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[Egan_BW]

It is sort of un-grimdark, isn't it?

[EuchreJack]

It's called Plot Armor.

Fortunately, with a no-name chapter of nobodies, it doesn't have to be a thing.  Although one complaint I had of Duke's Chapter Master was that the titular character (the Chapter Master) seemed a little too squishy.  Everyone else is basically expendable.

[ndkid]

As expected (and hopefully as I set expectations when I released v0.4.0), building out the save/load system is taking me a bit more time than a week. I'm definitely ahead of scheduled compared to my soft "end of October"; I'm already doing game start via loaded file. Currently, I'm using a SQLite database for that, but I suspect I'll come back along later and turn that into JSON or the like, if people find that easier to manipulate for modability purposes. (I personally enjoy being able to use a SQLite editor for that sort of thing, but I have no sense of what the sort of people who'd want to mod this would like.)

EDIT: Oh, and in case it ever stops forwarding, I have officially renamed the project, so the github repo is now https://github.com/ndilday/OnlyWar

To not leave everyone empty-handed, here's my first pass on a grimdark load screen; I still giggle a little whenever I look at it, which seems like the proper response to intentional grimdark. A cookie to whoever can tell what the title font is an homage to.

[nenjin]

The image makes it look like one of those Venerable Dreadnoughts, if that Dreadnought was built out of a burning barn.

[ndkid]

The image makes it look like one of those Venerable Dreadnoughts, if that Dreadnought was built out of a burning barn.

The challenge of seeing the closest I can get to what I want out of free media sources is low-key one of the things that keeps me enjoying this project, because it's never _quite_ right.

[EuchreJack]

Probably a stab in the wrong direction, but could it be The Unholy War, perhaps the greatest Playstation game ever?
If not, check out how they did the font for that game.

[ndkid]

Probably a stab in the wrong direction, but could it be The Unholy War, perhaps the greatest Playstation game ever?
If not, check out how they did the font for that game.

Sadly, you are correct that your stab was askew. Looking at the art for that game, I am reminded that while the 8- and 16-bit eras may have nostalgia, I suspect that the poor fifth-generation console games, with their low poly counts leading to blocky attempts at 3D, are never going to have their second day in the sun.
(Also, I counter The Unholy War with Bushido Blade, as I have a soft spot for combat games that do not have hit points.... which is why Only War doesn't have 'em.)

[Egan_BW]

Blocky FPSes are having a revival, and the PS1 aesthetic is pretty common for horror games.

[ndkid]

Alright, here we are. Only War v0.5.0: The Emperor Saves (Games): https://github.com/ndilday/OnlyWar/releases/tag/v0.5.0

Spoiler: Features of this release (click to show/hide)

• the most obvious change in this release: I'm officially renaming this project from the illustrious "CMTest" to the somewhat more marketable "Only War"
• the most important change in this release: save games! It's a basic implementation for now, so just one save game. Let's work the bugs out, and then I'll worry about building out something more fleshed out
• most enduring change in this release: bionics! No longer will your brothers missing an arm or leg be vanquished from the field forever. Now, your handy apothecaries will stick on a pegleg... err, a highly sophisticated piece of machinery, and your marine will return to the field in a couple of weeks.
• most solemn change in this release: the apothecaries are now able to recover geneseed from your fallen brothers. It'll be a few years before any of your battle brothers have any to recover, so I recommend not dying.
• Minor UI cleanup: transferring soldiers around should require very slightly fewer clicks (but still too many) The font size on squad members has been increased, as well

I fully expect there to be more bugginess in this release than previous ones, and I won't be surprised if bugfixing keeps me from adding new content for a week or two. I'd like it if folks used the Github Issues tracker, but I'm sure I'll see and respond to things here.
With this release, I'm going to officially say this has moved from being a tech demo to a very basic alpha. Getting the save system in place was definitely not a particular fun bit of work, so it'll be nice to get back to pondering what features I want to implement next.
Also, I noticed someone got to the project via 4chan, so I guess it officially got mentioned over there... it's the circle of life, or something.

[sambojin]

There's vague rumours of a CM-like that's in development, amusingly enough under the title "Project: DNCM" (ie: Definitely Not Chapter Master). With a budget and a GW license and all. Small'ish team, low'ish budget, but bigger than anything CM related has ever had (as well as not having the whole C&D problem). Apparently it's going to either be very, very cheap or free on release. Kind of a marketing exercise for a couple of other upcoming releases, to let people get into the WH40k universe for free (like free-free, not micro-transaction free), but in a way that doesn't step on the toes of other genres or franchises that people are developing games for.

Sort of an overview entree, before the meat of the far larger releases down the line that get into the nitty-gritty of massive grimdark war and combat (one being more Epic 40k, than WH40k scale. More like Wargame: Red Dragon than DoW2 or 3).

I'll keep you posted if I hear any more about it.

[nenjin]

Interesting way to get people in to it. I’ve always kinda considered CM to be on the deep end of fandom.

If it’s meant to tease a wide audience into 40K and GWS, I’d kinda be worried how much would be lost to that plan.

[LoSboccacc]

Wargame: Red Dragon

oh wow I'd love something like "final liberation" on the red dragon style. or even the steel division new grand strategy mode that ties mission to a overland map, that'd be SWEEEEEEEEET

[DeepWinter]

Nothing but a grey screen, some planets, and the ability to click a few buttons. Is this normal or is there a fix?
(Apologies if this has been solved I tried searching for an answer)

[ndkid]

Nothing but a grey screen, some planets, and the ability to click a few buttons. Is this normal or is there a fix?
(Apologies if this has been solved I tried searching for an answer)

No blue planet in the center of the screen? No fleet circling that planet that you can load troops onto? No bug-infested planets to go attack with said troops via said ships?

[ndkid]

Just to give a quick update on Only War, I spent the past week taking a break from coding and both actually playing games again (that was mostly what had to make way to write code) and think about design. I think I've convinced myself, at this point, that I don't want a pitched battle simulator to be the core aspect of OW... I want pitched battle to be a sign that things have gone wrong and/or have gotten dire. The more normal cases will fall into two categories:
1) A job system akin to what you might see in Final Fantasy tactics; you send a squad off to a place to take care of an operation; the vast majority of the time, this should be practically automatic; and
2) Small-scale skirmishes (maybe 500 points on tabletop) where marines are taking on operations to cripple the enemy, either solo or as part of a larger Imperial operation

I don't think I want the system to prevent you from throwing a bunch of marines at the problem, but that will mean a lot of other things going on around the sector that you're *not* doing anything about... overcommit in one place and the enemy grows in other places.

Now that I've taken some time to work out where I want to head next, I can start getting back to coding this week. I suspect, since this is going to be a few entirely new subsystems, that it may take me more than a week to get something that other people can interact with, but the "date for a date" is probably next week. :-)