Alpha 5.5 Repel the Assault

Alpha 5.5 Repel the Assault has now been released. This changelog covers both this update and the placeholder update from February.

First up is the new Melee combat. Rather than defenders and enemy soldiers ignoring each other when they are close by, now they will attack one another. Currently this means walking up to their target and damaging them as they throw them back but this may be changed in the future. All ranged soldiers will participate in melee combat such as battlement defenders but we have also added in new Melee defenders which have no ranged attack. The new Barracks block spawns a couple of these melee defenders at the start of each wave and sends them to reinforce nearby blocks. The new keep also uses melee defenders. In earlier versions the keep was covered and enemies that got inside would disappear into the keep and damage your health. Now the keep is open and spawns 3 melee guards at the start of the level which act as your health. They will fight any enemies that climb onto the keep but once the guards are gone it will only take a few moments for an enemy soldier to capture the keep.

In addition to the major changes there are a number of balance changes and fixes to the game which are listed below.

Major Features:

• Melee Combat: Soldiers now hit each other with melee attacks rather than walking passed and ignoring enemies.
• New Barracks block: Spawns a couple melee defenders at the start of each wave. These defenders head to adjacent blocks to help fight off enemies that climb onto your blocks.
• New Keep: The keep has been changed to be open and with 3 melee defenders guarding it. Enemies now need to defeat all the defenders and then survive on the keep for a few moments to capture it. The keep defenders act as your health pool and are not restored between waves.
• New system for positioning defenders. The position of defenders will now change based on how many defenders are on a block with the defenders now more evenly placed.
• (Full Game) Improved Modding. The limited modding has been improved with some controls on the main menu. You can now enable or disable the mod files from in game and the mod file no longer needs to be deleted in order to reset the default values.

Changes/Balance:

• Reduced the strength of Leather armor.
• Adjusted color of Leather armor to make it stand out more from the enemy shirt colors
• Adjusted wave strength in Endless and Campaign.
• Improved accuracy of Archers and Battlements.
• Slightly improved the collision of arrows so they are less likely to slip passed an enemy when it looks like it should hit.
• Slightly increased the range of all ranged blocks by about 10%
• Increased the number of repair cards purchasable in endless from 2 -> 3
• Removed friendly fire.
• Replaced the Swiss Architects tech with the Royal Guards tech which adds more keep defenders.
• Shields now take more damage from fire.
• Siege now takes more damage from fire.
• Enemy soldiers can now climb onto turrets.
• Enemy archers now show up sooner and more often.

Fixes:

• Fixed Siege Towers sometimes getting stuck between two blocks when trying to pass between them.
• Fixed soldiers sometimes ending up with multiple helmets and/or armor.
• Fixed an issue with shields sometimes being invisible.
• Fixed an issue with the destroy block tool.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes arrows would be left floating in the air.
• Fixed an issue where the side bar controls would not reappear after a wave in creative mode.
• Fixed issue where plate armored Rams and Siege Towers were having their plate armor replaced with wood armor.