unit adjustments to keep the 2nd challenge mission “Stronghold Siege” difficult, but now much more achievable.
- The secondary objectives and challenges on the 2nd challenge mission “Stronghold Siege” has been reworked to also make them easier to achieve.
- Minor adjustments to the rock placement and destroyer cannons on the 2nd challenge mission “Stronghold Siege”, as well as fixed dialogue and Artillery shoutout bugs.
- Crewing the destroyer cannons no longer counts against "Build no fortification” achievement on Rusviet’s 4th campaign mission “Infiltrating Saxony”.
- Olga now retreats to saxony medic tents when built on Saxony’s 5th and 6th Campaign missions.
- Fixed the U.I. of Polania’s barracks that displayed two rows for T1 infantry. Now it displays one row and is consistent with other faction barracks U.I.
- Unit portraits no longer selectable by mouse drag box.
- Stiefmutter Gyro wheels no longer freeze in place if the target becomes neutral.
- If a player leaves (concedes) a campaign mission, challenge map or AI skirmish they now see a defeat screen and are awarded achievements and season progression they have unlocked during that game.
- Fixed occasions when an upgraded resource point would appear as an empty circle icon on the minimap.
- Fixed flashing cutscene transitions during the Rusviet Revolution campaign missions.
- Mines are no longer activate when in range of fallen enemy mech heroes.
- Fixed wrong hours being displayed in the ranked screen for played time.
- Players who are not a host during coop sessions no longer get sent to the campaign overview screen after finishing the coop mission.
- Player colors now correctly reflect the players in lobby when positions are changed.
- Barracks U.I. no longer has the same hotkey for two different units.
- Zubov’s Bloodlust ability now only replenishes HP for melee attacks.
- Ranked matchmaking now remembers player's search preferences.
- Fixed achievements not refreshing when switching the game language.
- Issuing, usually accidentally, directional commands via the minimap has been disabled.

Balance changes

Suppression: Is now more intuitive and clearer. A lot of units that are not primary sources of suppression have had their values reduced, whereas the Heavy Machine Guns, for example, has received higher suppression values. The list is too long to write here, but you’ll notice many units received a tweak.

Also, for clarity, a suppression icon (!) is now displayed on units' overhead U.I. and on their unit portrait.

Mechs and Infantry: We were still seeing that light/T1 mechs are often skipped out on and also buried under a flood of infantry. To address this, we’ve decrease workshop costs and increase barracks upgrade costs as well as given buffs to light/T1 mechs to help players transition better into the later stages of the game.

- Polania Advanced Barracks cost increased from 180 to 340 iron and 85 to 100 oil.
- Saxony and Rusviet Advanced Barracks cost increased from 180 to 380 iron and 85 to 120 oil.
- Polania Workshop cost decreased from 400 to 250 iron and 120 to 100 oil.
- Saxony Workshop cost decreased from 450 to 250 iron and 150 to 130 oil.
- Rusviet Workshop cost decreased from 500 to 300 iron and 165 to 140 oil.

Mortar Weapon System: Received a clearer definition of its purpose in being a high threat to infantry.

- Damage vs. unarmored increased from 65 to 70.
- Damage vs. light armor decreased from 100 to 50.
- Damage vs. meduim and heavy armor decreased from 100 to 40.

POLANIA

Lech Kos (Rebel Leader): The damage per second increase he received from his passive ability made him hard to properly respond to. We’ve adjusted the thresholds at which this ability kicks in so that now it requires more thought on how best to deploy him. His ability to harm structure was also too high and so has been reduced.

- Reduced damage to structures from 80 to 60.
- Changed the HP thresholds at which his passive ability activates: State 1, from 90% to 60% HP and State 2 from 50% to 20% HP.

Strażnik (Spider Mech):

- Increased HP 550 to 600.

Śmiały (Scout Mech):

- Increased HP from 750 to 850.
- Increased damage vs. medium armor from 60 to 70.
- Increased damage vs. heavy armor from 35 to 50.
- Increased damage vs. structures from 30 to 35.
- Oil cost decreased from 120 to 110.

SAXONY

Grimbart (Gatling Mech):

- HP increased from 1000 to 1100.
- Cost decreased from 90 to 80 oil.

Isegrim (Tank Mech):

- HP Increased from 800 to 950.
- Cost decreased from 120 to 110 oil.

Wotan (8 Legged Mech): Now that light/T1 mechs have received an upgrade, its HP should compensate.

- HP increased HP 600 to 700.

RUSVIET

Victor Popov: His high Area of Effect damage caused him to gain veterancy very quickly. It is now slower and with slightly lesser impact so that he is more easily countered at higher veterancy levels. Overall, his auto attack damage was too high, so it has been reduced to make him more reliant on his abilities for dealing damage.

