Iron Harvest DevBlog #24 - April 2020
Backer-Beta is here! Check out all that's new!
- News: Backer-Beta Released!
- Info: How To Access The Backer-Beta
- Info: Feedback And The Community
- Looking Ahead
It’s here and we’re proud of the result. This is a major milestone for us and puts us in good confidence going forward towards our full release date of September 1st.
Here are some patch note highlights, so you know what to expect and what to look forward to next time you boot up.
New Units and Fortifications!
Saxony Gunfort: SKS 300 "Kaiser" (right)
A high end mech armed with a deadly cannon and multiple MGs. It can deploy to enable its rocket launchers to shoot.
Polania Gunfort: PZM-24 "Tur" (left)
A large walker that fires huge explosive shells from its twinned barrels. To get rid of smaller enemies it can fire a bunch of mortar-like shells to clear the area around its feet.
Polania Exoskeleton: PZM-2 “Rycerz”
Exoskeletons with female operators that use the additional power of their augmentations to maintain high speed while wearing armor. Their multipurpose gun is able to damage armored targets.
Saxony Heavy Flavor Unit: MWF 28 “Stiefmutter”
A walking factory that constantly unleashes drones that greet their target with a deadly explosion.
Bunkers now come in an unarmed version which is the new default version. This can be upgraded into the MG bunker that can only be built by veteran engineers. This can be upgraded once more into the new cannon bunker that can otherwise only be built by elite engineers. All of them can be garrisoned.
Engineers can now build field mines. These are little mechs that dormant until a larger enemy mech walks into its detection range. They then charge towards them and detonate on contact.
New Abilities!
The PZM-9 "Straznik" new veteran ability is “Overdrive”. The unit becomes immobile while firing successive short intense burst of bullets at each enemy within its reach.
The PZM-16 "Nosidelko" veteran ability is “Fortify”. The unit becomes immobile and hunkers down to reduce incoming damage and increase the garrisoned unit’s rate of fire.
The SLL 33 "Erlkönig" veteran ability is “Flare Shot”. This Saxon artillery unit fires a projectile that illuminates through the fog of war within an area for a short time.
The Pkp 17 "Eisenhans" underwent some changes. Before, they were just yet another artillery unit at Saxony’s disposal. While they still fire long range mortar attacks, they now perform devastating melee attacks. As slow as they are, you might think they’ll never reach their target, but they also received an armour upgrade and so are now very hard to kill.
New Features!
Resources: The whole resource system has been overhauled. Iron, oil, and victory points stay, basically everything else has changed. The mid-game has been delayed a lot. This results in more distinct gameplay phases that still blend smoothly. The improved pacing gives every unit a time window to shine which results in a huge increase in strategic potential.
Suppression: Overall the speed with which infantry gets suppressed was reduced significantly. To accommodate for this, being suppressed is now a huge disadvantage. It might help to survive a little bit longer, but fire rate and movement speed are impaired a lot more than before.
Veterancy: All units are now able to reach veterancy with comparable effort.
All mechs are now able to shoot over obstacles they should be, visually, clearly be able to.
- Grenades, artillery shells and rockets now deal a portion of their damage to targets further away from the explosion’s origin.
- Infantry units now deal different amounts of damage while melee fighting.
- New responsive and more dynamic A.I., particularly on the 4th and 5th Polanian campaign mission.
- Living up to our name, wrecks from destroyed mechs are now harvestable!
New Maps!
The 1st five Polanian campaign maps are playable and we’re pleased with the result. These add a whole lot of depth to the world of 1920+ and we know, like us, you crave that in RTS games.
New 2 vs. 2 multiplayer and skirmish map, fight for the cargo of fallen airships.
New multiplayer and skirmish 3 vs. 3 map. Don't get lost and use this challenging landscape to your advantage.
- Layout adjustments on Oil Spill 1 vs. 1 map.
- Improved challenge map.
- Lots of general map polishing.
New animations
- Animated all new units! Seriously, check out the moment of the “Stiefmutter”! We’re very happy with how that turned out.
