Combatants, a lot has happened since our last news post on Oct 17. Builds 1.0.3 through 1.0.8 are all out, and 1.0.8 went live on Nov 1. (1.0.7 never shipped on its own. Everything planned for it is in 1.0.8.) Early Access opens on November 6, and full release follows on November 20. Here's what changed, grouped by area.
New combatants
- Three new Ashpact combatants (1.0.8): the Rubblecaster (Cinder), a half-track demolition mortar; the Whisper Battery (Ghost), stealthed rocket artillery on tracks whose rocket box tilts toward its target; and the Corroder (Venom), an acid tanker whose lance eats through structures. All three are built at the War Factory once you've chosen their general.
- Five more join the fight (1.0.6): for Concord, the Air Control Tower, the Skyhive Carrier with its Strike Drones, and the Shield Projector; for Ashpact, the Scrap Colossus, whose chain and wrecking ball are animated.
- No more borrowed models. 20 Concord and Ashpact combatants that used to share another's model now have their own, each with its own command-card picture.
- The Demo Trike's rider bails out at 40% health and keeps fighting as an Ashpact Rebel. A crewman can climb back on the empty trike.
- Ashpact infantry now wear the Horde's ochre-rust and toxic green.
- Every Concord and Ashpact upgrade has its own icon, and missing pictures were added for the Scrap Colossus, Rusthog, Skyhive Carrier, Shield Projector, Paragon, Seraph and others.
Building, walls and Strongholds
- Walls stop enemy fire. A direct shot that would pass through your wall hits the wall. Your own guns fire over your walls, and artillery, mortars and gas lob over any wall.
- Harvesters no longer drive through your own wall lines.
- You can turn a building before you place it. Hold the click and drag. The outline shows green where it fits and red where it doesn't.
- If a build is refused, the game now tells you why: no room, out of range, not enough money, or your HQ has to be rebuilt first.
- You can self-destruct your own combatants. Select them, press SELL and confirm.
- Selecting a War Factory, Barracks or Airfield opens its build tab.
- The build menu shows how many of each structure you already have.
- Strongholds build in 6 minutes instead of 12, and every Stronghold now fits its footprint.
- Aircraft fly around titans and Strongholds instead of through them.
Multiplayer
- Chat channels on Steam. General, Veterans and Looking for Game work with no server. Open MULTIPLAYER and you're in, or type a name to make your own channel.
- Your Steam friends appear under BUDDIES, showing who's online and who's in DEFY. Use INVITE FRIEND from a room, and a friend who accepts lands right in it.
- Friends' rooms appear right away, and online rooms on your own home network now show under ONLINE as well as LAN.
- If a player crashes or drops, the match carries on at normal speed, including when the host is the one who drops. Slow loaders aren't kicked at the start, and anyone who can't finish loading leaves cleanly.
- Steam sign-in keeps retrying if Steam starts slowly, and a TRY AGAIN button appears if it still can't sign in. False firewall warnings are gone too.
- Several online-play issues found during Steam's review were fixed (1.0.4 and later).
- DEFY on Discord: when Discord is running, your profile shows you're playing DEFY and what you're doing.
AI and balance
- Hard AI was rebalanced (1.0.6). An Ashpact AI on Hard used to win nearly every match against Concord, and Hard-vs-Hard is now close to even.
Fixes and performance
- Large armies start moving without a hitch, and a pathfinding stall in big matches is gone.
- Fixed: FIELD TECH hanging, and freezes when the mouse moved quickly across the build and tech buttons.
- Clicking a threat-alert card no longer leaves the mouse dead.
- Remote-desktop tools such as RustDesk can select and order combatants again.
- The Warlord Camp, Salvage Workshop, Assembly Foundry and Marshalling Hall face the right way.
- The game window can be maximized, minimized and resized.
- The demo's Training and Saga modes load properly (1.0.3).
For bug reports
- Settings > DIAGNOSTICS shows a network readout during matches.
- The game writes a log file to %LOCALAPPDATA%\DefyEngine\Saved\Logs\DefyEngine.log. Please attach it to bug reports.
Thanks, combatants. See you on November 6. Tell us what you find on our Discord: https://discord.gg/u2uFphFdrW