Say hello to update 0.532 and the Varangian Guard! The Varangian Guard are a new faction which may or may not be friendly towards the player per spawning instance.
Historically the Varangian Guard were the personal bodyguard to the Byzantine Emperor, initially made up of KievRus mercenaries, before being heavily filled with Norsemen, such as Harald Hardrada, who would go on to become the Danish king and eventually meet his at the hands of the king of the Saxons (who are another in game faction) Harold Godwinson, who himself would be slain shortly after by the Normans (who are also an in game faction). After these events and the Norman's "harrying of the North", the Varangian Guard saw an influx of exiled Saxons and Norman adventurerers.
Whilst the Varangian Guard existed in various forms from the 10th to 14th Centuries, here we see them mostly around the 12th Century, including the start of the "Transitory Period" of armour, were the nasal helm starts to turn into the warhat, aka kettle hat.
This update also includes a number of bug fixes, tweaks and balances.
Here comes the changelog!
Update to game build v.0.5.3.2.
New - Varangian Guard Faction.
New - Eastern Transitory Period Warhat armour, Class: Brigandine.
New - Italo-Norman Nasal Helm, Class Brigandine.
New - Warhats armour for 12th Century onwards factions (aka Iron Hat aka Kettle Hat), Class: Brigandine.
Fix - Raiding Parties that had already advanced on a hostile player could get stuck in a loop of calling advance even though they were already at their destination, which would lead to messages spamming the console log until it grew to a huge file size and could cause a crash.
Fix - Debuging flag added to above console messages so the player will no longer see them.
Fix - Changed conflicting names for Norman Nasal helm items.
Fix - Lamellar Maille Coat reported incorrect armour variables in the inventory.
Fix - Potentially at very low fps in developer debug build the ability to choose save/new game player spawn could theoretically be bypassed, leaving the clientCam not connected to the playerObject.
Fix/Change - Fresh Raiding Parties will not spawn into the world whilst the player is in combat. Repeated spawnings during a player involved battle could cause lag/soft locks at life and death times, due to the entire party arriving in a single engine tick, thus disrupting gameplay. New Raiders will now only arrive when the player and/or the player's enlisted warband is in a moment of safety.
Change - Removed console messages for player inputs via keybinds.
Change - Depleted Raiding Parties who wish to leave the game no longer have to return to their original starting camp, and will no despawn where they are.
Change - Various balancing changes to the faction armour/weapon builds.
Change - Various tweaks to console messaging to reduce console spam.
Happy Erranting! ːcorblimeyguvnorː