- We made sure that every unit has a proper flinch reaction. Shoot it and you'll see what we mean!
- Infantry can now vault over short walls and fences. This includes "Wojtek", the bear, and he ain’t half cute/deadly while doing it.
- Added unconscious state to some units.
- Animated NPC civilians.
- Minor animation improvements on structures.
- Loads of other cool things you can't see yet.
New Cinematics
The narrative behind our RTS is truly enhanced by all new cinematics between campaign missions.
- Vegetation is livelier than ever. It can now burn, be bombed away and trampled down or just peacefully wave in the wind of a nearby explosion.
- Units now leave tracks in deep snow.
- Likewise, explosions now affect the terrain.
- Landscapes are more varied now. Including lush flowery fields or barren sand plains.
- Cutscenes for the Polania Campaign have been polished and are close to our vision for the final product.
- All blockout-assets for the Polania Campaign have been replaced with their finished counterparts. This includes improved industrial buildings, more varied walls and hedges as well as the incredible train you'll commandeer in the 5th Polanian mission.
- Finalized all unit portraits
New Audio
- A lot of new weapon and unit SFX (engines, steps, explosions).
- New music, including Choir and Solo instrument recordings.
- More unit shouts!
New Programming
- Tons of new Visual FX
- Introduced multi-threading for several subsystems to improve performance and reduce lag spikes.
- Trains now navigates along its tracks better. Full Steam Ahead!
- A.I. is now using cover & throwing grenades, as well as general improvements all over, especially in campaign maps.
- Vaulting behaviour.
- Mines now do interesting things when triggered.
- Manual and Automatic saves of games can now be made.
Our Backer Beta is only accessible by all the people who backed us during our early-supporters phase. We’re sorry that inevitably people missed out on that campaign. However, stay tuned as there may be opportunities later and September 1st isn’t that far away.
If you already have the Alpha3 in your Steam library, you shouldn’t need to do anything. Steam should auto update
If you are new, welcome, thanks for joining us and here’s a quick guide to get you stomping:
- Go to our website www.iron-harvest.com
- Click the KingArt yellow and blue symbol in the top-right of the screen.
- Click on “My KingArt” and log in using the same email address you used for Kickstarter or when you previously purchased.
- Click “claim purchases” and enter your email again using the same email address used for Kickstarter or past purchases.
- You’ll receive an email with instructions and see your PC-Steam game key in your “Library”
Firstly, we can’t thank our community enough. Iron Harvest wouldn’t be where it is today without your tireless support and feedback. We’ve already seen the positive impact of your feedback and look forward to continuing to make Iron Harvest better with you.
When you enter Iron Harvest, you’ll see a button in the bottom of the main menu screen. Please remember this is here. Click it and fill in the Beta survey as soon as you’ve completed the campaign missions, then again after the challenge map and/or once you’ve played roughly 10 Skirmish/multiplayer games.
We have a great and growing community and you’re all welcome to be a part of it. A lot is going to be happening between now and full release so please like, subscribe, follow and all that jazz. It helps us get noticed and make the game more of a success.
You are free to stream Iron Harvest gameplay etc. Please make it clear to your audience the game is in Beta, use #IronHarvest and @ us so we see it. Share your game experiences, feedback, videos, screenshots, fan-art, questions and anything else your little mech heart’s desire on our:
Stay tuned because we regularly post updates, news, cool/pretty images, fan-art, more tournaments contests and you'll never miss our monthly DevBlogs.
Our Backers-only Discord is the best place to arrange multiplayer games, discuss, compete in tournaments, win prizes and get 1-on-1 with our Devs. Come September 1st we’ll open it to the public.
Considering the recent difficulties, we’re extremely pleased and excited to have reached this major milestone. However, as much as we’d like to take a break now, is the time to ride the momentum towards the finish goal of September 1st.
We’ll be taking a good look at your feedback as it comes in over the next few weeks. We’ve still got lots to do, and when we’re ready, we’ll no doubt have a Beta 2 to release with some hot-fixes and perhaps some new additions for you to try.
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