- Veterancy bonuses decreased.
- Veterancy thresholds increased.
- Hitbox slightly increased.
- Damage vs. unarmored, light, medium and heavy armor decreased from 40 to 30.
- Damage vs. structures decreased from 25 to 20.

Ognivo (Flamer Mech):

- HP increased from 700 to 750.

Kolokol (Bomber Mech):

- HP increased from 800 to 900.
- Damage increased vs. medium armor from 55 to 65.
- Damage increased vs. heavy armor from 35 to 50.

Groza (Rocket Exosuits): We felt that they were left behind and their resource costs would be too high compared to the other T1 mechs.

- Oil cost reduced cost from 100 to 80.

Nakovalnya (Rocket Artillery): It’s Sentry Mode has always been very strong and it is not always easy to see where it will strike. Therefore, we’ve reduced the punishment opponents get when not immediately realizing that they’ve strayed into its attack range.

- Damage vs. light, medium and heavy armor reduced from 80 to 60.
- Damage vs. structures from 50 to 40.

Nagan (Revolver Mech): Overall, it was too strong and a bit prevailed in too many matchups.

- Damage vs. light armor decreased from 65 to 60.
- Damage vs. medium and heavy armor decreased from 45 to 40.

With March complete, Spring isn’t the only thing in the air as more changes are coming to Iron Harvest.

Changelog 21

General Changes:

- Polania Exosuits (Rycerz) now have a veteran ability “Shields Up”. This reduces incoming damage at the cost of reduced movement speed
- Fixed a bug that prevented Medics from receiving XP for healing units. They now also receive XP for unit-models that where newly created by their healing
- Faction specific portraits will now load when capturing a neutral weapons systems
- Fixed a bug that caused idle player Mechs to chase enemy units that enter their range, often resulting in finding your mechs far behind enemy lines
- In the player profile cosmetics tab it is now possible to choose artwork for your skirmish and multiplayer loading screens
- Buildings no longer briefly flicker after upgrading
- Fixed an issue whereby the flare sound effect would continue indefinitely if the player quits or ends the game while the effect is playing
- Fixed issues resulting from engineers repairing mechs while too few resources are available
- Heroes no longer slide when revived if queued move commands were not completed upon death
- Brunhilde repair VFX no longer persists after destruction

Balance Changes:

We’re happy to see the steady improvement in game balance over past updates. While there may be more to do, with the impending arrival of the Usonians, it makes little sense to make changes before fully evaluating the impact of this forth faction on the game.

Changelog 22

Thanks to players feedback, we’ve implemented a ton of changes to improve the game experience when playing against A.I.

- We’ve reworked how the A.I. chooses which units are most effective for the current task or for destroying certain units
- The A.I. is more responsive when they detect hostile forces and groups start building combat strategies immediately
- We’ve revamped the A.I. at all difficulty levels to make them more distinct from each other. In particularly, Easy and Insane are affected the most, with Easy no longer idling for extended durations, while Insane will put up much more of a fight throughout the entire duration of a match
- We’ve tweaked A.I. at all difficulties to use unit abilities where available and applicable
- The A.I. now features an improved decision making in combat situations, resulting in better strategies when to push or to retreat
- Unit A.I. is now prevented from relentlessly chasing retreating enemy units. They will break off pursuit after a brief period if they can't kill their target
- Increased the chance that the A.I. will use small unit groups to quickly conquer objectives
- A.I. now deals with barbwire more intelligently, either cutting or navigating around it
- Reduced the chances that A.I. will all-in rush your base at the start of the game

As a result of all these improvements we’ve had to adjust the main campaign maps to restore their original spirit. This increased the general campaign difficulty which we then reduced again through other means while still keeping the smarter A.I. and enemy behaviours. Therefore, many old campaign maps are now more responsive, dynamic and fun than ever before!

General Changes:

- Fixed a bug so that Gunter can no longer target allies, and himself, with his punch ability
- Fixed an exploit that allowed building multiple HQs in team games
- Tons of smaller fixes and improvements

These changes and improvements regrettably, but unavoidably, mean that in-mission saved games files from before this update are invalidated. We apologize for this inconvience but campaign progression is unaffected.

Balance Changes:

For skirmish/multiplayer, Usonia changes everything. Everyone will be experimenting with them to figure out what works best. As the chaos on the battlefield unfolds, we will be monitoring the game closely, collecting game data and making assessments. It will require time for the dust to settle, but no doubt we will have to modify the games balance once an accurate picture emerges.

