Hi everyone!
Since yesterday, I've pushed out about 10 more small updates. Here's what's changed:
Moved the squad Split Up button to the main action menu. Squads no longer need to choose between moving as a whole squad or splitting up first.
When hovering over a planet on the world map, you can now preview available missions and their star ratings. If a new recruit can be obtained there, it will show whether they're a captain or a pilot.
Made the Fugitive ELVs mission a prerequisite for the Prophet of Dawn mission. If you already have Xuantian, please don't bring him into combat during the Fugitive ELVs mission, to avoid a softlock.
Changed the faction power attrition per turn in faction battles from -4% to -3%.
The "All enemies defeated" victory condition for the Abducted Chairman mission no longer requires destroying all space mines.
Fixed a bug in faction battle Stronghold Defense that would soft-lock the game if Zara was deployed.
Fixed a bug that allowed items to be sold infinitely.
I'm sorry that yesterday's attempt to fix the mouse cursor shaking bug didn't actually work. It's back on the list of bugs awaiting a fix. On a related note, a player mentioned that windowed mode seems to prevent the cursor from shaking.
Regarding the bad ending tied to the 3-year time limit, I'm planning to add some in-game dialogue warnings (possibly in tomorrow's update) so players will know in advance what happens once that deadline approaches.
As for removing the time limit entirely: I want to be clear that this game is deliberately designed as a strict, old-school style game. Within the two-to-three-year window, you'll get a full and satisfying playthrough. But if you wait until you've completed every mission, and the map has shifted so that two factions control all the planets while the other two are reduced to just their capitals, there will be nothing left for you to do. I'm not going to abandon my design philosophy because a small number of people are pushing back, just to let the game end up in that kind of awkward, empty state. If someone prefers a game with infinite grinding for rewards, there are countless other games out there built for exactly that; they don't need to come to a different game and pressure its creator into remaking it into something else.
Thanks to friends who's supported Chaos Front!
Han Zhiyu