Operation Eagle Hotfix and Balance Changes

Great to see that Usonia and Operation Eagle has been well received and we’re grateful for all your feedback on it.
As a result, we’ve just deployed have a hotfix, whereby we've:

- Adjusted Easy A.I. to make it easier (more to tweaking will follow in future updates)
- Tutorial locking fixed
- Fixed “Knox” mech attack, preventing it from shooting out of its sides
- Visual fix for Hashashim assassins weapons
- Usonia structures now all block line of sight the same way as the other structures do
- All air units can now properly be targeted over certain terrain
- Re-added missing resource nodes to City Outskirts
- Fixing Admiral Mason’s Flamethrower VFX bugs
- Fixed some party widget problems
- Fixed Locas
- All Usonia units can retreat to barracks properly now

We’re also addressing game balance by:

- Decreasing Skybike damage against all ground and air targets
- Decreasing Skybike range against aircraft
- Decreasing Skybike HP
- Fixing tooltip armor class effectiveness issue for the Skybike
- Reducing Admiral Mason’s damage vs. structures in Multiplayer
- Reducing Admiral Mason’s Anti-Air damage
- Increasing Admiral Mason’s veterancy thresholds
- Admiral Mason's passive ability that reduces damage dealt to his front section is now visualized in the User Interface. Further, the damage reduction has been reduced from 50% to 20%
- Decreasing Gunship Anti-air damage
- Increasing Usonia Rifleman/paratroopers accuracy
- Decreasing Usonia Rifleman/paratroopers damage against unarmored
- Making Usonia Gunners have the same HP as other factions
- Adding veterancy for Randolph Wells, so that an icon for that is now displayed
- Only allowing the “Samson” aircraft drone carrier to be built in Multiplayer once the advanced barracks & advanced workshop have been built
- Correcting Usonia’s HQ HP in Multiplayer so it is the same as other factions
- Adding Captain William Mason and Princess Sita reinforcement costs

Thanks again and keep that feedback rolling in. We're unable to respond to everything, but we do read and take it all in.

Hotfix and Improvements (17.06.21)

We’re always working to improve your game experience and we thank everyone for their feedback.

We’ve a new just deployed a new hotfix with the following changes:

A.I. Improvements:

- Easy A.I. is now easier on Campaign Maps and Skirmish Mode that use skirmish A.I.
- Medium A.I. is now easier on Campaign Maps and Skirmish Mode that use skirmish A.I
- A.I. aggression should now not diminish after 25-30 mins in-game

Map Improvements

Saved games will still work, but a restart of the map is needed to complete the challenges:

- Fixed a bug that could cause a softlock if the player lost both infantry squads before the first cutscene on the 3rd Usonia Campaign mission “Shifting Sands”
- Fixed a bug that caused the achievement to not successful complete when the reporter, Randolf, killed the Grimbart gatling mech on the 3rd Usonia Campaign mission “Shifting Sands”
- Fixed a bug that caused the achievement to not successful complete when all 42 crates are collected on the 4th Usonia Campaign “Jailbreak”
- Changed population limit on the 3rd Usonia Campaign mission “Shifting Sands” to 40 so the player can build mines in defence of the village
- Fixed a bug that could cause a softlock after the 3rd wave cinematic on the 2nd Saxony Campaign mission “No Man’s Land”
- Both weapon crates on the multiplayer/skirmish map “Oil Spill” contain grenades
- On the multiplayer/skirmish map “Deep Freeze” the mini-map now shows resource nodes or crates in lobby thumbnail

Improvements to Units

- Skybikes now have their HP reduced to 500
- Captain William Mason’s exosuit turret no longer gains health when relocating while captain is veteran.
- Captain William Mason now no longer plays his enter animation on loop when destroyed while entering a building.
- Lech Kos now stops visually charging when his ability ends without hitting an enemy (e.g. run into a wall or reached max range)
- Units that have attack abilities should now remember the target the ability was used on and attack the same target with their default attacks. Abilities that are not attacks should now remember their previous attack target and continue attacking it
- Usonia’s mech hunter “Stark” will now die correctly when it's destroyed while using its emergency shutdown ability
- Fixed Usonia’s mech hunter “Stark” ability showing the wrong cooldown time
- Usonia’s mech hunter “Knox” hardened frame ability now does reduce damage from indirect weapons
- Usonia’s mech hunter “Knox” hardened frame ability now has a visually disabled state which shows before the unit reaches veteran rank
- Fixed gameplay issues involving mechs and cutscenes on Saxony’s 7th campaign mission “The End of All War”
- If Mechs receive a new target, that they cannot currently attack (because it is out-of-range, out-of-sight or behind them) while they are currently preparing to shoot at their previous target, they will now no longer fire their prepared shot at the new, invalid target
- Lech Kos and Polania’s scout mech “Smialy“ now have their charge U.I. back to the Cone/Arc

General Improvements:

- When starting a right-click on an object or unit, the order will no longer be turned into a directional-move if the mouse is slightly moved and instead the original order is preserved
- Assigned default key shortcut for attack move to Y instead of Z. Z is still open tactical map
- Pressing Esc while placing a building or barricade now cancels the placement again, like it did originally
- Vsync toggle disables the target frame rate setting if activated
- Fixed an issue, that could cause aircraft-wrecks to float in mid-air

U.I Improvements and Party fixes:

- Joining another Group while already in Group should now be handled correctly.

Graphics

- Some Graphic Fixes for example dissolve effect when harvesting mechs

Thanks again and keep that feedback rolling in. We're unable to respond to everything, but we do read and take it all in. Happy Gaming.

New Operation Eagle 2v2 Map “Beachfront Stronghold”!

This coastal fortress is the first line of defense against invaders from the sea. Gaining control over this war-torn area with its fresh wounds from previous battles is a big challenge, but vital for victory.

You’ll notice on the minimap one player from each team controls a forward AA, watching the skies for those early forays.

This new map is available to all players with the Operation Eagle DLC. If you don’t own the Add-on, you can still play it via ranked and multiplayer as well as skirmish mode if another play who owns Operation Eagle hosts the game.

Changelog 23

General Changes:

- Fixed an issue on Usonia’s 2nd mission “Hostile Takeover” where players sometimes could not progress past the final cutscene.
- Fixed an issue that caused a fatal simulation error on “Beachfront Stronghold” 2v2 map if slots 1 or 3 were empty upon the games start.
- Infantry is now immune to tumbling while they are retreating.
- Suppression icon will now appear again on the unity card of infantry.
- Partial fix for an issue on Rusviet Revolution’s 4th missions “No Signal” that prevented players to progress past the cutscene after entering the radio tower.
- Beachfront Stronghold cover location updates to alleviate squads splitting between levels. Additional cover locations now correctly spawning on upper bastion levels.

Balance Changes:

Common faction units

Skybike:

- Increased Anti-air damage vs. light from 2.5 to 4.5.
- Increased Anti-air damage vs. medium from 1.5 to 3.5.
- Increased Anti-air damage vs. heavy from 2.5 to 3.

Gunship: The combination of aircraft movement and high damage output made the Gunship just too good of a pick in a lot of situations. We are tuning down the damage a bit to give the other dedicated anti-mech mechs more situations to shine.

- Reduced damage vs light/medium/heavy from 150 to 120.

Airlift:

- Reduced reserve coin cost from 2 to 1.

POLANIA

Anna and Wojtek: Their strength and versatility gives them the edge over other early-game heroes and most groups of infantry available when they enter with Reserve 1. Tuning Wojtek down a bit reduces the overall power while maintaining Anna’s strength as a sniper.

- Reduced Wojtek's HP from 400 to 350.
- Reduced Wojtek's damage against infantry from 40 to 30.

Zolw (troop-transport mech):

- Increased Reserve deployment cost from 350 to 400 iron and 120 to 135 oil.

RUSVIET

Ognivo (flamethrower mech): Where Ognivo shines the most is when the veteran ability is unlocked. Reaching veterancy is a bit too difficult, therefore we decreased the amount of XP necessary to reach it.

- Reduced veterancy threshold from 2000 to 1400.

Barracks and workshop: The longer build and upgrade times for Rusviet sets them a bit too far apart from the other factions in matches where it comes down to every second and every single bar of iron.

- Reduced Workshop and Barracks build times from 55 to 45 seconds, and 55 to 50 seconds, respectively.
- Reduced Advanced Workshop and Advanced Barracks upgrade time from 65 to 45 seconds.
- Reduced Advanced Barracks upgrade cost from 120 oil to 110 oil.
- Reduced Workshop build cost from 140 oil to 120 oil.
- Reduced Advanced Workshop upgrade cost from 575 iron to 520 iron.

USONIA

Salem (MG mech): Due to its high accessibility and high damage output in the early game, Salem is able to reach Veterancy too quickly, creating even more of an advantage. We delay the time Salem hits the battlefield and the veterancy upgrade to give enemy infantry a bit more breathing room.

- Increased build cost from 300 iron 80 oil to 330 iron 95 oil.
- Increased veterancy threshold from 1500 to 2000.

Captain William Mason:

- Increased Turret Relocate cooldown from 30 to 50 seconds.
- Increased Turret Requisition cooldown from 80 to 100 seconds.

Admiral George Mason: The combination of George’s distinct attributes make him a difficult to counter. We are reducing his stats across the board to give players more room to come up with answers to him while keeping an eye on the fact this unit cannot be revived once killed.

- Reduced HP from 1300 to 1200.
- Increased reserve coin cost from 2 to 3.
- Splash damage vs. Unarmored decreased from 50 to 40.
- Reduced shell damage vs. unarmored reduced from 50 to 40.
- Reduced shell damage vs. light reduced from 50 to 45.
- Reduced shell damage vs. medium reduced from 40 to 30.
- Reduced shell damage vs. heavy reduced from 40 to 30.